Door Bumper Clear - 360 - Phoenix & Kevin Hamlin: A Right Hook is a Right Hook

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

This week on DBC Freddie Kraft, Tommy Baldwin, and Karsyn Elledge are joined by Hendrick Motorsports Spotter Kevin Hamlin -- and they have plenty to talk about. The DBC Crew debates NASCAR’s decision to not suspend Austin Cindric, the approval process, and option tires creating what Freddie calls, “the best Phoenix race ever.” Plus fan favorites, Reaction Theatre, #AskDBC, Shitshow Hall of Fame, and more!Timestamps:0:30 – Kevin Hamlin joins19:57 – Austin Cindric Penalty29:11 – Almirola vs. Bowman33:45 – Option Tires43:37 – NASCAR Approval Process55:30 – Reaction Theatre1:06:30 – Shitshow HOF Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Door Bumper Clear merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff. Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media. Should we just go back to being assholes? Yeah, that's what we are, right? Let's continue being asshole. I am probably closer to Tommy than anybody else in this sport. What the fuck are you talking about? I think the two of you definitely have being assholes covered. Who can really be a bitch when they want to be a bitch?

That was the first person to come to mind. I try to stay calm. Here's what pisses me off about that. What is that supposed to be? Exactly what I said. Who are you? Who are you? Well, fuck it.

I guess we'll just go back to being ourselves. Yeah, we'll buckle up because you might get you feelings. Yo, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to DBC this week. Post, where the hell were we? Phoenix? Phoenix, yeah. Morning, Thomas.

How are you today? I'm doing just well. By the way, I still spot for Bubba and Dean Thompson. Sorry, I forgot about it. Did you tell you shut the fuck up this week? We did not have a good week, so I don't need. Do you guys even have a conversation? Neither one of my cars didn't finish race this week.

What? You're talking about Dean and yourself. Did you guys have a conversation? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're all good. Okay. Did he apologize?

He apologized. He apologized instantly in the moment, but I told him it takes a lot to hurt my feelings. I grew up with Tommy Baldwin. You've got a half a feeling. Guarantee you're not going to get it, right? What's up, Thomas? How are you still, were you war rooming yesterday? Yeah, war room.

And yeah, but not very good weekend for us, for sure. Our car was just not good and struggled all day. And, yeah, that's all I'm going to say about that. Carsonelage, partner. partnerships and marketing manager for the cards tour, it's officially in my email signature now. So you got one of them big. That wasn't the same thing she said last week. It sure was.

I think it was. I can go back and listen to it. I think so. Got the receipts. Do you have like one of them really long email signatures now? It's like Carsonella. It's your title, your fucking email, your phone number. It just has our office address.

So not too crazy. And we finally got a spotter to join us. So everyone should be happy. Kevin, Hamlin, spotter for Alex Bowman coming off a top 10 yesterday. How are you, buddy? It was good. It was good. Thanks for having me.

Were you on here before with TJ? Yeah, like right when everything started. I think we still sat in this couch in a closet right here. I always look at that room and I'm like, surely that was bigger at one point, I guess, because it felt like. You're walking in here. There's like way more going on in here than what you don't see behind the cameras and everything and how it started and there's kind of crazy.

So talk about yesterday, how was your day with Alex? I felt like we were going to ride behind you for the whole race at one point. I felt like it was like a hundred laps where we just ride by 48. Yeah. Yeah, we were racing pretty hard, and I think we slid you one time off of four pretty tight. And I'm like, this is going to go great for tomorrow. No, it was good. I mean, we were really fast in practice and then had a little moment in qualifying and started in the back.

And it's just hard to pass there and just chipped the way out it. And ended up, we were going to get fifth, I think, until the very last caution and got probably our worst restart of the day, which the last one wasn't the best for us. But ended up, I think, seven. So it was good. Yeah. Talk about your relationship with Alex. Obviously, you've been spotting for him now for quite a few years,

but also you help him out on the business side of things too, or not so much business, but management side and stuff. Yeah, I guess. I'm just kind of a catch-all for him. Like I was telling Carson, you know, I'd business manager stuff with DAP that NASCAR's got going on, but I also fulfill the merch orders at ABR and clean the floors and pick him up when he goes and buys a new car and kind of anything he needs.

I was talking to him last night a little bit on the plane or texting back and forth, and he's actually pretty upset with you because you're here eating up his DAP points that he could be getting. I thought this doesn't count for his DAP points? Oh yeah. If he was here, yes, it would absolutely count. But I guess for you.

Did you tell him I was coming? Oh, yeah. I didn't say nothing because she was going to give me a hard time about it. So I just, I didn't tell anybody. I text him. I said, this is actually a compliment to you, I guess. I text. I said, hey, I need some dirt on Kevin.

He's coming on the podcast tomorrow. And he said, what? First, he's mad that we didn't invite him. And then he said, son, about he's like, give him shit about not getting me enough VAP points. I said, so that's all that's all. give him shit about you he's here eating up your dap points but then he actually said you haven't

really done anything stupid in a while so he's he's not going to be able to give me any yeah probably do probably do here soon i mean i have seen a lot of growth at alex this year i don't know what you know you know i'm sure you have seen the same thing up top but getting to the end of these races has been his goal and all of a sudden at the end of the race he's in the top 10 i mean he's doing a really good job this year we saw last week i mean we're talking about a little bit on here last week you Your fucking day of Cota was like a roller coaster to come out of there with a top 10 was like hitting a home run. Oh, Atlanta was the same way. I mean, it's just he's just doing all the right things this year.

We just got to grind through everything. You know, like people love to pick on him on Twitter. You know, Twitter's fun. Yeah, I don't know. But, you know, he works extremely hard at this, right? He's always in the sim. I think he probably does the sim more than most drivers do. It spends a lot of time with Josh Wise and just, you know, it's,

an important job you got to work hard at right so um blake can get us all fired up too on the box and get everybody like ready to grind these things out these races are really hard so um i don't care we can you know he can back into everyone a win a win yeah right like i i really don't care so i don't think he does either and it's just all about being there doing like what you said and that's the hardest part right it's just putting a whole race together and getting out of there with a good finish yeah i just he's grown up that's all i'm going to say i mean from the beginning of he started a cup race into where he is now. He's a completely different race car driver,

completely different person. And again, it takes a lot of this time to do all these things, make the mistakes, and do the things that he's doing, knowing the different situations he's in, having the same people around him, right? Same crew chief's been with him for a couple of years now. You've been around him forever now,

and having those voices in his ear, he's done a really good job so far. Yeah, it's been good. Hopefully, as upset as he was last night, Hopefully we can drag him in here one week. We got some stuff lined out for the next month or so. But hopefully, after that, we can get him in here and we get him talking shit about Kevin on air.

Yeah, we get him those, like, three DAP points. He'll be here no matter of all. Oh, yeah, he gets that at least, I'm sure. Did the listeners know what did those coming in? I think so. I think we've talked about it a couple times. DAP points at the driver ambassador program. These guys now have a, it's a pretty substantial point fund, I think.

It's like, I don't know, 15 million or something that it breaks down. I don't know how much the most, but they get paid twice. a year, I think, right? Like halfway through they get paid, whoever has the most points. So you get, you accrue points by coming on podcast or doing, you know, appearances that you wouldn't normally do for your own sponsors to try to help promote the sport.

So, I mean, guys are getting hundreds of points and, you know, fly into Mexico to promote that or going to Austin, Texas, before the Cota race. So these guys are hit, and of course, just like anything else, when the race car drivers, it becomes an ultra competition because they can see, like, the live standings, I think, right? Like, you can see. And guys get,

the biggest thing, I think, is guys get multipliers, right? We were talking about this in the suite a couple weeks ago. You know, like, I think Lugano's obviously the highest, right? He's like, whatever his points are, I get multiplied by six. And then a guy like, Alex, what's Alex's multiplier? Do you know? Or is it? Yeah, I know. Are you led to talk about it? I don't have no idea. I don't talk about it. I think like most of the guy, T6, a lot of the guys. I think Noah was saw my last week. Noah was like a two. So there's guy, you know, Bubba, I would imagine, four range, something like that. So, you know, these guys, the multiplier obviously helps Lugano a lot. I think he was leading or

was close to the top. So it's just, you know, it's just, but it's interesting to see that. And you see now drivers getting out and doing more shit. I know Tommy, we talked about this in the text last week. You know, we're about the old school days when guys would go to these match races and stuff. But I think nowadays you see guys gotten out a little bit more and doing that stuff. And I wish they would award those points to do that.

They will. I mean, I hope they, you know, they realize that, you know, hey, man, let's get five or six cup drivers to these local NASCAR short tracks by the race tracks that were running. Let's put on a show for the fans. I mean, back in the day, that's what grew our sport, right? These guys, that's what grew heroes, right? That made these kids, you know, look at these drivers as heroes and make them race fans and make them come on Sundays, you know?

So I think we definitely need to get back to that. I mean, I can't even remember what picture I sent you, but I think it was AJ Floyd. Where was he? I don't remember where they were. It was at a track. I was like, what the hell is he doing there? I mean, I just remember Dale.

I remember Dale showing up at St. Stafford driving Richie McClearnie's car. You know, I mean, you know, these guys did this forever. Like, they used to come to Thompson, Tony Stewart, come to Thompson. Davey Allison used to come to Ice Sleep Speedway all the time. I mean, and Bobby. I mean, they used to come there and put on a great show. Hopefully they get the points for the, obviously, most local tracks haven't started up yet.

Hopefully that continues, and they get, because I see guys out more now than I did ever before. You know, I went to a damn, I forget Tim Dugger was playing at Coyote Joe's a couple months ago. And I got there, and there's four cup drivers there hanging out to an appearance for the cats. radio channel and they stayed all night because they get a point they get points for however long they're there so in in years past i think you would see these guys kind of pop in make their appearance and and dip out of there now you know they're in there you know mingling with the crowd and and you know making connections that are good for our sport well before we get into spot on spot off how was phoenix you guys little jet lagged or what um well i got to make fun of tommy for a second

because he's an idiot. Jokingly, a buddy of ours was, we were talking about what we're going to do on Friday because we didn't have to go to the track at all on Friday. You didn't? No, I didn't do ARCA. I was there all day. Did you Arka?

