Door Bumper Clear - 353 | Miami: The Greatest Playoff Race…Ever?

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Freddie Kraft, TJ Majors, Brett Griffin, and Casey Boat are back from the NASCAR Cup Series race in Miami to recap possibly the best Playoff race ever. We’re also joined by a special guest, PRN broadcasting legend Doug Rice, as he shares iconic racing stories and favorite memories from the broadcast booth over the years. We discuss if Denny Hamlin’s reaction was justified after his driver, Tyler Reddick, clinched a spot in the Championship 4 but left Hamlin on the outside looking in. Plus, was Ryan Blaney’s decision to not block on the final lap the top the worst mistake of his career? And what’s wrong with Kyle ‘Hung Money’ Larson? Can he flip things around this weekend at Martinsville or will one of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates play spoiler? 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. I won. Don't ever drive, man. It'll come to you. You're a fucking idiot if you think that's right. Wait, that's just because TJ planned it that way. Ball three-Bund to get out back.

Keep up in time here. You come and keep up. Bottom three, white. It's hard to get blocked. I mean, seriously. Might be the dumbest thing you've ever said. Your bumper, clear.

Clear. Hey, everybody. I'm T.J. Major's Spotter. schedule this weekend. Six cup car, the 42 destroyed truck, and the 8-8 expanding. Who drives that truck? Matt Mills. Has Matt left the hospital yet? Do you know? He was still there yesterday. I haven't heard from him yet today. He was kept overnight again, I believe. Yeah. Brett Griffin, I didn't spot this weekend. And after watching on TV yesterday, I was pretty glad, Freddie. What's up? Freddie Graves spotter

for Bubba Wallace, Dawson Sutton, and Kyle Sieg this weekend. Hi, Casey. Casey Boat here. back from Miami after a buzzing good race week. You come to Miami? You're buzzing, really? Yep. I might have been trying to find a bee costume on my year. She was Googling funny bee jokes during the rest. No, that one just came to me. We do have a full house today with a very special guest.

Yeah, we got a guy who has lived the American dream. He went from a disc jockey at Appalachian State University to the president of PR and also the lead anchor for PRN for what feels like. My whole life, Doug, no offense. Probably has been. Welcome to DBC. It's good to be here. This is great.

This is kind of a legendary show now in the NASCAR world. So good to be here. I don't know if that's good or bad. No, I think that's good. So I met Doug a long time ago doing PR for Elliot Sadler. We obviously, PRN has been a big part of everybody's career that's been in the sport as a driver. We used to do the media days back in Daytona, the shows at Volusia Mall, the fast talks. And obviously, Hermie's been on.

I think he still comes on every day. now then, right? So, man, I got to ask you, are you the only media person ever to get your own tour name, Doug's last lap? I think so, because I think I'm the only media person to ever retire that says, I'm going out. Everybody else just waits for time to catch up with them, and I wanted to get ahead of time a little bit. So yes, I am. Well, that's a good thing. So are you going to remain on as president? No. I will stay on as the host of Fast Talk, which is our weekly Monday night show. and I'll show up at some tracks, probably do some public address from time to time. I can't divorce myself from everything right off the bat, but as far as doing live, play-by-play,

that's what I did before. How in the world did you end up lead anchor? Like, tell me the story of getting literally from Boone, North Carolina to where you're at now. I got hired at PRN in 1988, Ed Clark, who went on to run Atlanta Motor Speedway hired me, and worked at various jobs there. and then around 92, we had some people leave. And since I was already executive, I thought, well, I'll just move myself into this spot. And we'd all work together myself and Mark Garrow and Mark Allen and Steve Richards.

And it just seemed natural that I would join Mark up in the booth. And so we became a team back then and stuck together for well over 30 years. 1988, I hate to tell you, I was six years old. That means to spend a hell of a run. I mean, do you have any idea how many races you've called? I mean, or just fathom a guess on it? I think around 275 cup races and then all of the corresponding, what was then Bush series and now Xfinity series races.

Who knows how many sportsmen and Hooters Cup and indie cars and everything else, probably around 1,000 races total of everything that I've gotten to do. It's insane. Now, we've talked, we've asked this a few times for me. media members who've stopped by, you have been here for almost every iconic moment in NASCAR, I feel like, that we still talk about recently. What is your favorite or most memorable right now? That I called or...

That you were a part of. That I was a part of. There's been a lot. Jeff Gordon's first win was big. The one that I was able to jump on and call and I felt like was great for me was the first roval when Truex. I know that was late in my career, but Truex and Jimmy Johnson crashed there, and Blaney totters along at 45 miles an hour, it felt like, and won the thing.

Because you knew it was headed toward that, and that was such an anticipated race. And a lot of people thought, why are we doing this? And for that to get paid off with that kind of finish, that's pretty great. Tony Stewart's first win at the brickyard was big, because that's back when the brickyard had 200,000 people, and you could almost feel the earth trembling, like with five to go, when the folks knew that he had a shot to win. And I thought, as he came off before, I said, don't mess this up.

You got to get this right. That's always in the back of your mind. It's like gymnastics. If you don't stick the landing, nobody else remembers the other 199 laps. Yeah, very true. So how do you practice for your job? At this stage, I wasn't practicing. But like everybody else, you do minor series.

It's no different than a race. The first job I ever had was a go-kart track in Tyro where all the RJR executives' kids raced go-carts on Saturday night. But if you can do 35 go-karts on a eighth-mile track, by the time you get up to the bigger cars with bigger numbers, it actually is a little bit easier. It's almost slower. It is. It slows down.

They're bigger and they're easier to spot. Talk about it. And I know this goes with TJ Brett. We spot all these years now the paint schemes changing every week for you. I know it's tough for us at times, you know, especially trying to find it in a moment coming down pit road. Where's this guy that's coming around me or whatnot? But just talk about the preparation that goes into it. First of all, just, you know, knowing drivers, sponsors, make, model, you know, whatever.

And then also having to recognize a pain scheme. When I first got into this, it was easy. You know, nobody's paint schemes ever changed. You memorize them at the start of the season and carried them all the way through. And then now the horrific day, it's nice that they do it, is the Xfinity race at Charlotte in October. when there are 14 pink cars out there. And they're all identical, and it's nice that they do it. And, you know, it's breast cancer awareness.

But really? You've got to have that many of them. But that's a challenge. You have to go to practice now. You have to walk the garage. And sometimes I'll walk the garage and I'll take pictures the day before. And then I'll go back to hotel room and sift through them. Okay, this is this guy because it is confusing, especially in the Xfinity series,

where they never hardly carry over from week to week. That's a good point about Charlotte because I remember the first year we really did it with Susan G. Coleman. And I said, can we either be like really bright pink or like peptobismal pink? Because there's so many variations. But I'm only looking for one car. Right. And it's really both Charlotte races because the October race is all pink. The May race, everybody's red, white, and blue.

I mean, there's 15 red, red, white, and blue cars out there. Yeah. It's awful. You're right, Freddie. That may be the worst one because they've all got American flags, on them or their camo in American flags, which is really, you know, counterintuitive to have a camouflage car. There is no word, nothing worse than a camo car.

We ran one. We ran the, it was like the gray, I don't know what they call it, like, you know, urban camo. It was the Love's 34 car, but we ran the gray camo car at night at Daytona. And they sent me the scheme and I was like, you guys know the point of camouflage, right? Like it's meant not to be seen. So, yeah, I could, I could feel your pain there. But, yeah, I mean, those Charlotte races.

Both of them. That may erase, you look it down and you're like, okay, there's literally 20 cars that have the same pain scheme. I want to talk about fast talk for a second. How did that show come about? And I want you to touch on, because we have a lot of old listeners and new listeners, right? I want you to talk about Benny Parsons and what he did to help you in your career. Benny did almost everything for me in my career. He counseled me. He told me things that I should do and people that I should know. and if he vouched for you, that was big. You know, if Benny put his arm around you and said, you need to meet this person, then all of a sudden that opened up doors for you. But that was a syndicated talk show that we started. We used to go, I used to help Ken Squire on MRN a little bit,

even when I was working for PRN, I would produce his show in the sense that I would line up all the guests for Kenley down in Daytona. And then finally I came back one time, and Humpty Wheeler asked me, said, well, why don't we have a Daytona show? Good idea. Ask Benny, he was all in. And then that's when we started doing the fast talk shows at the Volusia Mall. And Benny was our host, and Mark Garrow co-hosted those.

And then that led into being a weekly show on Monday nights. We went Monday nights because MRN had NASCAR Live, which they did on Tuesday night. So it only made sense. We've got to get the jump on this and try to do it. And Benny was the perfect guy because he was easy to work with. And it was funny. If you reached out to a team and said, we need you on to talk to Benny how many of them.

Yeah, we want to do that because that's the clout that he had. But he was huge in my career. Helped me get on with the NASCAR Hot Pass on DirecTV, that experiment that went off for two years, which is sweet. You know what I mean. That's when Mussels was running that thing. Yeah, that was awesome. I learned a lot. I got to meet a lot of people.

And that broadened my base in the industry, too. Yeah. I know this whole year's kind of been, you know, obviously it's been Doug's last lap and I'm sure all of it's been amazing. But just get putting some of the highlights you've gone through this year. It started early when MRM was nice enough to ask me to come over and do a few laps of this year's Daytona 500. Because I mean, you guys know that. I mean, there's races and then there's the Daytona 500.

And they said, we'll bring you in for a segment. And I'm like, yeah, I had to stay an extra day to do it. But there's no way I was going home. You're still pumped up. Yeah, I am still pumped up about it. Because the guys made me feel so welcome. Jeff Striegel and Alex Hayden up in the booth and Rusty was up there. And they didn't make it feel like I was intruding.

They wanted me to come. I get goosebumps just thinking about it now. They wanted me to be successful and have a good time. And so that kicked it off and that was huge. And then giving the command at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It's funny how something you talk for a living, but then they set you out there and you're by yourself. And they actually have a sign. that you read. It says, driver, start your engines because they said, you can't imagine how many people get up here.

