Door Bumper Clear - Larry Mac: Charlotte Stopped The Bleeding

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media. Called me Frat Freddy the other day in a group tech. Or he just misspelled fat. Either way, he can kiss my ass. Let's fight. Let's get it over with us. Let's knock each other out and let's move on. I think he's a whiny.

Starting point is 00:00:15 That's what I think. Next thing you know, I got no firesuit on. Routy Nation fans are getting lucky tonight. You want to have gimmicks. Let's go all out. I would never, and here they come, never and like they never have before. I did never, you rather. Hey, what's up, everybody?

Starting point is 00:00:33 Welcome back to Door Bumper Clear. I'm Freddie Crafts, spotter for Bubble Wallace. Dean Thompson this week, one good race, one awful race for us. Thomas, how was your weekend? It wasn't bad. Car was good. Cody did a good job. Finished top 25.

Starting point is 00:00:49 Stayed at everybody's way. Race some people. It was good. Carson, Memorial Day weekend. I know you got to go to the racetrack a couple times this week. Yeah, I got to be a race fan for two weekends in a row. So I had a good time. I was good.

Starting point is 00:00:59 Did you go concert? I saw a picture you from the concert on. Yeah, I went to smash mouth, but I got to say, kind of sucks. Poor songs in, they hadn't played a single one I knew yet. I was like, I'm out of here. So Tim Dugger was all right, though. Oh, old Dugger.

Starting point is 00:01:14 He's still kicking it around. Joining us today, somebody we've been trying to get in here for a little bit. Finally got it worked out to where we can get him in. Larry McRennels. Welcome to Doorbumpur Clear. Oh, excited about being here. I've watched you guys a lot and was very honored when you reached out to me. Glad we could connect the dots to be here.

Starting point is 00:01:31 I do have to apologize. I did not make my annual trip to Larry's house on Memorial Day Monday. Usually we come off the lake and end up in Larry's backyard for a little while. And yesterday some of the guys were over there. I had to really laugh because I think Doug said this on social media. But a year ago, we were leaving to go to Brandon's bachelor party a year ago today. Yeah. And then this year there, I see a picture of Doug and Brandon in the playpen playing with the kids over the house.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Well, there wasn't a lot of movement on the lake yesterday. In fact, you couldn't even see the lake. For the fog. So, yeah, not, not, I cannot believe it's this dreary and cold. And we just came off Memorial Day. I mean, this is, this is crazy right now. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, getting to it, you know, storied career in NASCAR.

Starting point is 00:02:15 Obviously, I regret to tell you, I went back and looked at some of your stats. And the first cup series stats I found were from the same year I was born. I hate that. Had to go there, didn't. I mean, damn. I didn't really want to bring that out. I never worked on a car that ran on a beach just for the record. Oh, man.

Starting point is 00:02:32 But, you know, just talk about, I mean, how many years in the sport. But, I mean, just some of the high points of either one of those jobs. Obviously, very successful on the crew chief side. I think 23 career cup wins, you know, very successful on the broadcasting side. Talk about some of the high points of each side of that thing. Well, I tell people all the time, I started 470 races as a Cup Series crew chief. I won 23. That means I lost 447.

Starting point is 00:02:56 So sometimes I'm not sure the numbers are as good as they're. scene. But no, for a guy from Birmingham, Alabama, that barely got a high school diploma to look back. And, you know, a lot of people go through life, and they don't really have one fulfilling career. And I'm sitting here now pinching myself going, I've had two fulfilling careers. One, as a Cup Series crew chief for 17, 18 years, and now 25 years with NASCAR on Fox and doing some stuff for T&T as well. Obviously, wins are so hard to come by. Every win is special. There's only one first win to get that win at Watkins Glen in 1988 with Ricky Rudd, the 26th car.

Starting point is 00:03:37 Obviously, the two Daytona 500s, a lot because of the people they were with to do it with Davy Allison in 1992, to do it with Dale Earnhardt in 1998. And honestly, I would have never believed it would have been my final win as the Cup Series crew chief to win that final trip over to Japan in 1998 in Motagie with Mike Skinner. I would have never believed that would have been my last win, but it was, and now 25 years into broadcasting. Talk about that decision. I think after the 2000 season, was it a difficult decision, or was it something that you felt like you needed to make a change at that point? It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. And I involved my entire family. Linda, my wife played a big role in it. Brooke and Brandon, our two oldest kids. And we probably told on it for over six to eight months. But I think at the end of the day, what finally led me to make the decision to go ahead and try it. One, Fox was only offering me a two-year deal, and I felt like if I go do it and they don't

Starting point is 00:04:38 like me or I don't like them, as we see coaches do a lot, I can always go back. But I just felt like if I didn't do it and try it, I would always look back over my shoulder and go, what if? Because let's face it, there's a very small group of people that are analysts on TV for NASCAR. But I've got to say it's a decision that my whole family made with me and when I've never looked back over my shoulder. Speaking of Brandon, the Cup series winning spotter from the weekend, I'm sure that's got to be a proud moment for you guys. Well, here's the neatest story about him spotting and winning that Coke 600 as a spotter with Ross Chastain. And I posted it on X and on Instagram.

Starting point is 00:05:22 24 years ago in 1991, we won the All-Star race. Davey Allison, the 28 car, Robert Yates Racing. Brandon was born on Tuesday. We won the Coke 600 on Sunday. And after the race, and we got the car through inspection, I drove to the hospital and picked up Lyndon and Brandon and brought him home. Spin it ahead 24 years later, he's up there spotting for the winning car in the Coke 600 with Ross Chastain. It's a wild trajectory.

Starting point is 00:05:52 You can talk about that decision in 2000. Brandon was also a heck of a race car driver, and that's kind of like, I'm assuming, He had to be nine or ten years old at the time. That's probably, I know he was racing probably bandaleros or starting getting into it at that point also. Yeah, you know, Brandon, he was. You know, I always try to take my dad hat off when I talk about any of our kids, but especially Brandon.

Starting point is 00:06:12 You know, Tommy was good enough to let him drive some East races for his in his, what was then the Cay in the East. And Brandon really won in about everything he ever drove in. And it's, I don't have any regrets. But if I feel like I failed at one thing, it was getting him to where he needed to be. But I just could not chase money anymore. I told him at the end of the day, I said, I'm not retired from trying to help you with your racing, but I've retired from chasing money.

Starting point is 00:06:45 I physically, mentally just can't do it anymore. The thing I'm the proudest of Brandon, though, he has found a way to still be a part of the sport and still be successful as a spotter and with the clear-tort. 28 agency that manages some drivers. Yeah, and we, I mean, we've harped on it here before, you know, we always hate the narrative money over talent because, you know, you see that across our sport, really all levels, whether it's late model racing, the modifies, you know, of course, the top series. I mean, you go back and watch.

Starting point is 00:07:11 I saw a video with Brandon the other day passing William Byron for a win at, and I think it was Iowa. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, I remember him winning that race at Talladega, you know. It's just, you know, like you said, he won everywhere he went. He beats a lot of that K&N series back in the day. It was Brandon. It was Corey.

Starting point is 00:07:26 It was Bubba. It was Chase, it was Blaney. Everybody that's out there running on Sundays now was running against Brandon and Brandon was outrunning a lot of the time. So it just sucks to see that, you know, that motto. That's why we harp on it so much. You know, we need to shift this focus back to talent over money somehow. I mean, it's all about timing, right?

Starting point is 00:07:43 It is. It is. You know, I'm fighting that right now with Luke. It's hard, and it's exhausting. You're right to worry about what we have to worry about. right it's i feel it's his career and everything and what's going on is more in my shoulders than his right now exactly and that's the same thing that you went through so um yeah i mean that's why i'm i'm kind of speeding up i'm not speeding up the path but i've been around i think and learned a lot

Starting point is 00:08:12 through like let's just use brandon you worked really hard you spent a lot of money you found a lot of money to do everything but getting to the top three-tiered series. Yeah. Right? So I've looked back and I'm saying to myself, you're either good or you're not, right? You're either going to be a good race car driver or you're not. So you better learn quickly and let's get him to the places he needs to get to. But, you know, to your point, it's one of the hardest things of taking that hat off

Starting point is 00:08:44 as being a dad and then finding money and then worrying about everything that needs to. needs to be, you know, you need to be worrying about. It's exhausted. Well, and that's why I feel so, so thankful that people like Steve Turner gave him an opportunity to run an arc of car. He won Talladega. Tommy John Visconti gave him an opportunity to drive in the East Series. He won Loud New Hampshire. Bill McAnally, driving at Napa car for two years and swept the hour races that one year. And again, these gentlemen, Tommy included, they did not ask us to bring a check through the door. They just said, look, bring your driver's uniform, bring Brandon through here. We can come up with anything that can sweeten the pot, great, but that's not what we're looking

Starting point is 00:09:28 for. So I'll always be indebted to those gentlemen for giving him an opportunity. Yep. And like I said, Brandon, for some reason he's dodging me. He will not come on this damn show. He dodges me too. I'm trying to work on. I didn't know if Tommy was able to make it today because we obviously changed our whole schedule around this week for Memorial Day. So I had a really good idea of bring Brandon on. He still wouldn't do it even with. I was like, Larry's coming. You got him with Larry.

Starting point is 00:09:50 But anyway, he's a very busy man. He is very busy. I was going to say, what's his excuse? Yeah, well, I think, you know, I don't know. We don't have the best reputation in the world sometimes. But before we move on, there was one thing that I, when I posted the other night that you were coming on, you know, there was a couple, everybody was asking, ask questions. And there was one specific story that I think I need you to tell on here because it came

Starting point is 00:10:10 on multiple times. tow truck driver with Mike Skinner Talladega yeah everybody wants to say and reflect where were you on 9-11 well I can tell you exactly where I was I was sitting in an attorney's office

Starting point is 00:10:25 in Birmingham Alabama given a deposition had to drive my rental car home because obviously all the flights got shut down but yeah you know Mike was 100% at fault Mike Skinner you know he

Starting point is 00:10:39 he tried to pass in the grass that went bad on the backstretch at Talladega. And our car only had four flat tires, but we needed to be towed in. And there was a lot of people that got involved in that wreck. In fact, they were lined up at the pit box. I said, look, if you want to kick my butt, you're going to have to get in line because there's people in front of you. But anyhow, I watched it on the monitor.

