Door Bumper Clear - 361 - Vegas & Slugger Labbe: Stories We Probably Shouldn't Tell

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

This week on DBC, Freddie Kraft, Tommy Baldwin, and Karsyn Elledge are joined by Toyota Racing Development’s Slugger Labbe—and there’s a lot to unpack.The crew breaks down Christopher Bell’s heads-up move to pit in the No. 19’s box, a slew of pit road mistakes, Josh Berry’s big win, and Fontana’s questionable return. Plus, Karsyn keeps the boyfriend search alive in Reaction Theatre, and we dive into #AskDBC, the Shitshow Hall of Fame, and more!Timestamps:0:40 – Slugger Labbe joins 21:03 - Spot On Spot Off56:57 - Reaction Theatre1:08:15 #AskDBC1:15:57 Shitshow Hall of Fame1:23:58 DBC PicksDirty 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 Mo 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 board. 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 hurt. Yo, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to Door Bumper Clear. I'm Freddie Crafts, Spotter for Bubba Wallace. Tommy Baldwin, competition director, Rick Ware Racing. Carson Ellage, Cars Tour, Partnerships, and Marketing. And Thomas, I'm going to let you introduce our guests today.

Slug a Labby. How's it going, Tom? What a buildup. I mean, seriously. Maybe I shouldn't have. The guy that's seen it all It's been around a very long time Probably

Probably one of the first Northerners to move down You moved down 1989 So he was Carson, how old are you in 89? Wasn't even thought of Yeah

So Slug has been around a long time Good friend of ours One of my best friends So we decided to have him on the The show today For St. Paddy's Happy St. Paddy's Day, Freddy I see your

very well equipped. Yeah. Yeah. This is Christmas for me. So it's a, I had to get rid of the big hat. It was, it was not going to work with the glasses, but, I mean, with the headphones. But yeah, I mean, talk about that because I know you did an episode of DJD and if everybody wants an in-depth listen to, you know, Slugger's background and what he's gone through in the sport, you can go listen to that. But just a quick one. As he came from Maine. I know you got hooked up with the Houston's up at the Oxford 250 and somehow ended up down here. Yeah, sure enough. So, 1989, we ran the Oxford 250. in July. And then after the race, I just asked Scott Houston. I became friends with the

Houston's because we ran some North South combination events. And after the race, I asked Scott, I said, hey, man, I need to send something back to North Carolina. You got room in your transporter? And he goes, yeah, what is it? And I said, me. I said, I'm ready to move. I said, I just want to get out of Maine. And I want to take a chance on myself and just go racing where it's at, right, from the north to the south. And everybody watches Daytona and all those races. and I was just really a young kid, just eager to go make a move. And like I said, I believed in myself and my capabilities and talent. So we ran the Oxford 250.

I got home probably about two in the morning. I woke my parents up and said, hey, I'm leaving in the morning. They're like, where are you going? I said, I'm moving to North Carolina. Packed a suitcase and had a thousand dollars cash and I think 630 next morning we met, and away it went. The start a slugger. I said I had a couple beers with Andy at the pepper mill on Friday. night and I say I need a good slugger story he's like oh man I got so many he said but I just

say the first one is you know first race he goes to with us we lapped the field he said he was stuck with us for a while after that I thought it was easy right yeah it's like first race and dominated and it was really really cool and that year we had a shot for winning the championship against rob morosa and we finished second but uh Houston's are a great family took me in didn't have to didn't know me very little they took me in and I actually lived with them for six months just because when we were driving to North Carolina, they're like, where are you going to live? And I'm like, I don't know. We'll figure it out when we get there. So, you know, in the Houston's, they also took in Alan Gustafson a couple years after I left. So the, you know,

you hear the stories of how, you know, like the Hornardays and others, they take people in and put them on their couch. And the Houston's definitely took care of myself and Allen. So we're very grateful for them. And now when did you two idiots meet? I mean, did you know each other back in New England or just did you meet down here? No, I think, I think the first time we were really met was when you with the Houston's. I think it was in Martinsville. We got together for it wasn't at the Dutch.

Yeah, it might have been at the Dutch. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. Yeah, allegedly at the Dutch Inn. But yeah, that's when we first met and we've hit it off and we've it rest is history with us. But, you know, the biggest question I always get Slugger and I where did Slugger come from? How did you get the nickname Slugger?

Yeah, so it's, I didn't play baseball. I didn't get many fights. So the day I was born. Wait a minute. I mean, to find many. Yeah, yeah, right. So the day I was born, my grandmother walked in and she gave me a pair of pajamas and had a little baseball on it, said a little slugger.

And from that day, that was my name was slugger. So, like, I went to Catholic schools when I was growing up and the nuns would always say my name Richard. And I never would look because I was always slugger. So they would beat my ass with a ruler and stuff because I wasn't acknowledging the nun. So, yeah. So I had a rough life. Slugger's a golf trip veteran, right?

I mean, I have not been on the golf trip with Slugger, I don't think yet, because we've, we've overlapped. We did steal Slugger's van one time to go, though, and I'm sure he really appreciated it when we got back. That's a story in itself, yeah. The van I bought from Tommy. Yeah. So Tommy had this van, like a dive.

Two of them. Two Dodge. It was brown, Dodge. Black. Oh, that was black. I thought it was brown. I don't know. I was pretty drunk every time I got in it.

But the, so Tommy had it forever. You got it from. I forget where you got it from. So they were originally Bill Davis, the team vans, and when Bill went out of business and Marty Gant bought everything, he owned it. So I traded him two hard cards for the both vans when I was, you know, back then TBR was called totally borrowed racing back then when I first got started. So the only deals I can make were on paper, you know. So I traded him two hard cards for the two vans, and I had my two team vans pretty quickly. And then when it was time to sell him, I sold, he says, I got to have one.

We got to keep it in the family. going to keep it. So we, so we end up, so Slugger ends up with one. And we, Doug, and Brandon McReynolds are going to drive to Orlando where the golf trip's at.

And we're like, how the hell are we going to get there? And Doug's like, well, let's just see if we can drive the bus. And I'm like, oh, all right. So we called Slugger. And Slugger's like, yeah,

I don't care. You weren't going. I think you were, somebody was sick. It might have been COVID. I went to the Hall of Fame thing. Oh, that's what it was. And so we take this fan down there.

And we ran the toll lanes as far as you could run them. We were waving to the cameras as we went by. Then I think we came back. The wind shield was broke. I mean, it was... And you left the running in my driveway. Oh, yeah.

Well, that was... And the gas cap was missing, right? I wanted to make sure it was warm when you got back in it. And you nailed it. Everything you did was expected, and that's what I got. Yeah. Apologies, I'm sorry. Yeah.

It's the first apology he's gotten. And that was like six years ago. Hey, it's okay. Slugas missed. Only one of the... One or two. One, wasn't many. I think who?

And it's the two I went to. It's probably a good thing. Yeah, thank God. How was Vegas for you guys? Vegas was okay. Not good at the casino, not good at the racetrack. How was it okay? Dean had a good day Saturday, so that was okay.

It wasn't a total wash like last weekend when I didn't finish a race. But yeah, so it was okay for me. I don't know. It wasn't so good for you guys, I guess. No. No. No, absolutely terrible. They did a good job execute and got them back on the lead lap for the last

last stage though so you know anything could happen then yeah and struggled man struggled all weekend struggled through the bumps finally got a good change at the end got it driving pretty good and uh had a tire go down left for a tire go down and got in the wall pretty hard yeah it's where same new week same story for us super fast race car bank some stage points top five both stages and then just wrong place wrong time when everybody decided to run each other at a room on the back straight away. Just we had a bunch of damage. The fuser was killed.

The left record panel was all folded up. So not ideal for us. Slugger, how was your day? I know you only had about 12 cars you had to watch. Yeah, no. So in my role, I attend a lot of racing. Yeah. So my role is for Toyota Racing Development.

I'm engineering director. So for vehicle support. So basically, I communicate with all the teams. So if the teams need something from TRD, they kind of reach out to me and I orchestrate that. So basically just a point of contact for NASCAR as well. So I've got 34 teams this year that I'm kind of responsible for between NHRA, truck series, drag racing, Xfinity series and Cup Series.

So definitely a lot of attendance at racetrack. So this year I'm only going to seven drag races and 31 NASCAR events. So full, full slate of weekends. But it started off great with the truck race with Corey, winning the truck race on Saturday night. That was a brand new truck that we built for him. And then Eric and Morelo finished second in the Xfinity race. And yesterday was about everything that could happen, happen, you know, from pit stops to going wrong, wheels falling off, speeding on pit road, motors having issues, and then just crashes, right?

And then the pit strategy at the end didn't work out in our favor. Our best car was 12th, and that was a shitty weekend. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we talked briefly yesterday about a couple things, and the thing that I wanted to be able to for you to talk about was when you moved from NASCAR to NHRA and the thought process of those crew chiefs and the people that were involved and then what type of information that you brought from our world to them so I want to let you explain that to this for sure it was going into drag racing I just got office into being a crew chief for 20 years in the Cub series and I was burned out

I was melted down and it was a breath of fresh air for me to go to a different series that I didn't know anything about like zero just other than what you see on TV so basically just started paying attention working with all the teams some great crew chiefs and some great minds and got some good schooling and i quickly understood tom that the crew chiefs they really worry about clutches and engines they worry about making 11,000 horsepower they didn't really pay attention as much to aerodynamics safety chassis tires things like that that we were familiar with and of course engineering right they have their black book that they work out of but they didn't have many tuning programs and things like that. So we tried to bring a lot of engineering tools that we had at TRD to the drag

racing world to change the landscape, so to speak. And we definitely did that. We induced aerodynamics and made them understand how they can tune their car. They used, for example, they used to run a bunch of rear wing on the back of their cars, and now they run virtually nothing, just taking, you know, lift over drag, right? So making them aware of that, driver safety, a lot of things that we've seen through the NASCAR days, adversity, kind of brought that technology over. over to the drag racing series as well. But for me, it was a breath of fresh air just to go to 20 different tracks

and meet hundreds of people that, you know, just I've been around all you guys all my life, right? And then you get to go meet a whole different crowd and go to different places. So it was a breath of fresh air for me and it kind of re-energized me because I was simply burned out of NASCAR racing at that time.

So a great opportunity for me. The teams have been really perceptive to me. At first they didn't know what I was gonna do. And then once we started working together And my first year, we won a championship with J.R. Todd. And it kind of solidified my worth in the paddock. And then it just kind of spread. So here we are from the end of 2017 today.

We've won four championships and over 70 races. So very proud of my involvement in that sport, along with TRD. And just happy to be a part of success. They seem like very quiet gentlemen over there. They don't do anything crazy. Snuggers send me a video. What was it, a nitro-fueled blender? Yeah, it's a margarita mixer.

So it's a nitro engine with three, five-gallon. containers on the back, it's a margarita mixer, and it's absolutely insane. But I told Tom yesterday, the one thing that I like about NASCAR is they say the garage is opening at 8 a.m. and closes at 5. In drag racing, it never closes, right? So when the race is over in NASCAR, we haul a ask to the airport, right? Get the truckloaded, get to the airport, get home. In drag racing, they don't leave until Monday, so it's a big party every Sunday night, or almost every night. So it's definitely a different crowd, kind of like the NASCAR 1990s that we lived in, two. 2000s, but definitely they're passionate about what they do and they spend a lot of money.