Just lock up. What am I saying? That was big. Green flag at Bristol was big. I got to do the invocation at Vegas. Drove the pace car at Charlotte for the 600, which is the most nervous you can be at 45 miles an hour. More than 77 out here. Yeah. It was, you know, because they get in, and we're going to put it on cruise control because they have to be going 45. And Ty Gibbs is running up and hitting me in the butt and getting up beside me. And I'm going to like, I didn't sign up for this.

I just wanted to drive the pace car and get on the pit road without being a story. Good word. Yeah. I want to talk about drivers for a second because you've been around multiple generations of drivers. and I think when you started, we had the blue-collar driver that was relatable, especially back the end to our fan base, whether he was farming during the week or, you know, hauling lumber or whatever. He was a blue-collar guy.

He wasn't just a race car driver. Now these drivers, that's all they do all week. And I don't know that our fan base sometimes can say there is relatable. What changed for you generation by generation to have to be able to be relatable to these guys? because you also have stuck around a lot of the media that used to be around every single week, whether it was Greensboro Paper or the Charlotte Channel 9 News Network, like most news outlets haven't withstood time you have. No, and that kind of makes it a little bit unique in the sense that I've been there for the entire career of Jeff Gordon, of Jimmy Johnson,

Tony Stewart, I saw him come in, saw him win their first races, and then saw them retire. So I thought that, but you are right. The drivers that were in this when I first got here had other deals going on. It's like driving was part-time for them. Harry Gant, roofed houses, Kale Yarborough had a car dealership. Everybody had another deal going on, and they were a little bit more relatable to regular folk, because they looked at racing not as just everything, and they weren't stars in their own mind. The guy that you worked with, Elliot Sadler, who I was probably close to Elliot as it was anybody.

regular guy in a lot of sense and people people got that i feel like there's a little distance between the drivers we have now and the people that i first came in with and i'm not dissing on anybody it's just a different world and i honest i can point back that changed with jeff gordon jeff gordon came in ushered in a whole new generation of thought of branding nobody thought about your brand up until then maybe the king did because he had is he called it his silhouette silhouette you know, he couldn't say that word. But Gordon changed the perception, I feel like, of drivers moving forward. Everybody wanted to be a little bit more like him.

Well, with that said, I think, well, that's a good point. I did not want to be like you two this weekend with a bee swarming around your heads. I have never. I was just talking about before the show. And I don't think, like I said, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not a bee expert. I don't know what, but. It's funny. I took you as a beer expert for me.

I told Bubby yesterday. I think they thought I was Winnie the Pooh because they were all surrounded me. They thought I had a honey in my pocket. That's probably more like it. But I don't think... We just got your Halloween outfit. I don't think that they

were going to sting anybody. I don't know. They were like them kind of like fuzzy looking bees. I don't know what they called. They were fuzzy. They were fuzzy. They were, they were...

But there was a... There was thousands of them. They had stingers, man. They had stingers. They did. I don't know. But I don't think anybody got stung, thankfully. But they were, there's a slanted roof in front of us.

You've seen the clips, I'm sure that I think they showed us all on TV yesterday. There's a slanted roof in front of us. And at some point in that race, it was, I don't even like maybe the second stage, I guess it was. They just started coming out from underneath that roof. And I'm talking. And the funny thing was, we're like,

you've heard drivers say, I'm in a hornet's nest or you know, I'm in, oh yeah. So we're in a hornet nest on the race track. Bub is like fighting for his life. There's guys all around us. And this is going on. I'm getting pelted in the face with hundreds of bees and I'm like, Booty, I'm getting attacked by where, I see, we're getting attacked by a swarm of bees.

And Boone's like, yeah, I know, just tell him to keep his entry speed up. I'm like, no, for real. I'm literally getting attacked by bees up here. What was it going to take for that to bring out a caution? Like for y'all to just lay down? I don't know, man. Like, I was worried about it because if they did start staying in,

like there was so many, and we were all in trouble. And I mean, if you were allergic to a bee, I would have probably ran on. I don't know. I don't think I am. I've been stung before, not a problem. But if you were, like at Brandon McReynolds, I think,

maybe allergic because when we were at Darlington, we had those bees, he gets pretty sketched out. If he was down there, he would have just jumped off the roof, I think. I don't know if I've ever even seen a bee at Homestead. And then I saw thousands of them. Like, they just. Sounds like somebody who was pranking you guys. It looked like.

You know, they do that thing at the end of a sprint car ice at the car store where they blow the confetti with a leaf blower. That's what it looked like with the bees coming out of from underneath the edge of the roof there. and yeah, I don't know if I've ever, we've dealt with, we got bit by all these little bugs in Kansas this year. We've, Chicago Land, Speedway, we used to have those Japanese beetles and stuff.

I remember they used to put them bags up there and stuff, and I feel like that made it worse because it attracted them. But man, I've never, there's been some bees and some tracks like Darlington's stuff, but never have I, like the video on TV did it. Absolutely no justice. And the really funny thing was,

you know, Ken, We have the spotter's best friend, Ken up there. He comes to every race. He sits up there and hangs out with us. Takes great carrots, you know, a lot of guys on the roof there. Shares his nuts with everybody before the race. He takes people to lunch at the Speedway Club. Not yet.

I mean, just a great guy. So the bees finally. He flies T.J. around. The bees, they were only on really half the roof. Luckily, it was the half I was standing on. And they weren't there long. I'd say probably 30 laps. And they just went back to wherever the hell he came from.

It was like 10, 10, 15 minutes. Right after they were gone. they leave. Here comes, you know how a homestead puts out the trays of like sweets, like brownies and cookies? Here comes can with the treats. And I'm like, get the get away from me. Because I don't want the things to come back. I, uh, I was in, we must have been bat on around that time because Matt was giving me some information for Brad and I'm like, Matt, you're going to have to hang on him here. I mean, I literally couldn't spell. I didn't tell him. I said, Matt, I got an issue. I'll tell you about it later.

We were like, somebody was slide. I think it was Briscoe was running that crazy line. He was running sliding up. And I'm like, I'm like, well, I can't even. spot. Like I'm like literally running down the roof trying to find a spot where we're not going to attack. Exfidelity series, we beat the drum on here a lot of times, Doug,

that it's a lot of times the best racing of the weekend. Was the Cup series better this weekend? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, was. Yes. Best race of the weekend,

which we need. Yeah. Listen, Gluck tweeted last night. That was the best playoff race there's ever been. And it's hard to argue. It is 8% I think at the moment of people saying it wasn't a good race. And I would love to hear what they think about it.

It's something about. What do you want if that's not a good race? I don't know. The mile and a half's in this car are just really good. I mean, it's been, it's all the mile and a half stuff, man. Like, it's the Charlotte. The 600 is like that, that's a great race, anything. I don't know these guys.

And I don't know if TV shows it, but these guys have to be so accurate and precise with where they drive and where they put the cars and how much throttle they carry and stuff. It's that. I mean, these guys are really impressive of what they can do with a mile and a half in these cars. That's a good point for a segue to Doug. here and then we'll kick this show off, Doug, and quit, quit, get you off the hot seat. I'm fine. When a race is great, it's easy for you to call it. Absolutely.

When a race gets strung out at a point of polka no, no matter where you are, it can be a child. Same for spotters, because if we're on top of each other, we're wide awake. Once we get kind of zed out, you know, we can snooze off, lose our car, etc. How do you and you get your guys always seem to keep it exciting? You've got to go back in the pack. I mean, the year that Truex led like all four, but four laps of the 600. not a lot of excitement at the front. And Mark and I and the rest of the team are out, where is

there something going on? Now, sometimes there's not. And there's things you can listen for. If you ever hear the phrase, well, they're really strung out. That means we've got nothing for you. And you're hoping for something to develop. At that time, you're cheering for caution to give you a storyline. But our biggest thing is to go back. I mean, if we're, we're We have to go back to 13th. That's where we'll go to find the battle. But we owe that to the listener because you can't ever just say, well, this thing's over. I love that.

And I also love full-filled rundowns. Yes. That's, man, just growing up in the era I grew up in on TV and on your broadcast, I love when you did it, when Barney Hall did it. Like, it's one of my favorite moments. It's giving the score. If I tune into a football game, I want score down distance. Everything else is superfluous. I don't really care about rushing.

yards, passing yards, score down distance. The full field rundown is not sexy, but one through 36 tells you where everything is going on. And that's key to what we do. Agreed. And you mentioned, you know, practicing and especially for radio where people who are driving can't necessarily see the race that's going on. I mean, for a race such as yesterday that there was just a ton, how do you even clearly communicate for people who are listening and not able to see the race? I'm a little envious of the MRN guys getting to call that because when you have three different leaders in the last two laps, that's pretty good stuff.

That's religious. There's action. But Casey, there's a philosophy we have, and we joke all the time about being in the transportation business, but our number one job is radio people, whether it's us, MRN, any radio commentators out there doing live, play-by-play, is to transport. We're in the transportation business.

If you're driving down 77, probably not very fast, but if you're listening we want to put you at Charlotte Motor Speedway or at Bristol or Texas and if we can mentally transport you to where we are and in your mind's eye you can see it then we've done our job then everything else on top of that is gravy but if we can get you to the racetrack then we've won and I feel like we do a pretty good job of that absolutely I would say so well we have plenty to talk about following this past weekend's race and we come back we'll chat with spot on, spot off. Spot on, spot off.

Spot off. Spot off. Spot on. It was super fun yesterday to ride around there. I am spot off. Damn. Where do you come from? In the final up of yesterday's race, Ryan Blaney left the top lane open, allowing Tyler Reddick to pass him on the outside

coming to the checkered flag. Spot on, spot off, TJ. Yeah. Spot off for Blaney. I think you've got to cover the top there because if there's one line that Tyler Redick knows, it's the wall. And I think if you run the top and he dives to the middle, yeah, he probably clears you, but you can play offense after that because he has to come up. He's going to come up the track because he has to clear you.

So he has to overdrive the entry to do that. And I think that gives you a counter move to pass him back. But if you leave the top open, I mean, that's just, you. You know, a guy like you, how fast Reddick got through one and two. I mean, you give him the wall in three and four. I think, and Tyler was really fast all day too. So I think the best defensive move there is to take the wall away. Yeah, it's, man, it's hard.