Starting point is 00:11:04 The wrecker picked the car up. And the guy that was driving the tow truck, he, in my car. Mike was still in the car. The tow truck would go and stop. And every time he'd stop, the front of our 31 car would hit the back of the record. And by the time it got back to the garage area, it needed a whole front end on it. And it's like, I am livid. And this little tow truck driver that looked like it was about four foot tall, he jumped out of the tow truck. They lowered the car down, and he couldn't reach the hook to unhook it. So what did he do? He jumped upon the duckwork that was still intact and fell down through the duck work.

Starting point is 00:11:44 Larry Macon had enough. I yanked this guy off that back of that, and I tossed him toward his record, and I said, get the hell out of here now. Well, he claimed his back was hurt. Next thing you know, there's a lawsuit, it just went downhill from there. I didn't even know it got that far. We got issues with tow truck drivers. But that was before anger management, so I'm all good now.

Starting point is 00:12:06 I would have said, please, Mr. will you get the hell down from there? I missed those classes. Tommy didn't get that one yet. He had a little tow truck running this year, but it's okay. Happens are the best of us. Why don't you read this right here. I think it's a good, pretty good, like, you know, we're going to move on. Do you something?

Starting point is 00:12:22 I don't know. I'm just want you to read what Andrew wrote here. Oh, Andrew, what the hell? How was Kansas? We're not in Kansas anymore. We're not in Kansas anymore. That was three weeks ago. There was an all-star race in between there.

Starting point is 00:12:35 How was Charlotte? Yeah, no. How was Charlotte? You guys probably. didn't have as much fun as Charlotte as I did, as I did. I don't know. It was a lot of fun. You know, I mean, my race was not a lot of fun, but it looked from the general, like, the overall view for me, it seemed like a really, really good race.

Starting point is 00:12:52 I know Tommy, you were up there with me, Larry, I'm not sure you were watching at home or if you were at the track, but it looked to me like a really good race. It was, and I know if you looked at the race results and you look at William Byron that swept the stages and led 283 laps, you'd go, boy, that must have been a really good race, but it was a good race. The storylines throughout the race, the racing at the end of stage three with William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Carson Hosevar. It was off the chart. And just the other storylines that went along with the finish, there was a lot of drivers, aside from Ross Chastain, that stopped the bleeding at Charlotte.

Starting point is 00:13:28 A.J. Almondinger finished fourth, first top five for Collick racing this year. God knows, Brad Keselowski finally stopped the bleeding with his first top 10 finishes fifth. And Shane Van Gisberger, let's face it, outside of Kota, it's been a dismal year, not even a top 20 finish. He gets a top 20. Michael McDowell gets his first top 10. So at the heels of a lot of top teams and drivers having issues, there was a lot of drivers that stopped the bleeding in the Coke 600.

Starting point is 00:13:55 Yeah, and Tommy, you know, your race, like you mentioned, there was one point in the race. I know we were off. I don't know. Our race was just not good. You hit the wall lap two, right? Yeah, lap one, really. You know, I went to the top of three and four, and I don't know, we just kind of I ran out of room there pre-swears he didn't do nothing wrong.

Starting point is 00:14:11 They never did. But yeah, we got the fence a little bit. I don't know if that was our problem. We were just super, super tight all day, which if you're back there in the late 20s and early 30s, you're just going to be that much tighter. So, you know, it was just a struggle for us all day. And then we got caught up in that wreck on the backstretch when a host of our blew up. But, you know, I said at one point Cody went by us.

Starting point is 00:14:31 I mean, like, we always want to talk about Cody a little bit on here just because, you know, like I know they get a raw end of the deal about, you know, why are they doing this with Cody when they had such a good year. I mean, he had decent speed the other night. He was in the picture. He did. It was a good day, and we had good meetings about it today. You know, we just talked about the next steps with him, what he's got to do.

Starting point is 00:14:48 You know, it's just we've got to work really hard to keep giving him a good car, and he's got to work really hard now of learning how to do some things on the track, you know, learning how to set up for passes and doing the things he needs to do. And, you know, Connor Zillage, we were talking yesterday. and he said one word that really sparked really probably an hour meeting today about it. He said, Cody's very predictable. I said, you know, and I knew what he meant, but I wanted to, I wanted Connor. Now, this is a kid that doesn't have any Oval Track Cup experience.

Starting point is 00:15:24 He says, well, after the couple laps, you knew exactly where he was going to run on the track. So you can just run his line and take his air out. You can do whatever you want with him. So we had a good discussion about it, you know, some in-car camera stuff. We looked at a bunch of stuff that he's got to go back and study. So, again, it's a learning process for Cody because, yes, he's got over 100 cup starts, but now he's driving really good stuff now, right? He's driving equal to, you know, good stuff.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So it's a learning curve. Yeah. It's not easy, man. These guys race hard. A little bit as a lot. Yes. A little bit. Yes.

Starting point is 00:16:01 Yes. I mean, we were talking about Shane. today in the meeting because he was running back with us all year long and it's funny I'm going to talk to Tony at the track house because I went to him at Texas and I said look I said if you put an 88 on the 51 51 and 88 they look exactly the same from up top they handle the same do say you guys do anything different you know on the the two cars versus that do you guys do anything or is it Shane well Shane saying it's it's him and he's got a lot of work to do and some stuff but since I've had that conversation. He's picked it up. So now my next question is, okay, what did you find?

Starting point is 00:16:38 What was it? I need to get the 51. What did you find? Because he's, he's picked up a solid two, three-tenths a lap during the race. And that's a lot. That's a lot. I mean, it's funny because, you know, and we'll talk about this more as you go, but, you know, we talk about how close this field is now. We were struggling the other night. We're running, I think 30th, 31st. I don't even know you could run 30th without reckon. And I look in front of us and it's Joey Legano and it's, you know, a trackhouse car. And it's, there's no, there's really no more weak links in the Cup series. No, I look at that score and monitor, even had it going the other night during the Coke 600.

Starting point is 00:17:16 And you look at the top 20, you might find a tenth of a second differential. We see the same thing on pit road, you know, with the pit stops. You know, everybody just keep stepping it up. and it's why now a little bit is a lot. I've said for a few years, when we look at stats, we look at wins, top fives,

Starting point is 00:17:38 and top tens. I honestly feel like we need a column with top 15s because the top 15 is not an easy finish to come by. I say top 20. Realistically, yeah. It's hard. I mean,

Starting point is 00:17:48 and the funny thing is I always get on crew cheese, like whether it was booty last year, Charles, not sometimes this year. But they'd be like, all right, well, just tell them those are top five lap times. You know, they're running the same lap times. the top five. I'm like, yeah, but unfortunately we're 20th and so is everybody else in front of

Starting point is 00:18:01 a, you know, it's with, like you said, it's within a half a tenth a lot of times of, you know, if you're running a 45, the guy in fourths run in a 40, and you're like, I'm matching him, but unfortunately so's everybody else in front of you and most of the guys behind you. You mentioned the word crew chief. Tommy will love this one. You know what my definition of a Cup Series crew chief is? What's that? Guy that makes pretty good living, gets to travel all over the country, about 38 times a year, but listens to a guy that makes millions, tell you how bad everything is. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:18:30 You know, speaking of bad, I do have a small rant that I hope is temporary, so I'm not going to lose my mind completely about it. But what did you think of the spotter stand this week, Tom? I went up there. I was surprised. Were you spotting? No, no. He always goes up there and observe. This might be, but like, explain to me what the exact issue.

Starting point is 00:18:55 Because, I mean, I saw your tweet, but like I didn't quite grasp your understanding. Unfortunately, so we've had the same spotter stand on the roof at Charlotte for since I've been spotting, really. I mean, I don't even know early 2000s, yeah, probably. So we didn't know anything was changing. They went through it. They had a test a month ago, and apparently they did some renovations to some of the stairwells that go up the back side of the grandstands. And then they had to make some changes to the roof. I think there was some with the roof maybe leaking into some of the suites.

Starting point is 00:19:23 But we used to have an elevated walkway that would lead out to, you know, a railing that was on the edge of the roof. And the lights there are kind of in a strange place. They're right at the top of the roof. They're not really extended off the roof much. So in years past, the railing being on the edge of the roof was fine because now you were shoulder with the lights, where it's your shoulders. They redid the roof this year and they redid the spotter stand and they moved.

Starting point is 00:19:46 They took away our elevation, which was, I mean, not much. It was probably six, eight inches. But then put us behind the lights. Gotcha. So now you're either, you either have to position yourself to be. directly behind the light, so you just don't see what's directly in front of you without a step stool. You can see the rest of the racetrack, which is my spot. I just couldn't see, I basically couldn't see anything without the ladder.

Starting point is 00:20:07 I couldn't see the restart zone of the start finish line at all, essentially. But I could see the rest of the race track. There's other guys that would move to where they could see in front of them, but then they couldn't see the exit of turn four or the entry to turn one. So it was just, it was frustrating because we had some of the guys did a test there, and we had shared the information like, this is not going to work for the 600. and we made it work, but ideally I don't want to be standing on a ladder for five hours. I watched having the spotters.

Starting point is 00:20:33 Eight spotters fall off the stools. Yeah. I was going to say it sounds dangerous a little bit. They got those little three steps. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, for me it was, and it was weird, I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time on ladders, believe it or not.

Starting point is 00:20:46 I know it's hard to believe looking at me. But, you know, you get up there and you're just standing there on the ladder and you're fine. Everything's okay. Then you go green and you try. to pull your binoculars up and it's like, oh boy, I don't know. Like all of a sudden I just got like lightheaded and I think maybe my center of gravity is too. I, I think that, does NASCAR knowledge there's an issue now because they've got a year to get it rectified? Yeah. So the thing is, so for the Roval, we don't, we spot from turn one at tall Ford grandstand. Most majority of us,

Starting point is 00:21:14 I should say. So that shouldn't be an issue. Like you said, we have a year. I think that I think that they just got caught up with not really having the project completely finished like they had hoped. but what we had this week was not accepted. The frustrating part for us is, and we tell NASCAR, we tell the racetracks this all the time, any new facility, any renovation, any spotter is happy to go wherever it is. We talked about it at Phoenix before they redid that place.

