Door Bumper Clear - Pocono with Kelly Crandall: Tricky To Pass, Freddie’s Drinking Game & Driver #77

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

DBC is back from Pocono and welcomes in motorsports journalist Kelly Crandall to go over all of the moments from the NASCAR world over the weekend. From Dale Jr.’s debut as a crew chief to Carson Hocevar’s continued rivalry with Ricky Stenhouse Jr, there was plenty to talk about.  In Spot On/Spot Off, the group discusses Kyle Busch’s comments on Dale Jr. serving as the crew chief for Connor Zilisch in the Xfinity Series, how pit strategy set Briscoe up for the victory, and why they think a top-10 driver in points will MISS the Playoffs.  Plus, they field calls from the fans in Reaction Theatre and preview the Atlanta race in #AskDBC. They also make their picks for the first round of the In-Season Tournament, which starts this upcoming weekend. Timestamps26:12 - Spot On/Off1:00:51 Reaction Theatre1:07:55 #AskDBC1:14:49 In-Season Tournament Picks Catch all the grassroots racing action live with FloRacing. Learn more or sign up at flosports.link/dbc1 Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media. 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. That's what I think.

Next thing you know, I got no fire suit 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. Not enough, you love them. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to Door Bumper Clear.

I'm Freddie Craft. Spotter for Bubba Wallace, Dean Thompson, and Gio Rejero this week. I hope I'm seeing. I don't even how to say this kid's name yet. I think I got it, though. Close enough. Blue Swage. What is Blue Swet?

What the hell? As soon as, you know, obviously, TriCon racing, part of Toyota family there. So I'm going over there to try to help those guys out. They want to make a change this week. So I am back truck racing. I'm off the fuck a truck plan for the rest of the year. But, yeah, so I sign up to do the deal.

We go meet with Gio and the crew chief last week. And then I see the damn the picture of him getting on the plane. And I'm like, what in the hell have I gotten myself into? Full Italian. Full Italian. Good morning, Thomas. Full Guido, man. Loved it.

The shorts, the suede blues. The shoes. Oh, yeah. I don't have that. I don't have that in my repertoire. But what's up, Tommy? How are you today? I'm doing good, man.

Has your phone. I don't see it. I seem to misplace it. I have no idea. Wait, you don't, you've completely lost your phone? Yeah, I don't, I don't. It'll come back. Oh, man.

Well, good work. I'm proud of you. Aunt Carson, how are you today? I'm great. I'm great. Is it as Aunt, or was it Auntie? Antie. Oh, Auntie Carson.

Ante's back. Yeah, that's good to see you. How was your weekend? It was fun. It was fun. Spent the weekend, babysitting 18-year-olds, and Tommy's kid. 18-year-old. He's an 18-year-old, too.

Yeah. They were calling me Auntie because apparently I'm old to them, so. Yeah. Yeah. Which, what does that make you guys? Really old. Really old. Yeah, very, very old.

Joining us to... How come still she says title on the paperwork? Yeah, you don't know my title, Andrew. Give us your title besides Ante. I'm the marketing and partnerships manager. Marketing. Slash, Auntie. Slash, Auntie.

Whatever. Just put that on the paper. I'm just going to write title unknown. Title unknown. That's all you got to say. Joining us today, our good friend Kelly Crandall is back. How are you today, Kel? I'm good.

I'm good. You know very well what you've gotten yourself. I did. You've done this a few times before. You text and I'm like, yes. I'm not even going to look at if I'm going to be back from Pocono or not. That's good to know. I will say, Kel, can you send me money?

Yes. Yeah, she's not going to look, right? In that case, you're not going to get anything. I work on the other side of the fence and racing where there is no money. I know everybody's very concerned. How is Chris doing? Are we back? Like, is this, the enormity of Twitter is very concerned about Chris's well-being.

This has made my, like, last 24 hours or 48 whenever he tweeted it. So, listen, maybe he did get sick in Mexico. I don't know. But he had been home from Mexico for quite a while. And I am suspicious. I think it was some bad chicken that he got food from. No. He's the cook, not me, Tommy.

Thank you. Just make sure I'm safe of future things with you. I know my lanes and I stay in them and that is not one of my lanes. So I stay out of the kitchen. So no, I suspect he suspects it was food poisoning. But social media is convinced that it's just another notch in the negative attention from Mexico. I will say there is plenty of notches in the Mexico sick belt this week. I am not like disputing that.

Like, you know, some folks had a good experience. Some folks, of course, had a bad experience. But again, we suspect it was more likely bad chicken that he had. So that's what we're going with. But Twitter is very concerned. Twitter, I've never seen somebody. So many people are so concerned with Chris's well-being. I didn't know how he had that much family out there.

It's pretty insane. I am proud of every crew member in the garage because they work their tail off not being sick all week until they got to the track on Friday. And I think they ran out. Did they run out of Ivy? They ran out IV bags. I heard they didn't run out.

They had to restock. And then they had restock antibiotics, I heard. There was a revolving door in the care center this week. And I seen Brad, I can't pull the tweet up, Andrew. But actually, I think I can. But I know Brad had tweeted something, you know, that he said, observation from driver intros. Most all of the drivers are still stick and dehydrated from last week.

I've never seen so many sick drivers before the start of a race. You know, and it's just, I mean, listen, you can do all the lot. you know, it's, I don't know. I don't want to blame the drivers. I don't want to blame Mexico. It's just, you know, you get a bad case of something and that's it. You know, it's a stomach bug. Not everybody's got a solid stomach like you, Fray.

Well, buddy, if they just drank enough tequila. That tequila wipes everything out. Next year, everybody, just go find Alfredo upstairs at the Regency Hyatt or whatever it is, and he'll take care of you. He must have the elixir that took care of all things. Anyway, what's up with you, Kel, has things. What's the journalist's life going like these days? Good. I mean, besides, you know, Twitter telling me what's going on in my own life. No, I'm good. Just busy, as always, right? But enjoying it. So this is what I've wanted to do with my life. So now I'm living it. And then there's some days where I question, can everybody just leave me alone? And can I go sit in a hole somewhere? But no, it's good. Just busy. Didn't make it to Pocono because of, you know, taking care of Chris. But I should have been there. But we've got a lot of races now coming up. I'm excited to get back on the road for.

Excellent, excellent. Thomas, how was your day yesterday? It was good. I mean, obviously stayed at trouble. Fifth race in a row in the lead lap, making gains. You know, he's just, again, it's learning. I mean, yesterday was a tough race. I mean, we're not going to sit here and pat anything, really. It's probably from the view up top. It was probably the toughest passing race I witnessed all year long. I mean, the restarts, once it fanned out, it was so hard to pass. I mean, you could see the 11 car trying, you know, the last 15 laps. everything he possibly could to work the air a little bit differently. You know, there was a lot of times he even lost a lot of car links at one point just because he was trying so hard on different things of trying to do, try to catch the nose, you know,

a little bit cleaner to get a better run off, especially off of one. But yeah, really hard to pass. You know, the 12 car had all kinds of problems, right? Still finished third, but they did it on strategy, too. I don't, I didn't see many cars passing. many cars. It was a hard day. Yeah. And like to your point for us,

I think they've changed, they made to your point a drinking word on this show, I think, because I say it all the time, so go ahead and drink. But to your point, we started in the back because we had a starter issue in qualifying, similar to 12, and we couldn't go anywhere. You know, we passed four or five guys maybe, but we were running 30th, at the end of the first stage or 29th or something like that.