I almost give Tyler more credit than I want to fault Ryan. I think if Ryan had to do it over, he's going to want to put it on the fence and make Tyler. But Tyler carried so much speed in the three that it almost looked like it was indefensible for Blaney. And Blaney had just passed Danny running. in the bottom in the middle in three and four, you know. So I think you're in a situation where, you know, you're, Denny's right there also. He could harp, you know, just dive in the bottom and make something happen to.

So I think he tried to run like a kind of defensive line of both lanes and it just didn't work out for him. I think, I think two things, you know, happened there, didn't get a great restart. Whoever, I can't remember who now who's restarted third, but they split him on the bottom and that kind of hurt his start. Chase, I think. Was it chase? They split to the bottom of three wide.

So that kind of affected his. entry to one. And then he kind of missed the bottom of what he didn't really get to the bottom and cover the line like he wanted to one and two. And Reddick nailed the line in one and two on the bottom and clear Danny got that decent run down the backstretch. And then and then the speed that Tyler carried into three on the fence. I mean, it looked like like Danny, Ryan just let him go. I mean, it was, it was incredible the move that he made there. To Freddie's defense here, there is times in the race where your guys moving around trying to find speed. And you don't know how fast in the line is until another guy shows up and runs it because we've, we surprised.

a few people running the fence too. They'd be running down on lane. Brad would shoot in there and go around the outside of them in three and four. And then they're like, oh, I do need to be up there. And the same thing happened to us. He's moving around. We think we're in the fast lane. And somebody goes around the outside of us.

Doug. Spot on for Tyler. It'll look like he hit the nitrous in three. I mean, really, to Freddie, to your point, it looked almost like Blaney was nailed to the racetrack. And he just blows around him. And obviously, he knew he could. carry that speed. You know, Blandy could have gone up the track, but I'm going to go the positive way for Tyler. I'm watching this restart. And the second that Ryan Blaney had to turn right getting into one,

I thought his day was done. And when Tyler lost the lead, I thought his day was done. And when it all ended up, here these two guys are racing for the lead. I think this will go down if Ryan Blaney doesn't win Martinsville as the worst decision of his career. And I think hindsight's always 20-20. At the moment in time, he's probably thinking, like you said, I had a good one and two. I have five lap fresher tires. I'm going to beat this guy. But looking back at it, he's going to kick himself in the ass the rest of this winter if he doesn't win this weekend, saying this was the worst decision I've ever made. I mean, he goes back to that and when Austin-centric beat him in the Daytona 500. I just think those are moments where you go, I'd like to have that one back. But to your point, to all y'all's point,

in the old car, you couldn't drive into three like that. You had to feather it in there, get it set. And when he went in there that fast, I literally screamed out loud to Roy, my stepdad, sit beside to me. I was like, now he's just got to keep it off the wall. And somehow or another he did, it's one of the best moves in NASCAR history. Yeah. And on top of that move, the call by Billy Scott, just, I mean, I felt like coming into this race, you know, Tyler, I forget how many points down he was.

It wasn't a ton, but this felt like a must win for Tyler just because I don't think, I don't think he was going to be able to point his way in at Martinsville. He has struggles there at times. And I felt like this is it. Like if he's got to win this race. And the way that race is playing out, he wasn't going to just go on raw speed and beat the 12 and the five are up there leading. And Billy makes this Hail Mary call.

They're hoping to get a caution. They don't get a caution. Billy actually makes the smart call. I assume this was in the thought process of they pit probably, I don't know, three or four laps before they were going to run out of fuel to come out right behind the leaders so that Tyler can quickly unlap himself. He gets right. You know, he gets one lap later.

he unlaps himself and the yellow comes out with the leaders getting together. And now they're in a cap-or seat of where they, you know, they're probably not ideal like where they, it worked out perfect for them, but they wanted a caution before that. But yeah, then he's sitting there and like, your point,

like you don't see guys go on older tires, whether it was two, three green flag glass, whatever it is. You don't see them go back and pass somebody. Not like that. Not like that. Not like that.

And Tyler came, Tyler was third at the white, taking the white flag. He goes in one of two, passes Danny, he clears Danny and then comes out to backstretched and makes that move into three. It's just, you know, I felt like it was a must win and Tyler drove those last, whatever it was, six, seven laps like it was a must win and made it happen.

And I give more credit to him than anything else. And Casey, that caution came about because of hung money. Spot on, spot off. Kyle Orson made an aggressive high risk move for the lead with 11 laps to go and spun out. Freddie. Man, we talk about on here all time. Brett likes to say the term like they ran out of talent. and the reason why they run out of talent is

they trust their talent too much. It's not like they're just not talented. They just put too much faith in it. And this is, Kyle Larson was going to make this move 10 times out of 10. Blaney left him a little bit of hold. The three car did nothing wrong. The three car put himself on the fence,

stayed on the fence, and there was room for a car to get in there. And it looked to me like Kyle kind of got a little too low on entry. For sure, a little too left. Like just a little two left and got on, and that's a tricky arrow, spot we've seen it where that was he lost it and hit the wall hard i think Atlanta and it's just you know it's just going for it you know and and at that point that's you know it's hard to another guy you know

maybe martinsville's not their strongest track so now like if i can just get this because if he gets to the wall if he gets clear the three and can get to the wall there i think Kyle larsen wins the race um he i thought he was faster than Ryan but it was very tough to pass if or especially Ryan could take that top lane away from him and he was you know people are like oh he should have waited. No, he was back there for 10, 15 laps and couldn't get a pass done. He sees that opening and listen, Kyle Larson's going to go for that opening, like I said, 10 times out of 10 and unfortunately this time it didn't work out for him. But listen, and I'll let you guys go and talk about that first. Go ahead.

I was in shock. Because he is so good at car control and he goes in there, even when it got a little bit sideways, I thought he'll save this and drive on up there and make a race out of it. So that's the one time out of 99 that it doesn't work for him. But that really surprised me because when it comes to car control, I think he's the best to this. I'm spot on for the attempt. And once again, Ryan Blaney leaving that right rear open and when as spotters, we preach, don't leave your right rear open.

And he left it open there. And the hole was certainly big enough. I thought it was, you know, Austin Dillon after the race was like, I didn't even know Kyle Larson was coming. But he made it happen that fast, you know, I mean, because Austin Dillon's obviously got a great spotter very aware of what's going on. I'm spot on for him sticking it in there. I'm even more spot on for how well he handled himself in post race because he potentially gave away his shot at the championship too. And when you look at, you know, Vegas, Homestead Martinsville, that's places where he runs well.

Hendrick runs well to not have him in the final four. Wow. That is not something that I had on my bingo card. So it's hard to be spot on. off for a guy that's doing all he can, but like Freddie said, you know, it's like those were the most talent run out of talent the most. And that's where we were. Yeah, hit the wall of lack of talent there for just a nanosecond. And I also think if he flashes back to May and those few points that they left on the table when he didn't get in the Coke 600, he'd like to have him back.

What's he minus seven? Yeah. Yeah. He could use those now. Absolutely. And, and, you know, where he spins out and doesn't, I mean, I don't even know if he spun all the way out of then he got sideways, he ended up on the apron, blends back in third place. So now his race is not over. He's running third. But where everybody, I saw everybody like, if he doesn't take that chance, now he's not seven out. He's, you know, no, that didn't cost him anything. When he came down pit road and I looked like he, he stalled the car maybe, I don't know, leaving.

And that's where he lost all the positions and ended up back where he ended up. And that's why he's seven out now versus, you know, much closer or probably inside the playoff cut line now. but that was the mistake. The pit road was the mistake. On the racetrack, I think, was just, hey, I'm going for it, and hopefully it pays off. If it's one of them moves, it's not, I don't think it's a Hail Mary move,

but if it works, he wins the race. Dirt racers have that extra go-for-it in them for whatever reason. Yeah. And you see in a dirt race, I know T.J. watches a bunch of them. That's a move they would make. That's how you win dirt races is lap traffic. You know, they always say you want to be the second guy in lap traffic is in dirt racing, there's no mirrors, no spotters.

so the guy that's getting lapped doesn't know where the leader's running so the leader has to kind of adjust to him and now you can, as a second place guy, you can see this is where I'm going to make up my ground and that's just, that's how a dirt racer wins a race and he took a shot at it. Yeah, I'm spot on for the move to these cars,

you don't see it, but like my driver, he was loose in, but you can't see the loose in. They just backed the corner up so much. You can't tell. The old car sometimes you can see guys get a lot looser than you can now. These cars are so like, they're on edge already

and if you you know you see you don't get to see the guy drive it sideways anymore if they get sideways they're snapping you know and there's no driving it sideways and I think I think Kyle makes this move every single time and I'm not so sure he doesn't make it stick

you know half the time or maybe more this is a this is a move that you know he made a similar move without the lap car there on on busher at Kansas so yeah I mean good race great setup that's kind of, you know, catching lap traffic and stuff. And a track like this creates some scenarios.

That's a great place for it and great race. And, you know, it's fun to watch guys like, it's fun to watch guys like Kyle make that move because not everyone's going to try to make that move. And there wasn't probably more than a car length there. And he still shot in there and tried to make it happen. So you got to respect that. Continuing on, after the race, when asked if he was happy for his driver Tyler Redick locking into the championship four,

Denny Hamlin said mentally you can't put yourself in that place quite yet, still soaking in the driver's side of it. Spot on, spot off, Doug. Spot on for his assessment. I think he is the proverbial rock and hard place. You want your team to be successful. You want the business model to work, but I actually think at his core, he's still a race car driver first, trying to win that NASCAR championship. he's a man of two countries, but spot on in the sense

that I think he realizes that he's a man of two countries. I love Doug's answer, and I'm giving Denny a Grammy because I think on Thursday when he leaves for the racetrack, he's like, I want to win the race, I want Tyler Reddick to win the race.