Starting point is 00:21:39 You know, where do you want to go? Do you prefer to be here? Do you prefer to be over here? You know, what can we do to make this better? And three or four guys went out there and did it. You know, this one is 20 minutes from the house and nobody said anything to anybody about until we got there. And you're like, oh, this, what the?

Starting point is 00:21:53 hell and how is this going to work but so that's unfortunate i'm just praying to god that you know whoever it's i don't think it falls on nascar it's probably more the race track i think i think everybody tried to work together this weekend to rectify it and you know we all just ended up on ladders for five hours but uh you know it was it was it was unfortunate and hopefully we get it cleaned up by the by the next trip there a lot of guys had to do commercial flights they had they left the ladders right yeah yeah i mean it was i mean it was it was just it was i don't know like i just when we got there i was like i just want to know like how does this happen. You know what I mean? Like, how do we get here? And nobody realized half the spotters can't see

Starting point is 00:22:26 the roof. You see where you guys are in a peck in order. I know that we can be Primedonnas. I know that I know that we have the reputation to be a little egotistical. And I get it. But, you know, we don't need a lot to do the race, but we do need to see the racetrack as well. I mean, at the very least, it would probably be helpful if y'all could see. Yeah. Other than that, though. I mean, there was some news this week also. And Byron, you know, talk about going out and backing it up. He signs a. whatever four or five year extension with Hendrick Motorsports and then goes out and like you said leads 283 laps sweeps the stages one exfinity series race so good news for him i don't think anybody

Starting point is 00:23:03 didn't see that coming uh kirk kyle bush we talked about Tommy saying kirk bush uh well kurt's also in the news this week we might get to that in a minute uh but you know kirk bush carp goddamn kyle bush uh signed extension with rcr maybe a small surprise larry but i don't again we talked about on here last week. There was really nowhere else I could see him going. Well, a one-year deal. What was Kyle Bush's other options? At 40 years old, sitting on, I think, 70, maybe 70-plus race, windless streak, not saying it's because of Kyle Bush. And then honestly, what's Richard Childers Racing's options as well? So when you look at Hendrick Motorsports and William Byron doing a four-year extension, that's kind of a no-brainer for both of those, you know, William and the organization,

Starting point is 00:23:49 But when you see the one-year deal for Richard Childers Racing and Kyle, really a no-brainer for them as well. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Austin said it. You know, he's got one more year left, right? So I think you might see, you know, at the end of next year. There's a reason they've convinced Austin Hill to keep driving that 21 Xfinity to see his car. Yeah, exactly. I think you're going to see probably at the end of 2026 RCR revamp.

Starting point is 00:24:15 Yeah. I mean, they've got. The way it looks. Yeah. They got decent speed. I see Austin was, when I looked, he was just outside the top 10 a handful of times. You know, Kyle was decent until they crashed. They're gaining, but to our point, while ago, a little bit is so, it's like turning a cruise ship.

Starting point is 00:24:32 Yeah. The double. Yeah, I was going to say other Kyle news. Kind of mediocre for him, I guess. I mean, it was, it's so forth the weather. This kid can't catch a break with this race in the weather because I think he was going to have to leave anyway, right? I mean, he wasn't going to be able to finish the 500 if it had gone the distance. They said that they were pulling.

Starting point is 00:24:47 Like he was going to have to be at Charlotte for intros regardless. But do you really think if it came down to it? I thought they had excused him, I think, from the drivers' meeting and intros, I think. I thought I had seen something where Jeff said. It was going to get to a point where the old helicopter was going to have to land on the front stretch like a deal with Stewart that one year. No doubt. Just unfortunate. I was just going to say, if it really came down to it and he was leading or like it was looking really good at the end of the 500,

Starting point is 00:25:12 do you really think they would have made him leave if he had enough to spare? Well, I think that he's going to have to be at Charlotte for the start of the race. He wasn't going to throw those playoff points in the trash, and whatever he may accumulate over the next 13 weeks. But I honestly, this is not to take anything away from John Andretty that did it in 94. Tony that did it with some success. Robbie Gordon, most recently Kurt Busch. I just think it's harder to do it now. Those indie cars are not driving well.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Look at the cars that wrecked in practice. Kyle Larson wrecked twice. And then let's face it, this Gen 7 car is no piece of cake to drive. Just ask Kyle Bush. So I just think it's harder and harder to do what he's trying to do, regardless of the logistics of how tight the time frame is. As a crew chief and Tommy as an owner, would you want your driver to be trying to accomplish this on a yearly basis?

Starting point is 00:26:08 Or would you rather him be focused on the six-minute? I mean, on the business model, right, where everything that was thrown at it, It's a home run, right, with McLaren and Hendrick and everything that they're doing. But, you know, my thought process is touching on Larry's comments is his mind completely focused, right? There's no way he was 100% when he got back to Sharma. Or in the Indy car, knowing that rain, you know, it's going to be late, what's going on. There's thoughts, I mean, you're going 200. He's human.

Starting point is 00:26:37 He may be a freak of nature, but he's human. Exactly. They're going 225 miles an hour. just one little thought process of, you know, something changing, right, in your mind. It's like, you know, we relate that to golf, right? We lose our minds on one shot, you know. I'll lose my mind on every golf shot. Yeah, you're not the, you struggle.

Starting point is 00:26:58 But, you know, you'll par one hole and next hole you'll quadrupa bogey. You don't even know how. You don't even know why. But it's just, you know, that the mind is so important, right? and when you're going that fast, right? And look, Kyle, he hit the wall leading, right? In the five-carry, he hit the wall leading, and he spun out leading. I mean, it's a...

Starting point is 00:27:22 Yeah, it showed. Well, it's not unusual for him to get into the wall. He'll do that. No, but, I mean... But, yeah, I just... He's a human being, and no matter how well prepared, there's no way when he cranked that engine in the Coke 600, he was 100%. There's just not possible, I don't think.

Starting point is 00:27:37 I think, like, like, it's hard. It's a lot harder than it used to be. One more thing for the 600 before we get on the spot-on, spot off. Do you think it hurts that the 600 is four equal distance stages now? It's basically 400-lap stages. I mean, it is 400-lap stages. Do you think that hurts the strategy side of it? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:27:55 I could probably sit here and make a case either way. As we said earlier, awesome race from green flag to checkered flag, the things that went on with some strategy in those stages. You know, if we go there next year and they shorten the first three and lengthen the fourth one, okay, that's fine. Do I see that as being a problem? I don't know what Tommy thinks, but I don't really see it. Yeah, I mean, you only had two choices.

Starting point is 00:28:22 You would split each stage in half or you would run long, right? There's really no other thought process in it up. I don't know. I'd rather see the last stage end, only two stages, right? I'd rather see 100, 200. Everybody take a deep breath. Right? And let's go run 200 laps full of strategy, full of, full of situations that might happen. You know, getting a deep breath, taking a deep breath every 100 laps is not a bad thing, especially for the drivers, right?

Starting point is 00:28:51 Right. I would think you would probably see a little bit different outcome. Look, you saw a little bit of the problem happened of the three car and the 11 car not getting enough fuel in it, right? Shooting for like that every second counted on that last stop, right? tenth of a second. You know, the 24 and the 11, they left pretty equal on pit road, and the 24 dusted him leaving. I mean, he did a good job getting around that corner and getting up to speed down the back.

Starting point is 00:29:18 Their pit stops was exactly, exactly the same time, but they could not get that second can engaged on that 11 car. And that is the other thing that I don't, I want to say it bothers me, but I don't know why it bothers me. You know, this race is worth more points than every other race because of that extra stage. I think there's an argument to be made there. You can eliminate that last stage, like you said, and now this race is the same as every other race

Starting point is 00:29:41 with a longer run at the end because I don't know that, you know, I don't know that I love that that this one, just this one race is worth more points in the championship than any other one of the season. I don't know why that. I mean, obviously, it's a crown jewel, but, you know, I just don't think I love that. Hey, it's Dale Jr., did you know that we've got brand new merch

Starting point is 00:29:57 from our Star Stripes and Beers Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for some. Check it all out at shop.Durtymo Media.com. Spot on. Spot on. Did you want to go first on this one? I think he's a whiny bit.

Starting point is 00:30:17 That's what I think. Send it. Why me? Topic one, Justin Allgaier made a spur of the moment decision to stay out on the final stop despite his team wanting him to come down pit road. Spot on, spot off. Tommy. We should have Justin talk about that.

Starting point is 00:30:35 Is he here? You might be here. I mean, Freddie and I, Justin came up to us on Sunday in the cup garage and tried to explain his thought process. And every time he stopped, I said, you should have pitted. And I'm sure he would now if he had it to do over. No. If he had it to do over. No, when he left, we shook our head.

Starting point is 00:30:54 And I even said, you should have pitted. But you and I both know, if we had do-overs, how many more races would we have won? I understand that. But he's still adamant. was adamant of all his decisions that were going on in his head. If he came in, who else would have stayed out? If the cautions don't fall, how far ahead he would have he been, you know, to the guys that took tires? He was thinking about, you know, you can't.

Starting point is 00:31:21 And he was leading at lap 200, regulation. It's the overtime that ended up getting the best time. Right. So you can't knock him for all this thought process of what was going to his head. But every time he got done, I'm like, you should have pitted. And listen to his point, like what he talked about, was, you know, if it stays green, I don't remember what there was. I don't have 15, 20 laps to go at that point. You know, if he gets away, he probably wins the race. I'm hearing the word if a lot.

Starting point is 00:31:48 Yeah. Oh, I know. And if he says, if I pitted, I might not have won the race either. Yeah. But, you know, by the time we're done, wrecking in and we go down, Byron restarts on his bumper with, by the way, the best car. They, you know, they had a pet road penalty that set them back. but now he's the best car on his bumper with fresher tires. You know, at that point, obviously it's a bad call.

Starting point is 00:32:08 But, you know, who knows, take a shot. But Larry, the question I had for you guys in Tom, you can jump on this too. Like, how frustrating is that for you sitting on the pit box? So if you make the call to pit and then you see your car drive by the front straightaway on the race train. There was a man, Del Earnhardt one time. I told him we needed to pit. He said, we don't need to pit yet. And I said, well, evidently, your calculator is working better than that car than mine is.