You know, you just couldn't, like you said, you just couldn't pass. It was really tough. Then you get the close, what we always talk about on here is, you know, the closer you get to the front, your car starts driving a little better. So we ended up getting to like,

I don't know, we were about 20th, you know, and it was getting a little better. As you see like a little light at the end of the tunnel and then obviously we, you know, blow another brake rotor up and pound the fence in our days over. Bubba now, I'm proud of them

because we only have one more turn to hit really hard there. You know, if we've smashed the wall on one as hard as you could hit it. We've hit the wall in two now as hard as you can hit it. You know, if we just knock out three, maybe next year,

you know, It's not a fun feeling when you're guys going out of backstretched down long pond and you hear, oh, fuck, before you even get to the corner. And I was like, oh, no, not again. I mean, to, to, it's, oh, Pocono's always been like that. It's just not, this isn't new, right? I mean, it's an easy. And you can, if you're studying at times, from first to 30th, it's over a second and

lap time difference if you were leading or if you were running 30th. It's over a second. I think it's like 1.4 seconds. Yeah. Like if you just, Tyler Redick was a perfect example yesterday at the end. They were running 29th and they pitted, put four tires on. And my guess is they were hoping for a caution, right? So other guys would pit and they would jump that group because they weren't going to pass.

Well, they were a lap down. But they were going for the point. Yeah. Oh, were they going. I wasn't sure if they were a lap down. They were left down. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, they were going for the point. But anyway, they put him right out front of the 19. and he just drove away from him, and he couldn't do anything where it was. So, yeah, it's just, Poconos always had that history of fanning out and just, you know, the car is just dying. I mean, the only probably in the late 90s, early 90s, when there was no arrow, aerodynamics, much aerodynamics in the cars

and the tires were like, I think we were running really, really soft tires back then because of no aerodynamics. But still, Poconos is hard, man. It's a difficult track. Yeah, oh, for sure. And, you know, Kelly, I know, how was it watching at home? Because I know, like, for me and Tommy in person, it was a bit of a snoozer. But, I mean, it was a little bit of drama at the end.

Yeah. No, it was a race. That's the best way to put it, right? And I agree with Tommy. Pocono has always been tough. But I think visually with this car, it looks much worse. I mean, it looks really, really tough. It looks really, really bad.

At the beginning of the race, and maybe it's just because from my perspective of people that I was keeping an eye on. At the beginning of the race, I saw it a little differently because William Byron and Chris Buster, I felt like at the beginning, at least the first stage, where the only two drivers really that you could tell had really fast race cars, because they were continually driving, at least for Byron having to come from the back. He was continually driving through the field. And he had a little bit of strategy go his way to at the end of the first stage where some drivers did peel off to pit, so that helped him move up and get some stage points. But again, that 24 just seemed like no matter where he was, he could make passes. And then,

Chris Buescher, I think just on pure speed was one of the fastest cars. But overall, the optics of yesterday, yeah, it did not, it didn't look good on TV. Yeah, I mean, to your point, like, we were racing with, I don't know how Buster ended up back with us, but we were about 20th, 25th, whatever it was. And he, I thought in the beginning of the race, I'm like, oh, man, he's got a car that can win, you know, watching the start of the race. And then he ends up back there and he's racing us and he can't pass us, you know, and that's who we were side by side with when we wrecked.

You know, and then I get bound to the hall, I'm watching the race, and here's Busher at the end again, you know, chasing a leader down. And I'm like, damn, like, you know, just where if you put your car up front, you could probably be all that, you know. I think Scott Graves was going for, which normally Pocono is, right? It's the strategy game of, you know, how, like many races, how are, kind of like a road course, I think it gets compared to a lot. How are you going to position yourself for that third stage? And I know at one point, Scott Graves and Busher had been talking about, all right, we're going to pit differently here. It's going to put you back in traffic. But Graves was emphasizing, we're trying to, I'm trying to, I'm

trying to set you up to have good track position in that third stage. So I think that's when he got mired back there in the middle of the pack. Yeah. It's just, it's just crazy. And like, to your point, Tommy, like, to your drink again? Drink again. That's the third time in the last 30 seconds. We're hammered back here. We're smoked, everybody. See, I'm really bad about that. Like, there's certain phrases having done my podcast that I catch myself doing all the time. Yeah. That's a great point. I know Freddy's pain. It's got a point. I got a good point. But, you know, like, I'm not saying it.

But what you're saying about the leader difference is the cars will run the same speed, but you're running a second and a half slower just because you're in traffic. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like if you put that guy in front, he's going to run a second half. You know, it's just. And it's always been there like that at Pocono. Yeah, for sure.

It's always been. Anyway, but good for Briscoe. You know, that kid, you know, he, what he went through at the end of the last year, knowing, you know, a place he, you know, being the Tony Stewart fan that he was and driving the 14 car, meant so much to him. And then that just disappeared essentially one day and having a search for a ride. And I know Dale said on the podcast yesterday, he had a good point. That, you know, he basically got a golden ticket.

You know, he got the call from Joe to coach Gibbs to get in that 19 car. And I think he knew. And I think somebody, I think Andrew put in our group text last night, he alluded to when you get in that car, you have to win races. Yeah. And then, you know, that's. Well, first off, he almost ended up in the 21. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That was close. Yeah. Yeah. Because he was meeting with the Wood brothers when Joe was like, no, no, no, no, I want you to I want you to come here and sign this. But I feel bad for Briscoe winning yesterday for two reasons. First off, I don't feel bad for him. I feel bad that the win is almost overshadowed.

Because on the one hand, he even said it. I think it was in a serious XM interview, which was that because you're supposed to win here and because these teams win a lot, he really didn't enjoy yesterday because it was almost like there's so much pressure around him performing in that car that he's expected to do this.

that. And the second reason that I think it's overshadowed a little bit is because of so much talk about how tough it was to pass that I don't know if Briscoe is going to get the credit he deserves for making that fuel tank last over that final run. Like I love fuel mileage races and I think it's really impressive when drivers are put in that position to where, okay, you're going to make the difference. Your throttle pedal and your skill is going to make the difference of whether you make it to the checker flag. And again, I just think that's going to go a little kind of under the radar this week because the first thing we always talk about was, was it a good race and could drivers pass? Instead of like, let's talk about how impressive it was that they were going to be two to three laps short.

And not only does he make it, but he can still do a burnout and get to victory later. And not a lot of people, I'm not sure if they panned on this, but during the cautions, you know, obviously all the drivers shut off on coast. Then he was not letting Briscoe do that. Then he was, then he was running his engine and making, because if he slows down too much and Denny's holding the caution lap speed, they're going to put Briscoe behind him. So Danny was forcing him to use fuel. And I thought, again, I thought that was pretty smart. Tommy, regarding your comment. To my point. Andrew sent me a list of alternate ways to say to your point. I was wondering why you were giggling over there.

I mean, we're going to break that down a little bit and spot on, spot off. Um, uh, Zillich, big win for Zillich, first oval win on a triangle. Um, yeah, I said that. I was like, does it really count as your first oval win if it's a triangle? Uh, he had so, who's that guy, crew chief and for him? I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, I never heard of him. I texted Dale that morning and I said, I'm paying off one of these picker, the changers to leave two lugs loose on the last pit stop so your ass gets suspended on Tuesday. I just wanted to see that headline break the internet. And then, uh, he said, you know, I forget what the hell he said after that. But then he wins the race and Duggers in there and Duggers like,

oh, bam, good job, Dale. And I said, yeah, if you want, you can spot tomorrow. Try something else for the weekend. We need to win to. That's the thing that's the thing that's the last thing he does. Yeah, he said he's going out on top. He's going to retire from crew chiefing now. But it was good to see them guys.

You know, that was a hell of a race. Allgaier and Chase get into it. They run each other over there on the corner and then puts, it was really fun to watch. I didn't get to watch much of it because I was spotting. But Jesse and Connor and race each other for the win at the end. That was pretty fun. Yeah, it was a good race.

I mean, obviously, Dale, did Dale call the race? We don't know. We're going to find out. We're going to find out. We're going to talk about that in the spot-on, spot off too a little bit. What else? Oh, the truck race.

Who do you think Corey Hyam is pissed off in the world? Oh, man. This kid's got the worst possible luck ever. He's going to break the record for like most laps led in the season and have like two wins. I think is crazy. It's insane. Like every race they're the best truck by far, it feels like. and then, you know, they have just, just unbelievable bad luck.

I mean, the kids just right. I thought they were joking because obviously we're on, you know, I was spotted for a tricons truck. So we're coming to green and Jeremy, our crew chief is like, the 11's got a flat. And I was like, there's no way that this kid's got a flat again. Like, how is this possible? Shame, man. On the flip side, though, think of it this way. If he wins all of these races, how many complaints you think there would be of like, can somebody else win?