They blow up a lot of shit and it gets scary. I used to be, when I first started, I used to be ready at the start line, breathing all the fumes and the nitro. And now I'm 20 feet back because I've seen cars blow up when they hit the gas. And yes, it's just too much to take in at times. But definitely Toyota's had a big involvement in NHRA and it goes away at the end of this year. But it's been a hell of a ride for us, TRD and myself. So I'm very fortunate to be a part of that. Before we move on, there was one question that lit up Twitter last night that everybody wanted me to ask you.

I'm sure you might be able to guess what it is. But was that your notebook that flew off the car? Seriously. That's what all they, I mean, I got 10 texts about it last night. Yeah, so, you know, Bristol is kind of crazy in itself, right? You're down in the hole and it's loud. This is when they had hour practices. So during happy hour, we were in the middle of a thrash, and the notebook was left on the deck lid.

And sure enough, you know, every time we get ready to go to Bristol, my inbox feels. up with people giving me a hard time, you know? And hey, don't forget your notebook, but you know what was so funny about that? I mean, it sucked that it happened. And we saw all the papers going down the front stretch. But like a couple weeks later, people were like, you ran a 2,000 pound spring in the right way or you had a pair of 500s in the front and you had almost 400 pounds of lead in your car? You know, it's like, shit, how they, you know, and then ended up. But, I mean, mistakes happened, right? Nobody got hurt. But it was more embarrassing and it's something that lives on every time we go to Bristol. I told you. I put a, I put a tweet out last night.

coming on. There was literally almost all the replies. Yeah, I mean, it happens. I mean, I wasn't the first and I won't be the last, but now it's going to be a laptop, right? No one has notebooks no more. It's a laptop. You know, call somebody. A lot more money. Yeah. So, good times. Yeah, indeed. Obviously, both you guys won Daytona 500s

as crew chiefs, which one you used was cheating worse when you won, you think? Tom for sure. I was going to say Tom for sure. He answered first, I think. And you didn't, you're not denying it. My shit was right that year. It was actually even better the year, before and we got taken out. We were pretty bad-assed the year before. That's the one I think that got away. But the next year, yeah, she was in pretty good shape. She was right. That's what's

neat about talking about being from the Northeast, right? So myself, Tom, and Bono, we're all really good buddies, right? And we still talk a lot, hang out together. And all three of us from the Northeast all won the Daytona 500, right? And people go in their careers for years and drivers and Cruchies don't win the Daytona 500, and here you've got three misfits from the Northeast that actually won the Daytona 500. So it's really, really cool. And one of the special wins that no one can ever take away. Yeah, for sure. I remember the one night, I forget what year it was. We finished second to Cindrick. Tommy's on the roof. So it's, it's, uh, and Tommy gave me my first job. He gave Doug Campbell his first job. Joey Campbell, Joey's brother, his first job. And here we come across

the lines of the 500, three wide for the win. And Tommy's running around like a maniac. He's happier than we are. I'm like, I'm now I'm mad because I just lost the 500 by a bumper, but I'm like, fuck, Doug won. I can't be too mad. Yeah, that was a good night for my boys, my kids. All right, we're ready for spot on, spot off? We got to talk a little bit about it. Hold on a second. Where the fuck

are you going? I mean, you know, I'm going to get to the bar, but. Never mind. I'm just going to shut the fuck up. No, don't. So she doesn't run the show, it sounds like. Well, she tries to. It's what they brought me here for, but they don't let me. I mean, we have to talk about Josh Barry before we get into spot on, spot off.

I mean, for one thing, for one, great hire by the Wood Brothers. That car is back kind of where it belongs, running the front. But just, I mean, a true fairy tale story for Josh, you know, whatever. Meetsdale Jr. online racing. And here he is a cup winner in direct relation to that. And they were fast all day yesterday. I mean, I know strategy played a little part of it. We'll talk about that later.

But not like he just lucked into a win. They were strong all day. Yeah. I mean, once again, he had to drive from the back. you know, towards the end of the race, just like Phoenix. I mean, it's, they got their shit going on right now. I mean, they're executing well. I think they had a loose wheel.

And that's the reason why they had to come back in with a little over 100 laps to go or something like that. But he drove right through the, right through the field. You know, I was up there with you guys this week, you know, pretty much all weekend during the race. Him and Blaney, those two cars could get through the field. Blaney as well, man. I just watched him three times go pretty much get up to the fifth, the eighth place from last three different occasions. It was just a show, man. And look, when you got a car that can do it, the 21 was the same way, man.

The car would just stick and platform and just drive. You can play with anybody. You know, they try to block, but when you can use both lanes without having any issues, it's end game. And congrats in the Wood Brothers, great family, great, great. great people. Everyone's always rooting for the Wood Brothers. It doesn't matter who you are in a garage. You're always rooting for the Wood Brothers just because of the heritage and the, you know, the 101 wins now. I mean, what's it, three organizations now? That's over 100, right? And 75 years in a sport, too, for the Wood Brothers.

I mean, basically started our sport and that's why we're all here today. So incredible day for them and I think there's going to be more to come. I text John this morning and I said, man, I think everybody in the garage is really happy to see you guys running well and winning races. Now, knock it the fuck off, please. We don't need any more fast cars to race against. Well, I mean, you know, confidence is key, right? And now Josh has got the confidence. And you've seen them, you know, in the short track ranks and your stuff and the cars tour. And, you know, once he got that first one, he was off and running. And I don't think it's going to be any different in the cup now. Yeah, Slug, I see you're wearing old priest's hat.

Old Priest had a good day yesterday. Yeah, he did. It was the only hat I had in my house that Didn't say Toyota on a TRD, so I think Priest gave this to me. You didn't want to wear it? What you think you were going to. You never know what he's going to say? Well, yeah, well, you guys are up to. So I was trying to be, I called in sick today. Do you think they'll find out?

No, it's okay. You'll be fine. Yeah, so Preach is my neighbor, right? So we kind of watch out for him. There's a group chat that we all have, and we're actually getting ready for Daytona. We're going to have somebody stationed from the neighborhood at the Infield Care Center for Ryan. Someone at Halifax.

You know, we're coming up with the plan. Someone to get a hold of Heather. So, yeah, we know how we operate on speedway races. So we really care about Ryan. Yeah. Oh, man, a kid, he cracks me up. He's doing great. Great day for him as well.

I mean, he ran well all day and got a little bit in clean air there to last 60, 70 laps and held on. The boys had a really good pit stop there. That last pit stop day executed well. 8.6 seconds. That's really good. And then he was off and running, man. He drove his ass off. Yeah, a good reek for Suarez, too.

You know, we've been talking about him on here. You know, and he's had speed. You know, he crashed Dakota running inside the top 10. I think it was. Last week he's in the side of the top 10. He gets caught up in that wreck with Catherine Legg. And then this week, he, you know, gets the same thing. Got a little track position early in that race and then kind of held onto it and was in position.

If, you know, the 21 wasn't so damn good yesterday, that's probably a 99 win. And that's what he's got to do to silence all that bullshit that's going on in the background with Zillich, maybe in the wings. But, yeah, I thought he had a really good day yesterday. Yeah, Ross, Chastain, you know, Tricass. had a decent weekend. 88 struggled from the start of the race. He was back there with us. But those two guys, they put on.

Let me tell you something. Ross Jastain did not do anything wrong, but I was MFing him all day yesterday. Because he just knows, like, you know, we had a big run to the top of him one time, and he just put you in a position where you either lift or we're crashing. And you've got a lift because you obviously don't want to wreck.

So I know Bubba was quite angry with him. one time and I saw I thought on that last restart I thought Byron was in the catbird seat because I thought he I thought hit Larson and the 24 staying up front where were two of the best cars all day and then he got right to fourth and I'm like oh he's going to get right here and then Ross went to work just kind of arrow blocking the shit out of him and and and they the other two got away and then that was the end of that that was the end of Byron's chances but Ross is a MF for to pass and yeah I don't like I said He's not doing anything wrong as long as you're willing to not not be liked in the garage sometimes. Yeah.

Yeah, him in the 99. They're pretty hard to pass. Hey, it's Dale Jr. And for the latest DBC gear, we need you to go to shop.dirtymo Media.com. We've got plenty of options and we're adding new stuff all the time. Shop. Dot dirtymobedia.com. Hey, Carson.

All right. Permission to proceed. Nice. My bad, everyone. What page are we on? Yeah, I'm you this week. All right. Spot all.

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? Spot on, spot off. Christopher Bell has a loose wheel

when he left his pit stall, stops and chase briskos, and has his crew tighten it for him. Bell was penalized for pitting outside his pit stall. However, the move saved him from a potential two-lap penalty. Spot on, spot off, Tommy. Well, I think actually this needs to be a slugger spot off, spot on, because

you guys are always ahead of the thought process of what happens and when I brought it up up top and I was like in the 45 spotter he turned to me and goes yeah that's legal, we already talked to NASCAR about that months ago. I'm like shit. But

Slugging, you know the rules, right? We have rosters that we turn in for people, right? That have to do jobs, certain jobs on certain cars. Well, those guys aren't on that roster to touch that car. So how is that rule legal? So I guess it's a gray area, right?

Is it spot off or spot on? I think it's spot on for knowing your tools, right? So the sport is so competitive, and you're looking for every little advantage. So basically that move, understanding the rules, pretty much saved them a two-week vacation for their tire changeer and the Jackman, right? So just knowing the rules and what's going on around you. So it's definitely been talked about. It's not like it's how do you prevent it from happening, right, and then being prepared. So I think the teams will start looking at now.

Do we put a team like in the first five pit stalls knowing that that's their responsibility if something happens? I think it's going to bring awareness to the garage like anything else. But it is a gray area, Tommy. And it's just, you know, what else are you going to do? It's a penalty. They probably, they might say now it might be a lap penalty or something like that. But just instead of the tail end longest line, it really wasn't no penalty for that. But definitely, kudos to Adam.

It's scared a shit out of the 19 crew because they, They weren't pitting. They just did the wave around. They had their backs to it, right? So it definitely, it will bring awareness. And then it just makes you think, what's the next thing that's going to happen, right? It's funny because, I mean, this has been a plan for a couple of years. I remember, you know, this has been, you know, we're going to do this if we ever have a loose wheel.

And it just never, we've never really, first of all, you don't ever really catch it fast enough to know, like, you're already off pit road. You go, oh, shit, my wheels, you know. Like the 19 had a loose wheel. He was, he didn't find out until he throttled up leaving pit road. So you don't ever catch it. So the fact that. Adam caught it for one and then was aware enough to get in the 19 box. I said, I said the chase last night on the plane.

I said, what the hell are you thinking about when you're out there just riding around a racetrack? And James is on the radio screaming, tighten the left front, tighten the left front. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? Tighten the left front. I'm just out of here driving around. But, you know, so that was funny on the plane this night. But, yeah, the rule is I have, I thank shout out to Bob Pockers for answering my text messages at 1 o'clock in the morning last night. He never sleeps, by the way.

No. In the event of extenuating circumstances, e.g. prepping a backup car, team event roster members may work on a vehicle outside of their organization at the series managing directors discretion. So that was their discretion? That was their discretion. So what happens to like the 47 team that doesn't have a second car? Better find a friend. I mean, just again, that's a little bit of an uneas. I think like into Slugger's point, I think you'll probably see a, a tougher rule or some kind of change coming this week to try to deter it. But yeah, it was, like I said, it was, it's been playing for a long time and it was cool. I didn't even realize it. I think we were wrecked or getting ready to.

I don't remember. We weren't. And I was like, they said, did you see the 20 just pit in the 19 box? I said, oh, yeah, I bet he had a loose reel. I was dying. And I was, and I yelled it out to everybody. And, what's his name of 45? Nick, with a shit-eat and grin.