Starting point is 00:32:29 And he also, in Michigan one time, I said two tires. he pulled in the pit box and said, I ain't leaving till you give me four. What choice did I have then? And I mean, same thing for, you know, like, how much, and how, it's hard for me to ask this, but like, you know, how much control do you give the driver in those situations? You know, is there certain drivers where you better,

Starting point is 00:32:50 you're, you don't have the wherewithal to make this decision on your own, you're listening to me, and then you have a guy like Dale Earnhardt where it's, you know, what are you going to do at that point? Yeah, I mean, I've lost races making those calls and lost races. I mean, I lost, I mean, Luke in New Smyrna in February, right? I told him him he didn't pit, right? We kind of set us bat. Doug Colby and Oswego were dominating the race, right?

Starting point is 00:33:14 Caucho comes out. I talked my, I talked the whole time to pit. Didn't even give him a chance to say anything, right? We pitted, he's like, Tommy, I was only running 75%. I was going to be fine. We got held back in sixth and never passed the car because, you know, it's hard to pass in a place like Oswego. but, you know, some cup races as well.

Starting point is 00:33:33 I mean, I had probably a win or second place at Indy at the Brickyard with Ward one year, and I pitted at the last, you just never know, man. And then when it goes the opposite way, right? You know what Pullman's thinking, right? Jim Pitt, right? Eddie said pit. You don't pit. Then you sit back and go, you're mad, but then you're like, man, I hope this works.

Starting point is 00:33:57 Oh, it's going to work. Let's make it work, right? What else are you going to do? Yeah, you're not going to fight about it. It's over, right? And let's face it, two wins, a fair amount of playoff points, they got a bigger playbook they can work with. Yeah, for sure.

Starting point is 00:34:10 I mean, he's got a huge point lead. And we talk about this. I mean, I feel like this happens. This scenario happens weekly whenever we have a crew chief on here. But it's just, you know, how hard is that decision when you are the leader? You know, because you know, especially in that situation where you're the leader, you're the best car at that point, you're dominating. Everybody knows they've got to do something to beat you.

Starting point is 00:34:29 How difficult is that decision? It's not an easy position. You're in a box because to your point, especially when you get late in a race and you've got a number of cars that's still on a lead lap, what are those back in the pack got to lose? I've always said if you follow the leader, you know what? You'll follow the leader. So why not try something different? So you better believe there's a lot of cars, especially in the back of the pack, mid-pack, watching what you do, and we're going to do something different. You stay out, we're going to pit because if we just stay out with you, we're probably just going to follow you around. It's a box. It's a great problem to have, but it can be a box. Yeah, for sure. All right. Number two, Joey Lugano should have moved out of the way so the leaders could race it out to the finish. I think we probably all feel the same about this.

Starting point is 00:35:12 I didn't really see anything wrong. I personally think that the 24 car made the mistake. He did. Right? I think he's the one that made the mistake. The line he drove in that corner to create that problem he had that allowed Ross to get closer to him. I saw some comments from William afterwards,

Starting point is 00:35:34 and I don't think Joey did anything wrong. Absolutely not. Wait, wait, hold on. Carson, were you getting ready to say he did something wrong? No, I was going to say, I think we all agree on the fact that he did it. Oh, okay. I just want to make you see if you had a different opinion. The only thing I saw that was maybe a little troublesome from William was, and I thought Joey was giving him the wall

Starting point is 00:35:54 in one and two every lap. You know, that's what you really want. You just don't want completely dirty air, and I felt like Joey had moved down a lane off the wall in one and two. He was a little less predictable in three and four. He would move up sometimes or that and run that lane down. And I think I saw one comment where William was a little bit unhappy about that. But Larry, I don't see anything he did wrong. Like you said, Tommy, William went in there, kind of ran the middle of one time in three and four,

Starting point is 00:36:18 a little bit lower than he had been. He just got loose and that opened the door for Ross. You don't want to get me started on this. I'll take you off to air and I'll have to come back next week. Maybe it's because I'm old school. maybe it's because of how long I've been here. Maybe it's because of the drivers I worked with, like Davy Al's, Del Earnhardt, Ernie Irvin.

Starting point is 00:36:38 I have zero tolerance when I hear a driver talk about another driver racing them hard. Really? He raced you hard? That's a shame. He shouldn't do that, should he? Joy Lugano did nothing wrong. He was trying to stay on the lead lap because, you know what?

Starting point is 00:36:52 If the caution comes out, then he's able to come in and get four fresh tires, and he maybe can really get a much better finish than he had. Remember, Denny Hamlin was in the mix, too, because he came out right in front of William. He was right there with Joy Legano. With that said, Joy Lagano did nothing wrong, but the next time somebody's out front of Joy Legano in the same situation, I don't want to hear Joy Lagano complaining about it.

Starting point is 00:37:18 Yeah, for sure. And, you know, two of the guys I thought that were raced with respect here, Ty Gibbs, I felt like, came out behind those guys on fresher rubber and really could have injected himself in the situation. And really, I felt like he did. And I thought like he kind of did a good job to lay off. You mentioned Danny Hamlin. He comes out. And he kind of, he didn't stay completely out of the situation as much as Ty did.

Starting point is 00:37:38 He got in there. But I felt like once they got side by side into one, he kind of lifted and let them guys race it out where Ross just kind of moved up and, you know, ran William out of room. So I think, I don't think anybody did anything wrong there, you know. Exactly what they tried to do. laid out to. Yeah. Well, the irony, back it up to the Indy 500, those two cars running out front of Alex Blow, that was a beautiful thing for an Indy car.

Starting point is 00:38:02 He was getting that draft every straightaway. It's not what you want in a Gen 7 cup car. Yeah. And you mentioned Indy. You mentioned, you know, we were talking about Legano. I thought it was interesting. The Penske cars just didn't seem, the cup cars just didn't seem to have the speed that they normally have this week.

Starting point is 00:38:21 I noticed none of them in the top 10 in qualifying. That's the first time that's happened on a mile and a half this year. I don't know. Is this inconspicuous timing? Yeah, I don't know. Larry, what do you think is a coincidence? Yeah. So to me, there's several layers here.

Starting point is 00:38:36 And it's not because Team Penske has not had speed at mile and a half. Joy Lugano just won the Texas race a few weeks ago. Blaney topped back-to-back-to-back top fives between Kansas and Texas. So they've had good speed at the mile and a halfs. I go back to practice on Saturday, and I know when qualifying was over with, Chris Busher had a good run, nor Gregson really was probably from Green Flag to Checkered the best Ford all night long. But all the Ford seemed off just a little bit. Again, I know qualifying, Busher got a good run in.

Starting point is 00:39:12 At the end of the day, there were some Fords that finished up front. But I've got to believe in wake in lieu of what went on up there at Indy, Roger Penske said we don't need to make any more headlines with Team Penske. Just make sure you're right when we get the Coke 600. Yeah. And Tommy, I mean, I think you can speak to this. I don't know how much you go into it. But I don't, there's not many 100% legal cars on that grid when we roll off for that race.

Starting point is 00:39:39 I wouldn't say illegal. No, I'm just saying. I would say. There's some not legal. I didn't say illegal. I mean, you know, let's. I said not 100% legal. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:48 Well, I would say that in order to get that little bit, we have to do a little bit. I mean, we've always had to do a little bit to get that little bit. That's why there's a rule book because we always do a little bit and create different paragraphs. I mean, the rule book has been made because of us, right? The crew chiefs and the engineers and all the drivers and doing things. And I think it hurt them. I think, you know, I think what happened, RFK's penalty. you know, during the week,

Starting point is 00:40:20 um, affected some of the stuff that, uh, overall was happening. Um, and I think, um, you know,

Starting point is 00:40:27 Indy hurt Penske. I mean, I just think, you know, there was a situation there that everyone had to calm down a little bit. Everyone was probably getting a little bit further ahead than they, they needed to. And we talked about it a couple weeks ago.

Starting point is 00:40:39 You know, Penske's always really good, but they're really, really, really good in the playoffs, right? They turn it on. Well, you know, they had to detune this one.

Starting point is 00:40:48 week. They probably had to detune. And Blaney, in fashion of the way he races, he was starting to come to life. He wasn't going to go up there, I don't think, and contend for the win, but he was on the verge of cracking the top ten when he got caught up in that wreck off turn four. And bless him, another week. Poor Blaney. The fans are probably called.

Starting point is 00:41:09 I don't even get on an airplane with that guy. Or a toaster. Pull around a toaster. Yeah, you missed out on signing the toaster at Fan Day, Tommy. All right. Moving along, Carson Hosevar will win a race this season. Spot on, spot off. Larry, I'll start with you.

Starting point is 00:41:23 I'm going to say spot on. Not just Hosevar, Spire as a whole, is bringing speed. And when you've got speed, it'll eventually cash in. I know when you look at his finishes, yeah, I think second at Atlanta, got another top 10 somewhere. He was a player the other night. Who would have ever believed they would have had an engine failure? I know the Coke 600 can be hard on engines, but you just don't think about that

Starting point is 00:41:47 anymore. Carson is starting more and more to find that line between when to, when not to. And I just believe when you bring that speed like they're bringing it, I think he's going to be good on the road courses. Look how close he came to winning Wachens Glen last year. So I think we got a lot of road course races coming up. But they're bringing speed every week. Yeah, I've seen a little bit different Hosevar the other night. I didn't, when he got to that position of third and fourth there a couple times. He stopped. Like, like he didn't wear his stuff out. He, he, I think he learned a lot from Kansas, to be honest with you, how he burned his

Starting point is 00:42:22 stuff up in the long runs there. But, yeah, I agree. It's spot on. I think he's going to win a race. It's hard to bet against it. And the only, you know, if you're going to bet on, you know, if you're going to mention, like, just maybe the next first time winner, you know, I think coming into the year, everybody would probably think Ty Gibbs would be at the top of that list. Right now, I think it's got to be Josevar and Priese, you know. No question. Ryan Priest, you know.

Starting point is 00:42:44 he could easily go out and win a place like Loudon or Martinsville, I think. But, you know, for me, I have to put Carson just a little bit ahead on the mile and a half. Like you said, Larry, just the raw speed they have qualifying. They've been qualifying well the last month, month and a half. You know, Bristol, he was having a really good race up in the top five, both stages. I think he had a pit road penalty or a problem at the end of that one. Faded a little bit, you know, just again, really fast a night. Engine trouble.