Give him a Grammy or Oscar? Bubba Wallace to win the race. I'm a little confused too. I want him to win some kind of acting award because intrinsically. That's not a Grammy. If he can sing, we're on it. He can probably grab.

Denny can do it all. Denny's great. In this situation, he's full of intrinsically his insiders. They're suing NASCAR. They won a race. They're locked into the final four.

They're only four years old. I know. Somebody made a comment. They don't deserve to sue NASCAR, a member of the media. They don't deserve to sue NASCAR. They had been around here long enough. Well, they got a seat at the final four.

Does that give them the right to have a seat now? So I am, this is exactly what NASCAR needs. Drama, a guy locked in that a lot of people said, they're going to be tough on this team in tech. No, they're not. The integrity of the sport is still going to stick. So I'm spot on for Denny. literally winning a what does he need to win an Oscar an Oscar

yeah Denny's great and it's you know it's it's such a hard spot to be put in that quick you know get to ask that question in that moment where you just lost the race you're leading with two to go and and he didn't get a great run off of four

kind of missed the top a little bit and then that that opened the door for Blaine to get a good run through one and two and get to him and and so he you know he lost the raced in that moment. And then you're still right there. And then obviously you get to see Tyler win. But I mean, what a question to ask a guy.

Right. Like, hey, how about your guy winning? And you're like, I just lost. But and listen, you know, I don't, you know, I don't, Danny's great, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that already. I hope you still like me after this. But there's just been something off this whole playoff with that.

You're fired. With Danny and that team, you know, and it really started it. He said it, though. You started. It started at Atlanta. You know, that's, I mean, that's, that's where it started. And, like, if you don't have that killer instinct mindset throughout the whole playoff, it just seems like that, that Atlanta got the ball rolling in a, in a negative

direction. Or maybe it was like TJ says, it's when he started talking about. Before you king to T.J. Though, Gabe Hart said there's no such thing as momentum in the playoffs. Look at the 22 car. Like, they're locked into the final four. And obviously, they didn't have any, quote, momentum. Listen, I, I disagree with that.

that. I mean, I know that there's, it's a, it's an illusion probably, but it seems like it comes true pretty often. The 12 had some pretty decent momentum last year. Yeah, there's two sides. There's also the lock. I mean, I think the 22 got, they played their cards. They tried to hit a home run, and they did. And it worked. And they're good at doing that. So we've talked about that last week. So that's nothing new. Joey's got, what, four wins this year? Three, three, three wins this year. I mean. and listen, they're perfect times. And then, listen, you know, a lot of stuff goes on inside the race that a lot of people might not recognize.

Penske is one as a whole is one of the best of taking advantage of situations. And yesterday they did a really good job on the last pit stop. Ryan was leading. We hadn't cycled all the way back through. And the two and the 22 were the second, third cars in line. And we get ready to come to pit road. And what do they do? You can't pass cars to come to pit road unless you're a certain driver.

But they created a big gap for Ryan to get. on pit road with, you know, I mean, I say a big gap. It was probably five, six carlings, but that's plenty. I mean, that's plenty for them to just have a decent pit stop and get off first. And it's just, that's little things in race that they do really well to work as a team and, you know, and accelerate everybody. Do you hear the part yesterday where they said, we're not teammates anymore? Yes, I did. I found that interesting.

Who did? The guy who spots, trade the spots for Chase Elliott came over the radio and said, because there were Hendrick cars running behind them. And he said, they're not our teammates anymore. I think it was Larson trying to catch you. Yeah. I mean, TJ said, hmm.

Interesting. So next week, will they not be teammates either when they're all going for that championship for? I needed Larson as a teammate at Talladega. Hey, that. During Saturday's truck series race,

Connor Jones was parked by NASCAR for two laps for reckless driving after turning Matt Mills in the wall. Mills remains hospitalized for smoke inhalation suffered during the crash. I'm afraid to go to Freddie first. So spot on, spot off.

T.J. I'm spot off for this. TJ, what truck do you spot again? The one that went out in flames. I can't believe you don't like it. Weird. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't like it either way. So I, this isn't, this almost happened earlier in the race to. Connor sent the 91 down to the corner and did the same thing. He didn't hit him quite as hard, but he got mad at something. And there was, there was nothing to let up to this. We had to run him down maybe two times already in passing. We were good in a long run. and we ran them down. We cleared him by four or five car lengths out of turn four. And at this point, a situation like that,

if you keep racing each other harder, it just brings everybody else to you. And we came from a long way back to go and pass him. Then he does a slide job through one and two. We get a big run off the high side. We go to turn to the bottom, and he's trying to block. And they bump a little bit, and there's no issues.

Everybody just keeps on going. Then he gets in line behind Matt and just wrecks him. So this isn't the first. time a moo has been pulled like this i think he's been parked at north wilkesboro i think he's been parked or had some punishment in a car store race this year as well when is the last time a truck series official penalized a truck uh well they did it to lane rigs this year yeah lane got yep that was natural it helped like we're relath we last year two years ago three years ago we were up and down screaming jumping up and down on a show about officiating has to come in at some point this can't be

the Carson host of our series back then. And I don't feel like two laps is enough, to be honest with you. When I was working with Tyler Redick, he had a moment similar to his a Pocono, and he got into a, somebody kind of put him in the wall off the tunnel turn. And when that guy got back to him, he hooked him out of the tunnel turn, and they put him on the truck. They parked Tyler. And I think like two laps, you can, yeah, it's bad, but you can recover from that

and come back. I don't think they even think twice about it, because if you come back from that and you finish on a lead lap or, and you gains the spots back, that's just everything worked out okay then still. You can continue to do it. I think there needs to be way more than that. I mean, I'm never spot on for somebody intentionally wrecking somebody. But, I mean, the reality is, unfortunately for Matt, he inhaled a bunch of smoke.

You know, the good news is it's not from impact. It sounds like he's going to be fine. Obviously, oxygen issues have been around for as long as I've been in this sport. It's where we used to be back in the day. I mean, Rick Mass and those guys, they suffered serious health consequences because the amount of carbon monoxide they were inhaling during these races. Still hurting. Yeah, I remember Elliot and Tony Stewart were kind of on the front end side of after the race, you know, breathing oxygen.

Tony would actually go get in a chamber to, you know, get the oxygen levels back. So it's obviously a serious injury, but I don't, you know, I don't think Connor Jones meant for him to put him in a hospital. I think that's probably being, you know, it just makes it worse. But I applaud NASCAR for stepping in immediately and making that call because you can't, the problem is if you let it go on there, then it happens in Xfinity, then it happens in cup, and it just keeps snowballing. I'm going to say spot off in the sense that I'm going to agree with T.J. I don't think the penalty was severe enough. I don't know what that is. Is that 10 laps? Is that sitting down for the race? If you really want to deliver the message

that this is unacceptable, you can't do that, then you park him. And you don't just park him, you park the sponsor, you park the whole team. And he can't get away. from that ever. So spot off and I think the penalty he got off light. For me, and it's come up on the show before with Connor Jones and for me he's the

exception that proves the rule. We get these conversations when you see a kid like Connor Zillich come up that NASCAR needs to drop the minimum age. There's talented race car drivers and we should drop the minimum age to 16, 17, whatever they want to say because you have those outliers like

Zillich. For me, Jones is the exception that proves the rule in the fact that he's a talented race car driver. He's a race winning race car driver. He wins cars to a races. That takes a lot of talent. He is not mentally prepared to be racing in the truck series right now. And you can hear that in his meltdown on the radio that he went off for, I don't even know, two laps where Joel's got his headset off just like, you know, listen to this.

But, you know, and it's obvious to me that the people around him don't hold him accountable for his actions because he has that ridiculous meltdown on the radio, just MFing Matt Mills, who I don't think anybody's ever had a problem with. He gets out of the truck, makes very smug remarks to some of the comments of the, some of the media people that are there, like, says something to do, like it seemed like his PR guy, like, think I should talk to them or am I going to say something stupid? You know, just very smug.

Then he, media members, credited media members, Jordan, Bob, some other feet standing outside of his hall or waiting for a comment. He tries to slip out the side door and get out of there. not to talk to them. And then you commission a PR firm to put out a statement for you on your behalf because you're two chicken to give your own comment. Listen, it's just an awful look. And, you know, this kid.

Sounds like he needed to a good old-fashioned ass whip. Yeah. I mean, and listen, if he keeps driving the way he's going to get one. I've seen multiple times, you know, they've gotten, you know, there's been fights after late model races and whatnot. It's just you, you know, we. Let also he'll get a hold of him. I'll figure.

Yeah. You know, we talked about, we talked about a host of our. You brought him up on here. And, and Josevar did a lot of dumb shit in his truck days. But nothing, this kid's a thousand times worse, in my opinion. And I don't know you don't follow a lot of lay models and I don't much TJ watches. But every time I see this kid race, he does something stupid. Yeah.

Like I feel, and it's, and I hate it because he is talented. It's not like he's just, you know, I don't want to speak. I don't even mention his name. But we've seen guys come out that just do dumb and they just, they're not good. You know, they suck and they just do dumb shit all the time. This kid isn't that. You know, he's talented race car driver, but somebody needs to get a hold of him and just like, hey, stop it. You know, you make an ass of yourself.

To Doug's point, you make an ass of your sponsors. I don't know if maybe, you know, I don't know who his sponsors are. If it's a company or maybe it's his family, I don't know that for sure. But somebody around this kid needs to get a hold of him and just tell him to stop. Because to your point, T.J., I'm spot for Dawson-Sutton. We're running, I don't know. 20th, 25th, somewhere in there. We come to like five laps to go to the stage.

Dawson catches him. We're going underneath them and he just hangs the left, runs Dawson all the way to the grass on the backstretch. Then he's running into us and I'm like, Joel, what is this kid doing? So I just wish somebody could get a hold of him and just tell him to stop. Like, just go out there and race.

I don't know if, you know, you get some wires crossed and you get to racing hard and all of a sudden he just, he just starts running into people. And this deal with Matt, it wasn't like he was just up his ass and he came from two cars back to make sure he could drive to his bumper and hit him as hard as he could. So that's unacceptable. Like that's my flight, Hickory, you can't do that at Homestead. Somebody's going to get hurt.