Oh, we knew all about that. I'm like, oh, my God. I was surprised that Adam was able to talk, though, because usually the spotters talk you out of the box. You know, run your lights, cars blending, and Stevie had just ended up talking, and then Adam was able to get through. And sure enough, he was trying to get to the inside. He was blocked by the 21, a couple of the cars. Yeah, and I mean, it saves their day. I mean, you're talking about a penalty, but the penalty, like you said, in the thing here, saves them a two-lap penalty.

It saves them a lap of damage driving around without a wheel on the left front. You know, that probably would have, the damage were just driving around the race track. without a left run was probably going to end their chance of a win or a good run. So, I mean, that's just a day-saving move for them. And suspension. Yeah, and the suspension is for the pick group going forward. So, yeah, just spot on, super high awareness on their part. Adam is probably right at the top of the guys in our sport right now.

Was the crew chief of the 20? Still Adam. Yeah, okay. Just making sure that everybody knows. But it's so competitive, like the tire changers, they're doing things in eight seconds, right? And I bet you they have to stop and think when they're done with a stop. Like, what just happened? Yeah.

It's so fast. And the tire carrier, if he misses the index, the wheel falls off. I mean, it's just so competitive on pit road. And if you're not in the eight-second bracket, you're having a bad day on pit road. And I know we're on spot off, spot on, but a lot of loose wheels yesterday. It's coming. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, see. Now that I know what page, now that I know what page we're on, you can chill. All right. All right. Number two, Kyle Larson and William Byron. arguably the two fastest cars in the field. Pit for fuel was 70 to go, giving up all of their track position, and were never able to fully recover.

Spot on, spot off, Freddie. I mean, spot off for them. The way I wanted to approach this for you guys is, I mean, you guys have been around for 100 years, this has to be the closest this field has ever been, right? I mean, we looked, I was talking to yesterday about it. We looked, last year, if you qualified within two-tenths of the leader, you were third.

If the year before you were six, the year before with the old car, you were about six or seventh, yesterday if you were two-tenth, or Friday, if you were Saturday, whenever he'll be qualified, if you were two-tenths off the leader, you were 23rd.

Yep. Like, it's like Martin's all times. It's unbelievable. I mean, this has got to be the closest. Is it great? I think so. Yeah. So my problem is, like,

if we're all going the same speed, which we didn't see a lot of it yesterday, but, you know, when you voluntarily give up your track position, because they came and put the fuel in with 70 to go, all these other guys that ended up, winning the race, catching that caution late. You know, when we're all running the same speed,

I mean, does that factor into your decision making as a crew chief? Like, I know I have the best car. You know, Larson probably had the best car I thought all day. Does that factor into your decision making of, you know, I can't give up track position because even though we're the best car, it's only, you know, by a smaller margin than what it was in the past, I'm not going to be able to blow right back to the field here. Well, I think the pit stops have gotten so fast, right?

So the teams are also thinking about, you know, if we have to put two cans of fuel in it, it's really slow in our stop down. So a lot of teams are basing everything they do off of putting one can of gas in. So I think a lot of strategy plays that way. Yeah, to the sluggish point, I think they were waiting for another caution, which they got, but they were still so far behind. They couldn't make it up. They would have had to put less fueling.

But the problem was the caution happened with, what, 20 to go? Still, everyone could only, only needed to put one can. And so it was kind of even, so they didn't make any gain. The thing is, you know, that's it. That was right in our fuel window, right? And the biggest worry when that caution comes out about that time of the race is they're not worried about the checkered flag. They worry about the green-white checkers, right? What happens?

Like Indy last year and I think Nashville, you know, last year as well. Yeah, but, man, that was giving up that track position. That was a pretty tough call. You know, I don't know if they were hoping they were going to drag the whole field down with them because they did every, you know, every stop before that. they drugged the whole field. There was a couple times I was like, hmm, some guys are going to stay out and, you know, get some track position.

And I think the three in the 71 on the end of the second stage or right before the third stage, whatever it was, they pitted, and then they just drove around in the back, half throttle for 12 laps, got their track position first and second. 71 hung on for a little bit.

Three car didn't, but, yeah, that's a toughest call. That's one of the toughest calls as a crew chief is when you're right at your fuel window and you're leading the race and you're the one that has to make the decision because you can't say well come in if the five car comes in or come in if the eight car does but you have to make that decision and you have to pray pray that everybody follows you and I think they based it off what was going on the rest of the race they were all they were all worry about that we'll get it yeah yeah it's Doug he's at the bar ready yeah yeah yeah but you know I think because of the history of

the race yeah but you know I think because of the history of the race how it was going, them dragging everybody in. They were hoping that they were going to do the same, and it just didn't happen. And we're running low on tires, right? I mean, everyone was really, really low on tires. I think people ended up with scuffs on the wall for the team in the race. So it was really, you've got to take everything into consideration, but definitely things got antsy. In your guys' days, I mean, we just modified race and now, you know, all the way through the ranks.

Did you prefer, like, I mean, I know you'd just love to have tires put on every time. But, like, I know you guys are both, you know, enjoy the strategy side. of it. You know, did you prefer calling a race where you had to be more strategic with your tires, or did you just want to be able to come put four on whenever the hell you wanted? When I was changing tires, I loved it because I love to change tires, but when you're a crew chief, right, you definitely got to strategize it. But obviously, as the time goes on, the tire count is getting less and less and less to save money. So you definitely got to have that in your toolbox. And obviously, we all keep up with who puts tires on, who doesn't, and we know everyone's

running count as the race goes on. But strategy is good. I mean, that's what we get paid to do. and the car, like you said, the cars are so equal on the racetrack, so what you do on pit road is imperative. It's insane to me to watch, you know, especially now, right? You know, this is the first mile and a half of the year. We'll see if it continues that way, if it's so tight. But, you know, you just lose a little bit of track. The two car was up front leading the race, having a great day,

had a couple bad pit stops. Ended up, you know, 10th. And I look back again. He's buried in the back. You know, another bad pit stop. He's buried in the back, and you don't see him again until they end up doing two at one of the pit cycles. And then it gets some track position back. and then he kind of hung on up there.

But like you just, once you lose track position, for one, your balance changes so much. You know, you get so much tighter the further back in the field you get.

But then it's just, like you said, everybody's going the same damn speed and it's hard to pass. Yeah. Yeah, but there was a lot of passing. Oh, no, no,

yeah. I'm not, there wasn't a bad race. I mean, it was a pretty good race. It was a pretty good race yesterday up front. You know, there was a lot of passes for the lead

I felt like yesterday. But it's just like, once you get mired back there, it's hard to fight your way out of it. Well, you look at Bell, right, when he had his tire issue, and he started, he was running second, right? Getting ready to pass for the lead, has his pit stop issue, goes in the back, and his car was so bad. Actually, you had to come down, pit road and open the hood and make adjustments. It was that bad and dirty air.

I think, I felt the worst for Justin Haley yesterday. So he drove his ass off, and then when the car should come out, he'd probably be between 14th and 18th, every time. But the five car lost a wheel at Cota. Well, they took their tire change. changes off his Justin's car and put him on the five car for the two weeks so he had replacement guys he would come out last every single pit stop and have to start over that that was pretty tough because he was driving his ass off did you see the video of him coming through that wreck yeah on the back straightaway it was like an archer what was it uh what was it a blaney or bubble when we're talking about

the Daytona the guy that blew right oh yeah It was the 40. It was Justin. Ogar, through the... Yeah, yeah. Oh, it wasn't even... There he goes, right to the middle. Mrow!

Oh, man. 43 cars there, as he's wrecked. He had a pretty good day. I mean, I don't... Obviously, he didn't have a good day as he's wrecking here. But he had speed... I thought he had the most speed he's had. Did you see the moment he had one and one and two?

Yeah, it was right in front of us. Holy shit, man. What a saving. He kept digging. He was trying to get down, I think, to... We had a little run on him, and he tried to come down, and I wasn't really a block us, but just kind of dirty our air up, and I think it just over the bumps. He hit him a little bit wrong and took off up the hill.

There goes your favorite, Tommy. There goes Rick. 47. He's my, he's okay. How about, do you see Jimmy Hart? The rest of the mouth of the south, Jimmy Hart running around the garage yesterday? He was with the 47 because they had Hulk Hogan's beer on there. But yeah, he looked like the same exact guy that I've seen wrestling in the 80s.

I don't understand how he didn't change at all. All right, Tommy, you've been waiting on this one. According to NASCAR insights, there were five loose wheels to the it fell off, nine speeding penalties, a pitting outside the box penalty, and multiple run-ins, including Josevar turning Gibbs around. Worst day for Pitt Road ever. Spot on, spot off. Yeah, I mean, spot on. But Slugger, you guys do a lot of internal talks about this stuff. So what do you think, why do you think it's happening more and more as we go? What is your, your guys theory when you get in a room and you guys try to work on all this? Well, on a racetrack, you gain hundreds, right? And on

pit road, you can gain tens and seconds. And that's where it's at nowadays, is managing your time, your pit road speed. Like, if they allow you 50 miles an hour, you want to be 49.9.9, not 49.5. If you're 49.5, you're losing time on pit road. So understanding all the aspects from from pit in to pit out is very, very important. It comes down to people. It comes down to details. Comes down to pit selection. Comes down to paying attention, right? So it's very, very important. But it's so competitive, like I said earlier, when the tire changers get done, they're thinking to them so, what the hell does happen? And they got to go back and watch the film that they were on their head with a camera.

So it's so, so competitive. And it's only going to get worse because the rules are so constricted. You talked about all the cars being within hundreds of each other in qualifying. And now it comes down to what you do on pit road in strategy. Sometimes like Tom talked about it. You've got to get off strategy to make things happen. And it's so, so critical. And we got so many people sitting in the war room like Tom does at times,

trying to help the teams to make the run. right decisions because when you're sitting on the pit box you get all the noise and you get everything around you going on but when you have 20 engineers back at the shop helping you make decisions it's so competitive but you never even answered the fucking question i'd never do with you i know just talks and say yeah yeah but why do you think what's going on you just think the pressure is they just have to be so fast now and are the all you guys doing stuff different stuff with regulating the air to so the next stop The lug is like what is going on?

Because we're seeing a lot of wear on our rotor hats, you know, the brake rotor hats that where the wheels, there's so much more wear going on this year than last year. And we're trying to figure it out. We know it's kind of because the wheels are not tight enough even when they're tight. So what do you guys like? Well, keep mind, it's aluminum on aluminum, right, when you bolt them together. So two hot surfaces, we'll have some friction here for sure. But, you know, a lot of the rules, the pit guns are dictated, the air guns are dictated, the nitrogen you have to use, the size of the bottle you have to use, and it comes down to people and what they do and how long they stay engaged on it. So that's a tough one to answer, Tom, really, because it's, like you said, it's so competitive that they're just, when they go to hit the lug nut, they're already thinking about getting up, you know, so like their brain is one step ahead and one little misstep and you pay the price.

But, I mean, if you look what happened to the 19, if you look at the back of the wheel, they simply missed the index. And the guy thought he got the lug nut tight, and it probably caught it by one thread and it came off, you know, leaving pit road. So, again, these guys don't know what happens until it's actually over when they can stop and digest it. So I know I didn't really answer your question again, but it's just really, it's a tough one to answer, Tom, because it's so competitive. I just think there is more pressure on pit crews right now than ever before, ever. Well, they're the highest paid people in the garage other than drivers and crew chiefs, right? I mean, they're so competitive. And they all have contracts, right?

Where mechanics don't have contracts, every pit crew member over the wall has a contract just because the team invest in them. And, you know, you saw what JGR did with the Jackman this year in 2311, right? They changed one move for the Jackman. He picked up one step, and it was three-tenths of a second. That is a big number on Pitt Road, and that's what it comes down to. Now everybody's doing it. It doesn't take long, right? It takes two weeks, right?