Starting point is 00:43:07 I think that's a second blow motor of the year. Flats, late in races. I mean, he's been in position a couple times. If it's happened, it's happening. And he's still sitting. I think he's 20th in points, not that far out. So, I mean, they're having, for the bad luck they've had, they've still put themselves in position to get in the playoffs.

Starting point is 00:43:21 And I wouldn't bet against him winning for any. If he wins before the playoffs, he's going to create havoc in the playoffs. He'll be playing with house money. He'll be. And, you know, what's going to happen? He's going to learn. Right? He's going to learn so much more during those playoffs of what he has to do.

Starting point is 00:43:38 And the next year, he's going to create more havoc. Well, yeah. In a good way. I mean, I don't mean in the bad way. I mean, he gets that first win. Yeah. He'll be game on. And we've been beating this drum on here about Carson for years on the podcast.

Starting point is 00:43:50 You know, the kid's super, super talented. I mean, unbelievably talented. You know, go out and win a truck race, you know, a couple weeks ago. And, you know, he's just like he had to figure out. He's got to figure out when not to and when to, you know, because it's just, you know, he sometimes takes risks that are unnecessary. And I think with these longer races, he's kind of seeing, all right, I can just kind of let this stuff come to me. And I've got speed.

Starting point is 00:44:12 I can get there when I get there. and that's a lot for any young driver, really. That's half the battle is just not taking yourself out of it. A lot of these guys, Danny, all these guys that rise at the top, Harvick, was Harvard wasn't a closer because he just found speed in the last 20 laps. It was just because he put himself in position to be there at the end. You know, so it's just, you know, it's, I feel like once these guys figure it out, they don't give it back.

Starting point is 00:44:33 There was one point in a race. It was the 77 and the 1 battling. And I said to myself, oh, this is going to be fun. And I watch them for about four or five laps. Like this could go one of two days. I mean, I watched them about four or five lapses. They didn't touch each other. Tommy, I think you're going to have some strong opinions on this one.

Starting point is 00:44:50 You said you had a rant for us last week when it came to the Hall of Fame boating. Kurt Bush, Harry Gant, Ray Hendrick elected into the NASCAR Hall of Fame class of 2026. Spot on, spot off, Tommy. Well, I mean, I think it's spot on. And to me, my opinion, it's spot off. You know, Harry Gant, Locke. Ray Hendrick? lock right that 700 wins modified guy raced up and down the east coast the northeast southeast

Starting point is 00:45:18 um race for money could have did cup but went other places that paid more money right so i was a little disappointed look is kurt bush a hall of fame absolutely is he you know as a hall of fame absolutely did i think he deserved to get in the first year no i think i think We had a chance, in my opinion, I'm going to keep saying in my opinion, we had a chance to earn some integrity within that group of people that voted, right? You know, all the off-track activities that happened with Kurt and all the things that he did. You know, when I spoke, you know, I was like, I don't want my kids to think it's okay as long as you're winning races and winning championships to do everything else on the outside. I totally disagreed with that situation. And I think what pressured everybody was, you know, you have a couple guys coming in

Starting point is 00:46:17 the next two years that are first ballot Hall of Famers, right? And then where would Kurt be? Well, Kurt might have had to wait another couple, two, three years, right? I mean, everybody who has had off field or activities happen. A lot of them aren't in the Hall of Fame of any sport, right? Because of those situations, right? Some of them are, some of them aren't. but I think we really had a chance right there to tell the younger audience that it's not okay, right?

Starting point is 00:46:48 It's not okay to do all those things and getting some trouble outside of the race car. That's just my opinion, and I think we missed a little bit. I've said for a long time, if it's being one of the 50 greatest drivers that came out in 1998, 75 greatest drivers came out a couple of years ago. To me, that's about your numbers. That's the numbers you generated gripping that steering wheel. Hall of Fame, it's about numbers, but it's about contributions to the sport. Now, Kurt has been a good ambassador for NASCAR, but I think when you look at who he's going up against, who he went up against, that's probably the box that the committee was in.

Starting point is 00:47:37 Because the drivers. Now, in my book, everybody on that list is a hall favor. But when you look at the drivers, there was no other driver on that list that was a champion, a cup champion. There was no other driver on that list that had won a Daytona 500. So when you look at Kurt's numbers, a winner in all three series, a cup champion, a Daytona 500 champion. he's won with about every organization. He's won in every make he's ever driven, including a Dodge. I don't know how you shoved anybody above him looking at those numbers.

Starting point is 00:48:18 No, and that was the argument, right, that is the argument, right? Because there was nobody, but there was a couple crew chiefs that had some championships. You're right, you're right. There was a couple guys that belong in the Hall of Fame that, you know, Harry Hyde for sure, right? Jake Elder, Harry Hyatt, absolutely. Yeah, unfortunately, Jake had to go up against Ray and the different part of the Hall of Fame. But there are some guys that have championships, right, that have been on the ballot for more than longer than Kurt, right? I mean, you know, my biggest thing is, you know, everyone was like, you know, we had more wins.

Starting point is 00:48:51 Yeah, but per start, Neil Bonnet had more wins per start than anybody on the list. And Harry was second. Kurt was third, right, per start. So it was like, okay, Neil Bonnet was, had the most polls per start. But if you look at the whole thing, Harry Hyde had the most wins per starts, right? Harry Hyde is the reason we have Hendrick Motorsports. Harry Hyde is the reason why most of us came into the sport, right? I mean, he's the guy that, the creator of a lot of things.

Starting point is 00:49:25 And, you know, I think Ray Everham was the next one, right? He came in and he changed the whole, brought what we do to a whole other level, right, of thinking. And now it's a whole crazy level with the engineering that's involved. But, you know, it's just my opinion, right? I just think we, you know, and I'm still, I'm still strong about it. And I told Jack and Luke, you know, I'm like, it's not okay. Yeah. Right?

Starting point is 00:49:51 It's just, to me, it's just not okay for that. I don't know. But to Tommy's point, the others nailed it. You know, Ray Hendrick, when that red number 11, the flying 11 came over that hill into that racetrack, everybody would go, uh-oh, we're in trouble. We're in trouble tonight because you knew he was going to be a man to reckon with, as Tommy said, over 700 wins between sportsmen and modified. There's tons of drivers don't even have 700 starts. He had over 700 wins. And here again, I know he never won a championship.

Starting point is 00:50:26 He never won the Daytona 500. But when you would go to tracks like Charlotte, Darlington, Rockingham, whoa, being to you knew he was going to be the man to beat. And one other guy that we're going to celebrate Humpy Wheeler, the Landmark Award. Humpey Wheeler, he was the first promoter in my book that said, we have to give the fans more than just racing on a racetrack. We got to give them other things outside of that for the kids they bring. Hell, he used to set a boxing ring up there at the bottom of the back, the front stretch,

Starting point is 00:51:01 because we'd have that law between practicing qualifying, so they'd have boxing matches down there just to give the fans something else. He's one of the first promoters that truly embraced that and understood that. I was amazed of the stories coming out of that room of everybody he helped in that room. Like just... A lot of young drivers. Yeah. I mean, I was like...

Starting point is 00:51:25 He was a lot. I mean, I tell you who was, I think, it's going to be a lock probably next year. It will be Jeff Burton, you know, for everything he does outside racing now, you know, with the safety and the leader of the driver's, you know, group for NASCAR and, you know, everything he does. He was, I left there thinking that it was going to be him and Harry and Ray. I was hoping. Or Harry Hyde. Obviously, I vote.

Starting point is 00:51:56 for Harry, Harry Hyde, and I voted for Harry Gant, and voted for Ray and Humpy. But it was a very interesting day. Let me ask you guys this, because you know, you guys, you know, are involved with the process. Would you prefer to see them go to more of MLB style where, you know, you get more votes, maybe the ballot's a little bit bigger? Because if you're not familiar, the MLB, I think has 20 names on the ballot, usually somewhere in that range. I think you get the vote for up to 10 guys. but it's based on percentage.

Starting point is 00:52:26 If you get a percentage of the vote in the room, you're in. Because you talk about it, I think you guys can all agree. Everybody that's on this ballot is going in the Hall of Fame at some point. Sooner or later. But now these guys are getting stuck having to wait because they're getting jumped in line. You know, Harvick's coming up. Harvick's going to, you know, Neil Bonnet might be a guy that you talk about Jeff Burton being a lock. You talk about Neil Bonnet.

Starting point is 00:52:46 You know, you talk about these guys. Everybody's a lock, but now you're having to get stuck on the ballot for years because we're only taken in two in the modern era at the time. and one of the pioneer group, you know, would you rather see it go to something like if you get 75% of the vote in the room? Not a set number of people. Which I think the way most of them are, I think that's the way even the NFL is. Yeah, NFL is, you know, I think is five is the max and it's a minimum of three.

Starting point is 00:53:11 But it could be two. Yeah. It could be three. So, you know, I think as long as you have somebody, but I would love to see because there's guys that are going to be stuck on this ballot just for years for no reason because we're limiting the amount of people we put in when they're more than deserving of being in. So I feel like you can easily up to where everybody gets, you know, you can vote for five people instead of two. And now, all right, well, now you can move the vote around. They still

Starting point is 00:53:32 got to get a majority of the room. You know, you still got to, you still got to win over the three quarters of the room. But, you know, you're going to get in when you deserve to versus being stuck waiting in line because, you know, guys are retiring at a certain year and they're, kind of jumping the line. So I would just love to see that at least discussed. Anything, I mean, I know you've got to leave us here shortly, but anything got you fired. up before you get the hell out of here? No. The only thing that's got me fired up is that I have to leave.

Starting point is 00:53:57 And I have to miss reaction theater. Yeah. Sad about it. But now, I mean, what do you have to be fired up about on Memorial Day weekend except? The weather. The weather. Freedom. Freedom.

Starting point is 00:54:06 I mean, no, I had a great weekend. The weather, I was sad. I wasn't on the lake yesterday. But no, all in all, chill vibes this weekend. Nothing got up under my skin. Who's going to do all this other stuff you're supposed to sit on these? I guess you're going to have to learn how to read today, Tom. I can jump in.

Starting point is 00:54:21 Ship it over to Andrew. What page? What page? We're on the last page. Oh, can I give you guys my pick? Oh, yeah, we need your pick. Are you first? No, Tom.