Yeah. Well, you're an idiot. I got a daughter getting ready to go to college, man. I need to make every red cent I can. He needs points. Yeah, he needs SAP, SPTA. Spotter. Spotter.

But so we were talking about what we were going to do all day, and I made the comment. Somebody said they were going to go to Kammelback Mountain. I was like, yeah, I'm going to go hike Twin Peaks. Period. I didn't see that. Tommy. Heike Camelback.

No, that was a different text. Well, how am I supposed to know that? But I just said, Tom, I said, I'm going to go hike Twin Peaks. You're not going hiking. No shit, Tommy. Twin Peaks is a bar across the parking lot from. First of all, I wasn't the first comment. This was the next day after your epic text conversation.

We might go over later. But, yeah, but I don't even know what the hell we were talking about because I'm making fun of Tommy. But Phoenix. Probably the best Phoenix race in the history of the racetrack, I would say. Yeah, really good. It's amazing what a tire does. Well, it's amazing what two different tires do. Yeah, I mean, they need to keep going, man.

They need to keep working on this tire to all these racetracks. Even Daytona, I'm sorry. I mean, it's what's going to make or break us. I mean, I think we're past the point with Goodyear and all of us of understanding the cambers. And, you know, we're within more guidelines now anyway to prevent these situations. of the handling of the car, of how we're setting the cars up to, you know, eventually have tire issues. We need to keep working on these tires.

And I know they are. I mean, I'm just, I can't stress enough that that's what makes the best racing available is the tires. You can do anything. We've already proven, all these different arrow packages that that's not what's making it happen. It's the tires. And yesterday proved it.

Okay, I know on the roof yesterday for me anyway, it was kind of like, especially I'd say start of stage two was maybe the most exciting where I think we had 10 guys behind us on those reds and you're like we start on yellows I think you started on yellows too and it's like your head on a swivel because they're coming a half a second faster

they're popping through holes you never expected to see anybody come through a few weeks. It was insane and then guys like Priest and the seven they were really fast on them and Priest was towards the back drove through the field I think and it was leading and I look up again he's like a straightaway head I was like howie

Yeah, it's awesome. It was, you know, it was, I mean, we'll talk about it more. But, you know, the one thing I do want to harp on for this race is just Bell. I mean, I mean, this guy, we were talking about last night, not only as he won three in a row, but he's won three in a row at the most different racetracks. You could win him on a quote unquote hybrid speedway race, a road course. And then yesterday, a mile oval. I mean, what was they said?

20, I think was the last time somebody won three in a row was Larson. But, I mean, this is, this is pretty spectacular. spectacular for him. Yeah, I mean, they're hitting on all eight cylinders right now, and you've got to give that, what's a crew chief's name? Adam, Adam Stevens. Okay, I just want to make sure everybody remembers the crew chief, not all about the drivers.

How many wins does he have, do you know? A lot, right? He's a pretty good crew chief, and I think he was crew chief when Kyle Bush is winning all those races, too, in championships, yeah, yeah. So kudos to him and the team, they're doing really good.

I mean, I don't see any reason why he doesn't have a shot. As you say, this upcoming weekend. He would got, I mean, I assume he's going to be the betting favorite going into Vegas. You know, I mean, the mild, the Toyota, Toyota's on a mile and a half have always been strong. So, I mean, it's, uh, it's something else. What else we had this week? I know we'll talk about the Bowman Amarola thing.

Got Lugano's restart violation. Yeah, I mean, it's, I saw some people complaining about it, but it's pretty cut and dry, right? I mean, they've been pretty, you know, one of the things that, I don't know, we'll talk about it more later about consistency with what they call that that at that racetrack is kind of been the same thing every time and i try to at least remind my drivers even when you're on the outside right because everybody can pull down easy and if you're you know second third fourth car in line um the car in front of you can pull you underneath that i didn't see it we weren't it was front i didn't see a replay it was super super close but again i mean it's it's it happened

and it's black and white but yeah it's i mean it's the same as you know you guys trying to catch a ball on his toes out of bounds it's it's out of of bounds, you know, and that's the rule. I mean, like I looked at the picture I saw of it. He's straddling the yellow line as he hits the, as he hits the start finish line, and that's out of bounds for us. And, you know what, I was almost glad that it happened because he fucked around on the restart and was like he had just gotten the lead from the 24, I guess, was leading.

And he, I just told Bub, like, you try to warn your driver about pace going to the box, if it's a faster pace restart, you know, this way they know what to expect. And he carried a lot more pace, I felt like, into the restart zone. and then once he got there slowed like I don't want it he didn't hit the brakes another but he did not continue the same pace He almost backed up as he wrote to the line, and we all just kind of piled into each other mid-packed there. Usually it's like the, I don't know, third or fourth row, you see the big stack up.

And it's just, I don't understand why these guys, I know why they're doing. It's an advantage for them, but then you end up wrecking half the fucking field behind you. And so when I heard he got a resort violation, I was like, oh, you know what? Good for it. I mean, I think we have a replay on that, but I think the 77 did it too.

Yeah, and they didn't call it. If he show it real close, the car behind them did the same, exact thing right there. So I don't know why they didn't call both of them. Yeah. He's underneath it. But that's where's he at?

I mean, it's the start of the line. So, I mean, if he could be. Oh, there we go. Hold on. And I know you guys are all pissed at us when we watch these videos and you can't see him. We can't show it to you because NASCAR doesn't. It was pretty close. It's close.

It's not, you know, but. But it happened. We cannot, we cannot show you the, I know, I know, we would love to show you the replay as we see it, but we're not allowed to. So, unfortunately, sorry. What happens if I take a video and show it on my phone? Then they'd call you. Have you ever been called by NASCAR before?

No comment. Tommy? Me? I used to have a revolving board. Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? Tally Part? What is? Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

It's like does a bear shit in the woods. Catch up, Tom. Catch up, catch up. What page are we on? What page are we on? Yeah, if I see on here, Bubba's break blow out. Yeah, I don't know. We didn't really have many problems all day.

The start of stage three or maybe even the restart after the... No, it was stage to start. It had to be start stage three. He talked about his pedal getting a little bit long. Then he said he really didn't have any problems with. He said he had to do with the old courtesy pump, like one pump, and it would come right back. And then he said before he even hit it, it was actually... I mean, it wasn't funny, but in the one, he said it blew before he hit the break.

So he knew it. And he actually got a fuck out before he hit the wall. We're just driving out of front drives out. I hear, fuck! And I'm like, and then just pile in the fence. So, and I think, I saw people bitch about the caution. There was, obviously, there was break rotor parts everywhere. There's stuff everywhere.

We pounded the wall. So, yeah, it was just an unfortunate day because I think this is now two weeks in a row where we would have easily had top 10 finishes, Coda with a mistake hitting the box, and then spin it on the last lap. And then obviously a break failure this week costs us another top 10. So it's unfortunate, but we're still chugging along. I think we're on the optimistic side. things are going pretty well. Car was not great yesterday, but we were still going to put together a race and have a solid day.

And it just unfortunately didn't work out, but we're still. Bubba did a really good job on his post interview. That was probably the best. I mean, that was probably the first time. The whole world wasn't coming down on him. You know, he did a good job. I think we see this a lot with kind of everybody. I mean, you guys know more than I do, obviously. But Dad Bubba is a different Bubba. And we saw, I think we saw that with Harvick. I think we saw this. Let's see what a lot of guys. You know, once you start having kids, and you kind of, you know, you don't want, you want them to see the right way to do things and not maybe, you know. So he's definitely a different guy this year.

He's in a better mind space and hopefully, and it's showing on the racetrack. I think we're more consistent. You know, he's doing a better job. So hopefully it continues all year and we just find the finishes that I think we've been deserving. Briscoe won his appeal. That's something for you, maybe Tommy. I know they were talking about it was something with the bolts, right, where the, where the spoiler mounted to the deck lid. Yeah, I mean, they felt really confidence going into it.

They had a lot of parts and pieces that were bought right off the shelf, which they claimed they did. That were all a little bit different, you know. And they felt they had a pretty good case. And kudos to NASCAR for listening. And, I mean, obviously, their intentions all the time, and, you know, I've been through three or three or four of those. A few appeals processes. But their intentions the whole time going in, to be honest with, is not to help any situation, right?

They don't want any egg on their face. But when you have a really good case and they can't say anything, it's sometimes it's good for all of us. One thing I did want to say before we get going, please stop bitching at me on Twitter that... Me? No, not you. I mean, you're just bitching in general,

but you aren't on Twitter, thank God. Please stop bitching at me that Christopher Bell has won the first three races at a four, and he's not the point leader. That's the way points work. I don't know if you guys pay attention. I forget where he wrecked. He finished 34th or 31st.

He only wrecked him one other place. He won three out of four, Freddie. Whatever. Daytona, I guess it was. Good boy. He got 30. He finished 31st, I think. I don't know how many points he got, but like Byron crashed somewhere and maybe

Atlanta, but he's still got 25 points because he got a bunch of stage points. So like, this is just the way points work, folks. Like, sorry. It's why we say consistency is king back in the old format and wins are in charge now. But yeah, please, if you don't know how points work, just look it up. Leave Freddie alone. Maybe you should explain it to him. Well, it's just too many.

It's too many. I just did. You can just clip this. Instead of responding to 20 tweets, I just put it out on the podcast. Just clip this and then tweet it later this afternoon. Hey, it's Dale Jr. And for the latest DBC gear, we need you to go to shop. Dot dirtymo Media.com.

We've got plenty of options and we're adding new stuff all the time. Shop. Dot dirtymomedia.com. Spot on. Spot on. Did you want to go first on this one? I think he's a whiny bit. That's what I think.

Send it. Why me? All right. Topic one, spot on, spot off. Austin Cendrick was not suspended for intentionally wrecking Ty Dillon at Cota. Instead, find 50,000 and docked 50 regular season points. Spot on, spot off. Freddie, I know you've had notes about this since Wednesday.

Get rid of them. We'll save care from going in on Hardson on NASCAR right off the bat. spot off. I don't understand. You know, you can say whatever you want and, you know, about road courses and slow speeds. I mean, they're going over 100 miles an hour. It's still a fast speed, a pretty fast speed. And to me, it's not, listen, drivers, fans, podcast host, everybody in the world wants one thing from NASCAR.