Yeah. And listen, like, and to your point, it's, It's just, you can't even put in the words how important. Like our pit crew has been unbelievable this year. And you come in fourth, go out first. And instead, I mean, if you, that's not only is it obviously good, you know, you're happy you gain three spots, but your car is going to drive 10 times better than if you went from fourth to sixth or even if you just stayed fourth.

Like just like, just like, and that just keeps you there. If you can get a stay, come off pit road in the first two rows, you're going to stay up there. Once you, once you fade, you know, that row three, four, five, whatever. now you're in really dirty air on these restarts. You can get put in bad positions. And that's what happened. We ended up cycling back a little bit the one time.

And then here we are top of four trying to get back to the front. And we end up getting wrecked. And it's just, you know, but so just you cannot emphasize enough how important it is. Just, you know, the pit crews right now are everything for a lot of us. In every series, too. Yeah. I mean, it's trickled down to every series. You're seeing cup teams pit trucks.

Whoever thought of that, right? And it's so competitive. Corey Heim coming forth. first and won the race. I mean, it comes down to details on pit road. All right, grade these drivers' performance throughout the first five races of the season. How do you want to go about this since we kind of have a list of them? I just go, you know, read one off.

One by one. We'll go fairly quickly on it. We don't have to spend a lot of time on each year. Starting off with the home team, Tyler Reddick. Home team, Reddick. I think I would give him a higher grade than he would give himself. Because last night I told him, I said, man, he did a really good job today. And he's like, yeah, well, I got nothing for it.

You know, and that's just, yeah, but he's, I think he's had a great year. I mean, I'd give him somewhere, but I've been to be, you know, he's up there in points still. He's, he's having a solid year. Just kind of the same as us, you know, has speed and can't find the finishes that he deserves. So hopefully he can turn around. Chase Elliott. Is everybody else going to give Tyler a grade? Sorry, there I go again, jumping the gun.

I thought you were doing a good job there. I didn't know if you want to talk about Redick at all. You said we don't have enough time. I didn't say we don't have enough time. You said we don't have much time to do this. I said we don't have to take a lot of time. Okay. So then you said one.

On each one. I'm just saying we don't need to do a 10 minute. He argues with everybody. Don't feel back. No, I know this. Let's talk about Chase Elliott. Go ahead, Tom. You go ahead, Tom.

We'll just sit up. I'll get another fucking beer while you're over here. He could. Good. Fuck, I want one now, too. Do you only have? I only have Bud Live. No, thanks.

All right. Well, Chase Elliott, he's, I don't want to talk about Tyler Redding. I'm talking about that. What's wrong with Tyler? I knew that. I knew that. That's why I went ahead and moved on. Did Chase Elliott? Tyler Reddick.

Slugger, you want to talk about Tyler Redd? He drives a fucking Toyota. It's a good guy. I will tell you that Tyler puts in the work. He's on a simulator a lot at TRD. Every Wednesday's there for like seven or eight hours, and he does work at the shop. I mean, he's really, really dedicated. But I understand his frustration of not having nothing to show for it.

But if you go back to Homestead last year, the pit cycle thing actually won him to race. So, I mean, it's got highs and lows. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. Chase Elliott, Tom. up. Normal Chase Elliott doing Chase Elliott things, right? Consistent, not getting in trouble.

Except on pit road yesterday. Yeah, but again, he's going to end up capitalizing on one of these races when it's time. I mean, that's just what Chase does, man. He's just, that's how that team seems to work. The whole Hendrikamp. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think the five is probably the most aggressive of every week of doing, you know, being aggressive on the track doing everything. but, you know, Byron does the same thing. He just takes what he can get. I think Chase is probably a little bit less aggressive even than William, right? But at the end of the day, you look and, oh, shit, there he is. Top 10, right? There's two races here.

He's wrecked on the first lap and come back to had great finish, you know, and all four-hundred drivers are in the top six and points, so that they definitely, if it's not their day, they know how to capitalize. Who's next? Wait, you're not going to talk about Chase? No, no, fuck you. Oh, you don't want to talk about Chase? Fuck you in Chase.

I mean, I mean, geez. Joey Lugano. Go ahead. Who you're up to me? Lugano's Lugano always. I mean, I feel like he's always like... Lucky. Yes.

Well, not lucky yesterday. What happened on his last pit stop? Because I didn't even, I wasn't really, we were in the back trying to flound around. So I was trying to make sure we got wave around and stuff. And I saw he came in leading, right? And went out. I don't even know when it's like in the 20s somewhere. We were loading up our junk in the trailer.

So I missed that part. I listened. The teardown said he might have slid through the box. or slid too close to the wall. Is that what happened? He slipped through the box and went through all that. So he was mad at himself. Yeah.

Tough deal for him. But, I mean, they were fast. They were one of the ones that got caught without early caution when they pit and somebody's wheel came off. The 19, I think that was 19's wheels. So they got the wave around, but they had a couple of older tires and everybody. So they kind of faded that run. And then they just kind of just had a ho-hum day of that.

But then I thought, well, here he is again, like just going to catch the strategy right and win this damn race. Yeah, but I don't. He drove through those guys. to take the lead. Oh, yeah, no, it wasn't bad. That wasn't handed to him when he got the lead to, you know, and it was like, okay, here they are with 25 to go. Kosh comes out doing their thing.

And, I mean, he's just as hard to pass as the 99 and a one, right? Yeah, he's probably the hardest. Yeah. So I think he was in the catbird's seat for sure. For his season, he's eighth in points right now. I'd say, Sam, something, things about a B or a C for him. Oh, yeah, we didn't give Chase Elliott an actual letter grade, but we'll just pretend like that.

They were. Yeah. Be for beef. All right. Kyle Larson. Tommy. I already talked about it. Exactly.

So expand. I mean, just give him a grade. But his grade's got to be a little lower because you would think, I mean. This is a shit show, Alex. We're never doing a list like this ever again. Well, it's good. We're fighting with each other. Did you even watch the race yesterday?

I had food poisoning yesterday. Oh, my God. You have to do this every week. Food poisoning with these two pounds. Don't you feel bad for me? 100% girl. Don't you feel bad for me? You need a raise.

Thank you. Mike, if you're like. listening. You guys get paid? Yeah. Yeah, they pay us to hang out with you. Yeah. But Larson's great.

I think it's got to be down. Because he just, you know, he hasn't been Kyle Larson, in my opinion. I mean, he was yesterday for about three quarters of the race and then gets stuck in traffic. So, I mean, he just can't, I mean, the same thing. It's probably in that B.C. range. He's sitting there. He's probably been one of the fastest cars, but he's still sixth in points now. So, and third on his own team in the standing.

So. Denny Hamlin. I'm upset with Denny. I'm upset with Denny. He was my pick this week. Denny was severely let me down. He's great. That guy's amazing.

A plus. A plus for the boss man for Freddie. What do you think? What are you stupid? He used all his luck up at the swat machine. No kidding. It's ridiculous. I'm going to check my bonus check next week.

Make sure that's something in their reflexes. I want to know how much was spent to hit that. But again, not enough. Trust me. During the race. You would think he was a 25th place car most of the race. Then all of a sudden you look up. There he is battling for top three.

It's like, where did he come from? I mean, the guy just doesn't wear his stuff out, waits to the end to go. And there he is. And he had an unfortunate. They had to pit on the green, right? Well, they pit on that, they did pit on the green at one point, lost a lap, got back from that, got a lucky dog or a wave around. And then he pit with that strategy where they tried to split that last run in half and just got burned by the yellow.

So that was, I mean, looking at it, I'm sure you were involved, not involved in the call, but just involved in the, seeing, looking at the strategy side of it, you know, them guys are pitting just trying to make up enough ground on green flags, you know, on fresher rubber to cycle back if it stays green, right? I mean, even if the guy stayed out, you're going to make up ground all that, that whole run there. So, I mean, it was just a. That's all you could hope for. Yeah, it was pretty risky, but it was, and obviously it got burned, so, but it was, it was, it was, it was, they were hauled ass. I was like that, like when they were coming back through. You give them a good grade, Freddie, but they need to win. Oh, I only give him a good grade.

They haven't won almost a year. And not knocking them, they know it. But, I mean, at the end of the day, you're only as good as your last race and you have to win. Yeah, I only gave him an A plus because he signs my checks. His season's about a fucking D right now. He's down, he's 12th in points. He's going to have to figure something out. So it's A plus a D?

It's A plus, always. But just, he cut that part out when I said D just because I don't want him to get upset with me. So you give him a dat. I've got the idea. Yeah, duh. Yeah. All right, Ryan Blaney. Tommy.

The fucking bathtub. Where are they at? Yeah. I wonder how many reaction theater calls we have about that this week. I mean, the car is just so fast every week. It'll come. It'll come. I mean, once he gets all this stuff out of the system, they're going to win some races, man.

The car is badass. And the show yesterday was him going through the field, just watching him just, everyone was trying to block him. But he could just play what everybody is. There was one time he caught us. the same thing. You're like, you know, you can kind of defend a little bit. You're not really, not really defending as hard as you in the middle of the race, you know, but you're just like, some guys can get to places, some guys can't. And he just rolled up next to us and drove on by, and I was like, well, fuck, our car won't do that.

You know, it's like, it was, that thing was spot on. He was one of the first cars that ran through the bottom of one and two through the bumps, like the bumps weren't there for him. Yeah. And then he would smoke the bottom and turn one and two and then run the wall in three and four. He was the first one to figure that out, and he was half second quicker than most people. He was, he definitely figured it out first.

Josh Barry. Did we give him a grade? Oh, wait, no, I guess not. Blaney? Blaney. It's got to be middle of the road right now just because they haven't gotten luck. But I mean, if you're giving him a grade on speed,

he's an A, you know, but it's just, you know, your adversity. Yeah, just got to get what you deserve eventually. All right, Josh Barry. What do we think? How about you? How about you? You want to give Josh Cars to her champion?

We'll let you go on Josh Berry. Well, I mean, if we're going, I mean, I feel like off this year, I would say a B plus. A B plus. A plus. A minus. How do you want for this? Because, I mean, up until the last two, it was, I mean, up until the last two is mediocre. He was leading Atlanta.

Come on. Damn it, Carson. We give you one shot. Josh Barry fan club is going to be all over us now. John Wood's going to be calling the show MF and us because you gave him a B plus. Hand me the fucking phone. I'll answer it. So B plus.

B plus is what we're going with. Okay. I'm really waiting for her to get up and walk out. I'm there. I'm about there. We can tell we got her on. Once she starts throwing MFers and swinging at Tommy, when it gets excited.

It'll probably be you first. To me? I'm a saint. This last one will be fun. Ty Gibbs. Go on. Struggle, man. Struggle bus.

I mean, and like a lot of the, I was talking on here last week. It was a struggle bus. and I felt like the first few races this year really wasn't all on him. Like it's, you know, he got damage here, got caught up in a wreck here, whatever it was. And a lot of it was not of us in the own doing. Yesterday they were just off. You know, I don't know.