Starting point is 00:54:28 We'll just agree not to pick your pick, I guess. Or I can text you. No, we'll let you. We'll let you. We're not doing very good, so we'll let you. We're all tied. What do you mean? We haven't won since homescape.

Starting point is 00:54:37 You could go first this week. Where are we going? Still Nashville. I haven't asked you that yet. Yeah, Kansas. Kansas is, oh God, I don't know. I'm just going to random it here. I thought this you do every week.

Starting point is 00:54:50 I do. I do. I didn't realize. you were putting a lot of analytics. You know what? The biggest red flag is you didn't know where we're going. Listen, I know I'm going to Langley this weekend. That's what I know.

Starting point is 00:55:01 I'm going to just go out on a limb here and pick Carson Hosvar. Wow. She just laid it down. She's like, talk about the guy winning and we're going to go in. All right. We'll get to our picks. Yeah. Andrew, you can remind everybody when we get to that point.

Starting point is 00:55:15 I will. She just like leaves in the middle of the show. Well, this is not usual. She's got issues. She has to take care of. No, we're not telling anybody where you're going. Until you leave. We're going to make fun of you.

Starting point is 00:55:30 We'll make it the title. All right. See you later. But Andrew, I guess take us to reaction theater now that Carson's abandoned us. Did we get some good calls? Yes. And I'm just going to throw some stuff at you. We're going to go to some places. So we're going to see what works and what doesn't.

Starting point is 00:55:46 Larry, these are just basically voicemails over the week and weekend. I do three hours. hours of talk radio a day. I'm used to all this. All I'm going to say is buckle up for this one. Oh, boy. But the first one is coming from the fan that came to Fanday with the toaster. Okay, good. Hey, guys, this is Toaster Man here from J.R. N Fanday. I just got to say, I immediately plugged the toaster in right after the race. Thank you for signing it, but it's all over. Go 12. Go 12. The signatures are already wiped off of it from the bath water.

Starting point is 00:56:21 Poor guy. Well, Tyler Larson, you impressed me today. I did not think it was possible to crash five times trying to do the double. Tommy, I would hate this guy. He is single-handedly keeping tow-truck drivers in business. Wow, these people so angry. This is our fan base. When their drivers aren't doing well, they get hot.

Starting point is 00:56:46 I think we're the only place they can vent to. Do we have more Larson's calls? Yes, one more. You know, most guys have penis enlargement surgeries like Freddy. I say Larsson needs a penis reduction surgery, so they won't step on stuff no more. These are the calls you get on serious? Maybe not quite to this level. With most of your callers, would I be probably on base if I said adult beverages are involved?

Starting point is 00:57:18 Yeah, these are late at night. A lot of times these are post-raised. Very lonely people drinking. Two o'clock in the morning, I would imagine. It's amazing you picked up on that. Just a wild guess. Just a wild guess. You're so perceptive.

Starting point is 00:57:30 Larry, what you don't see is they call back multiple times. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm watching this JRM fan show, and I'm wondering, like, who are these people? Looks like some hustler from the 1970s that really pissed off aunt. One of those discount Santa Claus is from the mall. Keep waiting on some kid to sit on Freddy's lap and get covered in belly sweat. I am lost.

Starting point is 00:57:53 So this was Thursday, we did the fan show, and you know, Jordan, Bianchi. Oh, on the stage? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He kind of dresses to the nines at all the time, so he was... I don't think he... Wait a second. Well, he looks like he comes out of goodwill, all right? He does not dress to the nines.

Starting point is 00:58:08 Hey, listen, he's got this style, but... He dresses just like our buddy does from Delaware. Todd? Todd. He dresses, he reminds me of just like Todd. But, so Jordan had a couple buttons undone for some reason. Must have been hot. Goodwill.

Starting point is 00:58:22 The buttons broke. And I could not have picked the worst position to sit in. I looked like the hunchback in Notre Dame. That was 400 pounds. So I understand the Santa Claus comments, by all means. And I listen, those are the calls we like. Those are the ones that are going to get you. I really enjoyed the show.

Starting point is 00:58:38 Yeah, at least he was paying attention. I say it all the time. If you're complaining about me, at least you're watching or listening. I did just recently see Bubba Wallace was on Sesame Street. Now, I wasn't quite sure if the guy next to him in red was Elmo or was it Freddie Kraft. I don't know, but I definitely know the guy in the garbage can next to Bubba was Tommy Baldwin. I'm glad I'm just against. I mean he's not being associated with any of this.

Starting point is 00:59:08 Well, yeah, we usually ask for some calls. Next week. You got lucky this week so far. Yeah. The cookie monsters in the garbage. No, it's Oscar to Grouch. Believe it or not. Somebody feed Freddy.

Starting point is 00:59:27 Someone get up some crap mac and cheese. Fuck what's going on on the track. Somebody get old Freddy a snack. Forget all the guys that are doing the driving. Freddy's blood sugar's in danger of diving. Somebody feed Fred. Got to put a lot of thought into that. We've got some talented listeners that's probably stemming from the mid-race break there.

Starting point is 01:00:01 They asked Bubba, I guess Bubba had a snack ready to go or something like that. So like, Bub, you want a snack in there? He said, y'all take a snack. And I said, yeah, if Garrett's not busy, he can run one up here too while he's at it. Hey, man, we're here at the tip. He's out here playing all the hits. He's the only person might have more. Come on.

Starting point is 01:00:21 I wonder if he ran into Carson while he was out there. He probably did. If I had to guess, Chris Wright getting another wreck? Chris Wright was the first caution. Saturday for if I remember correctly. Oh man, Chris Wright. It's just, I don't know. I'm going to be nice. I don't condemn anybody for chasing their dream, but I put a little bit of this on this on NASCAR, and I talk to Justin Allgaier. I think they got to do the eye tests. What is this driver? I'm not going to say he, whether it's a he or she, what is this driver doing? Are they

Starting point is 01:00:56 out of their league in what they're trying to do here. And I think we definitely saw a case of that. I think it's reflex, you know, reflexes. Well, just saying like they're saying the NASCAR. There's a lot of things that have to go in with that guy. Well, it's just, but to Larry's point, a lot of these guys and girls are being set up to fail at times because they're being put in cars that they're not ready to compete in or not they shouldn't be on the track with the other people that are in that series.

Starting point is 01:01:24 I've always said when you're on an airplane and there's a little kid. kicking the back of your seat, whose fault is it? Is it the kid or you turn around and give that parent a stare down? You know, and listen, we saw this. I don't want to drag this out too long, Andrew, but, you know, everybody's favorite guy in the world this week for this year is Cletus McFarland. And Zippy leaves him out on the racetrack for his first green flag restart in an unrestricted car to be on the front row and he ends up wrecking half the field.

Starting point is 01:01:51 Do I think Cleetus did anything egregious really wrong? No, he made a mistake that a number of guys. have made in the sport, but everybody wanted to give him a pass because we all love him because he does millions of views on YouTube and he's a funny guy, he gives funny interviews. But if that was Catherine Legg on the outside of the front row, and she made that mistake with similar oval track experience, she'd be getting roasted on the internet because she doesn't belong there. But it's the same thing. You've got to call a spade a spade and Cleetus is probably a little over his head running an Arka car right now. But where else are you going to go to learn on that

Starting point is 01:02:22 stage where he's, you know, he's great for the sport. He's putting a lot of eyes on our sport. just hope we don't get too far in front of our skis where, you know, where we're putting him in a position where he makes a mistake and wipes out a lot of cars and costs people a lot of money. Well, that is the end of reaction theater to leave an audio message. 24-7, call our number 704-802-9-572, and we will play the best ones. And if you have a song, you can text that phone number because the audio quality is a little bit better. So I appreciate the songs this week. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:54 Are we getting text, Andrew? Maybe we said... I know we started to a little bit. But, I mean, yeah, we do get texts every now and that. That was better this week. We're getting better. Yeah, thank you, fans. That was good guys.

Starting point is 01:03:05 Keep it up. Guys and gals. Hopefully one of these guys wins one of these days, and we get some positive... Some positive reinforcement. We got some people on some watch list. The toaster. The toaster.

Starting point is 01:03:18 The to still trying to wrap my arms around that. None of Rowdy's fans are getting pregnant. Oh, yeah. Routy Nation, they're in hard times. Well, it's time for AskDBC. Send your questions in on X each week using hashtag AskDBC. The first one's from Sandy. Who should do the double next?

Starting point is 01:03:45 I mean, I don't know. Larson is always the guy that you're going to look at. Kyle Bush sounds like he wants to do it. I don't know if at this point in his career, if he's still interested in doing it. Yeah, I don't know. Nobody jumps off the page in me. I mean, obviously all the fans would, you know, Chase or for Ryan Blaney.

Starting point is 01:04:04 But I don't really see, I see them guys, Larsen was the one that you kind of saw coming, you know, you could see that guy that he was eventually going to want to do this. I don't really see that guy. See bail. Maybe, maybe Christopher bail. He would make a lot of sense. A little bit of background like Larson. I think he'd rather be in a sprint car than an car. Well, they both would, I'm sure. But yeah, I agree with that.

Starting point is 01:04:23 There's going to be somebody on the list. Yeah. Anyone from the Indy car side, maybe? That's interesting. McLaughlin maybe. I know he's got a bunch of buddies in the in the Cup series. But I think those guys, that's such, that's their whole season. Hard to get out of those corvettes and climbing these minivans. Yeah. I mean, when you cleared the Andretti and the Ford era and moved it ahead, like to the modern era, there's only been one that came close to success, Juan Pablo Montoya.

Starting point is 01:04:54 Just the rest of them, it's been a struggle bus. Not that that many of them has come, but it's not been, it's not bared a lot of fruit. Yeah. Tony Stewart. Stewart, yeah, absolutely. And there, but for them guys, that's their season. You know what I mean? I feel like that race is almost more important than their champion at the end of the year. You know, they put a month of work into that one race.

Starting point is 01:05:16 They have a banquet for it. Yeah. You know, and I just, you know, I can't ever see one of them guys just saying, all right, I'm going to start taking away from my Indy 500 prep to go run this one-off cup race. I think in the IndyCar series, the driver that wins the Indy-5. gets way more notoriety than the driver that wins the championship. For sure. Absolutely. This next question is coming from Jake Wilson. It's for Larry.