Like this, you know. So I feel bad. for him because at this point it's like holy crap is there anything else that is going to happen between flat tires getting right like there's no other way that this guy can lose a race but if he had everything go his way he might be undefeated this year i'm not sure that's a good thing i think only he probably only would have lost one race this year but uh hopefully it gets it all out of system for the players because i mean obviously he deserves right now to be the champion right yeah um they just got to get that bad luck

the big thing that came out of this race was that last restart, when Corey got the flat, it seemed to go a little haywire like nobody knew what the hell was going on. You know, the rule, the way I understand the rule is Corey was leading. Lane was second. I think Carson was third coming to the choose. Corey and Lane stacked the top. Carson went to the bottom.

Corey gets the flat. He pulls off. Lane pulls up. Well, now they get to the front row. And I think Tyler Green was the only one that knew the rule. He was spot for Carson. and the 34 was the control car. But nobody else knew that.

So the 34 is kind of dragging him into the box and he doesn't want to go too early because he thinks maybe the 7's the control car. The 7's waiting on the 34 because he's being told the 34 is the control car. Then finally the 7 takes off and then he gets a penalty for jumping the start. It's just it was a mess.

And I don't know. I feel like they might have been a little more lenient because even NASCAR, like the only time I heard it, the NASCAR radio controls, race control came over and said off of three, like almost to the restart zone, 34 it's a control car. And that was like,

even maybe before you can even get it relayed. So I think that they could have been maybe a little more lenient. I didn't go back and look and see how bad Carson went earlier. Not, but it was, it seemed like a little bit of a cluster fuck for the, for lack of a better term. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, but the rule is whoever drops out of that line, that whole line moves up. Yeah, yeah, no. Right? Yeah. And then the guy that was second. or first, right, is the lead car. I mean, that's exactly what you said.

That's the rule. I mean, all you guys should know that. The drivers should know that, right? Yeah. Well, that was the thing. It just seemed like nobody knew it, except for Tyler. Tyler do right away. He's like, Mr. Analytics.

Mr. Analytics. But, again, you have a cup driver sitting in his position there. First, second, well, second and third best truck. I mean, the 34, you got the 11, and he had the 34 and the 7, you know, the second and third best truck. And I don't know if the seven, I'm not even going to say his name because I don't feel like it. I don't know if the seven.

He's just a number on this show now. Yeah, he's just, yeah, he's number seven and 77. I just think the, again, man, just not thinking. Like, I don't know. Here we go. Nope. I've seen Patty was fired up. And the funny thing, I, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

Tyler was telling me afterwards, or the next day, really, he said, you know, Patty was on the radio just melting down the series, this, you know, whatever. Patty is always melting down the series. I was going to say, that doesn't surprise me at all. He is on the chip from the minute he walks in on the series to the minute he leaves. It was so funny. So he said, Tyler said that, you know, Patty went to the truck. He's like, all right, let's go talk to them. And number seven is like, no, I'm not going.

You go. You go. And we went, I got in trouble. I don't know. a handful of years ago. And Patty was my crew chief. Had to go to the hauler. Turn in my hard card.

And Patty's like, before you go, he's like, okay, here's the deal. We're going to go in there. And they're going to tell you how stupid you are and how disappointing you are. And he goes, you're just going to sit there and say, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, sir, whatever. He says, don't argue with them. That's only going to make it worse. Just go in there, take your lashing and we'll walk out together. I was like, all right, man, I appreciate it.

So we go in and we sit down. The second day, start yelling, Patty's like, this is bullshit. I'm like, oh, bro, what happened? What happened? What happened? It's just sitting here and listening. He asked you to listen, not him. I was like, oh, no, I'm going to get suspended. Now this is over.

But, yeah, Brian's awesome. What else came out of this week? San Diego. That's getting close to done. What have you heard on that, Kell? It depends on who you ask, because, I mean, I love Jordan's reporting. I trust Jordan's reporting. But, again, as you know, Freddie, you could walk through the garage

and from the front of the garage to the back of the garage, get different answers. So there's some folks, San Diego's been a rumor now for about, I feel like a year, maybe a year and a half. This is not the first time, at least that I've heard San Diego. But as I said, depending on who you ask, there's folks who think that it's kind of just like, that is kind of being put out there almost as like a feeler. Yeah, like a feeler or even kind of like, I can't think of the word right now, but almost like to throw people off of like, almost like a distraction, whereas NASCAR is actually working on something else. So again, it just depends on who you believe. but I will say, it's not the first time we've heard San Diego. Yeah, no. The thing as Jordan said, though, in his story that you have to pay attention to is the deal's not done.

He was just saying that they're getting close to a deal. So, again, I mean, this is something clearly NASCAR has been looking at and talking about for a while. I hope it happens. Yeah. I'd love it to happen. New area. Just exciting new place to go and new fans. Yeah.

I mean, let's do it. Yeah, in line with what you guys said. Oh, my God. To all of our points. I'm sick of you. I want to see this list. More done. Nice job, Freddie.

I'm working on this, Andrew. I'm going to send you 10 more once you got all of them. This is like the phenomenal deal when I had to start saying terrific and marvelous and all that other bullshit. But, yeah, and the rumor was, I think last week they came out that this might replace Chicago. And, like, I think Dale talked about it on his show maybe, like, this was going to end up on the prime schedule and Mexico was going to move. Because I think we're still going back to Mexico. I don't know for sure. Again, it's up in a year.

But, you know, Mexico was going to move to a different date. So, like, if this replaced Chicago, then that kind of maybe squashes some of those Chicago. land rumors. Right. So that's what I was going to say. And I think I'm going to dig into this maybe a little bit for racer is like if you, if you sit down and make a list right now of all the scheduled rumors, they all don't fit. We're running 75 races next year. They all don't fit because you've got San Diego, you got Chicago, you got Chicago land, you got Canada and you got Mexico City. Okay, well, we can't run all those races unless we're getting rid of a bunch of existing races. So it's really fascinating that here we are now with, it's great to have a lot

options, but what is what is the 2026 schedule actually going to look like at this point? Yeah, because we were talking about, I was talking with Jordan about this in Mexico and, you know, you're talking about weeks off before and after Mexico or, you know, and I said, Jordan's like, well, we know when the 500 is and we know when Homestead is. There's only so many weeks in between those two dates. There's just doesn't line up with extra off weeks and more races and everything else. I just love the fact, as I said, that we have options. Because as you know, having been in this sport for how long, and I've said this repeatedly, there used to be a time where you could copy and paste that schedule every year and almost to like the exact weekend

of when it was going to fall on the schedule. So at least now we have something to talk about of the last couple years because NASCAR is more open to actually changing the schedule and trying new things. So do you think they might another two year, a track that runs twice a year might go to one and that might be able to open up a date for some of these venues? Are you hearing anything there? I think anything's on the table because NASCAR keeps telling us if it's not putting on good racing and the attendance keeps dropping, then that would be a race that we would look at that, you know, should we be going there when we could be going somewhere else? And we've seen it happen, right?

Like Texas lost a date. Pocono lost a date. Dover's lost a date. We have a bunch of tracks on the schedule right now that have lost a date that used to have two. So now they're packed. Yeah. Right. And so on the one hand, I think that's a positive because it,

makes people now want to go to those tracks. But I think it shows that if you don't, if you're, if you're one date struggles, don't, it's not a guarantee you're going to keep it anymore. Yeah. I mean, and that, to your point, time. I damn it. Hold on. Echoing your thoughts, Tom.

Amazing. You sound so studious. I've been, I've been very studious this week. You know, that crowd yesterday with a two, two and a half hour rain delay, whatever it was, was packed. It was, the infield was mobbed all weekend.

Like it was, Joey Meyer took a picture from the plane. I don't even know when the hell they got there. It seemed like it was Wednesday or Thursday. He was flying over

and the infield was already looked like it was about full. So to talk about, hold on, let me see. Tom, building on your idea. These,

all these places that you mentioned, Dover, you know, those places started to dwindle a little bit and the crowds have been fantastic when we go back to them for one time now.