And now, you know, it's for, you know, for smoke inhalation. But this kid's been in the hospital for three days now. So, you know, it's unacceptable to TJ's point. The penalty's not enough. And then they're not going, from what I understand, there's not going to be any more penalties coming from this. So that's not enough in my opinion. Yeah. You can buy, you can buy fast race cars, but you can't buy the brains to do.

You can't buy the, you can't buy, like, the mindset. The mental part of it. Well, Carson Hosewar said, the finding moment in his career was when Dale Jr. set him down and said, you're not going to wreck my race cars, are you? When he came over here to drive. So he just needs that moment. If he got talent, I mean, listen, Jeff Gordon tore up 13 cars as a rookie year. But somebody reeled him in.

If he's got the speech, somebody mentally's got to reel him in. And if he can't be reeled in, he won't stick around here. Did you hear the meltdown? I heard some of it. And I talked to Joel that night. I don't understand how you could melt down over something so minor. like the there wasn't like I can't even like how do you melt down over that when you get that angry you're not focused in the race car and this is like in most of the short track stuff that I've seen when he gets to beating and banging in the car store stuff he just forgets about racing and just all he cares about is wrecking with that guy or taking that guy out me maybe freddie is probably witnessed it when he gets beaten and bang of somebody he loses complete focus on his race and all his goal becomes is to make sure that guy doesn't finish or doesn't beat him or something and if he's got enough speed to to win races, obviously.

There's a way to fix that. Yeah, I mean, you've got to fix the mental part of it. Who'd you, didn't he wreck you at Phoenix last year? Was that your guy? Was that, who did you spot Ford trucks last year? I think, for some reason. Is it Drew? Remember?

Oh, he did. Yeah, in turn one. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, right in front of us. Will he ever grow out of this? Will he mature? Like, Doug, you've been around long enough to see this. It's a lot of times, it's more so the people around you.

If it's the family, if they're just telling you, like, if somebody, he has to answer for that yesterday. You can't, you can't have that melt out on the radio. You can't duck every reporter. You can't get out and say, you know, when you get out of the truck and like kind of have a half-ass smile and then come out an hour later with a, I'm, I'm really sorry that happened. No, you're not. You're not. So I know you've been around like, how does, how does that get rained in from? The statement, call me to Doug, off guard when he said, I hadn't talked to Matt yet, but I'm really sorry. Well, that's disingenuous. I mean, that's just bogus. Well, like the problem is, it's not real. The problem is, I know this for a fact.

he had nothing do with that statement. That's that's farmed out to a PR firm that, you know, that they're paying to to help him with social media and whatnot. So that, that that, that, that, you know, that, that, you know, there, it's just everything about that was wrong. And listen, if you, if you, if you're truly sorry, then you come out this week, you in front of a video and you're talking about it. If you're truly sorry, you go to the hospital before you put the statement out. You go see the guy. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I mean, you've got to speak to his character at this point now. And, and, and, and, and, As you pointed out a moment ago, this is not Hickory.

This is not Roosemot. This is the big leagues and a certain standard is expected. And maybe he's not capable of that. It's possible. So far, that's what he's shown. Back to Sunday's race. Joey Lugano and Tyler Redick are now locked into the championship four at Phoenix. Who are your other two picks to make the championship for?

Brett. It's tight, Doug. I'm sitting here looking at it. I think Christopher Bell's in a pretty good spot. points-wise. I don't think he has to win. I think that, you know, in the right scenario, Kyle Larson, William Byron, potentially even Denny Hamlin, if he were to go out and win the first two stages, could point their way in. But I'm going to go with Christopher Bell's in, and I'm sorry, but Kyle Larson, he's going to drive the wheels off this thing. So two funny things

I was looking up this morning to see stats-wise, what everybody did. Do you know how many points, Christopher Bell scored in the spring? Two. Finish 35th. Not a camera. I have to go back and see what happen. I'm sure he had damage and got wrecked or whatnot. But so it's possible. You know, it's possible. And then the other stat that really blew me away, we talked about how easy it is to, or how, you know, it's difficult. People are talking about how difficult it is to make up points because these guys are going to

be racing on top of each other. You saw all the days yesterday, the top seven in points were the top seven in the race. And they just ran up there all day long. But stage points are a big difference. And the first race, the first race this year, Byron wins the race and

Kyle Larson finished the second. And Kyle Larson's scored seven more points than William Byron. So, I mean, they finished one spot apart. First and second out now, obviously, if Byron wins the race, he's in. But they finished one spot apart. Byron beat him and Larson made up the seven points that he needs this week. So it's going to be, it's going to be tight. Blaney won this race last year.

Trace was strong. All right, T's who you picking? We'll just keep going on and on. You're supposed to tell us who's going to make it. I was telling you stats to tell you. does got to leave at 11 reddick legano bell blaney blaney blaney's gonna win martinsville

he's been i think he's been the fastest car there for the last probably three probably almost a year and a half maybe two years he's gotten really good there and i mean he he runs he runs the bottom there like no one like no one else right now he's so good wrapping wrapping the curb but he doesn't like he never makes mistake. I've watched a lot of his video there lately and he's uh he's going to be really good there. I think he can win the race and then to me it's going to come down to who can outpoint each other between Bell and Larson and them. And I think Bell just has a little bit too much of a buffer to give up. And if he goes, it just has a quiet, smart race, that car should have enough speed

to run around the top 10, you know, straight up. And if he does that, he's going to point his way in. So I think Blaney and Bell transfer. I'm going to play the pad hand here. I think the four that are above the cut lines stay there. And if you'd ask me that a month ago, I said, Kyle Larson's a lock, but something's missing there. I don't know if it's mojo, momentum that you guys were talking about a moment ago. I just don't sense it. Things are happening uncharacteristically for the five car that never happened before.

And I think William Byron will be good enough to sneak in. And I'm going to agree with you, T.J. I think Bell's operating on a different plane right now. He may be my favorite to win the whole thing. but I think the four that are above the cut line, stay there. Interesting. Now, looking at Martinsville and the fact that you can easily make a mistake and have a penalty, get, I think, two laps on average.

If you have a penalty, be two laps down. Of those drivers who have that shot, I mean, which one makes the most mistakes all year, such as a speeding penalty is out? I mean, I don't think anybody. I mean, Danny. I was trying to. did not say the name, but Yeah, I mean, Danny really, I don't think

he's made many mistakes this year. You know, those, I know it seems like a lot, but if you have three, two, three a year, that's a lot for these guys now, though. I'll tell you the race that I'm looking forward to this week. The Austin Hill win this week makes that Xfinity race a blood back. Dominating win.

Oh, I mean, he could run the bottom. Listen, Austin Hill's always been pretty good at at homestead, especially running the bottom. And for a racetrack that everybody talks about, you guys got to get on the fence and rip the fence. He could run wherever the hell he wanted on Saturday. But that win sets up a, bloodbath for this weekend because there's four guys that need to win now.

I'm so glad I'm not spotting that experience because it's going to be bad. That'll be exciting. Lisa, I also want to fight anybody after this one because he's locked in. Just a quick update as well. Matt Mills has been released from the hospital. So thankful he's okay and hopefully we'll see him at the track next week. Good news. Yep.

Fantastic. We'll move on to Reaction Theater when we come back on the break. Now it's time for our favorite segment, Reaction Theater. 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 as 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

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This rate plan requires two lines of service, age verification and credit approval, subject to system area limits, Texas, and fees apply. Hey, Siri, could you tell Kyle Larson to get for me? 2311s in the championship four, baby. I hate that

Denny didn't get it done, but I'm super happy that Reddit got in there and we got two Toyotos in the four. Ford. Let's go. Holla. My God, what a race. Could you imagine if Jim France has to hold at hand Tyler Reddick and Michael Jordan the trophy

oh that would be so worse to just see Reddick with the tile I hope the first guy didn't jinx Bell because right there's... The first guy said love Kyle Larson that's why Reddick won. Yeah no shit he said there's two Toyotas in the playoffs and right now there's only one in the final four I should say so hopefully he didn't just

jinks Bell for this weekend but yeah other than that I just hope we run good in the next two races I thought the 12 had it oh I thought the 12 had it Son of a mother I hope every one of y'all ass has got a beast

on, that's where to God. All right, now that my wife, my son, his girlfriend, my dogs all think I'm insane because of the

mind-boggling meltdown I just had why in the flying would you not cover the top? It's only Tyler Reddick. He's not good up there or anything. Hey,

it's just, who was it the major decision? Was it the spotter? Was it blaming himself? Who the, decided not to cover the top, even if you're remotely slower up there. Diservier. Yeah, he's not wrong.

That was heartfelt. Y'all, they, wait until they get to the toasters. Wait until they start throwing a toasters in the tub. Yeah. Carl Larson, my God, somebody take that boy to the emergency room because he's going to need some ibuprofen for stepping on his picker again. Ow! Boy, if I was Kyle Larson, I'd cut that thing off, so I'd stop stepping on it.

You know, it's very difficult to be a hung money fan. What the p. Stop stepping on your fucking. Oh, hug money? Oh, man. Maybe that's the problem. Austin Dillon, that dumb son of a 15 miles to go, and you're racing for

damn 30th or 25th, whatever the fuck he normally is. Can't pull out of the way for the leaders. Racing for the damn win. I don't like the Fords, but the Fords are going to win the championship because they work together. They help each other. Chevolets find a way to fuck each other. matter what, no matter who it is, the Hendrick squad, no matter who the

f*** it is. Austin Dillon, you dumb son of a get the fuck out of the way, you nepotism. Doug, you don't think he would find out. Can we please hire this guy's a parent reporter next year? No, because I can only use every other word. No.

Yeah, Lauren, you don't think the three was helping the five right there a little bit? I mean, I'm not saying he was doing it on purpose, but that was enabling. Yeah, that's how that, I'll just say you know, that's how Kyle caught the 12 is because he wouldn't get out of the 12's way as well. It's not the three. He should get out of the way of that.