Consistency. And you can't, these guys don't know what's coming. Now, you know, like, we knew, the problem is, I think we always think we get to a point where we know what's coming, and then they go and do the exact opposite. Like, you know, Bubba was, I think, the first person to get suspended for intentionally right-hooking somebody under Green Flag. I remember because I had tweeted, like unprecedented back when we got suspended for it. The next time it happened, I think was Chase with Denny at Charlotte, suspended. Okay, now this is a new precedent. This is what we're going to do moving forward.

Dylan thing last year, I thought it was suspension-worthy, didn't get suspended, but did get disqualified or, you know, So maybe you're looking at it like that, but it still probably should have been a suspension, in my opinion. And then we get here, and it's the same intent. The guy, you know, Larson runs Bubba in the wall. Bubba turns down and right hooks him. Chase, Denny and Chase get together. Chase turns down right hooks Denny. You know, Dylan's just doing it trying to win the race. The 10 runs Austin off the racetrack and Austin hangs the left and hooks them.

Like, to me, it shouldn't fucking matter what the speed is. It's the intent. And this is what you're trying to take out of the sport. And now it's back to we don't know what the hell's going to go on. You know, can we right hook somebody at Martinsville if it doesn't draw a caution because we're not going so fast? I don't know, maybe. I mean, before I keep just keep going, where are you at? I'm just sitting here.

I know. Where are you at? I love hearing you all wound up. Yeah. I mean, I'm agreeing with the 100%. Something changed from about 9 o'clock on Wednesday. I can guarantee you something changed from 9 o'clock on Wednesday to whenever we heard what was definitely happening. I think it was a different situation at 9 a.m.

I don't know who made a call. I don't know who made a final decision, but something changed. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, I mean, like, and listen, I get it. Like, do I think what Bubba and Chase did was maybe worse than what Austin did? Yes, absolutely. We're going much faster.

You know, you're the, you know, the... But right hook is a right hook. No matter what. You're going to say it's that? The inverse... And then they talk about, you know, it didn't do enough damage. Well, Chris Rice, disagree. agreed.

Chris Rice Post said there was over $100,000 worth of damage to that race car. So, I mean, how much that would, where's the line? And why can you factor that in? Yeah, why does that matter? It's, it's, it, that's the biggest problem of me. And a kev, I, I don't know how much you want to get on this one. But, you know, it's, it's, where's the line? Where, where, what now, okay.

So if that's, if, if, if Bubba and Chase are suspension worthy and this one's not, where's the, where's the window that we have to get into where, what's the rain, the mile per hour range where we can hook somebody. and get away with it now. I mean, with all the data that we have now, if the steering wheel is going left on a left front fender, it gets into the right recorder panel, it's, you know, pretty black and white.

You would think that would make life a little bit easier for everybody across the board. If that's just the case, that's the case. Yeah, I mean, you look, I mean, you want to just talk about, you know, you suspended the Larson guys, right, because their wheel fell off. Well, why? It was not unsafe, you know,

just rolled off into the, into a gravel pit. Like, you know, it's not the same as an oval where it's bouncing around. It's going to bring out of yellow. It didn't bring out. So it's a different situation there. didn't do any damage. I mean, no, you're suspending these guys.

You're suspending the crew chiefs or the tire changing stuff because of the potential of a problem. You know, the wheel falls off. It's potentially going to get launched into the grandstands or whatever. That's the problem. Now, this is the same thing. If you right-hook somebody in front of the whole field, you're potentially causing a big problem for that guy or multiple people.

It's just, I don't know. And obviously, like I said last week, I'm biased about this because my guy got suspended for it. but it just seems like to me it should be black and white, and I think a lot of the drivers agreed this weekend. It's just, you don't know now where's the line. And hopefully moving forward, we just get back to, because it's the worst thing you can do in the sport.

Right-hooking somebody, I don't give a shit, what track it is. And even the only thing I'll say about a road course is people are like, oh, it's a road course, and now what do you do because there's walls on both sides? Well, fuck it. If you intentionally wreck somebody anywhere, it should be a suspension. I don't care if it's a right hook, a left hook, an intentional, like if you wreck a guy on purpose fucking suspend him. I don't care.

Like it doesn't matter to me which side of the racetrack you're on. It's just it should be black and white for me and that's just something I'm always going to agree with. Take a sip, man. Oh, I'm a little fired up this morning. All right. Are you ready to move on? Any closing thoughts on that one? Anybody? No, that's it. He closed

it. Yeah. He hit it. All right. Eric Amarola runs Alex Bowman into the wall coming to the checkered flag to win the Xfinity race, spot on or spot off on the move. me or are I allowed to start with Kevin on this? Yeah, I think he understands his situation. Yeah, I wasn't spotting for him.

You know, I do Harrison Burton on the Xfinity side, so Tyler Mon does that. It was a bad deal. Like, obviously, I think Alex gave Eric every opportunity to run him clean. And he just, he sailed it off in there, which you got to do and he got loose and it took them both out. I really hate it for Alex. It kind of started like in turn two. Alex didn't look like he got tight off of two.

coming to the checker and allowed Eric to get close. And, you know, he left the bottom open, gave him a lane and Eric took it plus another 30 feet. Yeah, but Alex left the bottom open on purpose because he knew where he needed to be to end up winning the race. And Eric just... I think that even if Alex runs the bottom, Eric's just going to run the back of him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And Alex did two smart things there, right? He did that so he wouldn't get wrecked, you know, getting into the corner. And two, he knew he was going to have the best. line off the corner to win the race. You know, he just got used up. There's so much that goes into that last lap too, because the only thing I was talking to Alex last night, I was like, man, I said that. I said, man, I really wanted to give you shit it for a lot of times you want to just, in

that position, you want to just like try to dirty a guy's air up real bad. If you can get in front of him, make him tight. But in that situation, 19 was going to run the back of him. But going down the back stretch or the front stretch, taking the white, Alex doesn't cut the dog leg at all. In fact, he runs up the hill a little bit. And I think it gave up ground to the 19 to let him get a little bit closer into three. So if I was being ultra-critical about him,

I think that was maybe a mistake that just kind of let them guys get in position. Because right here, I mean, he's cleared by two or three at the start-finish line, and he stays the way up, and they all cut it. And they're now basically on him into three, in the one. So, you know, that might have got him loose. He got, he started getting loose. And that might have been a product house car was driving in one and two at the time, too, right? When you cut that dog leg like that, you can't really set your entry into one like you had.

So me not working with him in that race. I don't really know what was going on. I was standing next to... If you were doing it, you would have won, I would think. No. No, that's probably third. Tyler's the champ. Tyler's the champ, right?

You know, he wins all these races with Cup. But I was giving him a hard time because I spotted for Kyle a couple years ago and we won a race thing at Watkins Glen. And I said, hey, I've won with your guy. You haven't won with my guy yet. Still. Still, so you were returning for Eric in this situation? No, absolutely not.

Listen, for me, and I don't know that he absolutely said this because I didn't go back and watch all the interviews, but I would imagine it came up somewhere, and it drives me crazy because you hear it all the time in these situations. And I got it like I just did a minute ago, I kind of got on my soapbox last year about driver quotes sometimes. And like the one that drove me crazy last year was, I hate that happened. You know, it was like, I think Austin Hill like ran somebody in the fence at Atlanta, maybe or something and won the race. And he's like, I hate that happen to that guy. I'm like, do you know? No, you don't. You don't hate it. You won the fucking race. And the one that drives me

crazy now is I did what I had to do. Like, oh, I just do what I had to do. No, no, you did what you wanted to do. I get it. You maybe had to do that. You feel like you had to do that to win the race, but you didn't have to do that. Like, you know, so you get to these points where these guys are, you know, making these moves. And I think, you, I just, it just drives me crazy because we talked about it with, I mean, I know, your son was involved in an incident this week where, or somebody, you know, intentionally wrecked him. And it's just you, you're selling out for your chance to win the race. That was Eric's chance to win the race is going to three, sell out, run them in the fence. That's fine. If that's how you want to win it, we saw last week the way you should win races. You know,

the end of that race last week where these guys ran each other clean. Even Sunday was, you know, I know Christopher ran Danny up a little bit more in the center, but didn't run them in the fence. You know, Danny still had kind of an opportunity to race to the line at least. But, you know, you're just selling out to win the race. And if that's right, we're never going to be critical of doing what it takes to win the race. But don't get out of the car for me and say, I did what I had to do. No, nobody made you do that. You did it. because you wanted to. I mean, at the end of the day, he stepped on the gas.

He was completely sideways, and he just, I mean, the only other thing he was going to be able to do is let off the gas. Well, what happens when you let off the gas when you got wheeling? I mean, it's going to, I mean, he had to finish what he started, unfortunately, but I don't know. Didn't have to start it. You know me with this type of stuff that drives me crazy. I mean, listen, it's just the gall guy are there. I didn't know. Allgaier, I put in my notes, because I was standing there, we had fallen out pretty early in the race.

So I was standing there watching on the roof for a while. Justin Allgaier was murdering people on the launch all day long. And like, I mean, by the point, like he was clear by one at the start finish line, every restart except for that one. And I don't know if he did something different or if it was just old tires. But obviously he got the worst start of the day right there. And then that led to all this here. So it was unfortunate again for Justin at Phoenix. this race last year, I think he was going to, he was kind of cruising to a win and blue a left rear.

And then you're cruising to a win today, this day, and some backmarker spins out, brings out of yellow. And now, you know, kind of lose it on a restart. So, unfortunate for them guys. But, I mean, it's a good race for the fans. It's just, you know, I just, it is what it is. And I hate to see it in that way. Dan, Brandon Jones almost snuck by with that one. I know.

Larson could have done the same thing yesterday, but he chose not to. He could have piled it in there and probably wrecked both of them guys if he really wanted to. but he did not. All right. NASCAR should bring the option tires to the championship race at Phoenix. Spot on, spot off. Tommy.

I should bring them next week. And the week after, and the week after that, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Give them a third set. Give them another option. And, yeah, I think it takes three

to really make it interesting. It would be probably even a little bit better. I don't know. So, listen, it was by four. The best race we agree at Phoenix. Yeah, I thought it was awesome having two different options like that. I would disagree with you a little bit on that. I thought two tires for the length that race or two sets of those is probably the way to go.

Because it was interesting seeing Joey, and I figured with the luck that the 22 has, right? So he's out of options. He's out front on the yellow. The rest of this race is going to go 90-lapse green and Joey's going to win the damn thing. And it didn't work out that way for him. But if you had another set there, it could have been different. So I thought it was awesome. I would love it if they did that when we go back.