Crew chief change. A new crew chief. Gail went, you know, he had Gail. Gail's Denny's guy now. He's got Tyler Allen, who came up from the X-Fandy series, awesome, awesome guy, really good crew chief, you know, in my opinion. but just I don't know what's missing over there but I looked up one time and you know he was a good ways off the back of the pack

just struggling it didn't and it didn't look like there I mean there was no damage or you know it's just I don't really know what's going on over there but something's got a light switch has got get flipped here at some point because they're digging themselves a hole that they're just never going to get out of right now yeah it's I mean right now you look

he's he's 34th in points he's got 56 points on the year. I mean, that's, that's pretty bad. Should be a fun competition meeting today. What's the grade? That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a, that's it's got to be. I mean, you know, I mean, what I mean, internally, obviously not going to divulge all the information, but I mean, like, like, and it's not a company-wide issue. You know, a lot of times you see like, all right, we're all struggling or, you know, we're all looking for speed. The other guy, Bell's one damn three races in a row. Like we said yesterday, Danny was fast. He's top five. And then you just, this outlier here, it's just, it's hard

to it's hard to fathom. Well, it's a new crew chief like you mentioned, right? And he has new engineers, but at the end of the day, you got all the tools, all the resources. You've got open notebooks to 2311. The other teammates at JGR is just a matter of putting it all together and finding out what tie needs. But definitely, today will be a tough competition meeting. Yeah. And talk about open notebooks.

One thing I did want to touch on with you is the relationship between Legacy and obviously 2311 and JGR work very closely together. Where does legacy fit in that group? Definitely getting closer. You know, the aerodynamic side of it is really, really close. We spend a lot of time together on all that. I think they're not in the doors of JGR or 2311, so to speak, but they're definitely working on those relationships,

and that takes time, right? You just can't come in and expect everyone to give you everything. But I know Toyota's goal is to have everybody to be on one page, and I think in time that will happen. But right now it's definitely everybody has their life. lane that they operate in and legacy is, their lane is getting wider, but it's going to take a little bit of time.

Yeah, we got a great John Hunter. I think I would give John Hunter a solid B so far. 15th in points, I think. Yeah, not getting in any wrecks, and he's been there at the end. That organization has stepped up for sure. They had a good winner hiring people, engineers and, you know, team members.

Definitely, they're paying attention to the arrow side of it as well, which is, as you know, Tommy, is very, very important. Arrow is everything. and they're definitely making big gains. I've never seen a more fitting video than Travis Mack dressed up like a Backstreet Boy singing songs. I mean, if anybody's going to fit the Backstreet Boy mold, it's probably old traff. I've seen a quick, I shut it right off.

Same. I didn't even watch it. I was like, poor guy, if they forced to, I'm thinking, if someone asked me to do that, no. I think you're safe. I think you're safe. I was out at 2 a.m. That was at the, what's the, what's the? bar at the golf trip.

Oh, yeah. I've seen him in Dover. Karaoke? Karaoke or karaoke. Which one is? Yeah, well, it depends on what time I did. What's your karaoke song, Tommy? What's your go-to?

American pie. All right. Jesus. I've seen him dancing by himself before in Dover, Delaware, just on a dance floor by himself. I was getting it. He said he was dancing by himself in the kitchen drinking wine last week. He's got issues.

Tommy, we're in Dover one night, and Tommy's out. We're all in the casino. And I'm like, we're supposed to meet up. And I'm like, where is he at? And he's like, I'm at this other bar. And he comes out, he was dancing somewhere. He was sweating at the top. Like, what were you doing?

He's like, man, I was just in there by myself dancing my ass off. Sometimes he was crazy. Sometimes I have fun all about myself. Ain't nothing wrong with that. No. There's nothing wrong with that. He's like, you should have heard the band. And there was all.

I'm like, we'll be over here if you need. I think it actually, it was. It was me and Mr. Truax, Martin. that we got together for an afternoon cocktail in the center thing. And somehow we ended up in the seafood place. The seafood place, yeah. It turns into a nightclub or disco, yeah. A disco.

Next thing you know. Next thing you know. Yeah, we had a fun night that night. He was always, you would always run into, rest of the peace, old Big Martin, but you'd always run into him in a couple bars in that casino on Dover weekend. And that guy, man, he knew how to have fun. He called it. That was his home track.

Yeah. The casino was his home track. All right. Last one. In a recent LA Times article, Dave Allen said, while building a half-mile oval where Fontana used to be is the number one option. We still need some time to sort some things out and figure out if that's the right thing to do. Spot on, spot off.

Freddie. Spot off. I just don't think this is ever going to happen. You know, I'm sure there's a list of reasons why. It just doesn't seem logistically like it's, in the cards, you know, I think that we'll end up back out there, but I think it's going to be, you know, something in San Diego with a street course or, or something for the clash or something like that. I don't, I don't ever see, you know, people that live out there told, like, they say they drive by

and the buildings are already, it's got to place surrounded, and there's probably just going to continue to close in on it. It's just, I think the land is so valuable out there for those big, huge, you know, whatever, Amazon or whoever else is building these massive buildings that it's just, I just don't ever see it happening. The damn shame, because that place was bad. Fontana was like my favorite racetrack to spot. And, you know, I was like, even when they just decided to tear that, the two mile down,

I was already crushed. And now it's just, it's a cool little area. And it's just, I just, and we, I know Dale always says this on his show. Like, we need a, we need some kind of short track on the West Coast. You know, we did, we bring road courses out there. We had the two mile oval. But like the fans, they need that, you know, that badass short track experience. So it would be nice if it did happen.

But I just, I just don't see it happening in the cards. Unfortunately. All right, you guys Ready to see it? Anything got you fired up? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Nothing other than y'all.

Nothing, especially you. Is that? That's not very nice. I thought we were friends. You know, we forgot to talk about your nephew last week. My nephew? Her brother. My brother?

My brother? Why? Oh, yeah. Your brother, yeah. You have a nephew? No, we actually, I thought about that after we got done recording last week. He ran the limited at Hickory. Ran second.

He did. He did a good little job. almost brought the intimidator out and the little whatever that piece of the intimidators in there he he home I was like oh no don't wreck this guy in your first race so that was his first that was his first first

that was his first limited race yeah and how cool is that at Hickory I know and we've all race there right I mean to be honest with you I was 14 years old that was the first time I ever worked in the pit area the modifies came down from up north we raced you know Hickory I think it was one of the first

races at a year. And they wouldn't, you had to be 16 or over up north to get in the pits, 18, I think, in New Jersey. And that's, Hickory, believe it or not, was where I got the real bug of going. This is pretty cool.

Yeah. And they've been making a lot of, like, upgrades and stuff, too. I mean, they've done a repaved pit road, new bathrooms, God bless. But, I mean, yeah, it was cool to know that, like,

Dale, mom, me one time, Wyatt did a lot better in his first limited start there than I did for sure. But no, it was cool. And like you said, we were like, don't wreck him. Don't wreck him. Mom and I were like white knuckle gripping each other's arms. Those last couple laughs screaming, don't wreck him, don't wreck him, don't wreck him.

All I could picture was, I'm like, he's going to boot this guy out of the way. Then LW is going to be fighting. LW. is going to be in a fist fight in Victory Lane. Mom and I are going to be in a fight in the grandstands. Like, it was going to be a brawl. And the whole world would be loving it. Yeah, it's, it was just a. You're selling T-shirts.

The thriller. I was beefing on Facebook with people too. No. We'll save that for another time. All right. You all ready for a reaction theater? Apparently we've got some good ones this week. You know what this is?

No. It's voice. Vance calling and leave us voicemails throughout the weekend. Unfiltered? Unfiltered. I mean, no, they're filtered because we get about how many calls we get this week, Alex? About like 150. 150 calls.

We got seven calls we pick from. Some of them are, some of them can't. Some of them have to be filtered. Some of them can't see the light of day I have a feeling we're in trouble with one of them Oh oh Hello Tommy Oh no

Yeah Tommy bald when it's pumpkin How you doing pal? Great job on the show so far For those of you that don't know me This is Pumpkinhead I run the mancation or the golf trip As the boys like to call it I get to listen to this

Freddy Kraft story all the time And he leaves one part out I was the posted spot At the bus stop for Dave Blaney. But my wife just had a baby, and I had to stay home, and I got Freddie to gig. Baldwin didn't even want him. He said, oh, isn't that Kress, kid?

Crest kind of shady. And Carson, thank God for you keeping those guys in line. Have a great show, gang. Pumpkin head. Good old pumpkin, had our good buddy. Oh, pumpkin. Yeah, I spotted one race. I don't know what year that was for fellows in the bus stop.

Pumpkin couldn't go, so I did that race, and then, I don't know, it was a couple years later, I started doing the full-time deal. But that phrase with fellows, I never heard somebody curse more times in my life. I thought I cursed a lot. He made me sound like a saint. I forget what the hell happened. We had, I think Casey Mears was spotting on the front stretch. I can't remember.

We had a conglomerate of it. It was, uh, it was, God. He's a good dude. Oh, God. Oh, motherfucking Joshbearer. Top, I'm telling her work. He's got his money in your last name. Ain't that right, Mr. Baldwin?

Hey, person. I saw Bill Belchek with his, with his girlfriend. I'm not too old for you. Hit me up at them. him, girl. So now it's changed. You were DMing the fans last week. Wow.

Now they want you to get in there. Just for the record, that's, I did not. I don't believe you. I'm sure. It's funny that everyone's like daddy's money and the kids are spoiled and stuff. I mean, I keep tell everybody, hang out with me for a week. He's cheap as shit. You work as hard as I do.

Oh, listen, I'll be the first of admit. Your kids are not spoiled. Yeah. they're punk so i had i have to send them money that's how unspoiled they are jack yeah what happened we were it was i forget where the hell we were no this was i'm talking about one day last week didn't he text you he texts me asking for money but i didn't give him to it this time uh he uh well where the hell where'd you go punicana jack's like hey send me money i'm gamble i need gambling money so i'm like how you doing he's like i'm up a thousand or something i said so why the hell

you need my money oh i just figured if i told you i lost everything you wouldn't send to me. So I said, how are you doing? He's like, I'm down a bunch. I'm like, oh, now I'm going to send it to you because you lost. Yeah, but you send it to me and Dougie send it to him some money. And guess what happened? He lost. All of it happens. So then he texted the other day, he's like, he said something about going back. He's like,

you get him made a game before you again, a Puttacano or whatever. Is he going on vacation or something? They went on spring break. So he Beth was the only chaperone. Beth was the chaperone of 15 boys spring break. That's exciting. I said, no, we're going to Vegas.

We can lose all our own money on ourselves. We need your help this week. At the mancation, his kids were asking everybody for money. They actually came home with more money than everybody else. That's the way they're wrong. That's how they do it. They don't spend it. They just take it and don't spend it.

They're baldwins. What do you expect? Totally barred racing. Yeah, this is the chip number 19 all the way out from Nebraska. I was just wondering if I could submit a boyfriend application to Carson. Go Longhorn Nation. Woo. Go what?

Froghorn, Nate's. Froghorn. Hey, we're gonna hook you up for this show. Good luck. We got you. You're right.

You're getting some hitters. You want these guys to start texting in pictures? I mean, you wanted this. Well, yeah. Look, if this is going to happen, I'm going to at least need some portfolios, something. So. Only fans.

The, Alex, we just need them to, once they call in with these messages, they have to text the photo to the, you can text the hotline, by the way. We don't ever. I need a photo and two references. Two references. Jeez. And a bank statement. And a bank's, yeah.

There you go. Me and Tommy will be your references. Whoever it is needs help. We'll be happy. You lie. We'll swear to it. Jeez. Situation should fail sometimes.

But you can give them another try. And as a doubt that fills my mind, I somehow find. And I collide. Do-to-do-do-do-do-do-do. Wow. Turn this off. It's the first time I've ever seen her face red.

I was going to say, I got a son yesterday. Your red is your face red with my. This first time I've ever had a song sing to me. I'll say that. Oh, see that? Yeah, look at it. She's a hot and bothered here. This is funny.