And he did nothing wrong. No. Man, my wife's going to divorce me. I'm spending way too much money on this bud merch. Oh, I'm so glad it's back. Oh, Dale, bringing back the bud eight. Where's that, Florence? That created a tremble in the social media world when that dropped.

That was big. Yeah, part of me loves it. And I think it's so nostalgic and so cool because obviously there's a lot of iconic moments in that car. But I also sit here as a marketing guy and I'm like a driver that's over 50 years old being the biggest news story of the week that's no longer in the Cup

series. Like he's still the most famous guy in NASCAR and that's not a bad thing but we need a new trend setter. We have to be a big deal to the media, to the fans, to the sponsors and I don't know how we get. We need another Dell Jr. superstar status and we don't have it. And I don't see anybody

out there right now that's going the throne. I just don't. So you don't see a Kyle Larson. Obviously, he has Hendrick cars on the car, so it's not like a bud, but you don't see Kyle Larson being able to do what Dale is doing in the few years. He's the closest we have, but he doesn't have that charisma that's going to push you over the top. He's got the talent. I mean, no doubt about that, but he doesn't have that personality spark. It was cool to see Freddie on the broadcast of the race today, but he must have got stung by a bunch bees because he looked extra swollen today. They just showed

Freddy Kraft on TV, and it looked like he was about to take my order from McDonald's. So I'm watching the race, and the cameras panned over of a spotter stand, and Freddie is just taking all these bees

like a champ. You're just doing your job. Yeah, Freddy. You keep doing what you do, buddy. That's part of the race so far is all the bees forming the spotters up there, then you got fat ass. Freddie crafts sitting there. Not getting stung because the bee can't get through that. Who is that haughty with that McDonald's body up on that root when they cut to that?

Clearly someone must have slather that lovely gentleman in honey because the bees were all over him. That one. I'm going to wear a poo bear costume next week for sure. You're just keeping the McDonald's train going. Dude, that's the biggest billboard. Are they paying you? Potty with the McDonald's body. Eat that, TJ.

Try that. Hey, Freddie. I claim that as my own. I'd wear that. Potty with the McDonald's body. I'll wear that on that guy all day long. It was insane. Megan now, she has a new sling for y'all's backseat of interest.

Gotta love it. Well, I'm loving it. I'm sorry, I'm loving it. I'm loving it. that the NASCAR, this playoff stuff has got me, it's got me hooked. I keep coming back for more. Even though I've trashed NASCAR, you know, calling them a fascist dictatorship. And this is dumb.

And I hate change. I have to admit that I think I like, I like this change. And the playoff format's pretty awesome. And we talk about that on here a lot. Like traditionalists want that old school, just season long points, but this is the most entertaining version of our playoffs. It wouldn't work now. Should it be one race, though, to dictate the champion?

I like what we're doing now. I'm okay with it. It should be one race at Homestead, not where it's going to be this year. Yeah, thank God that wasn't the last race last night. You know, thank goodness we didn't. That wasn't our season ender. My goodness. God, could you imagine if that was deciding the champion,

not just the who's going to the championship? However much Phoenix is paying NASCAR to have the championship race, Can we get like a GoFundMe together and try and get it replaced with Miami? Because the juice has got to be worth a squeeze on that one. Like, come on. Why are we going to Phoenix in two weeks? We should be right where we were right here. Well, if you would go to the race in Homestead,

now we have it a Homestead. For having Phoenix as a championship. It's got to be in Homestead. It's awesome. I just want you guys to like maybe remind me why Homestead is not the championship. Race, it clearly should be. That is the best stage of racing I've seen all season long. DJ you saw.

Go to the race there. I don't know how knowledgeable we all are, SpongeBob, but there's an episode where Patrick says they need to push bikini bottom somewhere else. Can we do that with Miami? Clearly, the locals don't appreciate it like the rest of the city. So can we move it to like anywhere else? So that's the problem. And but to the point of why people don't

go, it's dated. You know what I mean? You go up and look at, if you're sitting on pit road looking up, it's, you could tell it's dated. Now there's a lot of rumblings. That's why the race is moving earlier in spring next year is because that's going to give them a year and a half or a year and a half plus to make some renovations and then maybe potentially move it back into the playoffs

or maybe even potentially the finale. But the problem is nobody goes. Like the crowd was, there was nobody there Saturday. If you're calling in wanting the race moved to Homestead or tweeting about it, I have news for you. go to Homestead for the race. And it will keep going. Yeah, we, every, whatever, since we've been going to Phoenix, it's sold out every year, I think.

And it's a great place to go. I mean, I don't like, there's, there's a lot to do around the area. If you go to the keys down there, you can make a trip out of it. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's just, great racetrack, though. Yeah. The track, there's, there's no debating.

I was listening to the tear down last night. And Jordan, Jordan said a couple things I laughed at. One was, and he was right about one thing. This track displays driver's abilities the best, I think, in our series, especially with this car, you know, it's more on the driver. There's lines, guys are running. Chase Briscoe was running a line yesterday or all weekend, really, that I've never really even seen before.

We were calling the slider line. He would enter on the bottom and just drive straight across the racetrack in the center of the corner and then go to the wall. And it really didn't matter if anybody was outside of him or not. He was still doing it. Awesome Hill. Awesome Hill was doing the same stuff. You know, so, and then you can run all over that place.

And then he made a comment that some NASCAR executive said to him, if we could just, maybe we just bottle this and bring it to Phoenix. Well, that ain't going to happen. Like, that's the problem with Phoenix. And Jeff said, you can have a thousand races as Phoenix. It's never going to equal what you saw yesterday. About this for days now. This is starting to make sense.

Who's won the last two championships? Forget about the drivers. It's team Penske. What happened last week? There's this weird miscellaneous line. And it's only been coming around the last few years. Back to Roger Penske. Truck driver friend from yesterday.

I think this is my third call. Same guy. I tell you, y'all, I'm not nuts. Think about it. Think about what happened on Sunday. think Chase Elliott Rex Tyler Reddick You win for a championship

The best driver in all of motorsports Kyle Larson Pit stopped Anyone's ever seen out of a Hendrick camp Hendricks getting paid too They're paying Hendrick And TJ You're on the inside man

You were there I know you may not want to speak out man But you got to If you know something Say something Don't ask don't tell is over with You need to tell us what's going on here is Penske buying it or all you all

I don't think that's what Don't Ash don't tell us are I just blew this wide open oh my God think about it this was all the way back to Nashville he said think about it 45 times so that who can win the race Joey Legano

he's gonna win the championship this year I'm gonna take this to the Associated I'm gonna take it somewhere damn it Dirty Mo Media ain't gonna do about it but all you're all getting checks from team Penske the only one that could probably be trusted

Brett, Brett. That's the one. I said, who could trust him? He's a psycho. That's why they're not in. I think we've heard enough of this guy. Yeah, you can go ahead and shut him down.

Wow. Wow. Yeah, this started in 2018 when Martin let us move him. That was awesome. I've seen him lift early. Yeah, he let us just move him up the track. And it was awesome. That guy's got too much time. I love the fact that he had to go back to the Clinton administration to get a quote.

That's cycle. Don't ask, don't tell. That is awesome. I love black helicopters, but no. Just no. I try to avoid listening to some of the like call in stuff, you know. And yesterday I wrote out of there with Lambert because Nick Payne had won the race. And the Lambert had it on.

And poor Brad Gilley, some of the calls he's got to deal with. There was one guy just wouldn't stop talking. Brad's like, well, you know, Blaney left him to Elaine. No, he didn't. It's just, it was. It was infuriating. I don't know how he does. Brad earns his money on the post-ray show over on series.

Yeah, he does. All right, last call is from a member of our live studio audience. Caleb sent this out. Hey. Well, I'm sitting here in Mooresville with T.J. Brad and Fred. And they're all looking good except their arms and legs are red. Cause when they were a spotting down in homestead, Miami, they got stung by 30,000 big old bumble bees in you would.

think that Steve Phelps with all the money that he's made would have bought some raid. And the only thing that swelled up more than the stings on their arms is Tyler Reddick's head when he jumped in MJ's arms. They kind of looked like Shaquille O'Neal and an Irish leper corn when they partied all night on South Beach until the break of dawn. And I bet their dead he's jealous cause that little... tiny fart, stowed M.J's heart.

From third to first on the final lap, Reddick gave Denny and Blaney the boot. And all is looking well for 2311, except for that lawsuit. Hey, Denny, it was nice knowing you. Oh, man, Caleb is here in the audience. In the audience, I said he is the audience. It's one person.

Man, that was awesome, Caleb. Well done. Yeah. We missed the songs, man. Caleb's always great of his songs. I don't know where Jeb disappeared. We don't know where he went. Peyton.

Yeah. All of our, all of our musicals. You should sing that for Denny too on his show. I'm sure he'd love it. Oh, man. Thank you, Caleb. Yeah. That was pretty good.

All right. To leave us a message in every light, call our number 704-802-9-5-7-2. Consumer Cellar is the official wireless partner of Brad Keselowski, R.FK racing, and the six car. If they can count on consumer cellular, so can you. Brad Keselowski and RFK racing no speed, and that's just what you get with consumer cellular. Have you seen Brad's consumer cellular convertible? A symbol of savings, you might say. That thing is awesome.

Speaking of awesome, for the fourth time this season, we have the return of Brad's consumer cellular scheme on October 27th at Homestead, Miami. Freddie, I know you're excited to see the bright orange car lapping you on the track again. Not if this year's races anything like last year's, where we're, we've finished ahead of you, so good luck. Consumer Cellular has award-winning 100% U.S.-based customer service centers so you can always get the help you need. It's like having your pit crew right there where you need them.

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This first one is from Justin. During you broadcast, how quickly can you build chemistry with other announcers and make sure you're all on the same page when you all aren't in the same place? Doug, that's definitely for you. Okay, I'll take that on. We have varied numbers of people on our radio broadcast. When we go to Kota, we have seven turn announcers. At Bristol, we might have one. But everybody's assigned a spot on the racetrack to cover.

and that's your, that's your responsibility. At Cota, you may have the S's or the horseshoe turn, but everybody's given a spot. So you don't have to worry about what else is going on on the racetrack. Take care of your business. So as spotters, we have a similar situation at roadcours is where we have different, multi spot and multiple spotters. And we have a drop point.