For sure. And I, the, my biggest thing is, you know, the question is, do we want this in the championship race? And it's, I'm in a weird spot there because, you know, it's the best racing we have. And it produced that because of the two different tires, the option tires. I know a lot of the drivers are saying, let's just go to the Reds and it's going to be better. The Reds would be better than if we just ran the Yellows like we always would. But it wouldn't be as good as a race. race it was yesterday.

You know, the, the, it was still, no matter how good the race was, you had the comers and go, was the priest, the 10, the 7, Legano, obviously. You know, those guys

were making moves, but it was still for the rest of us, if yellow versus yellow or red versus red, it was still Phoenix. It was still really hard to pass. I saw at one point, Suarez had the whole field

basically stacked up behind him, cars that were much better than him. He got track position with the Reds at one point and then kind of was just trying to hang on and had a line of cars stacked up behind him. So, you know, I get it.

Like, for me, I'm spot off on the championship race just because I don't want your season-long champion to be decided by who was courageous enough to save a set of tires. It's a team effort. It's not just about the driver. It's about thinking and putting yourself, you know, your team in a position. And, I mean, how are they not going to come back with that and potentially a challenge? chance of a boring race to have a boring winner to win a championship. I mean, I don't think there's any way they go to two tires at the championship race. I just, I think they'll run the red tires.

I think they'll run them, you know, or some version of the, I'm sure we're going to, I mean, they're there testing today for 12 hours straight. And then, you know, so we're going to have some version, but I just don't see there any way they're going to run. The drivers don't want it. And, you know, that's kind of where, I don't know if they're just going to ever be like, well, screw yourselves. but it's such a double ed store

because I want the most entertaining race possible. And I have no trouble with, I'm agreeing with you about we should bring this just about everywhere. You know, obviously a mile and a half so it's a little bit tricky with the speeds and stuff, but it'll take testing and it'll figure it out. But that was the most entertaining race

we've seen at this place. And we could do this a lot of places and make it entertaining to where, you know, but my only question for you, Tommy, or even you, Kev, Tommy more so on the crew chief side, is as we do this, you get two sets of red tires. If we ran today, how many people are going to run the Ryan Preist strategy again, knowing that, you know, it's a Hail Mary, maybe not so a Hail Mary,

but it's, if you get a caution in that last 50 laps, your race is over. You know, and, you know, I think if we ran back today, you'd see more guys take the 10 strategy of just hanging on to your rights as long as possible versus ever putting them on early and getting that coming go early in the beginning of the race. Yeah, I mean, I think the 60 did it because they were worried about going a lap down early and they wanted to just stay ahead of that whole group. The 10 car, I mean, they played it right.

If he doesn't speed up at road. Yeah. I mean, he's in pretty good shape. But what I'm trying to get to is, let's, yes, we need to keep bringing these softer tires to the track. But once we get to a point where they're soft enough and they're falling off, and the show is going to be created by the soft enough tires of the comers and goers and know how to do it right, then we don't need the gimmick anymore, right? We finally have a tire that's soft enough,

but I think it's the safest way right now to try it during the race. I mean, it's given us all the opportunity, right, to be able to talk about it, right? To be able to work on it and to be able to try different strategies with it. So at the end of the day, we're actually, hopefully, testing for better racing. Because we can do all the testing we want. It's not real racing. It's not everything. You know, it's not all about, it's the pit crews.

It's not about, when you're doing it during the race, it's the true test. So if we can get to a point that the Goodyear keeps softening the tire up and we have no issues with the tire, or racing is going to be really good. Kevin, what was your guy's plan? I mean, did you guys run the plan that you had? Well, I think we had two. We were going to go to Reds early if we thought starting in the back

that we had to do the same thing. But our car was good enough on the yellows, and we made enough progress and kind of got mid-packish, a little better than mid-packish, and it settled in. But Blake definitely, and the guys definitely had two different ways

that it was going to go, right? So, I mean, I don't know. I think both ways with a championship race. think it would be insane if there was two sets of tires. But at the same time, if I'm running for a championship and it doesn't work out and it's like a gimmick win or whatever, I'm probably fairly pissed off, right? So I would, I mean, if we went, if we just said tomorrow, we start tomorrow and say, you know what, we're going to run every race this year where you get an allotment of tires and you get two

sets of option tires. Maybe I can understand that being in a championship race now. But like, you just, I would hate to, I hate the idea. Obviously, I've already harped on here for six years. that I hate the single race championship to begin with. So now I just don't want, I don't want luck to determine your season champion. You know what I mean?

I'm fine with it. I thought that race was the best race we've had there. You know, I think any race, Martinsville when we did it with the, you know, Richmond when we had the option tires, to see guys be willing to risk it. But I just think that eventually we all adapt,

you know, when we sat down on the trailer before the race started yesterday, they were like, the winning strategy is going to be run yellows all day, start stage three on Reds, green flag stopped, put yellows on, and then hope for a caution in the last 50 last put Reds on. That's the strategy that dominated the race.

You know, you saw guys get up there and we lead, but I think that, you know, I saw people complaining like that, you know, our caution cost priests to race. I think Bell would have eventually run Priest down in a 90 lap run because he ran Lugano down in 75 laps. I think it was, whatever that run ended up being

with all the cautions. So I don't think Ryan, I think Ryan would have got a much better finish than he got, obviously. But he wasn't going to win the race, I don't think, just because I think Bell was so strong. He would have caught him by the end of that run because nobody, nobody had run anywhere near that long on tires. That would have been, I think, 15 laps more than anybody had went on the Reds. So, yeah, it's just, I just, for me, I just don't want, I don't know.

But at the end of the day, when you look at it, did it really make a difference of the finish? No, I don't think so. I think the same guy won that would have won. Right. Who did it hurt the most? The 22, maybe? Maybe, maybe. And I think he only did that because of his penalty. Right.

You know what I mean? It helped maybe the 43 and the 42 and the 10 a little bit. But you know what? It created storylines. It created things to talk about during the race, right? Absolutely. Now, the 20 definitely probably, definitely would have won the race no matter what, right? Yeah, I think so.

Reds, reds, reds, yellows, greens, it don't matter. I just don't. let's keep working on the tire man I'm telling you I mean honestly I saw I think SVG said this we can go softer yeah you know I mean

that's just what I'm saying yeah like if the thing is the softer you go now you can get back to that like you said one tire you know you don't have to have the opt-star because now you're you're having to get in a position where you're having to take care of the tire because right now we still don't take care of the tire and I mean very really maybe

go Darlington there's like there's never Miami like there's a couple places but like Like back in the day, you had to take care of it everywhere. And it's just, I don't know, it's just, I just can't do so yes or no championship race. What would you say? You talked me into like maybe a no. Like I was a yes, like from the fan standpoint. Like I'm on the fence, but I think, yeah, I don't know, is.

No, TJ's back. The best championship, the best championship finish ever was with who back in the day? Alan Quicki, Bill Elliott. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Davey? Was I born? No. No.

And what was it based on? Was it based on pure speed? I bet it was it based on... Al, thinking everybody on points. Oh, I'm not saying... I don't want... It's not so much for me. It's...

I don't know. It's not... It's the thing of... Like, I don't know. Like, the problem is you're going to have a guy. You get to the championship race every year. And there's always two or three guys that are the... clear they got the best car.

There's four guys. There's four guys in it. But I'm just saying there's two or three guys that are always, like last year it was the, you know, the 22 was the best. And the 45 was kind of hanging on or whatever. And so now if you're the 45, it's not even a strategy play. It's just, I can't beat these guys' heads up. So I'm just going to

sit here and leave these reds in my box for as long as I possibly fucking can. And then pray to God, I catch a yellow. And then if I catch a yellow with 10 to go, I'm the champion now. Like, maybe. No, maybe. You're going to blow by all everybody. Well, it depends on what? he's running at the time.

If he's 18th with four to go, he's not. Wasn't everybody pissed off when Joey won a championship being like the 15th place car last year? Yes. Yeah. So it's just, but he got there. I mean, I'm fine with it. If you get there and you win the race,

you die, you know, he's the best guy. I'm fine with that. But like, it's just, I don't know. It's not,

it's not, it's not such a strategy play when you're like, if you know you're the one, the guy doesn't have the speed to beat these guys. All right, I'm just, I only have an option. My only option to beat them is to pray.

And now you're just, so we're going to crown a champion on just, okay, please, dear God, let a caution fall right for me one time so I can win a championship. What is the difference of somebody staying out and getting clean air on old shit tires, hard tires, and winning? What's the difference? It's not going to happen at Phoenix. I mean, it's not. How do you know? Because who's going to stay out? Who do you know?

Maybe seven cars stay out. I mean, it's all strategy, right? It's always, something always is going to happen that there's going to be a change. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I don't know. I'm just, I've always hated this damn single race, and this is just another factor of it, I think.

No, I think your anger is the single race. I don't think you're, it's that, but it's definitely, you're very angry today. You want, this is you, you fired me, you pissed me off on Friday, and now I'm just, just carrying over. You're just mad because you couldn't hike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't do much I think because I ran into him.

I ran into him. You saw me at the summit. It took me nine hours to get to the top of that summit, bitch. I'll tell you. We were at the track all day. Me and a couple other guys go to eat. It's like it's late. It's the only thing open.

He's sitting at the bar. I sit in next to him. Like it wasn't like, you could tell you'd been there for a little bit. I was pretty good. You're like, dude, I've seen a shift change here. What? That's the best. I will not.

of old jane names, but a buddy of mine ate there three times that day. That day? Yeah, yeah. He had lunch, a snack, and dinner while we were there. Oh, my gosh. That's awesome. All right. Topic four.

Catherine Legg approved to run the cup race despite only having six career starts in Arc and Xfinity. And mind you, Mike Wallace, was not approved to run the 500, even though he has 197 cup starts in his career. Spot on, spot off. Freddie. For me, the Mike Wallace thing is irrelevant. because it was he that whatever i don't care about that it's not just completely irrelevant i mean it's relevant the fact that they didn't approve him but they didn't approve him because he hasn't raced in

a hundred years um but you know for me they listen they Catherine made her mistakes whatever it is i'm not going to harp on her because i feel like they they put her in a position where she wasn't going to succeed you know she they set her up for failure because she should have never been approved to run this race you know she ran two stock car ovals in her career one of them she was eight laps down at Richmond in 2018 and the other one she ran three laps of Daytona the fucking shit show we just had in February. So there's for me, how does that possibly qualify you to run in the premier stock car series in the world? Like, like, and Catherine didn't, I mean, obviously she made a big mistake right here. And for me, Kevin, I know like the biggest thing we talk about, especially with lap cars is if, like, there's guys we know, BJ's one of them.