All right, 16 more calls about Carson. Let's go. Mother Fucker they can't keep their damn wheels On today I was on good track To get me some ass tonight But fucking Kyle Busch's crew

Went and didn't put the fucking lug on right And now I'm gonna be lucky I get to touch your fucking tip Jesus So what do you think the bet was With that? How do you think that was I think it was just

You know he gets to celebrate If Kyle won which Kyle There's another one If super fast since we talk about with what, you know, Bell's saving grace getting in that 19 box, Bush comes in, he speeds on, leading a race, speeds on pit road, goes to the back, kind of gets stuck back there, and it just snowballs from there, and he gets this damage, now he's in the garage,

and he drove around with the wheel off and ruined his day. I mean, but just, you know, little, you just can't, there's so, keep harping on this. The field is so close, you cannot make any mistakes. Details matter. That made my mud so much smoother to go down in the fucking turn of this hotel. and flush. Hey, it didn't choke like them fucking chase sexual.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Last one here. Last one. Yeah, and also, I don't know what the fuck is going on with Ty gets. I don't know if this motherfucker is playing the long game and waiting for everybody to just fall out a fucking nice car. Or if he just fucking sucks. But if this motherfucker don't get out the back row, something.

got to change. Was that you, Freddie? That was not me. That was not me. But I think a lot of people were probably thinking something similar to that. You know, it's just,

it's, yesterday was inexcusable for me. I don't know. You know, it's just, like you said, it's going to be, there's going to be a lot of hard conversations over there this week because there's stuff you can point to the other weeks of, you know,

why your day got ruined. But yesterday it was just, just, I mean, just not good. I mean, the problem is, you're one adjustment away from picking up two, three-tenths, right, Slugger? I mean, it's just, it's that close of the arrow balance and the mechanical grip of in these cars that if you're off a little bit and they're putting, making small mistakes on entering

their information to the simulation, you don't have a chance the whole weekend because it starts at the shop, right? If that car does not unload well and in the ballpark, you're done, man. For sure. If your tire model's incorrect and your arrow map's incorrect, you're in trouble. And like you said, Tom, it used to be we used to worry about 16th and 8th, and now we're worried about 10,000s. And it's that critical. Every move you make has a downhill effect. And it's so important that the details are all met. And it just, it's only going to get worse. I mean, I don't see rule changes coming. I see Good Year making some different tires. Like we're testing tomorrow at Charlotte.

We have a good year tire test tomorrow, Wednesday. And the test coming up in Michigan, they're trying to make racing better. It's not aerodynamic packages. We've been through all that, and it just makes you wonder what's going to move the needle in our sport. And got to give good year credit. I mean, when the tires fall off like this week in a homestead, it's going to be a great race, right? What about you got any information on the tire test from last week, from Phoenix? Yeah, so they're looking at a soft tire for sure.

It's probably only going to be one tire. won't have an option tire at Phoenix, and it's probably going to be similar to what they had at Martinsville, had a lot of fall off, a lot of rubber buildup. Definitely, they're not sure yet. We have two more short track tests coming up. It's going to be at Gateway, and we have one at New Hampshire coming up, and then they're talking about going back to North Wilkesboro after the all-star race. So Goodyear is definitely a key part of fixing the short track issues that we have. They take a lot of heat and but at the end of the day like I said when we get to Homestead

and places like Richmond and we race that where the tires fall off a lot it's it's one hell of a race and go back to last year at Homestead it was probably one of the best races we've seen in a while. Yeah, tire wear no grip on the track always makes good racing the one biggest thing I learned over the weekend

I asked a lot of questions about the tire and the softness of the tire based off our conversations here last last week's show NASCAR it's NASCAR with all their equipment and stuff back in Ohio, they're at their limit of their production of the good year, of the softest tire they can make. The next step is them overhauling. They said they have to go towards the drag tire type material and stuff, and they don't have the machines, and they don't

have the stuff ready for it to build a cup-style tire like that. So I know they're going to try probably different stuff to make that tire change a little bit. sidewall stiffness, construction difference. But right now they're stuck at their softest tire they can possibly make, which is the Martinsville tire, right? So they tested that at Phoenix last week, and it was a plus. Yes. But they want to try something different, right? And the thing people don't realize is that that soft tire, like Tommy was saying,

they've never really gone that soft. And when they build that tire, the reject rate is really high. So 30 to 40 percent of every tire they make of that soft. tire they have to throw away because it wasn't manufactured properly. So that's a big expense. And they're trying to change their processes to eliminate that reject rate. But man, I'll tell you, being a good year engineer is a tough job in the garage because when things go right, everything's fine.

But when things don't go good, you're in trouble. To leave an audio message 24-7, call our number 704, 802-9572, and we'll play the best ones each week on the show. All right, it's time for AskDBC, and you can send in your questions on X each week using hashtag AskDBC. Martha would like to know with all this talk about driver approval processes, should NASCAR go back to having multiple practice sessions each week and drop the narrative of we're saving the team's money?

These crew chiefs at the table would probably like to have 12 hours of practice back or a day to work on things, testing. I would say one thing, you asphalt people in your practice, like coming from USAC and dirt stuff and working for the cars tour, I was like, what the hell are we doing having five hours of practice on Friday? and then three more on Saturday. I mean, in my perspective. You guys have way too much practice.

It's crazy. Way too much. What's ideal for you guys, Slugger? Well, you got to keep in mind, you talk about expense it is, right? And then we talked about good year producing tires. So if you have an extended practice of 50 minutes, it's another set of tires. So that's 40 sets of tires for the paddock, right? So it's just a matter of cubic dollars.

And I think the TV wants to do it. It's just a matter of if they can pull that off. But I think the owners, And the engine builders are probably the ones that are standing on the table the loudest, you know, because engines are restricted, you know, how many miles you put on them. And sometimes we run engines three races, which was unheard of back in the day, but you've got to keep running these engines. Not my day. Well, yeah. I started all that process.

I should just look at you and not him. TBR was running them quite a bit. Oh, yeah. I proved to everybody that you could do it. But in the Cups series, we talked about hitting your tools properly, right? If all your models are correct, you really don't need practice. I mean, you hit it, and you should know what you have within 20 minutes of practice. But if you don't hit it, it's tough to change the spring and a shock to things that we all grew up doing.

You don't have that luxury no more. So it's all what your computer tells you once you get to the racetrack. And that's the biggest thing is getting that. But nine times out of ten, the teams get it really, really close. I mean, back in the day, we never went out and made a 40-lap run on a Friday afternoon at Pocono, right? But now that's what we do because everything is so close. And you try to hit it within 10, 20,000ths of an inch. And computer technology is where it's at.

Engineering is through the roof right now. And spotters. You got to have spotters. I don't want to have. Yeah. Well, let's be honest. You know, he made an interesting point. The teams have it figured out.

But with the rookie drivers or the young drivers come in, and I think we need a little bit more for them. more testing for them. I mean, and look, we all don't, we don't all want Hendrik to go to a racetrack and with a rookie and go test because we also know Hendrick or Joe Gibbs, they're gaining valuable information on all of us, right? So it's a tough thing for NASCAR to try to figure out because testing becomes an advantage for the team, you know, but it's a good thing for a young rookie drivers, but in NASCAR's opinion is, well, you're supposed to get all that experience through all the ranks moving up. But the smaller ranks don't have the same testing,

right? You know, we're fighting hard with Luke and to do some stuff, you know, in the rookie type stuff to get him some testing, preparing him for some stuff. And, you know, I think, I hope it works because I think NASCAR probably will change some things. based off what we're doing with Luke, I hope, from the sounds of it. So it's... Ball and a rule. No, no, no. I think they just realized that they got to do something different.

We didn't ask for it. We didn't, you know, with this, it's just I think that, you know, something in the truck series, look, the unfortunate part in the truck series, you have a lot of manufacturing support there as well. So the teams that are going to go, again, are going to get an advantage. But if you're going with just rookies, how much of an advantage are you really getting? Well, you still get an advantage, right? You get all your heights figured out.

You get everything to match the simulation. You get stuff to match the Sim room, right? So there's a lot of things. So NASCAR is always in a bind with all this because they don't, who are they pleasing? What's the next people they have to please? And the problem is, next up is who they have to please, the next people that are complaining. Right? So, you know, they're in a tough position of trying to get these people. We're going to need – there's another group of drivers getting ready to come up, right?

There always is, right? You know, they always take the older ones out and the newer ones come in. And, well, it's getting ready to happen again. You have a lot of young drivers in the Toyota development. You know, G.O. is doing well already. And, you know, I know you guys did a massive Miami test because he was a rookie, and he went and tested 20 sets of tires and ran a lot of laps. It's 342 laps in one day.

Wow. But we'll see how the whole team does collectively this weekend because of that test. So NASCAR is always in a buy man. And I wouldn't want, I told them yesterday, I wouldn't want to be them because they got three types of people. Four with the fans, right, coming at them at all times. Yeah. And my only concern with more practice is we already talk about how tight the field is and how how close everybody is.

And if you give us more practice, we're just going to make that box even smaller. I feel like everybody, everybody's going to make their stuff better. And then now that everybody's getting their stuff better, it's just, you know, you're,

we saw this for a while. I felt like at Martinsville. I felt like we went to Martinsville like twice a year to test for a while. And then we got to Martin'sville and everybody was within a fucking, you know, a half a tenth of each other. And you're like, well, damn,

now we're never going to pass each other because we're all run the same speed, you know? So, and it was just from that point. We all went there and ran hundreds of laps as organization, you know, one car from every organization goes back and shares all the notes and it's like damn now we're all the same you know it's just that's the biggest thing is you need variations of speed and to off trial time to have good racing well if we're all the same speed then we can't pass each other so it's that that's my only concern with going back to you know i don't think we're ever going to go back to the day of you know three hour and a half long practices i don't think any of us want that no i i just want to make a point yeah we're not at the track testing the teams but we're spending just as much money and slugger knows this at the shop not testing or not practicing,

all the simulation tools and hiring employees and doing stuff, it's not costing the teams any less. No. Okay? It's not. We think it is because we're not seeing a tire bill or a fuel bill or a hotel bill. But at the end of the day, there's probably two, three more employees that need to be hired every year, right?

That's $400,000 or $500,000. There's another half a million dollars put in for, put in the tools to get better, right? every year probably more right there's more tools to buy I mean I bet you I bet you a team like Joe Gibbs probably spends two million dollars a year in upgrades easily right well thank if you tested 10 times yeah what's what's cheaper right but you now you need those tools you it's over right we're way past the on-track stuff we're more in the that's I think I mean Brad had said the same thing basically he said you know we

don't save money we just we just allocate it different Like, if you save us a little bit here, if you save us a million dollars here, we're just going to go spend a million more over here somewhere. So like you said, you're never really going to save them any money. You might save them a little bit over here, but eventually they're just going to spend it somewhere else. Fair. All right.

You guys got any shit show Hall of Fame nominees this week? I think, oh, Catherine Legg edged out Austin Hill. Can you say that? I don't know if you can say that. That's what it's written on the cake. Not bad. I told you not to expect that much out of me today, okay? I think Tim's about to sit you up a failure.

Brain dead. I think these calls got a little flusiness. You guys, yeah, this has been a horrible fucking show for me. I've been being alive. Listen, you did nothing wrong. I was hoping you read it exactly as it's written there because Tim's set you up there, I think, a little bit. She's like Ron Burgundy.