Like you have to drop. Is it the same way for the booth? It is. At most of the mile and a half racetracks, the drop point is halfway down the backstretch. Rob Albright will take them there. He stops with a declarative statement. Paterson knows time to go.

Pat takes him to the exit of four, hands them off to Mark Gero and myself. So that's how you build that chemistry is you set up some parameters ahead of time. So everybody's got some sideboards. They know where to talk. As Potters, we also have NASCAR in our ear. And we have Channel 2 where we're talking to the crew chief engineer. Who all is in your ear? I have NASCAR in my ear.

I think I'm the only person live on the air that has NASCAR because I'm just listening for key phrases like put it out or penalties. Those are the two things that I'm kind of attuned to. I have a producer in my ear. Loribeth Barnhart is constantly telling me when to go to break or go to Pitt Road, Brett McMill and Wendy Ventorini. So she's queuing me for that. So she's also in my ear. And Mark Garrow has a direct line to me that he can push a button that nobody else hears while other people are talking. We can kind of plot what we've going on. So I think I've got a total of four different audio inputs coming to me at any way and program, which is what's on the air at the time. So that's fine.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you, too, is who tells you what reads and when to do them? Laura Beth. She's really great at this. She's been doing it about half dozen years now and she'll hand me a card. And now it's kind of just, okay, you handed me this. I'm going to read it right now. But sometimes there's audio instructions to go with that. But there is somebody to pull the whole thing together.

Interesting. All right. Well, Taylor is headed to Martin'sville this weekend and wants to know what is a must do while there. Martinsville Speedway. Anything else? That might be literally the only thing that's in Martinsville. Eat a hot dog. Eat a hot dog in Martinsville.

There's a great McDonald's there if you're interested. There's really, I'll tell you, if you want a good home cooking, go to Clarence's Steakhouse. It's not far down the road for Martinsville. Come out of the track, make a left. I used to see Sterly Marlin in there seem like every time I went. If, yeah, absolutely. Elizabeth Pizza is also pretty good.

That's local spot. If you are into kind of dirty, dingy dive bars, go down to the Dutch Inn. You really sold it there. Well, some people are into that kind of thing. If you want a historic place there in Martinsville, go get a beer. Go to the Dutch Inn. It's not the nicest bar in the planet, but that's where. It's nicer than it used to be.

Is it? I hadn't been here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's true. I bet there's some stories from the 80s and 90s that. Oh, yeah. That's just one of them places where you've got to at least drive by and point it out.

But yeah, there's really not a whole lot to do in the town of Martinsville. Stay at the track. Don't leave. This next one is from Donovan and more for you, Freddie. Does MJ ever come over the radio and talk to the team? No, no. He's just listening. I don't even know if he has a microphone on a headset.

Yeah. And it's my wife always will say something crazy of me. She's, you know, I forget there was somewhere Bristol. maybe me and Bubba. This happens about once a month, I'd say. Bubba told me to shut the F up. And I just came back with some smart aster mark about, all right, 10-4, shutting the F up.

And the week later, MJ reached out to him and he's like, hey, you and Freddie okay? Like, I know you told him to, you know, and Megan's like, do you ever think it's weird that Michael Jordan even knows who the hell you are? And I'm like, yes, it's very strange to me. Like, you see him down there sitting. Like, it's intimidating when you, he's a lot of times

he's on a 23 box behind booty, hanging out and you know he's sitting there listening to everything you say and you're like do not screw up in this moment please. This next one is from Lisa. What kind of incentives do spotters receive if any for making the championship round and if you win? It's contract dependent. I would hope most teams now you have bonuses to make the playoffs. You have bonuses to advance in the playoffs. usually they step up in the each round I would think that's not the case for everybody though there's some guys that don't get any bonuses so we will get a hot A with McDonald's body boat if you win the championship one year if I do yeah maybe I don't think we're not going to buy a boat

it's not going to be I might be able to buy your old boat from Doug but yeah but you know a lot of teams too also have bonus structures to where you know Tyler Redick yesterday is going to help my bonus program. You know, him just, company-wide bonuses, really. So that was a good day for me yesterday. This one is from Steasy Racing. Would we rather have two dates at Miami or the championship in Miami?

Joe, Doug. Championship at Miami. Yeah, I think we're almost at a point now. It's hard to argue two dates for just about any racetrack. But championship at Miami, I think we're at a point right now that, that's close to unanimous. I agree. Yeah, the two-day thing, we've seen now to places where we've cut races,

Pocono comes to mind over, where you've taken a race away and the crowd at that one race now that it's remaining is much, much better than it had been years past. Master of Light asked what we think of Haley Degan joining HMD Mother Sports for 2025. Is that the Indy next team? Yeah. I want to see her succeed. You know, I really wanted her to be successful here.

And I think in the right situation, T.J., she would have been. You obviously spotted for her know what she's capable of on the racetrack better than we do. But we need a female star power person in the sport, period. Yeah, I think I give her credit for going and doing it. I mean, that's something she's probably not familiar with and going and doing it. And I've always thought she, you know, coming to the Chuck series, it's tough. If you're not in the right situation right in the beginning, it's tough. And that series is tough either coming into it anyway.

but she's proved that she can win races and be successful. So I'd like to see her do well. Yeah. I mean, and she, to that point, to your point, Brett, about needing a female, you're absolutely right. And she's talented. She's the most talented that's come through in a long time, I think. And unfortunately, I don't see a lot in the pipeline. You know, there's, you know, Tony Bryinger's probably going to end up in a truck next year. I would assume Jay. Jade is the next one that's most talented, but I don't know if she's even going to, what route she's going to take. You know, she's running midgets now. She's unbelievably fast. Unbelievable race car driver.

Does she have money tied to her? She has, Toyota's supporting her a lot of a bit. And Toyota is supporting, you know, obviously they're providing their development program, but yeah, I would say the- doesn't have a bunch of money behind her. I would say more so the grassroots driver kind of trying to work

their way up. The OEM money stops when you get to cut. Yeah. Sorry, it just does. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But you're absolutely right, though. If we're going to, cliche here, grow the sport. We've got to have a couple of female drivers that aren't just in the show, but they are the show. And we desperately need that. We got that spark a little bit from Danica. Haley was, Haley was very held going into this. Everybody loved the potential.

Didn't work out. I hope this other adventure is good for her. But I've got friends and they've got young daughters. And that's, you know who they want to meet at the track? Haley Degan. Yep. Yep. Same. Come to Millbridge, you'll see her almost every week. They do. Next one. Favorite race you spotted for that you didn't win, and this is from Jake. Probably Atlanta for me, Brian Patty, Michael Walsh Racing,

Clint had a 13-second lead, and we were literally just cruising around there, and we freaking blew up. But it was one of those days where you felt like you were spotting for a Jimmy Johnson or a Kyle Larson, and I've spotted for very talented race car drivers, but never guys that were that elite talent level everywhere you went. And you're always envious of the big leads that they have and the dominating fashion.

No matter who spots for Kyle Larson, Kyle Larson is going to win races. No matter who spotted for Kyle Buster in his prime, he was going to win those races. A lot of races, not necessarily all of them. But it's one of those days where I look back and go, you know what, it sucks. We didn't win. But it was cool to just experience dominating a race. Yeah. For me, it was the Daytona, Indy 500.

the Daytona 500 a couple years ago. That Cindrick won. We lost by a damn bumper. But it was really cool to be on the roof because Tommy Baldwin was up there. And Tommy gave me my first break in the cup series. He gave Doug Campbell, his first break in the cup series. He gave Joey Campbell, Doug's brother, his first break in the cup series. And that night, we finished one, two, three in the Daytona 500.

I was next to Doug. Joey was getting around and go to the outside of us. And Tommy was running around crying on the roof, just proud of us, I guess. So that moment's a moment that I'm a moment that I'm. I'll always remember. And it was just one of them things where I was so pissed off that we just lost a Daytona 500 by half a car. But it was to one of my best friends.

And then to see Tommy's reaction, it kind of all went away in the moment. When you get my age, you'll forget about that. That's the hard ones to remember. Those aren't the fun ones. I'll leave us with this last question from. T.J, you don't get to go? I guess I want to answer. Oh, sorry, TJ.

No, that's all. You're just a little quiet sometimes. I was just listening. He won them all. He never finished. there's there's a there's a lot of a lot of moments there's definitely a couple Daytona 500s that I feel like got away probably more of those than anything I think um I don't know I think uh there was a year that that year with all the tires are blowing it in indie uh we were running really well in that race with dell

junior and we ended up cutting a tire but that have been I mean that had been really cool to do uh win that and yeah, the Tona 5th 100 will break your heart. It's still breaking my middle. That's the only thing I wanted to do I didn't do was win one of those. Yeah, it's definitely. And if you get to the final four, if you do get to the championship race and you don't win it, it sucks too. All right. When we come back, it's time for what an idiot.

What an idiot, man. All right, moving on to what an idiot. Doug, I don't know if you would like to kick a. is off here. I'm afraid of what Freddie might have to say. I don't think Doug's need to kick it. Doesn't need to kick off. Let somebody else. Let somebody else receive the pot here. Well, you're kind of retired so you can pretty much say whatever you want now. Pretty much. I'll go first. My one idiot is a Clemson fan and he's sitting to my left and his name is Jay because he played that annoying ass truck driver for 20 minutes during reaction theater. So you are the first one

an idiot and the second one of an idiot is whoever that truck driver guy was. Good luck stopping Marcel read this weekend against Texas A&M. Y'all are in trouble. You want to make a bet? 100 bucks right now. That you beat them? Oh, yeah. However you want to bet it.

I mean, after what he did against LSU, 200 bucks, I ain't as wealthy as you. 300 bucks. After what he did against LSU in that second half, I'd be concerned. If you're so, if you're so confident, put the money down. I got to worry about Louisville this weekend.