Starting point is 01:05:42 How rejuvenating was it this season to be back at the track for Fox? There's no way to quantify what it meant for me to be back to the track, not just to be back at the track, but to be able to do my job and do it the way I do it. Spending time in that garage area and I was in there every single day, basically from the time it opened until I had to leave to go do my job with the broadcast. I honestly, I have no idea how I did this job the last five years and not being boots on the ground at the racetrack. Help of a lot of people, I'd even call O'Tommy every once in a while.

Starting point is 01:06:18 A lot of people would let me lean on them knowing what I was trying to do. Was it nice for five years going off the air in the Charlotte studio and in 40 minutes later being home? Absolutely. I didn't have to worry about flights and rental cars and all that other stuff. but there is no question. It's so much better. And I felt like I was able to do a better job being back at that track.

Starting point is 01:06:40 Yeah. And listen, I don't want to turn. I completely agree with you. I think Jamie was on here, you know, not that long ago talking about, you know, the studio is beneficial for them, but there's nothing that you can, Jimmy McMurray, you know, is, you know, getting to go in the caller and talk to the crew cheese before the raises and talk to the drivers and just being there in person. But, you know, we did, and I don't want to turn this into any kind of Fox versus Prime. debate because that's not necessary and that's hard for me and Tommy to speak to it because we

Starting point is 01:07:06 didn't watch the broadcast on Prime. I don't know if you did or if you were. I did. I watched the whole thing. And they did a phenomenal job. And already, as expected, I'm seeing people compare the Fox broadcast to the Prime. And to me, it's comparing apples to oranges. I'm sorry. I mean, I can't completely speak for Fox. But you're, we're never going to have a broadcast where basically we do an hour pre-race, an hour post-race, and the majority of the commercials are side by side. We're networked television. You're just comparing an apple.

Starting point is 01:07:42 It's not even an apple to an orange. It's an apple to a banana. I mean, what they did Sunday night was a phenomenal broadcast. I feel like for 25 years, we've done great broadcast. They're just never going to be the same. And if anybody expects it, you're probably going to be disappointed. Yeah. To your point, and we haven't seen this in.

Starting point is 01:08:02 years. And this is what we were talking about when, you know, everybody was complaining about, you know, oh my God, we're going to prime. This is terrible. You know, I got to pay for this, which they did a good job of offering a free trial for basically the duration of their races. This is what you can get, though, with the streaming service. They're not locked in the TV windows. They're not, they can have a, I mean, that had to be a seven-hour window of television the other night. They have no limits. They have no limits. You know, I got home and the race had ended. I got home and I made food. I can't remember what I did, but I turned the race on. It had to be almost an hour after the race ended. And I see Dale and them on TV cheers and, you know, and you know,

Starting point is 01:08:41 there's things that they're going to do different, you know, and the one question I did want to ask you, like, if you're sitting at home watching that, is there stuff that you would make note of, you know, that you see that you like better or maybe, or you don't like as much even that, you know, you go, okay, maybe this is something we need to bring up and talk about, you know, maybe we can make all of us better. I wish and I've said this in meetings, I wish we had, if we've got a window

Starting point is 01:09:06 and I'm talking about when I say we, Fox and FS1, if we've got a window, I'd rather see us do more post race than pre-race. Absolutely. We do a lot of pre-race. We do very little post-race. If we could just shift that and I realize there's broadcast windows

Starting point is 01:09:22 and times and all that because that's what I enjoyed Sunday night, was was Justin Marks coming to that stage and talking to Daniel and those guys. Even William Byron, the finished second, being able to hear his emotions over dominating a race and finishing second, Ross Chastain. That's what intrigued me. So if I had one wish, if we have to have to stay in that window, let's do less pre-race and let's do more pre-race. Post race. More post-race.

Starting point is 01:09:57 And another bandwagon that I've been on for years, not just Fox, but everybody, is NFL during the fall. You know at 103 that football is going in that air. You may not know what game you're going to be watching, but you know that football is going to air. We promote, let's just say a 330 start. We don't wave a flipping green flag until 350 or 355. I'm all about singing, flying, and praying. But let's do that before we come on the air. If we're promoting a 330 green flag, by gosh, not long after 3.30, let's throw that green flag.

Starting point is 01:10:38 I agree. Andrew, did you watch it home? Are you at the track? I was at the track. Okay. I guess we're not going to get your opinion on it. You know, I just see. What about the other producer's opinion?

Starting point is 01:10:49 You got a mic in there? I don't know. They only got no money. Oh, he said he was drinking. Was that you? Oh, you were drinking? Evan was drunk. Oh, he said he was, oh, good or drinking?

Starting point is 01:10:59 You know, it's like, I don't know. I don't want to, again, turn it. It was, from what I could tell, going back and watching some of it, it was a really good broadcast. I like some of the camera angles being zoomed back a little bit more and showing some of the speed. You know, you're talking about how great the booth was. Of course, they're great. It's Dale and Lattart.

Starting point is 01:11:17 They've been friends forever. They work together on the track. Now off the track, they've been doing this forever. So they're going to have great chemistry. You know, there's nothing that I was. not expecting. You know, it wasn't like I was blown away by,

Starting point is 01:11:28 you know, Adam Alexander, great play-by-play guy. You know, everything was as expected, I think, for me. And, you know,

Starting point is 01:11:33 obviously everybody, you get the Internet Warriors where you're never going to make everybody happy. So I just, I don't, I don't want to turn it into a comparison. We'd be happy

Starting point is 01:11:40 what we got with Prime and maybe they can, you know, raise the ships and raise the tide for everybody else. I can promise you when we transition from Prime to Turner,

Starting point is 01:11:50 those broadcasts going to be different. Yeah. And it's the same booth. It's still Adam, Dale, and Steve. but that's going to be different. And I'm pretty excited.

Starting point is 01:11:59 Absolutely. And it's going to be different from Fox. But I am pretty excited about being a part of the TNT broadcast. It's already been put out there. But we're going to try something that's not been done before in NASCAR. Jeff Burton and I are going to be in the TNT studios in downtown Atlanta all five weeks. And a lot like the Manning Altcast, we're going to be doing an Altcast for the NASCAR races. We'll be on simultaneously with the TNT broadcast of the race,

Starting point is 01:12:29 but we're going to be doing the alt-cast. We'll actually be on true TV. We're going to bring in guests, and it's not going to be necessarily guest that's NASCAR-related. We want them to be knowledgeable. We're going to probably bring in Pleiduspec Farland. We're going to probably bring in the comedian John Chris. We're going to probably bring in Chipper Jones,

Starting point is 01:12:48 who's had this little deal with Joel Lugano. So we're going to have some fun with it. Yeah. And that's all you. you can help for. It's like people are rooting for one side to fail. You know what I mean? It's like just let's work together and we can hopefully make it all better. Well, I've learned 25 years the same people that hate Fox when NBC comes, they hate NBC. Yeah, I mean, it's like Burger King, McDonald's, right? Wendy's, they're going to all, they're all a little bit different.

Starting point is 01:13:14 Absolutely. All right. Well, it is time for the shit show hall fame. Each week we nominate somebody and the fans will vote on who gets inducted. Last week, Michael Waltrop, throwing and dropping the yellow flag. You think that was on purpose? You just never know what I like that. That was the most people at Charlotte this past weekend, the fans. They come up to me. That's the only thing they want. I think they sold that flag at the Speedway Children's Dayla for a lot of money.

Starting point is 01:13:43 Yeah, they did. I saw a video, Caitlin, who works here, had it out front. The video, they saw, I think Michael signed it. You just don't know with Michael. Michael is the only guy I know that can be legal in the HOV lane by himself, and again, be legal because there's so much going on there. Yeah. Shit show, unfortunately, I love this guy to death. Poor McLaughlin wrecking, warming up his tires.

Starting point is 01:14:09 I feel so bad for that guy because you can only imagine you put so much time and effort into this race and it's over before it started. We had wrecked in practice qualifying weekend too, right? So, yeah, just more added to the whole Penske deal. Yeah, what a week for them, guys. Kalitas probably has to be mentioned. I don't know, what else do you think, Frayette? About the fan that Stowe Chastain's hat.

Starting point is 01:14:34 The guy, yeah. Did you see this video? I don't know. Ross is driving to Victory Lane, and Justin, I think, ran out to him, right? I think it was Justin. I think it gets in the window and they're having a moment. There's somebody's got the audio from it. And they're having, you know,

Starting point is 01:14:46 thank God, yeah, hell yeah, whatever. And then all of a sudden, a fan, you can see a fan like behind Justin. And then you can't see him in from the end car, obviously. You could just hear, he must have took Ross's hat and walked off with it because you hear Ross like,

Starting point is 01:14:59 hey, give you that hat back. But I think security got a hold of him, his fun night turned bad. Yeah. Tommy, you had a shit show this weekend. Yeah. A little bit. Tommy has one every week.

Starting point is 01:15:12 He has one every day, usually. No, I mean, it turned out to be a great, great race at the end. But Franklin County, the Smart Tour race there this past weekend, and they got a wreck happened, and a guy all the oiled the track. And they had two bags of Speedy Dry only. For the night. For the night. And those two bags were soaking wet.

Starting point is 01:15:34 So they made the decision to go get the tractor to go pull some dirt out of the back behind the grandstands and put it on the track. on oil. Yeah, yeah, dirt on oil. So there was nine laps left in the race. It was some good racing going on up until that point for sure. And we all took a vote to continue or not. But a couple of us brought up a good idea to run the ministock race.

Starting point is 01:16:02 You know, line us up back up on. Let them be the lab rats. It was one of the best. Minestock guys, why what the hell? And if you can go back to the replay on flow, racing, that race was one of the best. races you'll ever see. The show that those guys put on was a good show. The Modifieds got back on the track and it was Ryan Newman and Luke photo finish. Oh wow. Point 014 finish and Newman just got

Starting point is 01:16:27 Luke, Luke got underneath them going into three and four finally caught him and it was great finish. Yeah, but that was that was something I've never seen before. Just I mean running, I've started people running out of speedy drive. I've never heard of them having two bags. That was wet. I was winning. It's less effective that way. And credit to those folks. They, there was new management ownership.