So, I think Kand, Kansas is one that a lot of people, I don't know for sure, but Kansas seems to be the one, Freddie, that now gets talked about as like, could that one be on the chopping dock? And it's crazy because it used to be such a good race, but this one this year wasn't as good as years passed for whatever reason, you know, but, and it's the, I think, you know, to what we talked about on here before with, you know, the cars get, the more time we get with the cars, we're going to get faster and small, the box is going to get smaller,

and it's just going to continue to get harder to pass, I think. Hey, it's Dale Jr. Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Bears Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop.dotimomedia.com.

All right, we ready for some spot-on, spot-off? Yeah, let's do it. Spot on. Spot on. Did you want to go first on this one? I think he's a whiny bitch. That's what I think. Send it.

Why me? You ready? Yeah, I've been ready. Okay, good. All right, Kyle Bush, oh, what the fuck am I? I just haven't, Ann, you ready? Is it been ready? Are you ready?

I said I was ready and I was in fact not ready. Okay, spot on, spot off. Kyle Bush comments on Dale Jr.'s crew chief job for Zillich saying, quote, it's all publicity. He's just going to be a warm body sitting on top of the box, unquote. Spot on, spot off. Tommy. Hey, I will.

I will preface this by saying the last time I talked about this topic on this show is when we had our infamous trip to the hauler. So just be careful. No, I mean, so it goes back to any other crew chief that gets suspended. That crew chief is either on premises somewhere or back in the war room, still calling the race. I did find it interesting on the one important call. like I'm I'm sure Dale will talk about it on his show how that went down because that was the most pivotal call that's what really got can you enlighten us on which one staying out staying out when most when he probably should have well everyone felt they should have pitted he didn't they put him in a good position it's at the end of a stage I think yeah to put him in a good position to capitalize his starting spot to take over from the seven and the 17 get

into it. But yeah, I would like to hear from that. But again, the crew chiefs even on the box today on any crew chief has getting a lot of information from a lot of people, right? It's just, it's not just ultimately it's the crew chief's call, but a lot of people will help and make those decisions now. I'm glad they'll see the pressure and, you know, everything that goes into that. I think the best party on the show yesterday, he said, I don't know why Steve LaTart quit doing this because of the adrenaline and everything that goes into it. So, I mean, it's a hard job. I mean, it's a hard job to make these decisions and do, you know, get yourself through

the weekend and capitalize on the things you need to capitalize on. And did he do it? I don't know. I feel like, you know, Kelly, Dale strikes me as the kind of guy that, you know, a lot of you see crew chief gets suspended, engineer gets promoted, and then the crew chief basically calls the race. I don't think it's going to be, I think Dale's going to want to have his opinion heard a little bit more than the first engineer there. And, you know, you heard Dale on the radio talking to Connor, and you don't know how much of that is also coming from Marty, because I don't know

if Marty was there or if he was, you know, in a war room back in the shop. But, you know, Dale doesn't strike me as a guy that's just going to sit there and do everything Marty says. Well, that's the part that I really loved is because throughout the weekend, obviously this drew so much. much attention. It was well documented by everybody in Pocono of basically, I mean, every minute of Dale Jr. being in that garage or being on that pit box. But that's what I loved about it is how in he really was, of being there when the garage was open, going through inspection. And then from on top the pit box of, as you said, we don't know how involved he was, but Dale's not a guy that's just going to show up and sit there. He's not just going to be a face, right? So I loved just how involved

and how seriously he took it. Now, as for what Kyle said, I mean, he's not. He's not. He's not. He's not. He's not wrong. I think we're all well-educated enough, even the race fans that understand, to Kyle's point, when crew chiefs gets suspended, it really means nothing. I mean, they are not physically there, but they are... She said it. Not... Yeah. Who's ever listening? Take her hard, NASCAR. Take her hard card, not ours. But again, if we're all being honest, right? Like, and NASCAR knows the same. Like, NASCAR knows. They know these guys are back in the war room. They're... They still have some form of communication. So what Kyle said is not wrong.

But what I loved, as I said, was just how involved and how seriously Dale took it. I thought that was cool. Yeah. He still should get fine because he was at a uniform all weekend. Was he? Yeah. He was not in the sponsor's uniform at all. He's just wearing his show.

That's insane. And Connor Zillage gained a lot of new fans this week. Yeah, I'm kidding. I mean, you never heard the fans. Do you know what me and Luke discovered this weekend is that Dale doesn't even follow Connor on Instagram. Really? Yeah. Maybe he does now.

He might now, but. He had to win that race first. I'd be like, okay, now you get the phone. And I said, if you ever really want what I said on the last time, I got me in trouble and I'll say it again, because I didn't mean it the way they thought I did last time. But I said, if you really want to hurt these crew chiefs, you bring them to the damn R&D Center and you make them sit there and watch the race

without being able to talk to them, they'll go nuts. Like, what would you do? But that's exactly my point. That is exactly my point. They are still involved. And NASCAR knows it. The teams know it. The drivers know it.

Yeah, they are not physically there. And maybe it is a little bit different because they are not speaking directly to the driver and we know how important that is to have the guy you're familiar with to be in your ear and if things are going wrong to keep you calm whatever it may be but they are still communicating with the team the engineers they are still seeing all the information and helping kind of call that race and seeing how it plays out yeah and Tommy yeah to your point oh no you're on the list yeah well he doesn't have a phone to look at it on yeah look at the end of the day the race was won at the shop during the week because that car

unloaded fast. It was second or third fastest in practice. It was one of the best ones in average speed on long runs. So it made everybody's job easier to call, you know, to do the race, to call the race, to do everything what it needed to be done at the track because of all the prep work back here at the shop. So kudos to the team. Kudos to, to Marty to prep the car, getting it prepared for Dale, right? Because it still was his job, right? It still was Marty's job to do all that, to get the car to that point to make everybody's life easier. Yeah, even Dale's rolling on the front tire was spot on. I mean, he did a good job.

I mean, look, he went to pit practice. That's a pressure situation. Right. I mean, he went to pit practice. He did pit practice. So he was involved. So, I mean, good for him, man. And then, Tom, in response to your observation earlier about the teamwork, I got to see

at first hand yesterday because, unfortunately, I was out of the race. But I went down, and I don't know if every team does this, I was, it was pretty impressive to me. And it was, you know, we have that forward together, uh, motto at 23. 11. When I got to the hauler, Charles and J.R. are crew chief and lead engineer. And then Devon, uh, Sanchez, the engineer and crew chief from the 35, we're all

sitting at their computers helping every, you know, doing everything to kind of help the 45 in the races. Obviously, they were going to probably suffer a similar issue today. So they were working through it. They had rotors out in the trailer trying to figure out, you know, if they can change anything quicker than, other stuff. And so like, just, like, just. too, but like they're just feeding information, you know, they're relaying stuff from,

and I'm sure you probably see that every week in the war room, but it was just like really cool for me to see, you know, a lot of times you wreck out, you load your car up and you leave, I got there yesterday and they were all working together trying to figure out how we can get the 45 the best finish. So it's just the amount of information that you can get and feed to the box from different areas is pretty impressive. It's unbelievable in today's world of all the information that the crew chief can receive. And sometimes sometimes it's too much.