And BJ does probably the best job of anybody on the racetrack of. just the biggest thing for us as spotters is make it so we know you're where you're going to be you know if you're if you're going to run the top all day run the top all day if you're run the bottom all day run the bottom this way we know we're coming up on you we can tell our driver all right 78s half a straight away out front he's been top all day or she's been top all day and I thought the first time we lapped her that she was top she was fine out of the way she was kind of backing her entry up a little bit too much so guys were kind of like getting on top of a little bit on entry, but that was fine.

And then I felt like as the day went on, I don't know if she just felt a little more racy. She would, you know, like the first guy would go by her and she would start to close the hole little bit. We would be filling the hole behind her or she would give a little bit less room. I saw her in the middle of a crowd at one point where they were splitting her on both sides. And it's just, I don't know. But for me, it's just she shouldn't have been out there. There's no way you can tell me that she should be approved to run a cup race based off

of her past history in NASCAR or ARCA or whatever you want to talk about. Yeah. I thought you wanted to argue this week. But you're arguing, you're just doing so well arguing by yourself. I mean, I have nothing to say. You're having your own fight today. I will say like the cup series is obviously the hardest, right?

Back when I was still trying to drive at the tail in my career, I was spotting for front row. And Bob Jenkins let me run a cup car at Kansas. And it was the hardest I've ever driven a race car. and my entire life qualifying, I get out, and I'm like, look at the, I'm dead last. Dead last. And I'm like, how is that even possible? So for practice, right, it's not a split practice where it's half to field. It's all of us.

And it's, you can't hide at Phoenix, right? Yeah. So it's, I think you saying that setting her up for failure, I think is pretty accurate because it was going to be hard for any driver, her, whoever, even somebody with truck experience, right? These cup cars are different. they're obviously very fast and it's uh it was a tough situation for her to i think she did as best job as as she could um i i wouldn't have wanted to go in my first cup race into a situation like that i read somewhere too that she only knew that it was happening like 10 days before her hand too like that was kind of win at all i mean i know it was being planned or whatever but it

actually came together to happen to get approved for her licensing like 10 days ahead of time so like i had that in my notes too like the schedule doesn't exactly help either in the sense of being set up for failure. You get the short round of practice and qualifying, and then you're out there. I think you hit it right on the head. A lot for anybody. Yeah, you hit it right on the head there.

It's, in all three series, it sucks. I'm trying to get new drivers in or rookie drivers in. There's not very good testing plans or rookie plans to get them. The only thing you can rely on is SIM, and that's not always accurate. That model is not always accurate. So it's a tough situation to be in. For me, it,

Like this whole process is just broken, you know, and a lot of stuff people don't see behind the scenes. Like, I don't know. Congratulations to you, by the way. Luke announced a part-time truck scheduled this year. And like, obviously, he's got to prove for that. But, I mean, what's he, like, what's that like? Obviously, race, multi-time modified race winner, champion of the smart tour last year, deserves a chance to go out there and race.

But still, I'm sure he had to kind of, you know, go through the whole process of getting approved and everything else. Yeah, we did. I mean, we had to, that's why we ran him in New Hampshire and the modified last year to get him approved. But, you know, we're starting him. The thing is, we're starting him off at a race track that he's already been to. He's got a lot of laps on. And look, he's got almost eight hours of Sim time coming up and, you know, 12 practices of pit stops. You know, he's got all, but he's never going to have a lap on the track until he gets there.

And the practice is, what, 20 minutes? Yeah. Right? So I know, I get what they're doing, trying to save money and doing all the things we got to do. and you've got to have your shit together when you get there. But you better have your shit together when you get there, right? And, you know, only thing we can do is, you know, he's busy film studying. He's busy getting his head focus and doing everything he needs to get, you know,

to be as good as he's going to get to. But I think it'll be fine. And just to go back to the approval stuff, though, like Ryan Flores, buddy of ours, you know, he's been running, he's like one of the best indoor midget drivers of all time up in Atlantic City and that indoor series there. He couldn't get approved to run the Richmond modified race last year. I remember Tyler Green. We were trying to remember, I don't know if I remember this one.

We were trying to raise money for him to race, the K&N race at Phoenix or something like that. They wouldn't approve him for that. Like, so it's just, I don't understand, you know, like, it's just, I don't know. What exactly is the approval process? Like, if that's approved, like, if you get approved off of, you know, 30 second place, or 28th place finish when 30 cars were running at Richmond seven years ago and then two laps of Daytona, get show. Who isn't approved now to run cup? Like who is? Like I get

it. She runs Indy car, but like that's a totally different whole different body. I mean, I think we all agree the Indy 500 approval rookie testing. Orientation. Orientation is probably the best way to go out there and make speed. Right? Go get approval.

Have everybody look at you have a driver there that's watching and it's looking at data that's seeing if he's got it or not. They do the best at making ensure that you are ready for that race. Yeah, back when I did it, it was you had to run a mile before you ran a mile and a half. You had to run a mile and a half before you run a two mile and on up.

The thing for me is when I drove, going to a new track was the sense of speed and, you know, what you see as a driver, right? We didn't have SIM back, you know, 100 years ago when I did it. You had NASCAR 96, probably. I mean, you could. Yeah, I had a lot of laps on that, yeah. I sucked on that, too. But it was just like the visuals that you have of the walls and where your lift points are.

and the fences that kind of come up over the, like, it's a totally different thing of being there as opposed to just doing SIM and all that stuff. Like you said, the Sims aren't always accurate. But the feeling you have of absolutely hauling ass in an ARCA car at Michigan, your first time being there, it's like... There's no SIM that could tell you what that feels like.

I spotted for somebody. I don't, I won't mention any name, but they were at Arc. They were Arcair at Michigan, and we were out there and just way, way off the pace, you know, just kind of lost. and Chase Elliott was running. And he went by us so fast that it literally just spun us right out.

Like he just went around the outside of us and it just took all the air off. And they spun out. And they were like, who hit me? I was like, nobody. I said, welcome to two-mile speedway racing. The first time I did that, Brennan gone, one of my favorite people in the world, got me hooked up with Kenny Strider. I did a couple of arc races. We were getting ready to go to Michigan.

And we were on the chassis dino. You know, you got the RPM limiters and all that. And the crew chief with the car on the dino said, hey, do you want to know how fast you're going when you get on the chip at Michigan? I'm like, no, I don't want to know. All right, fine. So we get there, we go practicing. You're just past start, finish line.

You're on the chip real hard. And I'm like, hey, Donnie, how fast am I going when I hit the chip? He goes, 208. Oh, shit, I shouldn't ask. Yeah. Yeah, some things are better left unsigned. Yeah, for sure. Well, do you guys think it's time for anyone to start panicking after these first four races?

Chase Briscoe, Suarez, Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski. the guys at the bottom of this the the two that I'm I would say have the most concern one I'm not so much one guy I'm full of long panic mode is Ty Gibbs and it's not really any of his doing this year I feel like he's been caught up in a lot of shit but

for Ty Gibbs and Brad Keslaski to be behind Austin syndric and points still after after Austin just got hit with a 50 point penalty is I mean they are they are off to starts that you know Ty Gibbs I looked up last night or somebody saying a picture of a graphic they showed on TV he's

finished inside the top 30 only once in the last eight races or something like that. And that's not even counting. He didn't qualify at the clash. You know, it's just been a miserable end of the year. And I thought, like, the way last year started for him, I thought that it was going to be like a breakout year. Like, I thought he had a lot of speed beginning of the year. And it just seemed like that tailed off for me at the end of the year.

And now it's kind of carrying over, like a little hangover for them this year. And it's, again, it's not really, he run in the back of somebody in a chain reaction deal. Daytona got damage. Atlanta, I think Suarez kind of squeezed him three wide and they wrecked. Coda, he got damage on the first lap in Ross's deal, and then I think he got turned around by maybe a couple of teammates

late in that race. And then this week, obviously, I think he had the same issue as us, had a break issue maybe, but so it's really not his doing, you know, but it's just they haven't really been haven't had seen a lot of speed out of him. He's struggling. I mean, the only thing I recommend is whatever he's doing

on a daily basis, try something different. You know, maybe you should just Go somewhere. Lay on the beach for two, three days. Just get his thoughts and gear. And he's struggling, man. He's getting himself in positions that he's either overdriving what he has or he's overdriving what he does have and not being patient.

And he needs to get refocused. Yeah. For Kev, I think we both know the problem with Brad is his potter sucks. Yeah, that was the first thing I was going to say. I mean, minus T.J. Like any of these cars could win at any minute, right? Brad maybe not so much. And Brad, listen, we've seen Brad.

I'm not, my panic meter really on any of these guys. Like, Ty Gibbs would be the only one just because it's gone so bad for now so long for them that it seems like. And what happens is Tommy, you know this as well as anybody. It's hard to dig your way out of that hole once you, now you're going out in the top five and qualifying every week. And that's these guys are never going to, unless they win. Yeah. They're not coming back. Yeah.

I mean, Brad, we've seen Brad do it from this. point, maybe not so, like, I mean, maybe only three or four races in, but, you know, he was, we used to come back from this. And I think Brad, these guys, Brad has a possibility of getting there. The rest of these guys, you know, Presco is going to be fine. He might be able to. But the rest of these guys, Suarez, boy, he's got to be looking over his shoulder. I mean, you've got to, I mean, and like last week he wasn't running bad, made a mistake,

clipped that, you know, that dirt in 19 and got himself turned around. This week, he's running well. They did, been made a good call, put the Reds on one time, got decent, track position he gets collected in in that deal with the 78 and and now it's just and you're already everybody's wearing me out after we had zilich on the show last week about you know is this is this the guy that's replacing soarez so now you already got that shit in the back of your mind and now you're off to this bad start it's just a double-edged sword for them he's going to lay on the beach too well i think he has a lot more pressure in his head because he is on borrowed time right now i mean

we all know what's coming next i mean let's not let's just throw it out there. I mean, the kid is training right now in the Xfinity series to get ready to get in that car at some point. So, yeah, he needs to get focused, man. All right, it's time for reaction theater where fans can call in and voice their opinions from this weekend's race. Hopefully, we've got some better content. How'd we do, Alex? It was kind of average.