I screw T.J. have $100 this week. Oh, my God. There's my 100. I had, oh, I had him talking to me. too. Did you beat him? I don't know. I think we did. He finished 20th. Oh, yeah, we beat him. Who is you getting to eat? It's hard not. I've got, we're at the Hall of Fame idiot level now.

I mean, for this guy. Yeah. Connor? Yeah. I have, I was obviously, I didn't want to just keep pouring gas on that poor kids fire. My one idiot, it has to be. My one idiot is recovering from the sports world. Friday night, I thought it was going to be that poor Dodgers fan that I reached over the wall and caught the ball and tried to give the Yankees a home run. that was not great. That poor guy, did you see the next time they cut to him? He's telling his kid to pack their... He's the only guy that has ever left a tie game

World Series game in the bottom of the ninth inning. But my one idiot has to go to the guy from the Bears game last night. Did you see this? Did you see the video? I just took the line. So he... The defensive back?

Yeah. The defensive back. Oh, I did see that. He's down there. He's taught in the crowd. And then he's the one that deflects the ball into the guy's hand. That is, that is Hall of Fame

one idiot status. there too. Sorry, Doug. I'm going to mean it's true. No, that's, that's, that's hall of fame. His meetings are going to go bad this week. If you're the head coach, though, what do you say to him? What the fuck are you doing?

I mean, the beginning part, like, when they snapped the ball, his back was to the ball. Yeah. But they're told that knocked the ball down. And he, he kind of did, but he deflected it up. I mean, I don't know. Tip drill. Yeah. First thing Bodie said was tip drill, dad. I was like, you, like, that's just the fact, I saw the video and I figured

something like I knew the results before I saw the video so I saw him taunting I'm like oh wow that sucks that he taunted and they won and then I realized he was the one that deflected the ball to the guy and I'm like oh my god yeah that's that's not good I mean how do you I mean cut him I don't he might be good but I mean honestly he did hit the ball but he tipped it up I don't know like they're the breast point they he is facing the crowd taunting them and the receivers are running down the field behind him The worst part is taunting. Absolutely what I mean.

We had an amazing concert here in Charlotte over the weekend. Luke Combs spearheaded it. They raised over $25 million. Doug, I know that's close to your heart. It is for Western North Carolina. Luke Combs, Eric Church, both Appalachian graduates. Church, though, lives in the Carolina world. Luke Combs is still a boon guy.

But $24 million, great concert. David Brothers showed up. Lots of people. Couldn't be better. What an idiot. The nine people that, nine percent, of the people that said that Homestead wasn't a good race. Yes.

Where are you? What do you want? Collectively, nine percent idiots. Luckily, it's down to six. It's six. I was wrong. Not eight. It was six.

I mean, the trend, the vote, the late voters are coming. Listen, Blaney has some fans. Yeah. I get it. That vote, that poll is heavily swayed on race winners. Who wins? I mean, the funny thing is that poll, like the one thing about that poll, is it you'll never, I feel very confident, never, ever, ever see 100% good race, ever.

Bristol, the first, spring Bristol. Yeah, but it's, I know, there's going to be, yeah, I think that highest is like 96, 97. Like, you just never, there's just people out there that just want to be pains in the heads. Well, so far, nobody's been voted in the Hall of Fame unanimously. Yeah. So there's always that. Yeah. Purcell.

It's in your leads. Every lap at Pocono, 99% good race. Yeah. One person. I'm going to vote no on that one. I'll be that guy. Let's move on the DBC Picks. Congratulations to Brett.

Yeah, Tyler Reddick and I talk before the race. I was going to say, clearly. And I said, man, just go win this thing at all cost. And that's what he did. I can only tie you now. Give him a shout out. I had. Denny screwed me.

Kyle, I needed Kyle to complete that pass and win the race. We collabed against you last week while you weren't here. It didn't work. It didn't work out for me. Which it wouldn't matter. I would have picked Blaney anyway and I'm a little man. So instead, I'm going to pick Blaney this week. I make sure I haven't picked me. Hold on a second.

You haven't picked it. Okay, good. I will take Chase. TJ. This is taking a turn for the worse. Oh, boy. Man, I guess I mean, I can't. I've just picked Denny, I think.

So he's crossed off. He's not crossed off of my list. But I'll go Larson. That's all I can do. Denny Hamlin. I kind of want to lay up so I can pick first next week and win this thing, but I'll play fair, Denny Hamlin. And Doug, you're not involved in DBC picks,

which I'm leading, by the way. I can't lose at this point. I'm leading by so much. You're locked out? I'm locked into at least die. You got these guys stymie? What really matters is who loses. I've won this the last two years just so, you know, I'm just, if we're going to brag about it, I mean.

But who got one in this race? What place in? Oh, I'm trying to get out of last here so I can beat Casey. I'm going against the guy I think he'll break a trend I think it's going to be William Byron Yeah he won the first race there One up there last time

And he needs a W They need to get something going on Before they get to Phoenix Brett you mentioned that you want to be able to pick first next For Phoenix Who are you taking for this championship Well I think if even if he's not in it I think Blaney's the guy

I don't know how you don't pick Ryan Blaney at Phoenix So I have him left over since Freddie used him, I feel like I'm a pretty good spot. That's good to know. So hopefully I pick first next week. Doug, who would you pick for Phoenix to win the championship? I think Christopher Bell may be our next champion. I would agree with that statement. I mean, Christopher Bell has got a good shot.

He made a comment about not caring if the media is talking about him a few weeks ago. As a media member, how would you take that? I don't talk about Christopher Bell a lot. He's not outgoing. He doesn't. Nothing about him says, look at me, talk about me. So I get where he's coming from, but you just watch him on the racetrack and he gets locked in. And I think he could easily have twice as many wins this year as he does. I can see him going there.

I think he's got the mindset now to go and win the whole thing. I think the guy you got to be worried about, and we talked about this last week, I think Bell, I agree with you, Doug. I've said since he's been so good this year on them flat mile ovals that Bell is the guy to beat if he gets in the final four. but by their performance yesterday, I think it's pretty obvious that the 22 team has moved on to Phoenix. They didn't have anywhere near the speed that Bult Blaney had. They don't really give what happened yesterday.

They don't care about what happens this week. They are worried about one thing, and that's what they're locked in on right now. And he's going to be tough to be when we get there. Yeah, I think I said that a few weeks. The last person you want in this deal, and the last person that you want to lock in first is Joey Lagano. So he's working on Martinsville Sim this week or Phoenix, Sim.

He's probably been on Phoenix, for two weeks now. But I'm just like, you can't get, you just gave, you can't give a guy like Joey an advantage and they have. So good luck. So anyway, before we get out of here, Doug, I did want to ask you one question because one of our cast over here, Blake behind the TV screen, is an up and coming announcer. He does the cars tour races with our buddy Eric Brennan. What kind of advice would you give to somebody that's trying to break into the sport as, as a play by play or, you know, color guy? One, every opportunity you have to get behind the mic, there are no small chances. Do it. Whatever gets in front of you that you can announce, you need to do that because every time you do it,

you get better at your craft. That's the number one thing that I tell people. And work on your own style. Don't try to be, I was never trying to be the next Ken Squire or Mike Joy or Barney Hall, who are all three people I admire. But you've got to find. your inner voice. Once you do that, then the rest of it comes fairly easy. Does a Sim world make it easier for those guys to get those reps? I think that's where our stars are going to come from in the broadcasting world going on. It's funny. You mentioned that because I've talked a lot about because there aren't as many opportunities to go be the short track announcer or a smaller series announcer. There's a lot of opportunities to get on the Sim. And the big thing is you're announcing at the top level

tracks. All of a sudden, you're calling a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway or Darlington or Homestead, and you get practice in real time, just like the drivers do. What's your expectations for Martinville's weekend? I think we'll see something similar to what we saw in Homestead in the sense that the top drivers are going to dominate the spot. One, I think there's a dynamic that happens that the other teams now don't want to be that team that knocks one of the championship drivers out. but I sense with 50 laps to go, we're going to have all of the playoff people right up front again, just like we did last week. I think we see a hell Mary from somebody.

We saw it yesterday from Tyler Redick, and somehow or another, it worked. It didn't look like it was going to, but it did. Yeah, this perfect, perfect timing for that caution for him. Was perfect. Maybe we'll have another Richmond. And listen, there's, I think they're bringing a different tire. So hopefully it promotes more passing. Yeah, but I don't know what tire they picked.

I mean, there was, listen, there was one tire if they picked it, Well, our race is going to be amazing, but they didn't, they're not going to pick that one. There was one that had like, I don't even remember, like a second and a half of fall off in 20 laps or something like that. But I don't think they could make those tires fast enough. But there's going to be a new tire. So hopefully that changes the dynamic because we need something different to have in Marnsville

because the last, whatever, just this car, really, that hasn't been great racing there. But hopefully, to your point, hopefully we see some crazy strategies, see some guys get off sequence and because it's hard to pass. So if you get up front and don't have a huge tire deficit, you can maybe hang on for a little while. Doug's last lap, does it end Sunday night of Homestead or does it end December 31st?

When are we going to here? December 31st. I'll stay employed by Speedway Motorsports up until then. But in some sense, it was over when I got to call the last finish at Las Vegas because I won't do the live play-by-play again. And that was a rough couple of days after that, by the way, Brett. It really, it took me a little while to adjust that for the first time and a long time, there's not an airline ticket waiting in my phone or I'm not looking at the calendar going,

well, when do we go to Atlanta? So that's taking a little bit of getting used to. You're a Hall of Fame guy. Thank you. It'll happen in your lifetime. I hope. That would be, that would put the cherry on top. It certainly would.

I value everything you've done for the sport and all the different things you've pioneered. And we're off tomorrow and Phil this weekend and looking for a crazy race with a bunch of gut grenade hot dogs. Love those hot dogs. Eat about 40 of them in a weekend. That's fun. But yeah, hopefully we have a good race and TJ,

I hope we beat you. Yeah, well, you want to bet on it. All right. We'll see everybody out. All right. Thanks for having us.

We appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Really enjoy it. Congratulations on such a successful career, too. Thanks so much, Casey. Appreciate it. We have a great week.

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