Sometimes it's overwhelming and it hurts your split second thoughts. of decision. But I think what's going on now is these decisions are being made so much earlier in the run, right, to make those decisions to get to the point to make that decision. You know, I know that sounds weird, but, you know, when the green flag drops on the restart, they're already thinking about the next stop. I mean, they're already planning on what's going to happen, where they are, you know, the situation they're going to be in, who they think's going to pit, who's not going to pit,

you know, two tires, four tires, where they are in. fuel, how many seconds are going to do? I mean, that's going through the war room. The whole process is going through that war room, why that run is going on to get to the crew chief's ears, right? To start processing that information, and they're ready. Well, not only that, Tommy, on the pit box, the screens and the different information the crew chiefs now have in the pit box is absolutely incredible. I spent the spring Darlington race last year, I spent the entire race on the pit box shadowing Chris Gabehart because I had never, obviously I'd never sat in the pit box and I wanted to see it from the perspective of a crew chief. So I was, I was on

like their main headset so I could hear like I was able to hear even the war room how that all played out, how they were talking. But even seeing the information Gabehart had, there were times where he would communicate things to Denny and he would say to Denny, you're going to hit this traffic or you're going to hit this driver by this lap. And it was spot damn on. And it was. was so impressive. So as you were saying, like, not only in the war room, but even on the pit boxes now, the amount of information and the different screens and the different resources, crew chiefs,

and the engineers have, it is so incredible. And it's completely, even from when you were a crew chief, it's probably, it has evolved so much over the years. Tommy had one of those tablets where you just slide to things over. What is that the Chinese, like arithmetic? What is it called? Oh, I thought it was a chisel. I've told Tommy. A lot of stopwatches in Tom's day.

Because we're both on the Hall of Fame voting panel, and I told Tommy at the Hall of Fame how much I enjoy having him and listening to him on the show. But I also said that one of my best memories of Tommy is starting the fight on Pitt Road. I did not. It was an old of fight. He misunderstood, Kel. He tripped. I know. I know.

Nobody should have put that stack of tires there. It was the tires fault. Damn tires. Tires and tow trucks are the bane of Tommy's existence. Yeah. Just. Trouble find him. It's not his fault, guys.

tries to stand in trouble Trouble just finds him. Next. To everybody's point. All right, moving on. Spot on, spot off. Pit strategy in timely cautions put Chase Briscoe in position to win the race.

Freddie. Spot on. The one call they made that was really, really good was the 71 blew a rotor. And they pitted anticipating a caution. And that, I think, was what put them in position to win the race, honestly.

You know, they got track resistance from that. They restarted behind, I think it was like the 77 guy, whatever his name is, and Stanhausenem, and he was able to, with a little fresher tire, get to the lead, and then he was in control of a race from that point forward. But that's, that was a gutty call. And I don't know why the hell it took so long to throw that yellow, because it should have came out, like the rotor bands were a bit of an issue for a lot of teams. For the people who were running.

For the people that had them on, I guess. Yeah. The 71 seemed like he lost one on the racetrack. And I watch it. I'm in the hall there watching it's laying on the front track. just showing it on television. I'm assuming it was live on television. A couple of guys, one guy,

Blaney just missed it. Redick hit it. And it's just laying there. It's a big piece of metal on the middle of racetrack. No yellow. You know the guy just broke a rotor. So there's got to be pieces of rotor somewhere, unless they all flew off the racetrack,

which I can't believe. And I felt like we went still, I don't know, I felt like forever, but it's probably like five laps. I would tell you before they threw the yellow. And but that's what, you know, then the 19 was able to flip and get a bunch of track position there.

And then, you know, we'll talk about the fuel saving here. It was insane. But I thought that. That was the call to race to get him in that position. Yeah, I mean, it's spot on because I think I'd said it earlier. This is what I expect from Pocono, which is, as cliche as it sounds, you have to be both lucky and good. And it turns into a little bit of a strategy race. So Briscoe in the 19, Freddie, you kind of laid it out perfectly.

They had already been working on their track position, and they were already, I think, in the top 10. And when you, they anticipated that caution perfectly. I think, as you said, we all knew it was coming. I mean, we all saw the 71 TV was showing it. The right side was destroyed. You could tell he clearly had a problem. So for them then to dive on pit road, get that caution out of the way, that's just sealed their track position. Because as I said, I think at that point they were already in the top 10.

But that sealed him being closer to the front. And I might have, I don't have my notes in front of me, I might have it wrong here. But I think wasn't it then on the next, it might have been on the next restart. I feel like is when he took the lead for the first time. Right? So, I mean, I have to be lucky and good. And I, strategy is a big part of Pocono. I mean, I just, I can't say that enough.

And they nailed theirs. Addressing your observation from earlier about road courses, you know, that you compared Pocono to a road course. This is what we do of road courses. If you see, you know, it's basically anywhere where you can pit, you know, pit and not lose a lap. You know, if you see a caution getting ready to come out, you dive down pit road because Tommy, that's going to be what cycle, you know, you're going to have your pit stop done. Now everybody, you know, if you can beat everybody to pit road and get your pit stop done

and the yellow comes out now, they're going to, they're all have to pit and they're going to be behind you. I mean, to you. You want the list? Yeah, no. No, I mean, it's just one of those races. It always has been. It's an oval road course of thought process. But yeah, I mean, I thought probably five or six teams did a really good job.

Like I said earlier, as much trouble as the 12 car was in all day with, you know, a pit road penalty. And I think they did two tires once, and I think it hurt them a little bit. and to rebound and back to third place was good for them. And the sixth car, I don't know, it seemed like... That was the one I was going to mention. Like when you talk about strategy, because when the six, during one of their fumble, pit wrote fumbles,

actually, I think it was after the one where he pitted where it was closed. Brad came over the radio and said, you know, heads down, let's just run our race. There's a good chance this could come back to us. And I know when I tweeted that quote, and there were fans who were like, oh, there's no chance they just ruined it. And I'm like, don't be so sure because this is a strategy race.

If they can play it right and they can now maybe run alternate to what other people are doing, they can get themselves back in the top 10. And that's exactly what they did. Well, they did on speed at the end. But they had a chance to end up top three on that last restart. Well, yeah, then came the second problem. Yeah. They should have pitted when a lot of those guys.

Again, you never know who was. telling those crew chiefs what they've seen on the track with the debris and stuff. Like it could have been like, you know, we watch in-car, a lot of in-car camera stuff. You can see a lot of stuff from the in-car camera in the war room of stuff that's going on a track. You know, there could have been possibly from the 19 war room said, hey, man, we see debris on the track. It was on TV. Right, right. Right.

I mean, again, that's where all the information comes from. And it's just, you know, the six has been, RFK as a group lately. have been really, really good. I think all three of them finish in the top 10 again yesterday with Pre's finish in eighth, and the 17 was fourth, I think, and the 6 was 10th. But the 6 just can't complete a race.

But once they do, they're going to win, right? And Brad's capable of winning, a team's capable of winning. And I think, towards the end, getting ready for the playoffs, they are going to knock somebody out. Yeah. And you talk about the good for the 19.

You got to talk about the bad at the same time because I knew it was an instant red flag. You know, you never want to be the guy that has the fastest pit stop when we're waiting on fuel. Yeah. And, you know, Lattartre, you know, they come out of the pits. He nailed it right away. And Lartre's like, well, great pit stop for the 19 bunch.

But it was an 11 second stop compared to everybody's 13 second stop. And I was like, oh, that's probably not good. You know, and then you watch the replay of his pit stop. and it was obvious he was supposed to wait on fuel and he pretty much went when the jack dropped and the second he left the box James loses his mind and he's like he know you know because he knows at that point

and to what James said James said when he left the box at that point with the amount of fuel they put in he felt like they were nine laps short. If it went green if it went green they were going to be nine laps short obviously they caught a caution that helped but even after that caution I'm in our hauler looking at some of the

you know the data that's in front of our guys and they're like he's still three lap short right now when that run started and he was just able to do I mean obviously it was tough to pass but he was doing such a good job of just lift coasting and and you know not giving up I mean he was actually going faster at one point than he was sometimes that happens you just started using less break and and you know but it was he did and then Danny just really couldn't do anything with him but the fact that he was able to save basically three laps of fuel over that last whatever it was 15 20 lap run was was really unbelievable and and a race restarted with 30 to go I believe so

over 30 laps saving three. That's a pretty good amount for two and a half miles to save to be able to make up. But Briscoe needs to buy that gas man dinner tonight because he ran with that car and then they had to stop him before he got to the line. But he did a really good job of making up. I bet you got another gallon in it. Probably. Right? As he was running with it, yeah.

The gas man in my eyes won that race. for him, so Briscoe better buy him dinner. And listen, to the, you know, the credit of the broadcast, I hadn't really sat down and watched a prime broadcast. I don't know. Luckily, I've been racing most of the time. I thought you were in the burn bar. Are you in a suite?