Average. Might need to get on it. Damn it. Come on, guys. We need a reaction theater points. What are whatever they else. Hey, Margaret. It's me again. Who the fuck's Margaret? Let's talk about Eric Aramuroa.

He sucked at the higher level, so he had to step it down and run with a bunch of kids. You know, that guy eats corn on the cob a long way later. That's, that's,

if, wait a second, Alex. Average? What the fuck? I think he teed this up there. Oh. I wish Margaret would have got that called. Who the hell is Margaret, by the way?

Is that your nickname? That's up Marge. Start calling me Marge. Do you have a Twitter handle? That's my burner account, actually. I'm ready to start. Oh, boy. That was interesting.

You guys do that every week? Yeah, we do this every week. There's more. There's going to be eight of them. I don't know how many. We have six today. We have six this week. Fuck you, CW.

Fuck you, CW. C-D-W. What can hell happened after that white flag? P.F. Fuck you, Freddie. I did. So I got in my car, and I think this is just, like, I think it was a timing thing. I don't know. But I got in my car, and I tried to find, like, I walked to the car, maybe 10 to go. And I got there, and I was like, oh, should let me watch this restart? Because I thought it was going to end that way. And so I go to watch the restart, and as they're choosing, mine cut to a commercial.

And I'm like, oh, God. And then I came back as they're. you know, restart or whatever. And I was like, yeah, that's good. At least I remember at the watch the end of it. And then I just got blown up with these people that were watching. And as they took the white flag, I think it was on the app, they took the white flag, it cut the commercial down the back short, down the front stretch.

And everybody's like, these sons of bitches. Oh, my God. But I think it's just, it's not, it's got to be, I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with streaming stuff. But it's, I feel like it's just a timing thing. Like, it's like if you've been watching for a certain amount of time, they automatically come on. It just automatically cuts to a commercial.

and it was just really, really, really, really bad timing. From what I saw, it was, like, only the Atlanta area. Oh, really? Yeah, it was, like, something with, like, they, like, it was something by the top of the hour, and it changed to, like, Atlanta Hawks pregame coverage. Oh, yeah, that did happen. Oof, tough break. Jake comes a piece of shit for what he did, De Baldwin.

But I'm going to tell you right now, old Amarola, seeing that, and he said, shit. Hold my cross necklace, boy, watch on about the... fucking dude for a win. Hold my cross necklace. Oh, boy. John, Tom, you want to talk about this? We see the replay right here?

Because I thought, listen, I will, Tommy, I don't want Tommy to have to talk about how great his kids are. They were going to run one, too, in this race, I think, pretty easily. The scenario is they both, I'm assuming, Jack, you guys had, you guys had tires. Jake did not, correct? Yeah, Jake and one of the car took tires at lap 30.

Caution came out at lap 7. Well, right here, we're looking at a jacket out. I love when he trips. Well, he's got a broken ankle. I know. It's just like I felt bad. I'm like, oh. What's he pointing at there?

I don't know. He's telling him a number 11. And Danny Hamlet fan? Yeah. Put up the 11th? He wasn't happy, rightfully so. But yeah, it's just a bad deal, man. It's just, again, it's, I keep harping on how things play out here.

And, you know, they show that video of him just, I mean, he just walled him right there. You can see in the. In car, too, like he turns right. And, you know, there was so many different situations right there. I mean, he had 40-lap older tires, places a worn-out racetrack. He was not going to hold off Jack. But what they're not showing is he had a chance just to let Jack go and run third. It was only 10 laps to go at that point.

The rest of the field was a straightaway behind. Yeah, Crum did a bad thing there. But I'm also blaming the spotter and the crew chief there. I mean, just not saying, hey, let the seven go by, let's settle in for third. We know we pitted at the wrong time because the caution came out. They never got back up to us because we were first and second when the caution came out at lap 78. You know, Luke just dominated the whole whole day, by the way, set fast time, fastest in practice and won the race. But Jack was just as good as he was.

And it was a shame. Next call, Alex. Hi guys, I'm sitting here Sunday morning thinking to myself, when did NASCAR drivers become giant pussies? I remember Dale Earnhardt, running at the Glen with broken cowarbone or whatever. Tim Richman never slept two minutes a night before any of those races because there were too many Winston girls with unfilled orpices. Carson, you're beautiful, but you got to chill out in my DMs.

I'm way too old, your mom would kick my ass. We were last week when I said I needed a new situation, ship. Sorry, guys. Is that what you've been doing? Yeah. You've been hitting up the fans. Seeking out a reaction theater callers. Yeah.

You've been getting, that's what she's been bringing in Tim's office, stealing the phone numbers off the call line. Who's he talking about? I don't know who he was talking about being a, quote, unquote, kitty cat. But I don't know. I'll tell you who I feel bad for today is Tyler Redick. Because Redick had to manhandle that thing to get it to the end last night with no power to do. It was kind of in and out. out all day, I think he said, or early in the race.

It was kind of end and out. Then it went out completely. And he's trying to, you know, he said that Nick Payne was in the car with his tone, like they were going to take care of his hands because he had a bunch of blisters on his hands. And now he's got a test today for 12 hours. Oh, my Lord. So. And I'm sure his arms are. He can't even move this morning. God bless him.

I mean, he's such a big guy. He should be a problem, right? He should be fine. He's in such good shape. I think he's a shorter version of you right now. Right now he probably looks like. Worse hair, though. Way worse hair.

His hair looks so stupid. I wish he'd cut it. Just late night here thinking after getting one too many too deep, and I think I know what would help Chase Serely to give up to Victor Lane. He needs a good old-fashioned foot job, and I think I can provide that for it. I'm just saying. That's a Chase sexual right there. Definition.

Yeah, hey, good. Hey, I'll see you. Yeah, he was kind of, like, not talked about much. Yeah, he didn't. He was, yeah, he was not, even really, I was, I was expecting all the Hendry cars really weren't. I mean, Kyle, I know Kyle finished third, but we had passed him for 11th or 12th right before our breaks issue came up. So, I mean, you guys were not, I, at 24 is probably the best. I looked up, I looked at one point yesterday.

We were running 15th. And I'm like, ah, man, we're not having a good day. And then I looked in front of us, and it was the 48, the 9, like, It was just like every playoff, I was like, all right, maybe we're not having that bad of a day. There was a day going to race. They're missing a great opportunity to sponsor this, okay? I can see it now. That the hard tire sponsored by it extends and soft tire sponsored by Jack Daniels.

That's what you sounded like when I rolled up next to you at Twin Peaks. You sounded just like that. Shut up. I got to the. point where I just couldn't drink any more beer. Like I was just like, I was full. I was full. I was like, I looked at,

what'd you go to? What'd you go to? I went home. Oh, yeah. He just left. I left. It was like 10 o'clock, I think. I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was with Drew Herring.

We had a, I saw many shift changes. We saw the, the workers shift change, the, my friends shift change. I had a couple that were there. They left. A couple more showed up. And I just looked at Drew at one point. I was like, I'm just, I'm done. I've drank myself back to sober and I'm full.

And I'm full. I like this. I'm going to go back to the room now. Bless. To leave an audio message 24-7, you can call our number at 704, 802-9-572, and we'll play the best ones each week on the show. I think those were a little better than last week.

We're trending in the right direction. We still need the more unhingedness. We've got foot jobs back. Make Alex's job easy. He's going to listen to a bunch of calls. All right. It's time for AskDBC, and you can send in your questions on X each week

using the hashtag AskDBC. Johnny Rockets 45 would like to know if you could travel to any decade of NASCAR racing, which era would you like to go? Well, Tommy, you've seen them all since the 40s. Which one would you say? You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to start with Tommy for that reason.

What haven't you seen? The 80s were really badass. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I think that's what you and my dad are friendly. Yeah. But the 80s, I mean, let's face it, that's where it was getting the momentum going, you know, just, it was cool shit back then, man.

I would pick the 80s just because I loved those cars. Like the 87 Monty Carlo was probably my favorite cup car ever. So I would probably, that would probably be the era that I would go back to as well. Yeah, that's back when race cars were cool, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I would do late 80s, early 90s. Tommy, I'll tell a funny story about Tommy the other day. So talking about going back in time a little bit.

So this stuff happens with Tommy's kids. So I send in our, we got a group text with a bunch of buddies. And I text, I said, just let us know where to Venmo the bail money to. So, because I've been in the situation with Tommy multiple times where this happens. So he responds and he says, no, no, no. He says, I've, I had a discussion with myself. And I said, you know, this just reminds me back when Tommy was getting in the NASCAR side of things,

crew chief side. He had the tiger, our fearless leader of the Long Island gang, his dad would be a little bit of a hothead at times, believe it or not. And Tommy said, you know, I had to have a conversation with my dad that was like, you know, what you do now reflects on me poorly. So I need you to think. And Tommy said, so I had to go through that yesterday because now I realize if I do something stupid, it's going to reflect poorly on Luke. And it's, you know, it's just, you know, I can't have that.

I don't want to make the kids look bad anymore. He goes, and also, this guy was surrounded by four state troopers the whole time. And I'm like, all right, so it was the fucking state troopers. Let's be honest, it wasn't Luke. It was the troopers that prevented you from doing anything stupid. Most likely. And the two that walked out with him. It's like, you know, I was, I'm pretty good.

good at, I've done this enough times, unfortunately, in my life that I'm pretty good at watching and looking and seeing when the timing's right. Just the timing was never right. Well, no, it was because you didn't want to upset. Yeah, that too. You're turning a new leaf for the hour. All right. It's time for the shit show Hall of Fame, speaking of. Boy, I know. We'll nominate somebody each week. And I think, okay, so yeah, last week, the melon bomb finally beat Chris Wright. Well, I don't, I think Chris Wright, that was a, we haven't, Chris Wright still the top of the board. That was a different Chris. That was a different Chris Wright move.