Starting point is 01:16:51 I don't know if it's ownership of management, but they are cleaning it. They're starting to clean, believe it or not, I don't know if you guys ever been to Franklin County, but they are starting to clean that place. So where Brandon won his first UA-Late model ice. Yeah. Great fast racetrack. Yeah. Well, like Tommy said, you can go back and watch it on Flow. Flow Sports.link slash DBC1, if you don't already have a subscription there.

Starting point is 01:17:11 Another one I saw, I don't know, we'd have to pull this up. Somebody sent it to me. I don't remember what track it was at. I saw it on Racing America, I think. But it was somebody, there was a tire laying on the front straightaway at like a vintage race. And the guy just never saw it. It looked like priests running over the box last week. Just drove straight over the middle of it almost flipped over.

Starting point is 01:17:30 Where's our guy that brings up all these things? Where do you go? We're short staffed this. We've run these guys to death this week. Where is everybody? It's a holiday week. They all have to go with Carson win? They've had a long day.

Starting point is 01:17:42 They've had a long day with Dale and Ellis, so we're going to give him a break this weekend. But this week. Cleetus, you're referring to, he started that big Arco-Recra. Cleetus has restart mishap. I don't know what the other one I said was. Oh, McLaughlin Wreckon. Chastain's hat. And then Tommy's lack of speedy dry.

Starting point is 01:18:02 Well, it's a good list. Yeah, that's a good one. Let's move on to DBC Picks. Tommy, you won last week, Byron, who finished second. Carson picked Carson, host of our. But Freddie, you will be the next. You're involved here. Oh, I pick too.

Starting point is 01:18:28 Yeah. Look at your list. I got to go first. All right. Where are we going? Nashville. Kansas. Kansas.

Starting point is 01:18:36 We're still going to Kansas. That's right. You know, I'm a little suspicious of this whole deal. Martin Trex Jr.'s on my list. He's on all of our list. He's been picked on your list, right? Evidently, he must have had to get picked for Daytona, right? Blaney picked him at Daytona.

Starting point is 01:18:52 Okay, okay. You can also pick Castornevis if you're interested. I pick Kurt Bush one race. I'm going to go to Chase Briscoe this week. I don't really know why. They feel like they've been kind of showing some speed lately. You know what? This does not say a whole lot about the IQ of the guest.

Starting point is 01:19:13 They're leading. They've got the most wins. I have no idea how. Oh, you mean the people? We are race number four. Yes, the guests that you have had in here. And now you. And now me, but it doesn't say a lot.

Starting point is 01:19:26 Somebody left him on the table. I mean, yes, he's not highlighted. Kyle Larson. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? He's pretty good. He's pretty good. I have heard recently he's overrated, though.

Starting point is 01:19:39 Yeah, overrated. Wow. I can't believe no one's picked Larson. Yeah, I mean, he is not highlighted. No, he's available. You got to understand a lot of the guests pick their own people. He goes to show you what the ratings of your guest are. I'll tell you what, Freddie.

Starting point is 01:19:56 I'm going out on the limb this week. I'm going with Magic Mike, man. Again this week. So we're talking about Mike Kelly. What those guys are doing at the 47 car is unbelievable. Above the playoff cut line. He hit the wall. He ran into the wall about 300 miles an hour, and he still finished 11th.

Starting point is 01:20:13 I don't know what they got going on. Yeah, I just hope we're only halfway through the regular season. and we know the way the winners are going right now that there's going to be several. Make these playoffs on point. I know we've got one more Daytona race, but I hope what Ricky will do for the next 13 weeks, take what that car will give.

Starting point is 01:20:32 Oh, yeah. If it's 12th, take 12th. If it's 8th, take 8th. Don't try to take 8th and go to 1st. Normally the next thing you hear is your spotter say, are you okay? Will it crank drop the net? Yeah, yeah, Magic.

Starting point is 01:20:45 I mean, they've been doing this all year where they don't even, like, some weeks they have, some weeks they have speed, but then there's other weeks where they just figure it out. You know, they just kind of stay in the fight and the other night they were back there racing with us. I don't know, mid-20s, I felt like, and then I got home, I look, I go, they finished 11 again. It's like, it's the same thing. I'm like, some bitch was almost on fire. He was coming on pit road. The whole side was almost off, I thought. I'm like, Magic Mike taped her up, finished 11. Magic Mike. Oh, Magic Mike. It's got a couple movies out.

Starting point is 01:21:16 if you want to start it. But yeah, anyway, heading to, what should we look forward to for Nashville, Larry? Well, I've already talked to a few crew chiefs. Of course, we only go there once a year. They're putting the resin down in the second and the third groove, which they've kind of done that before. But you've got to believe it's probably going to be the same cast of characters.

Starting point is 01:21:37 You know, Ross Chastain has won there before, and we know that he's got a little momentum right now. This is where in all... Why don't you pick them then? because Larson was still available. Evidently, I'm a little smarter than all those other guests. I don't know. They've won five times.

Starting point is 01:21:55 We'll see how you make out. This is where Lugano turned it around. But also, remember, this is where we also set a record for overtime attempts at five. This was a 400-mile race that lasted about as long as the Coke 600 did, just a little over four hours. The other thing, night race. all three races are at night, which I think was a smart move. Joy Lugano, I heard him say on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio this week.

Starting point is 01:22:23 Two years ago, hottest race he's ever been in. But the thing about it, a lot like the weather we're having now, it's going to be unseasonably cool. I think we're looking maybe in the mid-70s. And we haven't had a, from what I recall, I feel like every race has been pretty hot there.

Starting point is 01:22:37 I don't remember one that was, maybe the one that was at night might have been a little bit cooler. But I remember, I feel like every time we've been there, it's been pretty warm. But I love going to tracks that we only go to once a year because I think that just creates a little bit of an unknown. Yeah, we can talk about who ran well there last year,

Starting point is 01:22:55 but we know in Cup a lot of water goes under the dam from one year to the next. Yeah, a lot of things have changed. You know, one thing before we did check out here, because I've seen somebody ask me about it this morning, and there's a video that surfaced of the McLaughlin wreck. There's a video of Larson driving by, and you hear somebody wrecked and somebody say, he's a fucking idiot for wrecking because obviously they're in a time crunch they're trying

Starting point is 01:23:17 to get the race going now this delays him a little bit just frustration on the radio it was not Kyle that said it um so anybody that thinks that Kyle said that is wrong and Kyle does flash a thumbs up on the way by he could be very well asking Scotty if he's okay because I know they know each other he could be frustrated and and maybe a sarcastic thumbs up like thanks a lot you're costing me time but I don't think there's any malicious intent so I seen a lot of large a lot of hate for Larson over it I don't I don't think it's necessary I think it was, you know, just kind of heat of the moment. They're trying to get the race started so they can attempt to double, and it's just,

Starting point is 01:23:50 you know, unfortunate that it went down. But I don't think it was anything really malicious on anybody's part. You had to believe, though, I agree, but you have to believe anxiety was starting to set in. Already, yeah, that's what I mean. It just had to be. I mean, the clock's ticking. You've got this 407 line in the sand. Race ended up, I looked at the minute, Pallow crossed the start, finish line.

Starting point is 01:24:13 I looked, it was 428. That's two hours before the green flag for the Coke 600, even though it all became a moot point. Yeah. Anyway, again, Tommy, what do you got going on this week? Modified's nothing? Yeah, we got Seacock. Oh, Tour race.

Starting point is 01:24:27 It's a tour race Saturday. Then I'll be in Nashville. I was worried about you the other day because I saw something on a list, and I'm concerned it's going to cost you money. What? Luke's like five points out of the modified tour point lead or something. And leading to smart. And leading to smart.

Starting point is 01:24:41 So, I mean, how much, how are we, I mean, don't be, I mean, I'm, I don't know how far in the will I am, but I don't want you to blow my whole inheritance. I know. We'll see. I'm going to, we're going to get through Seaconk and then Riverhead and then probably make our decision. Do you have, is there a smart and a riverhead, are smart and a northern tour conflict? There's three conflicts, yeah. And I would say there was a possibility that Doug Colby will do those three. So we'll still shoot for the owners championship.

Starting point is 01:25:07 We'll see where we end up. That's a good guy to come off the bench. He's not bad. No, he's not good. Pretty good sub. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for everybody coming out last week for Fan Day. We had a lot of fun here.

Starting point is 01:25:20 Me and Carson, we're in the cars tour. All are signing toasters and slinging some T-shirts. And then I got on stage with Jordan, had some fun there. I said everybody just a lot of fans in town this weekend. Got to see a bunch of them. Saw some at Big Al's. Saw some at Saeeds on Saturday. You made the whole tour, huh?

Starting point is 01:25:37 Well, it was a late start on Sunday. So we were able to get out a little bit on Saturday night. And then just, again, remember this weekend why we do what we do and the freedoms of everybody gave up to give us these freedoms. So Larry, again, thank you for coming by. I'm sure this won't be the last time we see you now that we've got an open seat. Hopefully we'll get to drag you back in here. No, I've enjoyed it.

Starting point is 01:26:00 But I do want to echo something you just touched on there, Freddie, is the fact that the reason that we could gather $350,000 plus an indie, 100,000 plus in Charlotte, and not even think twice about it is because of the men and women that are currently serving, but the men and women that gave that ultimate sacrifice. I know I'm a little bit prejudiced, but nobody celebrates it. It's not really a celebrate, but nobody honors it and remembers more than NASCAR Charlotte Motor Speedway with the names above the windshield. Stopping the game in the middle of the race to come down for that moment of silence.

Starting point is 01:26:38 Nobody does it better. That's the one pre-race of the year we don't ever miss. You know, that's one you get up on the roof early for to make sure you catch you. It gets chills every time you're up there. But again, thank you for everybody listening this week. Good to see everybody at Charlotte. We'll see. I'm sure a bunch of you.

Starting point is 01:26:54 I'll be bouncing around Nashville all weekend. So come say hi. Are you coming to race this week? Just Sunday. Just Sunday. All right. Well, thanks for listening to everybody. Again, Larry, thank you for coming.

Starting point is 01:27:02 Thank you. And we'll see you guys back here next week. Peace out. Check out Dirtymo Media. On Twitter, Facebook. TikTok and Instagram.

Door Bumper Clear - Larry Mac: Charlotte Stopped The Bleeding

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