No, I went, they weren't down there. I was going to go get drunk in the sweet and drink away my sorrows, but they weren't down there. So I left, I went to the hauler. But that burn bar that they put on the TV screens, have you seen it at all the, it's basically your mile per gallon. And they have the technology to, you know, pretty accurately. say what, you know, they're showing, basically Briscoe is saving a gallon a lap more than, you know,

he was at like 5-5 and Danny was at like 4-7, you know, so he's, he was just, but I think that's a really cool piece of technology. And unfortunately, that's it, that's it for Prime, right? They're done. So hopefully some of these other networks take a lot of what they put into this. Prime is done, but Stevie's not. Yeah. And I'm a big Steve LaTart fan because he's, obviously being a former crew chief, he picks up on a lot of this stuff. I think he adds so much. much to a broadcast, not only from a strategy standpoint, but in this case, the fuel mileage. Like, he knew, as Freddie said, right away, and he kept hammering it, I think almost to like, to get his, as a producer's attention of go back and find that pit stop, because he kept

saying, I don't know about that. That was too quick. I hope he got it full. And then sure enough, a couple laps later, they're like, here's the replay. So Prime is done, but Stevie now goes to the rest of the year because he's doing T&T and NBC as well. So, and again, I'm a big Stevie fan. I think he adds so much to a broadcast. He does just such a good job of painting the longer, like the bigger picture of, you know, the strategy, what these guys are doing now, why they're doing this now.

You know, he just does such a good. And I think that's, I think that's something that Fox is missing. I know Larry does it kind of like they bring Larry in for some, from pit stop, you know, information or, you know, pitch strategy information. But Steve being on the broadcast, every lap, you know, he's able to paint that picture a little bit better. And I feel like that's why you need to have that crew chief kind of guy in your, in your arsenal of, you know, analysts during the race. Moving on, last but not least, a driver who is top 10 in the regular season point standings will miss the playoffs. Spot on, spot off, Tommy. There's a good chance.

I mean, obviously what NASCAR puts out there and what the fan sees, the top 16, right? And you see the winners are ahead of the guys that have not won, right? And the points, and I think what now is, is there five guys left, four guys left? There's five guys left. Five guys left that have not won a race that are in the top. 16 in points. But if there was a regular season, the regular season points, where are those guys now? Yeah, I think that's what, you know, that's kind of where the question comes from.

It's like, you know, because if we have, if we have four more winners, you know, the fourth winner is going to knock Tyler Redick out of the playoffs. I think he's currently seventh in points. Yes. You know, so that's where the thing comes from. Like, are you going to have guys that are inside the top 10 in regular season standings, not make the playoffs. And it's, I want to say no, because if that's the case.

case, if that happens, that means we're out without winning a race. But Tyler, you know, Tyler's got six guys behind him in the standings that won races last year that have not won a race this year. So, you know, we've got, we've got plenty of wild cards coming up. We've got Atlanta this week. We've got Daytona coming up at the end of the regular season. You've got three road courses, Kelly. Like, you've got a lot of wild cards coming up. It's not very hard to find places for four winners. Right. This is deja vu for me to last year. And it's, and it's a lot of the same. Me too. That's exactly what I was going to say. That's exactly what I was going to say.

It's a lot of the same players. Kyle Bush, Chris Busher, Ryan Priest, Bubba Wallace. All of these guys went through this part of the regular season right down to Darlington, trying to fight their way in on points. And then at the 11th hour, Chase Briscoe took that final spot. And I think it was Busher, who was the last guy knocked out. So it's a lot of the same players. What's interesting here is Chase Elliott's fifth in points doesn't have a win.

So he's the highest guy in the grid that is safe right now. And then you have Reddick, who is seventh in the overall point. points and then still above the cut line. Those two drivers both had wins at this point last year. So now they find themselves. I mean, they're a hundred plus points. You're quote unquote comfortable right now, but that can go away in a hurry because, yes, we have a lot of wildcars. Those road courses, you have to look at McDowell. You have to look at an almondinger. You have Atlanta this weekend, so drafting track in Daytona, you have to look at Kyle Busch, Eric Jones. So yes, you have to win, is my point.

You have to win. What was the most so far in this new point system? We had 16 one year, I think. We had 16 winners. The first year or 15? I can't remember. We've had 14 and 15. Yeah, I don't know that we ever had 16.

Yeah, it was one guy got in. I remember Truex got knocked out. He was top five in points, I think. Yeah, I think it was third one year. Yeah, and didn't make it. But, you know, like for us, you know, we're 29 points of the good and it feels like we're must win. You know what I mean?

Because you are. We're must win. You know, like I know brisk, I mean, I think Bushers said it yesterday, like, he's 38 points to the good, but you're must win. And, you know, we've put ourselves in this position with, we've got six DNFs. I mean, it just can't happen. If you're trying to point your way in, like, if you give us, if you give us just an average race, if you pay, you know, 20 points is like 17th with no stage points.

That's an average, I mean, that's a kind of a bad day for us. You know, you give us 20 points worth fifth and points. You know, like, you know what I mean? We're ahead of, or maybe slot, right? between Chase and Tyler. But we've put ourselves in this position now and now it's, and you've got to win. Like, to be honest, what's the fucking point of making the playoffs if you're not going to win races into playoffs? And again, that's why everyone has these different theories on how the point systems need to be or have to be.

This is awesome, right? I mean, look at. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. When you're living in, it's not. I mean, at the end of the day, five or six DM. And Fs, do you deserve to be in the playoffs? No, right.

So if you win a race, do you deserve to win it be in the playoffs? Okay, so that's the rule, right? So that's what we need to go by. But I think going into the last one or two races, it's going to be probably one of the most exciting going into the playoffs, who's going to be in that we've ever had. Yeah. And, you know, it's just, we've harped on here before. I see Gluck.

Gluck had tweeted some this morning about, you know, what playoff system do you? you prefer and the full 36 race schedule is winning by a large margin right now. 60 NFs, we would be, our season would have been over two months ago. You know what I mean? Like it's just so, you know, you've got to pick what you want. You know, do you want to have all these guys invested? Do you like, I get it. You know, we've seen some amazing races.

The year was it 92 with Allen and Davy and Bill. You know, you want those season-long battles that come to that moment of, you know, game seven that's all in line. But majority of the time, it was usually wrapped. the week before, I feel like. So be careful what you wish for there. I think the system we have in place now is the most exciting for our fan base, for our TV partners to have that guaranteed game seven moment.

But, you know, I still don't like it. It has its pros and cons. And I agree that it keeps people invested throughout. It's a very long season. It is a very, very long season. And listen, that's why we have the tournament coming up that we're going to talk about, right? And I know some people are shitting on that. but it's a very long season.

I think this format, the current format, there are pros and cons to it. I think, though, we have run this format now to the point where it's run its course, so to speak, where I now understand, and I'm in agreement that I would like to see some changes. And honestly, for me, I wouldn't mind going back to some form, not the exact maybe form, but some form of what the original Chase was. 10 races. Because what I liked about that was it was not win and you're in. It was straight up the 10 or top 12 drivers in points.

And if you think about it, the 10 or 12 drivers in points, those are the guys that are performing all year long anyway. Those are the guys you're routinely talking about from a week to week basis. And they are winning. So I think when this format came along, it was great. It has served its purpose. It has given us game seven moments. It's helped bring NASCAR into that kind of elimination era that a lot of sports have.

but yes, now you're running into, if it seems like there's more negatives, and not just from the fans, but the drivers. There have been drivers who are very outspoken that they don't like this. Yeah, now it's time to tweak it and let's see what else we can come up with. Do you guys think, Tommy, I'll go to you first. Do you think we have too many drivers in the playoffs? I mean, the way it is now with the steps, no. I mean, if they shorten it, like kind of what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, obviously, yes.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all about that. I just feel that this should be some type of playoff system in our world. Oh, I agree with that. Yes. But, you know, the end of the year, we cut it short by 10 races, season champion, does get rewarded, right? For the playoffs, right? Yeah. He gets points, right?