This was for the Twitter beef. So the Melonbaum beat the Twitter beef with Chris Wright. So what kind of nominees do we have this week? Have you any like shit show of the week? No, but speaking to Chris Wright, did you notice they didn't wrap his car this week? No? It was just white. It had the sponsors on it but didn't have the, I don't know if they were out of stickers or what.

They've been running through some stuff over there. Or he didn't want people. He was trying to be incognito. He was trying to be incognito. He's running for the five car full time in Xfinite. well until they run out of stuff I would assume and they're already running out of stickers apparently So times are tough

For me I have a couple For me the biggest one's probably Austin Hill Running into the inside wall And causing that big wreck in turn three In the Xfinity race I don't know You got a chance to see that because you were racing

But no I did That was That was and I like I love Austin Austin is the buddy of mine But I think you could tell Just embarrassment on his part there's my fucking my buddy zilich that's dean right there why you know piled in there late fucking zillich run through the back of us when the when the wreck happened I go to call him

he might have something against sam hunt cars that I got to check on I don't know if I've ever seen that before like with that wall down there I don't know if I've ever seen anybody do that but you could tell like even austin afterwards was kind of I don't want to pile on him because you could tell he was pretty embarrassed that it happened um but yeah that was not ideal for sure uh who you got I'm nominating jake crumb Jake crumb Jake My problem with J. Crum is. And I had this is like... I lost all respect for him when he beat the shit out of Rob Huffman at Hickory.

Yes. They're, they, I've yet to find anybody that has many good things to say about him. But he, after this all goes down, listen, backtrack to last year, two years ago, he has an incident with Matt Hirschman. Matt Hirschman is probably right now the best modified driver on the planet and maybe one of the best that's ever been in a modified in the history of the world. and Matt made a mistake, you know, and just barely with, you know, Jake was outside of him and Matt clipped him with the right rear and Jake got stuffed in the wall. Matt Hirschman is on top of being the best modified driver on the planet. Also, the cleanest modified driver on the planet for my, in my opinion. And they, whatever.

So now Jake does this interview the other day after he wrecks Jack and is like, I would never, ever do that. That was just, you know, a racing deal. I barely equipped him. I said something like I barely got him on my right rear. No, you were wheel to wheel, obviously. You can see that in the video, so I don't know what the hell you're talking about. But anybody says something like I would never do that unless it was Matt Herrer. Aside from Matt Hirschman or something like that, well, first of all, you just did it.

And now you're saying that you would do it to somebody else. So like just sometimes it's better just not to say anything rather than sound stupid. Motherfuckers love to say I would never. And here they come, never and like they never have before. I just did what I had to do. I just do what I had to do. To run third. Unfortunately, I think Catherine Legg has to end up on the list.

Yeah. Just for, you can't, you can't, that can't happen. You can't bounce off one third place car, which by the way, Josh Berry, fantastic run for them yesterday. They ran top five, basically all race. But bounce off Josh Barry, spin out, collect Suarez, that can't happen as a lap car. We talked about last week. Like, you know, when you're out there, you just, in that situation,

you don't want anybody to know you're even on the racetrack. So that can't happen. But they knew right on the first lap, second lap, right? Yeah, yeah. They knew right away. I said to myself, I said, oh, man, this. is going to be a long race for her. It just happens and it's not going to look good.

But the, and I don't know, we don't need to put this on the list, but going into the shit show Hall of Fame by far is Justin Bonsignor this week. Did you see this story? Yeah. I mean, I wanted to bring it up last week and he had announced it, yeah. I think he asked everybody to keep quiet about it,

but, you know, obviously. Did you see this? Yeah, what's the chief? Bonsignor delivered his own kid in McDonald's parking lot. I did see so. Yeah, I actually, yeah. I told, I told, I told me. I said you better name

Nicky D. I said Ronald. I said I wanted to be Ronald. Oh my God. Didn't quite make it to the hospital. Yeah. So now he wants to be called Dr. Bonsignor.

That's what he said. I want to be called Dr. Bonsignor now. That is a cool fucking story though. Oh my God. I texted him. He had texted somebody else a buddy of ours or something that had happened.

And I was like, because I said, hey, slow day today, bud? He's like, dude. He's like, you won't believe it. I was going to bet. I don't know exactly what that. But the only details I got at him is he needs a new truck is basically.

It's basically the details. Why does he have to? He should get free McDonald's for life. I'm just saying. I mean, no. I haven't paid attention and shame on me. Is it a boy or a girl? It's a boy.

Grayson, I think his name was it? I think you're right. Hey, shout out to him for being able to like pull through with that. Because with my kids, like, I was holding the leg balling. They're like, dude, you got to get out. My dad passed out. I never faint. I was just, my wife was embarrassed to be married to me at that point.

I'm pretty sure. Yeah, my dad passed out for me and my sister. So good on him for surviving that. Oh, yeah. He should get free McDonald's for life also, by the way. So his son Evan is, I don't know how, Evan's probably just over a year now maybe. They call him Big E. So he said, now I got Big E and Big Mac.

That's awesome. All right. So we're nominating Jake Crum, Catherine, and what else did we say? Austin. And he can put Bucon on there. Can you, by looking at that with J. Crumb, can not understand why the smart tour officials did not put him to the back? No, I don't. Is that a shit show?

That's a bit of a shit show. I mean, by the way, if anybody goes to go on flow racing and you can see the replays of the race with the smart tour at Anderson, you can see exactly what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cut and dry. I don't know how that didn't get a, didn't get called. A little black flag. Car store knows one or two things about that of T. Well, I mean, the week before, Luke, rightfully so, got put to the back for taking out the leader, right?

Taping him in the back of the bumper and spinning them out. More than a tap, I think. Well, kind of was because you didn't have, you had worn out tires at the time. All right, well, remember to go vote on our shit show Hall of Fame Twitter poll of who you want to see inducted this week. And now we get into Z. Old GBC picks. GBC picks. Now we get into DBC picks, new twist.

Kevin, you get to pick with us. Freddie, you won. Duh. We all doubted you. I picked Christopher Bell. I mean, it was who. Yeah, we all doubted. But now we're tied for the lead, me and you.

Tommy, Tommy big goose egg and the guests still sitting on a goose egg. I am sucking. You are sucking. Am I first? You are first. You suck just good. You sucked your fuck. Cut that.

Oh, hang on a second. What's that Instagram account that cut stuff from all that? You're going to end up on that. By the way, hang on a second. Before we go to DVC picks, we left out a shit show nominee. Oh, you. Tommy fucking Baldwin. Tommy on the wine.

Tommy on the wine. Wine, Tommy. I'm going to need to fucking call Beth and be like, she went to the other room. Next thing I know, I was sitting in the kitchen, listen to music singing. I was all by myself. She finally, I don't, yeah, she left. She had enough.

I literally texted Luke and I was like, go take your dad's phone. Right fucking now. Right now. The, the, it was entertaining to say to least. And the, the funny thing was when Tommy started getting on the roll, then I also had five other texts from everybody else that was in the group. Is he okay? I'm like, oh yeah, he's fine.

This happens a lot. It's just a Thursday night. It's thirsty Thursday. God, that was funny. Oh, my God. Hey, we were, ah, it was wardrobe decisions being made. It was, it was, uh, it was something. Yeah.

Send me a label on that wine, though. Like I said, I want whatever. the fuck that was. It was fun wine. I call that fun one. All right. You get to pick. Get into it. Vegas. Vegas. Pick somebody that might win. Jesus. Try something new for a change. I'm going to go with Kurt Bush.

Kurt. I mean, Kyle Busch. Kurt is not going to win. Is it Thursday Monday? I haven't you started you? Kyle Busch. Kyle Bush. Let's start over. He said Kurt and you were like Kurt and he was like, yeah. Ask me again A shout out to Kurt He ran the whatever

What is that called? Like the Nations Cup or something now And did a really good job You know It was his first time back in a race car Since Where do you end up? Well I don't

It's like a team event So I don't know exactly how it worked Like I saw him and Pastrano We're out there But Pastrana I had seen a bunch of post from Pristrana About how Kurt was on fire Winning his matchups

And then you know So I don't know exactly where it ended up But it was just They said But it was just good to see Kurt Back in a race car competitive and feeling good enough to do that. So shout out to him. He's still the

still hanging. We still see him around 2311 a bit and he's still the, he named himself the captain of the fund department one year. And that's his, that's been his title at 2311 since he's retired. All right, Kevin. So hold on. I'm going with Kyle. You're going with Kyle Busch. Yeah. Kurt's not going to make it this week. I'm going with us. Oh, Bowman. How can I know?

You got to pick yourself. I like it. Isn't that insider trading? Yeah. I'm sticking to it. Stick it too. Hey, that's a good pick, though. I like that pick. I'm going to go with Denny Hamlin. I don't know if that's smarter or not, but we're going to go with it. I am going to go with a guy that has not finished in the top 30 this year, Ty Gibbs. Really? Yeah.

Bold strategy, cotton. Good time to turn it around. All right. Or finish last. Or finish last, and I get to pick first the following. Is that what you set yourself up for? Like the Mets? I'm tanking. I'm tanking for the following week.

What are you? Mets Island? No, you're Mets. Mets. Rangers, Giants. You're not a, you're not even. That's not how it goes. Yes, it is. No, it's not. It is in my world. No, it's Yankees, Rangers.

Fuck the Yankees. Giants. Mets. Yeah, my hockey team is just backwards. But, no. Yeah. It's, it's, it's Mets Jets. It's not Mets Giants.

Oh, I'm sorry. I saw the football team. You're all mech. No, you're double. You're a mess. May the baseball team is the worst. I'm in the middle of Northern World War III right now. Shut up.

Nobody asked you. Shout out. JGR swept the weekend, right? They won all three races. Brent Cruz and old Butterbean had a good battle there at the end. I'm in a bar. Can't hear the TV.

Wait. What? Forgot that the ARCA has... You were hiking. I was hiking. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just got to the top. And we're watching the race,

and I forgot Arca has the green checker rule, you know, if the white, which is stupid, but whatever. And we're watching and they're coming to the white in my mind. They went green. They race around. They're coming to the white. And I'm like, these guys are killing each other. They're coming to the white.

They cross the line. I'm like, and everybody just stopped. I was like, what, what's going on? Oh, the race is over. Never mind. But shout out Cruz won. The kid's a good kid. He's fast. He's going to be somebody to watch in that arc of car this year for sure. And in the future he's going to come to that Toyota

a pipeline. It was cool, too, because the ARCO race was number 18, and then the Xfinity winner was 19, and then the cup winner was 20. Yeah. It was like two cars tour. Yeah. Cars tour night, basically. The ARCA race.