She will read what I thought. Yeah, this sheet is the Bible to me today because there's nothing happening in my brain. Page 1. So Catherine Legg won the Shitshow Hall of Fame poll last week over Austin Hill. It wasn't really her I know It was more I was more

The system I thought I put that more on NASCAR Than her She should not have been in that race And And put herself They put her in a bad spot But this week

Anyway Mine has to go I don't even want to know If I want to give him A shit show But Because I was actually really proud of him And if there wasn't any cameras around

He would have done a great job The mechanic on the 88 truck Did you see this? I heard about it He's standing up here Oh here it is You can watch the replay here He's standing up at pit road, and as soon as the two officials, he's staring at the officials,

there are two officials right there walking by the right left front. As soon as they walk by, boop, in there, pulls a packer out. We're done. Pretty quick. He does a good job. And then washing the windshield. That's the old New York shuffle right there, baby. We've never done it.

I know you guys have only heard about shit like that happening. Allegedly. That was guys good. So, and you can see, like, yeah. The funniest part is he just watched those. official. I got, yeah.

That's like the old guy washing the windshields in the city there. Yeah. Makes it 10 times dirtier than it was. Look at them. Still cleaning.

I'm still cleaning. But yeah. But yeah, so I mean, I'm proud of that one, but we still got to give it to him because... That ain't a shit show.

Unfortunately, it's, unfortunately for him, it's a... That's awesome. Slick. Unfortunately for him, there is cameras. They're always watching that.

This day and age is always cameras. Allegedly, what did they find the packer? Did they, what they do? I think you know, I think you're just thinking that he did that.

Oh, yeah. Maybe he was cleaning something. Well, whatever he did. That's illegal under red either way. Boy, what do you got, Tom? Anything? Shit show wise? The best was the F-1.

Oh, the start in the rain. The warm-up lap. The guy's wrecked. One guy reckoned. It was unbelievable. I was sitting there and was going, what is happening here? Yeah.

What is, I don't even know his name. I can't even. I can't pronounce it. There's no way you can say. Yeah. That's not a long. You should give it a try, though. He's not from Long Island.

He could be with that name, but I still can't. He still can't say it. He's from Belport. Yeah. But that was a shit show right there that started. Even the end, like, I looked up and you can't, like, we're at a bar, so you can't hear anything. And I look up and. Wait, wait.

Shocker. I know. I was a sports book. It happened to be at a bar there, but I was in a sports book. Happened to me. And all of a sudden, everybody's spinning out. Like, you know, very late in the race. I don't even like inside 10 to go.

And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? This happened on the warm-up line. I know, but it happened again at the end. Oh, yeah. I was like, what's going on here? Why is everybody wrecked? So that one. I'm going with the tow truck at Port Royal.

This guy here. I mean, how does that happen? Is he okay? I assume he's okay. Is he all right? Direct the fans to see this because they have no idea. Flow racing. Why can't we show this?

This isn't NASCAR. Why couldn't we show this? I don't know. Flo would probably have the same issue with Foxwood. I think Flo would like something like this on our show. We need to ask him. Maybe Flo might be a little bit more lenient than the other folks. Maybe we can do some more short track modified stuff.

Well, there's a lot of short track shit shows. Dale will be pumped about that. Oh, I bet he'll get NASCAR. But what the hell was he doing? I don't know. I think he got clipped by that car that was pulling in. I thought he was going around that car. Yeah, he got clipped off the right front.

I think he drove over the right front. I think that's what happened. Look at his wheel, yeah. Oh, my God. Oops. So he not only flipped, but he wrecked that guy's shit too. Anyway, you can go to flow, right?

Yeah. I'm sure they shared it socially. Yeah. That's a shit show. That's a shit show. There's no way that doesn't win. Those are our three good ones. I mean, the guy's okay, right?

Do we know? Does he get out of this thing? Is he all right? He's right. Okay. He gets a great. Who is that now? What was that?

That was Cedar Lake A few years ago Oh, a few years ago Oh, okay I was like no wait Why do you have Why do we Why was there a Friday

Movie clip on what air Friday Throw a lot Down the other way Yeah Yeah Oh damn Jesus

Had that go Where that'll be That'll be getting clipped For something Oh yeah I need that Just to respond To text messages

Somebody Somebody somebody Somebody sent me that picture I can't remember Who sent me that picture You and that little girl Making the same face It was in the group chat

Oh yeah Yeah Oh, that was funny. I think those are three solid. That's a good one, yeah. Crafton's guy. Overall, our weekend was pretty smooth all three divisions. Yeah, we talked about yesterday.

It wasn't really a lot of topics. No turmoil. No, no trauma. I will say we could probably give an honorable mention to Tyler Ancrum's Brat interview. Oh, somebody sent it to me. I didn't see it, but I know it didn't go well. Like, he was blaming everybody. Everybody else.

The engineer, the pit, I mean, everything but. His tachometer, pit road speed limiter was improperly, I guess, adjusted, set. And he lost his mind after the race. And I was thinking, like, you know how much shit this guy is wrecked? Yeah. Right? And the team hasn't yelled at him, right? But they set the tack wrong, and he melts down after the race. It was bad.

Yeah. It was embarrassing for him. I always wanted, like, I always want a driver. I'm sorry, I always want the pit crew guys are usually the ones that catch a lot of the brunt of it. you know they have bad pit stop and the guy go oh you fuckers are all fired whatever and I just always wanted one time to be like you know driver fuck jumps a start

or speeds on pit road and their pit crew guy one of the picker guys please just key up and go you stupid son of a bitch like you know you fucked us here and now we're done well Tom and I used to do that as crew cheese oh trust me I know I told this one before but Kelly Kent Herm's girlfriend was in the suite one day

and she's like they had Martinsville you know they got that little scorers room up there Tommy's sitting in there and I was spot for Tommy and she's like she's like Freddie thank God Tommy doesn't say on the radio what he's saying out loud and I'm like no Kelly that's all on the radio he's screaming at me he's screaming at Michael he's screaming at Bono especially like I had both of them I had Bono was a crew chief and he was the owner and one he's on the roof with me just yelling nonstop bono's up there telling me yelling at me to yell at him I was like this is a full-blown that was a shit show that was a shit show I might have went off during a

race and then the next Monday they brought me in the office they opened up a computer hit play they closed the door and walked out and it was a replay of me just you melting down and you don't realize it to you hear yourself and you're like what an ass you know but that's how you learn sometimes it's warranted yeah yeah do you ever listen back and think you're an asshole all the time his wife tells him don't worry he doesn't think he knows beth keeps you shout out by the way this dirt modified race Dylan Stoyer yeah won the big show so uh he beat shepherd right man Long Island Kid, Chuck Stoyer's guy I spotted for back in the day. Who haven't you spotted for?

Just about everybody. Riverhead. It's around. Yeah, I mean, he's, hey, whoever pays. Well, remember to go vote on our Shitshow Hall of Fame Twitter poll, who you want to see be inducted this week. And DBC picks, for the first time, our guest won last week. Kevin Hamlin. Hamlin gets the guest on the board.

I said that was insider trading. He probably, they planned that. So Slugger, you got to get him. part of you're part of this. The guest has to pick. We just pick who we think's going to win. But you've got a list of drivers here. You got to pick from.

So just go to the last page. It should be. There you go. So you're the guest drivers. The ones that are highlighted, you can't pick. Well, should I can't put my glass on? Can't see. Oh, God.

See? The two of you. I can't take either one of you anywhere. You want me to hold it for you way over here? How old are you, Freddie? 42. It's happening. You got like eight years.

Yeah, I know. It's starting to happen, though, already. Who goes first? Tommy. Tommy. Tommy, you're averaging a 26, 36, 38. It's like Rick Ware racing in points right now. Jesus.

You didn't get a third somewhere, but other than that, you've been 26th or worse for a while. And third still wasn't good enough to win that week. We're going on. I'm going with Hamlin. Damn it. Hamlin. How do I get next? You get, yeah, Carson.

Kyle Larson. It's a good pick. How about I pick Ty Gibbs this week? That was a good pick. Take priests. I think that's one of the best. I think priest is going to have a good day. I'm going to take old Tyler Redick.

Slug. I am going to take Noah. Noah runs. Noah runs. That's a good one. Yeah, that is a good pick. Sneaky good. And you're doing a favor for the other guys.

You're not using one of the big. I'm a team player, dude. Yeah, who's ever the next guest star? Who's leading? Me and Carson are tied. The guest type. Me and Carson have two each. Tommy's got zero.

Goose egg, big goose egg. Yeah. And one for the guest. Did one for the good good guys. I have a third one race and still lost. I feel like we'll have a good. This week might be a good tiebreaker for us. Man, I love going to this place, too.

This is like one of my favorite racetracks. I mean, you guys have been going there forever. You've probably seen a couple different variations of this race track, too. Yeah, the original. That was actually pretty cool back in the day, too. You think the day they'll ever change? Will we go back there for the last race? I think so.

I think that starting, you know, I'm assuming next year. I hope next year, but probably, you know, definitely by 27, you'll have a different championship race. I'm still praying to God we get a three race, playoff, but I don't think that's ever going to happen. But at Homestead will definitely, I think it's going to be a rotation, and I think Homestead will definitely be part of it. Three race, what's your thought process, that?

All four guys? Four guys, three races. Just so it's just not points, just straight up, like points like we have, you know, stage points. You give everything, but I just. So do we start 13 races into the year? I think you could do, I think you could do less drivers and maybe nine races. So, you know, or you can go 12 races, but I think nine race playoff, start with 12 guys instead of 16, and you just cut four out after three, you know, four after three, and then you got, and you have, you know, your four guys left for the last four races, or three races, whatever it is.

But it's just, I just, I just, I just don't, I hate a single race champion, so I just want some kind of, some kind of variation to it. Makes sense. And really the only of the sport that does that is NFL, right? One game. One champ, right? Everybody else has seven, four out of seven. And listen, it's, listen, it makes for the best TV when you have one race. You get, you kind of guarantee yourself the game seven moment.

But it's just for me, I just, I don't know, I just hate crowning a season long champion based off of one race. I'm already hating this year because we're going to have Talladega in the final, to decide the final four. You know what I mean? So now you've got a, a crapshoot race that's going to pick, you know, potentially. potentially pick one of your championship four and it's just I don't know it seems like a it seems like a I don't mind that I don't mind that race being in the playoffs but to decide the final four and it's whatever the third to last race or something like that like it's just I don't know I don't love it but nobody gives a shit what I think so

except for Carson what about me about what exactly all right Carson we going racing this week what we're doing no we still got one more weekend well Wyatt races this weekend again at Hickory. And then we run Wake County March 29th with late model stocks. I'm looking bored to that. It's always a good time there. Good little bull ring. The clowns going racing this week? Yeah, actually we go to Thompson tomorrow, do some testing. Luke's going to drive Ryan Priest's car and the 7 and Y tomorrow during testing tomorrow afternoon. And then we come back. We run King of a Monoify, South Boston Friday and Saturday. A lot of guys from up north coming, so it's going to be a good show. Where are you at this weekend?

So we got drag racing in Phoenix, and I'll be in Homestead as well. Doing both. Triple-heder. No, no. Yeah, so Slugger, you're, I don't know if it's unfortunately for you, but you're back in the cup garage pretty much full-time. Yeah, like you said, early, I had to, I go to seven drag races this year and 31 NASCAR events. So, yeah, pretty much wide open. The luxury for me is if I want to come home on Saturday nights, I can come home.

Standing around the garage on Sundays is very, very painful for me. and I can be more productive elsewhere. Yeah, it's not much going on anymore at the racetrack. It's horrible. I mean, for us, how we used to do it, right, and all the things we used to do leading up to the race for right now to, what do we get there? We get there an hour before the garage opens.