He gets a million dollars, right? I think he gets money, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I think they get a million dollars. for winning the season. Regular season. Regular season. I mean, so, yeah, it needs to be some tweaking,

but we need to keep the interest going for the fans. In our world, and I hate, you know, I know the Mark Martins of the world, they are so, like, fighting for this, but in our world with the capacity that we have with these phones and, you know, not... Well, some of us. Yeah, mine's missing right now.

I don't have any capacity. But, you know, I used to take, you know, Jack to school in the morning when he was young, right? I'm like, hey, man, did you watch that race? No, no, I'm watching. He would spend the 20 minutes on the car ride recapping, watching every recap of every. So by the time we got to school, he knew every game would happen, all the highlights, who scored what, who did what. And that's all world. That's all culture now.

We don't, we're not making time enough time to dig deep and really understand. understand just a regular season playoff. We'll get bored. We will. The new generation will get bored. Will you get bored? Yeah, I would get bored. Okay.

Yeah. And listen, don't share with me the damn Winston Cup standings. Because it's such, it's the most annoying thing on the planet where you go, look what the standings would be. No, we're not racing to those standings anymore. So you can't compare it. If there's anything that doesn't apply, it is that. I mean, I'm old school.

I mean, I'm an old school racer. Yeah. And I just think because of today's world, we have to keep evolving. Yeah. You can't just do it the way you always do. 16, in my opinion, is way too many. I think it waters it down. And I'm not saying the current system that it's not hard to win a championship.

I don't want to take away from anybody who has ever won a championship. But I want it to feel and look from the outside. I want it to look and feel harder. So that's why I think if you cut it down back to the 10 or 12, and it's not win and you're in. It puts more emphasis, right, Freddie. You were talking about your DNFs. You guys would be out of it.

You would not be maybe, actually, you would not be probably 10th or 12th in points to make it. Yeah, we'd be 140 out. Right. So I just, I want it to be harder or I want it to look harder. Again, I don't want to take anything away from anybody who's won a championship. And 16 drivers to me feels a little bit watered down in the sense of, we all know when we get to the first round of the playoffs,

You can sit here and say, realistically, who's going to have a chance to win a championship and the other guys who are basically getting participation trophies. And the other problem that I think shortening the field does for you, if you can cut it to 12, the other thing that eliminates is that argument about the guy 30th in points, winning a race and being in because if you're going to get more than 12 winners, he's going to get eliminated. He's going to get eliminated, basically. You know, he's going to be the guy, you know, SVG for instance. Now, if we get two more winners, SVG, even with winning you're in,

SVG's out of the playoffs because he's 30 at the points. Yeah, but if SBG wins another one, he's got to win another one. He deserves to be in the top 12. Under this format, yes. Now, if you went to something like I'm saying where, you know, it's 10 or 12 straight up just those guys in points, I think it strikes a good balance between winning because winning should still matter. We should still celebrate winners.

SVG should be celebrated for winning that race. And instead, the conversation was on he doesn't deserve being the playoffs. And to me, that's not fair. So we need to make winning each week matter and make it a big deal while also stressing and emphasizing that your overall body of work, i.e. the point standings and your consistency should also matter. Absolutely. To your point.

That's a good point. Hang on. Let me get your one. Hold on. I picked one up. I pulled up my text to TJ to tell him how big of an idiot he was yesterday. But this is a good one. It says, fuck yeah.

I agree. That seems fitting. TJ did that? No, no, that was the list. TJ, I was texting TJ to give him stuff. Oh, that was on the two-year-point. Yeah, so that was an alternative. Now, I appreciate, one last thing.

I appreciate the people like Mark Martin, and I know he's been hammering this drum. And I know there's fans, too, right, on social, because we're seeing it in the polls that want that season-long format. What's the age of those fans, though? So as Tommy is saying, though, I think you also make a good point about people say they want that. But as the season unfolds, as I said, it's a very long season.

you're going to get to June, July, August, September. And I'm sorry, I don't think fans they're going to realize they don't want it. Yeah, I agree with you. I think some do, but I don't know if the majority of fans do. So that's where I disagree saying that the entire fan base wants it. I don't think they do. I think they do on paper until they see it play out.

And someone like Kyle Larson, William Byron, William Byron's won one race. He's been leaning the points practically all year because the team is just, they are hammering everybody right now in top 15 and top 10 finishes. Yeah. Indeed. Agreed.

Indeed. Indeed. Is that on the list? No, it's on the list. Next. That's the last one. I made that one. I know.

We have other segments, Carson. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, fuck you. We're skipping it today. We've skipped it for the last four weeks. I figured we... No, we haven't. No, we haven't.

You haven't been fired up in a while. Well, I'm still not. I got fired up. I know. We talked about the kid last week. That was good. No. I don't...

Carson, I got nothing to say. Do I have you fired up? I got nothing to say. You sound like you're fired up. No, I know. She's not fired up. She's getting whiny with. Did the kids piss you off at all this week? Go on. Say it with your chest. Oh, go on. Smack him. Hit him. I'm like the devil on the show. Carson hit him. Hit him.

You're the devil on my shoulder on this side. Instigator. Jesus. All right. We're skipping that. Moving on. No, I mean, I really don't. Nothing pisses me off except you. guys every week. The kids didn't piss you off at all this week? Honestly, no. They were well-behaved? No, they were good.

Luke told me I really don't add much to the show. I just sit here and offer a little something every once in a while that pissed me off. See, there you go. That's probably a job. But no, yeah, other than that. That's it. It's just sitting around playing board games, drinking Kool-Aid all. Yeah.

Happy graduation, T.J. I should have been drinking Kool-Aid. That probably would have felt better yesterday. I get told that every week on Twitter. the one thing you're drinking the Kool-Aid. I'm drinking the next-car Kool-A. Oh. All right.

I got to try this Twitter thing. Tweet it. No. No. You don't. If I didn't have to have it for my job, I would run far, far away. You have one. I mean, I do?

Yeah. You have one. You just don't run it. You've loved to see you on Twitter. You've never seen me on Twitter. No, I would love it. No. You would get canceled in a heartbeat.

Yes. Yeah. See, Tommy on Twitter would be great if he just only, like, posted and didn't read the replies. Well, I feel like it's the reply. No, I would never. Replace, because I don't care what people say. You know what else would help right now

for you to have Twitter is if you had a phone. Yeah. That's a big, that's a big step. You got to at least get your phone so you can get a legend in your Twitter. It'll come around. It'll show up. It'll just happen. I'll be back by lunchtime.

I have a feeling. Where did you? When's the last time you saw it? About 11.30 last night. I think I left. Were you on the wine? No, no, no, no. One of my teammates gave me a ride to the shop to pick my truck up

and I think I either. left it in his truck or I left it in a bed of mine and it fell out on the street. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Yeah, that'd be fine. Everything's going to be okay. Just get a new phone. It's probably nice not having a phone. All right.

Let's move on. Speaking of phones, time for reaction theater. Oh, unbelievable segue right there. That was unbelievable. That's why you guys see. See Luke? She does do shit around here.

That's what she's here for. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, fans you guys can call in and voice your opinions from this weekend's race. as we have some great ones, so I'm excited to hear what we've got today. Fucking TJ Majors was smacking his lips so hard, Brad Tizolowski didn't know that Pitt Road was closed.

Damn. Man, I just, they just, they just, I don't, I talked to TJ last night, they just fucked up. They just, I thought Brad's interview. Was he on Twitter, Twitter when it was happening? On Twitter when it was on his phone? I mean, the whole, I was on a nice perch above all you guys, but the whole spotter stand went,

is it open? Is it open? Is it closed? Nobody knew at that point. I'm like, look at the lights. It's red. TJ said this had nothing to do with it because he heard the host of ours radio communication afterwards. Hostomar was pretty smart.

I don't know if it affected it or not. Who? The 77 guy. You just said he was pretty smart. Listen, in this instance, this is rare maybe for him, but he follows Brad down pit road. Like he's going to follow him down pit road

and right at his last second he turns off. and to his credit, if he was doing that intentionally, like he said on the radio, that could trick Brad also. Like, if you look in your mirror and the guy behind you is coming with you, it's like, all right, yeah, where pit roads open, nothing's different here. You know, because a lot of times you're just, like you said, you're anticipating it. You don't even really looking at the light.