And we had Eric on the call, too. So it was like the end of that, I was like watching one of our races. It felt like. Eric, Eric, listen, we're not going to get to keep him for long, man. He's so talented. I've known Eric for a long time because he was the announcer at Wall Stadium and we've been going to Turkey Derby for a thousand years. but I've known Eric a long time

good buddy of mine and listen I try not to hype him up too much because it's like you're trying to promote your buddy but he's just proving me right and proving everybody else right that's supported him and just does a fantastic job

and hopefully he gets at least the Arcadale I don't think Jamie's gonna be in the booth anymore for Arc of races so hopefully Eric gets as many of those as he can and continues to progress up the ladder because he deserves it and he's phenomenal at his job very educated yeah and I've got like not only

just obviously you've seen a lot of compliments on social media and whatnot about it, but then talked to Regan Smith yesterday in the garage a little bit, and he was in the booth with him. He's like, man, that guy, he's like he carried the show just like Adam Alexander Wood or, you know, like the guys that have been doing it for a long time. He said, so it's just high praise from not only people watching on TV, but then people in the booth with him or in the industry. So really proud of him and he did a really good job,

and he's going to continue to keep doing a good job, I think. Yeah, we're lucky to have him. What else? Where are we going? Las Vegas. When are you going? out there, Kev. Like Friday at 6 a.m.

It's going to be rough. You're going this week? Yeah, I'm going. No war room for you this week. I'm going to go. Luke's going to go with me and hang out with the truck team and go up top. We're going to go up top. Hey, with you bigwigs that wear the white shirts and make all the money, like, what

decides if you go or stay at the war room, just what you want to do? Yeah. Well, he does it now because his fucking kids are racing. His war room schedule is directly related to the smart. And then NASCAR. Wheel and Tor and the Tri-Track series. No, I mean, I just, I got to, I'm very lucky with Rick Ware that, you know, he lets me do, do what I want to do with that situation.

I know he wants me at the racetrack every week, but it is what it is. Talk, what, like, so, I mean, we can get into this further down the year, but like, War Room, what are you watching the War Room? Like, I know you got this broadcast on, but what do you guys watch? We have this, everything that the crew chiefs are looking at at the racetracks, the telecast, lap times, simulation, everything. I'm looking, and we have seven TVs up there, and we hear all the drivers' audio,

which is hard to do at the track. And so we hear everybody's comments, everything that's going on, can dig a lot deeper into the SMT because we have more time. You're just sitting there doing that. Yeah. We can run, you know, most of the teams

have ongoing running the simulation based off the SMT. There's so many things that you can do and relate back to the crew chiefs of making, you know, be able to make their decisions on pit road. And who's in there? It's you, obviously, you're there occasionally, mostly engineers. Engineer, yep. And then we just have one grunt guy that's just listening to everybody. We call him the grunt guy.

Grunt guy. Yeah, I mean, because he's just listened to everybody's audio. He's handed notes of, you know, like he knew everybody who took on red. So we took that and typed it in, you know, or called it in. And, yeah, it's pretty fast pace. You know, during the long runs, you don't have. really much to do, but the cruxies don't either. Yeah, right? And

always working up what the next scenario is going to be. You know, if the caution comes out here, let's think about this. These are the guys that we're running against. What are they doing? So it's another, like, you know, most of the teams nowadays, the number one engineers don't even go to the racetrack anymore. They stay back and do that, and they send the number two engineers, the junior engineers, to translate all the information.

So it's becoming bigger and bigger. all three this week kev i'm assuming yeah got uh tyler anchorum on friday harry burton saturday and harry burton he's been fun to work with both both of those deals are new for me this year so it's you know i've got to work with tyler a couple times with a couple of races um harrison's been great like that that team's growing um he gives really good feedback he does a great job in the car it's a new crew chief with danny elflin this year so um yeah they pretty much revamped that whole program yeah they got they did a hoss hoss engineering stuff they're So they have all good cars and good people.

Yeah, it's been good so far. Like, you know, I was here at JRM for all those years with, when I was with Casey and when Brad Sweet was here, and then with Annette and then Sam and then, you know, wasn't anything for me this year. So I looked around a little bit and got a hold of Harrison, chat with him some and talked to Jeff some. And I think that program towards end of the year should be really, really good.

Yeah. They have a second car too, right? Yeah, they'll run part-time. I'm not sure what races. They've got a lot going on up there Between Modifieds and Arc of Cars And this and that Modified?

Dirt modified Oh yeah Wait a minute Somebody say modified Well I haven't I haven't noticed that their team Yeah yeah Yeah yeah

Yeah yeah We appreciate you stop by We're gonna have Vegas prep is just When are you going out? I've never been to Vegas Ever That's probably a good thing for you Yeah don't go

Yeah I'm going I assume Friday morning I haven't looked I haven't gotten an itiner yet But I'm assuming Friday morning I don't have a truck, so I'm not really too concerned about it. Normally you disappear. I'm going to go hike.

Doesn't Megan usually go on this? You go on Tuesdays. No, no. She only comes to the ones we can drive to these days. But now I'll go hike Cosmo or something probably this week. It's a big mountain right there over there. You can see him. That hotel, the Cosmo?

That's where you're going to hike? I'm going to climb up the side of it. You're going to swim a couple laps at the Bellagio, too? No, probably not. We all stay. We stay at the... Where you say at South Point? Yeah.

Three quarters of the race team stay there. We don't stay at the Cosmo, but we're not... We go out of the garage and we're in the garage and... Oh, that's why. I stayed there one year with you. I think the last time I stayed there was when we were spotting for you. And I was like, I got to get the hell out of here because it's just all the people you see at the race tracker back here at the bar. The bench race, the bench race.

Yeah. We stay close. I'll be at the Cosma though. K.J. Our buddy, K.J. Hair always takes good care of us over there. So I'll just stop by. I see her, probably grab dinner or something.

and then probably lose, I don't know, some of Megan's life savings. Poor Megan. A couple machines, whatever. But yeah, looking forward to it, Kev. Thanks for coming by. I don't think we got you in any trouble today. So maybe we can talk into coming back. I figured I might be a boring guest.

I'll just let, you know, I'm just. You're on a roll today, Freddie. I was trying. I was a little upset. We had a lot of shit to be opinionated about. The Cynchric thing set me off last week, and I knew that I was probably going to be carried over. Well, for you to take notes, it's a big thing. Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, it's not common. It's not common. But no, so we'll have you back. Hopefully, at some point this year, people have been wearing me out about, people want us to do spotter. You know, so it was a spotter podcast as I started and everybody moved on, did whatever. And I'm like, I would love to have spotters on, but as you know, a lot of them don't want to do it. You know, like, you know, Doug, our buddy Doug, one of our... Who? You're supposed to say his name.

No, we can say his name when we're talking about this, is the most opinionated person on the planet. He knows everything about everything. I'm like, Doug, come on the podcast. Fuck, no. I'm not doing that. I was like, come on. That's smart with him. because, you know, we have that group me with NASCAR and Doug's the most opinionated person

to let NASCAR know when things need polishing. Doug, I could almost time out Doug's no internet text to the group text every week because he'll get up there and the Wi-Fi is not working or whatever, just every week. No internet. Radio's don't work. Well, he was, when they were asking about it, because we couldn't hear NASCAR very good this week and it's something we're always fighting, right? Like, I missed some stuff.

I could not hear it. I didn't hear a caution. I didn't hear a caution. I didn't hear a pit road open at one point. So anyway, so Doug was saying that he was responding to what Berman was asking in that chat. And he's like, if I'm going to bitch as much as I do and be opinionated, I better be part of the solution too. I'm like, that's a good way to look at it. Good.

Good job, Doug. First time for everything. The Doug is the one, my favorite part by Doug is we have a group text. It's like all the modified guys back home. Tommy's in there. Pris is in there. And like when they're watching a modified race, me and Doug will be sitting at a bar watching from somewhere. And they'll be up in Connecticut or whatever race and priest will be racing somewhere.

And it's before you got back full-time cup racing. And Doug is just fired. firing off, Tommy, I can't believe you didn't fucking pit there. Ryan, why are you burning your shit up? Like, it's just all race. And I'm like, Doug, will you shut up, please? That's Doug's war room. But you want to kill him because he's right.

But you can't make all those comments after the situation, right? It's easier that way. But you guys, you modify, Northeast modified guys, you're starting to take over even more than you, like, us West Coast late model dudes. It's hard to get into the game now. We're coming, buddy. Yeah. Look out. We've been here.

You've been here. You've been here. Tommy just keeps bringing them down. You can't hear it. Yeah. I think 35 families I've moved back in the Northeast. Oh, my God. Are you serious?

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for listening. We will see everybody out in Vegas this week. Anticipated a good race. Mile and a half for this car has always been pretty good. Again, Cap, thanks for coming. Next week, show.

St. Patty's Day. I might bring a cooler for that one. Corned beef and cabbage. I took the day off of work. Not corn beef and cabbage in the cooler. It's going to be beer at the 9th. 10.30 a.m. Whenever we start going.

We got to get some substance in us first. Yeah. Okay. Eat a good breakfast. You bring breakfast. One day is St. Patty's Day? Yeah. Oh, shit.

Tommy, I literally took the day off work the rest of the day for when we're done. Tommy, I know you don't remember this, but there was a conversation about Carson's shirt in the group text about what shirts you should wear for St. Patty's Day. And you had a, you had a response. That was what I put the nail in the group chat. Oh, it was not good. That was the point.

It was good, not good or bad. It was, it was, that was the point. Point the conversation when I said, okay, Tom, time to go to bed. Sorry. I will not be wearing that shirt, by the way. I can only imagine you in your kitchen and your tidy witties listening to Fleetwood Mad. Drinking wine texting these guys. I wasn't quite in my tidy witties.

I wasn't in pajamas. Were we the only group chat that got lucky enough to experience that? Yes, because I'm in a couple other ones with him and he wasn't any of those. No. You guys were on Twitter. TikTok and Instagram. Tommy wanted to take over the world. It was fun, Tommy.

Fun Tom. Fun Tom. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening. We're out. See you. Later.