We do all our prep work that hour, right, on the computers and everything, get all our changes made. The bell rings, right? It's what? Three hours before the race? Three hours, yes, sir. And a half hour we're done. We do all our changes, we'll bump the engines, and the cars are online.

Two and a half hours. Two and a half hours. What can we do? I mean, okay. It's different. We prep for the next week. We start working on the next week. We work on our game planning for the race, right?

We do all these things, but it's not the same. We're not working on the... I mean, how many Sundays have we swapping engines that morning, you know, doing things? They're still fixing our car from. happy hour and putting sides on. But the new generation, that's normal, right? And us old guys, right? We're all in our 50s.

It's completely different. I saw a guy behind the 22-holler. He was polishing the wheels. And I'm like, Jake Elder would never say this, right? Or allow this to happen, right? For example, it's just like, holy shit, what are we doing, you know? And it's all about appearance and looking proper. And it's just a different time in our lives, you know.

I did have somebody send a question. question and to you about the color choice of your wheels is that just something that Rick yeah Rick just loves the goal wheels it's like it goes with his evil can evil type thinking you know he owns the rights some of the rights to the evil can evil branding so yeah he just yeah he just he's he's pretty crafty businessman man man he's involved in a lot of stuff in the background that gets allows his cars to get to the track you know he's just is uh right now his drag team's pretty good yes expanding to you have expanded to uh to two cars towards the end of the year and full-time next year,

and his motorcycles are doing well. So I'm watching the other night. I'm watching something. I was on TV, and I'm like, it's like a flat track motorcycle race, and the guy gets out, and he does an interview, and he's got Rick Ware racing. I'm like, what the hell of serious? Is this guy not?

Yeah, no, he's involved in everything. And, you know, kudos to him of thinking, you know, having such a big marketing arm, because when he brings companies in, this is what he has to offer, right? Your name just doesn't only go on the cup car. it gets a chance to go on all these other platforms, these marketing platforms.

He's pretty switched on with that stuff. Yeah. He did hire Tommy, though, so. Well, yeah, he's just, not all of his decisions are good ones. Do you all ever figure out any stories you could tell about each other in public? No. No. No.

I figured that was probably unheard of for you two idiots. Yeah, we've had some fun, Slugger and I, and most of it, most of it, we've had a lot of fun in the motorhome lot, and just by hanging out, shooting a shit, and drinking, And next thing you know, it would start with just, usually it would just start with me and him. And next thing you know, you'd, Zippy. Bono.

Your dad. I was going to say, I feel like I've heard the most, like, from my dad about slugger. And, I mean, Bono, too. I remember a lot. The Red Bull Energy Station about killed all of us. Like, that thing was horrendous. Yeah. We drug your dad back one time.

We went to the energy station in India. We couldn't find him. Like, we looked for hours. So it's late in the night or in the morning, I should say. And we went back to his meal. motor home and your dad was sleeping in the grass. Yeah. And we woke him up and he goes, man, what a soft pillow.

And it was just the grass he was sleeping on. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, between the guests we used to have, right? You know, the Long Island gang would come see us and, you know, Knuckles would come. Oh my God, Knuckles. You know, we had our different groups and all these, you know, types of the country parts, you know, Michigan group and the Dover group and the Pocono group. and, shoo, he has a lot of fun, man.

He would always cook, and I had to do the dishes. I totally get screwed all the time. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I cook, and he would do the dishes. Can we talk about you getting locked out the first night of the golf trip this year? Oh, Jesus, he got me again. I know. I flew in late, and I was rooming with him, and when I got there, I said, I need your key.

So I checked in, got his key, got his key, went in the room, put all my shit in, and come back out. And it's like one in the morning. He goes, I'm going to bed. I said, well, leave the door open. So I gave him my key. So, I don't know, a couple of hours later, I finally leave the crowd and I'm, doors closed. I'm like, shit.

So I bang on the door. Stop calling. We had like 20 rooms at this place. And like the last door I knocked on finally let me in. I slept on the couch. But yeah, he totally, his name is Booger, man. He gets you all the time. Did you guys know that?

I said, your key is on the table right at the door. So when you go in with my key, grab, grab. It's always somebody else's fault. No, it's just like, we've been doing it for 20 years. It's the same story. The old keys are sitting there. Grab me a key. I mean, God damn.

I got a babysit for everybody. I will say, though, the first golf tournament I went to, like Tommy invited me to the first annual city. The one of the island, yeah. And, like, people had signed up to be with celebrities, right? So I was a celebrity, and the first guy I ever played with was Knuckles Malone. Huge car salesman from Jackson, Michigan. Great dude.

Oh, my God. And he gets up there to swing, and he's cussing. And, you know, just the way he is, as you guys know. So anyway, he swings and the ball goes dead right. So I walk up to him. I never met the guy before. I grab his club. I throw it on top of the roof of the building next door.

And I said, now get your shit together, right? And I talk to Knuckles every week from that time. Like, Knuckles is the good old guy. But, I mean, things like that, the man, K. Should we talk about that? But, man, spend time with your buddies, right? I mean, we're all getting older every day. And it's so rewarding.

I know it's three or four days out of your schedule. But, man, anybody, if you can spend time with your buddies, you got to do it. Yeah, we've been doing it for, 16, 17 years almost at the same place in Orlando. And the coolest thing about it is it started with people I've known from high school, college,

work, racing, and all these groups have come together and now everybody's friends and everybody hangs out and everybody has a good time. And it's fun now all of our kids are starting to go, right? Because the rule is you've got to be 21 and over, right?

You just, I made school. Thank God. And, you know, it was pretty cool to have Jack there the first time and, you know, him see what we're all about, having some fun. And, yeah, he ran pretty good with the boys. He was the only smart one in the whole. Yeah. In that carload. Yeah, he got dropped off in the middle of the road.

Yeah, but he was on his way to Miami. I was going to say, didn't Jack? I was, I'll be back this year. So you might, you might want to skip this one. I'll give you fair warning. I'm going. You had, you ended up hanging out of one of, one of, one of, you might want to skip this one of, bar. Yeah, Gabe. I seen Gabe out in Vegas this week. He's living out there. Gabe is something. Gabe is

something. There is nobody that's a lot more wide open than that guy in my, I've met my entire life. Actually, when he shows up, I run now. Yeah, well, that's what happened. Doug was with me for a little while on Saturday night and he's like, I said, hey, Gabe text me. He might come over here a little bit and he's like, I am leaving. He's like, I got the hell out of here. And I was like, come on. And sure enough, he dipped out. I think he did see Gabe for a minute, but, He did not stay long to hang out. So, but yeah, it was good to see Gabe. It's good to see that whole crew. I mean, we have a group text that just never ends from that thing. Painful at times. Yeah, no shit. But yeah, anyway, speaking of Florida, we'll be back there this week.

You guys radio? Yeah. Are you just running one car again? When's the, when's the zero one come back? Bristol. Bristol. Gotcha. 10.

4. War room on Sunday, yep. Warroom this week? Warroom on Sunday, South Boston, Friday and Saturday. Must be nice. Make your own. It's around, man. I mean,

just, I mean, just, anyway. All right, well, thanks for listening everybody, Carson. Yeah. I'm getting ready to go out and start drinking today,

celebrate Christmas. You already started drinking. I mean, this isn't really drinking. This is just, this is a appetizer. This is just, yeah,

this is just a slow start. You coming with me today? Or, I mean. You know what? I think I might. I took the day off for a reason.

That's good. I think it's, this show's going pretty well with you. Gaining some. We're going to get, we're going to get you married by the end of the season.

I mean, these calls, these guys, you're going to need an agent. I should have never made a mention of that. I should have never made the situation. The situation. You got, you got, you got some interest brewing here. Maybe I should put some, like, age restraints and geographical locations on it. Long distance. You want all, we want all long distance calls.

We want other countries. You don't want to really see them. Yeah. They just send money. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe I don't want, I don't want a situation. if you guys had the wrong S word, I want Sugar Daddy

application. But I'm not giving any sugar. I just want the money. Whatever this guy's name, the F1 drive it ever, I can hook up with him. I don't know what he looks like, but he's probably good. Could you imagine if you met your husband on this show? That'd be like a story forever. Probably wouldn't be a super quality human, that's for sure. What the off? Hey,

I'm just kidding. I love y'all. I love y'all. I'm just kidding. Gabe. Oh, boy. Does he can he hear us? No. Is this thing live? His ears are ringing. Oh.

Oh, he just said, don't forget to send me the link for the podcast. Now he's going to hear us talking about it. He just woke up. Oh, I'm sure it is three hours later. He probably just getting old. Oh, uh-oh. It's got to hurt. Here we go.

Slugger. I'm sorry. You see his eyes are twinkling. I mean, he lit up. We've got to tell the story where Gabe sent us that one time. He don't remember. Didn't you come with us? No, I don't.

To the resort in Jamaica? Yes, you did. You were there. No, I think I missed it. I don't know. I can't tell him he's being an asshole or not. Yes, you would have. No, go ahead.

Tell your story. So Gabe's in the trading business. It's not what you'd call it. Yeah, yeah. So he's like, man, I got you guys a good vacation, man. It's all on me, you know. Oh, shit. Tommy just realizing we shouldn't tell this story.

You brought this up. So we all show up. And it was, I don't know how you say it properly. How do you say the word? It was a gay resort. He put us up in a gay resort. And I think it was Slugger, his wife, Beth and I, a couple of the groups. And we walked in and we were like, holy shit.

Holy shit. My wife noticed it first. Yeah. I was like, holy shit. Did you guys bring your Speedos? So this is Gabe. This is how Gabe operates. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Thanks, game. Appreciate it. He got us. I had a couple of friends of mine that they recently, I won't, I won't mention their names just to protect the innocent. But they booked a trip. Like last minute, we're just going to take a trip to, I forget.

They were like, we're going to go to Mexico or something. And they ended up booking, you know, they booked a resort, like just for the weekend. They get there. And my buddy's like, you know, everybody was flirting with my girlfriend heavily. He's like, and I thought it was a little strange, but obviously she's pretty. So I was like, I didn't think it was that big a deal. He said, then I started kind of looking around. I realized, yeah, we're at like a swingers resort.

That's what I was going to say, where they're upside on pineapples everywhere. He's like, people were just walking around naked. He goes, I started putting two and together. I'm like, oh shit. It's like we have. Yeah. And then he set us up that one year. We changed venues for our golf trip.

That's true. Yeah. We ended up in one part of Florida. And then two days later, we were in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, we ended in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. Got this great deal. You guys, I got a handle.

Don't worry about it. That's why Pumpkin's in charge now. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was Woody, but I mean, same thing. Yeah. Oh, man. Good times.

Good times. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening. We will see you. I've seen a bunch of fans out in Vegas this week again. You're starting to get any crazy DBC fans in the garage? Yeah, getting some people. A lot of people in the casino.

Oh, yeah, for sure. All right, thanks. Coming by, Slug. Appreciate it, man. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, we're going to hope you find your man. Thoughts and prayers. You never know.

Thoughts and prayers. Mr. Wright might show up. The biggest, all the texts I was getting was the shirt. I guess I made some shirt comment on my group text. Oh, no, no, no. that was not you didn't make she made a sure comment you made a different comment that we will not discuss on the podcast a lot of people were asking why I said I don't remember somebody in our group text said Tommy what the hell did you say I go I said are in the it's the golf trip group

group text and they're like Tommy what you say and I'm like I'm not riding him out he's I'm going to let him just go on not knowing what he said so there'll be a time in a place where it makes person will Carson will get you back I'm yeah I got it in my back pocket nice yeah all right thanks again for listening and we'll be back after Homestead. Peace out. We're out. Good times.

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