And, you know, so Carson follows him down there. And then last second, Carson dips out to the right. He might have said that. But there's no way in that kid's capacity of the number 77 thought about that. There's no way. I'm sorry. He might have thought about that after to be a smart ass. But that 77 driver did not think of that.

I am taking him at his word. Yeah, I don't. I'm not. Next caller. Routy Nation complaining that Kyle ain't winning, so they ain't getting nothing. It could always be worse. You could be like me, a Chase Briscoe fan, with nobody to whisper sweet nothing's in his ear. So Kyle's won two legend races.

Yeah, what would we decide? Five? If he wins five, that's equal to a cup racing. All Rowdy fans are clear. They're all clear. Poor Kyle is beating up on all these kids. No, he's racing old men. He's going to race the over 40 class.

He runs dirt races too, right? So Tommy can do the math for that. What do dirt races? What's a micro win? He's doing all these going all back to. He's got to equal a cup wins. He's got to get one for the rowdy fans. Fucking Bristow one, baby.

I haven't been that bricked up in a while. And it sucks because I was there. I'll walk around with my hat covering my nuts. Okay. Bricked up. Good job. Bricked up for Briscoe. Bricked up.

Bricked up. Start a hashtag. Tom, you want to know what that means? Is it on Twitter? Context clues. I would tell you could Google it, but. I wouldn't recommend it. One, you don't have a phone, and I wouldn't do it if you did.

I threw this party, and I was absolutely a bluering. I was mixing brown, clear, and all sorts of beer. And at the end of the night, I was a 700-pound gorilla glued to my upstairs. Totally. Let me tell you, if I would have taken a breathaly-wise test, I would have an easier time passing than any of these motherfuckers do in this damn next to-in-car. Go car store, baby. Go car store, baby. Was that you?

Yeah, I was one of the kids in Florida. Yeah, I need one of those kids calling. He still sounded drunk the guy. He ain't wrong about the passing. No. Guys saving three laps of fuel and can't get passed. That's pretty impressive. Yeah.

This next person called in to congratulate you, Freddie, on the win. Oh, God. Freddy's going to win the race. First father home. We call that the Perlap Award. And I'm thinking, what race you win lately? I was like, wait a minute. Me too.

I can't remember the last time I won a race. So, yeah, I was, I unfortunately had to wait for Nick. So I wasn't the first one home. We got home about 1130 last night. Straight to Big Al's, of course, just because I needed to drive. The back. Big Alas is back, baby. Big Alas is back.

Did anyone get an invite? Did you? I figured you were sleeping. It was 11.30. I was actually. I had my... But I like to be invited. I like to know.

It probably would have cost me not losing my phone if you did text me because I had it at that time. I figured you were home already because you usually beat us home. But, uh, yeah, I was, uh, first one out of there for sure. That's the per lap. Wait, was it you or was it, would have been Riley Spotted? Riley Spotted. Yeah, we rode together, Joey. Team, team.

It's like playing golf when you hit your balls in the woods together so you play car golf. We just knock ourselves out of the rates at the same time. We could ride together. Joey was walking around pace and I'm like, Joey, I think you can take your radios off now. I don't think it's repairable. Oh, they're trying to fix it.

I'm like, that thing is not repairable. I'm watching this race. I think him by Carson Holsavar is clenching his shit hole behind the 47. I think he's going to be sent straight into the wall. You should watch this worst next time, buddy. That was one of my favorite things to watch in that part of the race, because Carson was not passing, Ricky. The 77.

Yeah, the 77, the 77 guy. he would not pass him. Like he was just pushing him. He'd have a good run and just get his bumper, push him down long time. I think he's trying to make up a little bit. And listen, I don't think there's places where you do some payback. I don't think Pocono would have been a place where Ricky was going to. Oh, yeah.

I think it depends on how mad. Absolutely. It depends on how mad you still are. Absolutely. It would have been either off. Yeah, it would have been off the tunnel or or into three. I really, I mean, I didn't want anybody to get hurt. But I really wanted the one time they went through the tunnel side by side.

I was like, oh, please get loose and wipe him out again. I just want, like this. Oh, my God. Oh, man. I think there's a lot of us taking ass on paper. That would have been far enough away where it took five minutes. Nobody would have got to him. I mean, I was thinking that as it's happening.

I'm sitting there talking to myself watching this and I'm like, there's no way he's going to do this for a third time. There's no way. Like, he can't be this stupid. Kennedy. First of all, in the 77's defense, the poor. Put it on the record books. He just said in the 77's.

defense. Poor Ricky was swat and flies that whole run. He was driving. That car was not worthy of running where it was at that point. He was driving the hell out of it because, I mean, he ended up behind us at the end of the day with a clean car. So that's where he belonged. But even if Carson got by him or to, I'm sorry, 77 got by him, Ricky wasn't going to catch him. Well, that's what I was saying Carson was keeping him up there. Yeah. You know, he was like Once the 77 got him, then he kind of started falling back to the field. It was like Carson was just pushing him out there, like keeping him up there for a while. I think there were a few times where they swapped positions, but it was never close enough to where Ricky was going to do.

The only time swapped was on that restart. But for the most part, Carson stayed behind him and I'm like, oh, he really is just feathering that throttle right now. He's probably in his best interest. All right. Well, to leave an audio message 247, you can call our number 704-802-9572. We'll play the best ones each week on the show. Those were entertaining, as always. All right.

It's time for AskDBC. You can send in your questions on X each week using hashtag AskDBC. Parker would like to know, how important will tires be at Atlanta this weekend with the warmer summer temperatures? Tommy, I know you love to talk about tires. Yeah, I think it's going to be important.

I think we're going to be going with a little bit different thought process on our package. we're going to probably be implementing a little bit more downforce in our cars versus the race earlier in the year. So, yeah, the handling is definitely going to be in play for Saturday night. Plus, the track has gone through another four or five months of getting worn in, and now it's going to be really, really hot down there. And you're going to see a lot of slipping in the slide.

You're going to see some good racing. I hope so. Yeah. Thank God it's going to be at night. It's still going to be hot. It's still going to be hot. It's still going to be hard. It'll be at least a little bit more tenable at night.

Yeah. That's it. No one else. Yeah. I mean, we're hoping. I think, to Tommy's point, I think it's, hold on. Let me go to my, hang on a second. Stand by.

Let's see what we got here from Andrew. Relating to your statement, Tom, I believe that the tires will matter a little bit more this week. So hopefully we see some good racing. Tommy also mentioned handling. I think that's important to know. because it seems like this track now is starting to age very quick from year to year. Responding to your perspective, I agree with you.

Andrew, you need to just take every time he said one of these phrases today and make a little like... Oh, Clemontosh. Yeah, yeah, I like it. All right, shit show Hall of Fame. How many, anybody see any shit shows this week? Well, I think our old buddy, TJ,

probably has to end up on the list. He is the shit show nominee. We're going to vote. We're going to vote. We're going to vote. We're going to vote. The fans don't even have any. say. The one thing that I saw

from this weekend, and it wasn't funny. Thank God the guy's okay. I mean, it was funny, but thankfully the driver was okay as far as I know. But that big sports car wreck where the guy blew his windshield out and then the wiper the wiper still going back and forth and there's no windshield. I was like,

I'm glad this guy's okay, but that might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Oh, God. T.J's on the list. Maybe we put T. down there four times. Yeah, all four. Chris Wright and T.J. Chris Wright didn't even do anything wrong.

No, no. Been quiet lately. Good for him in that regard. What else happened this weekend? There's had to be more than that shit shows. You thought Luke had a shit show at the end that her truck race. Oh, I was going to kill. So shout out to Luke.

Luke did a great job this week. Also, happy birthday, Luke. Oh, it's his birthday today. Shit, I don't have my phone. Oh, Lord. Happy birthday, Luke. Jesus, Christ. Well, it's who's, well, it's who's,

Yeah, well, yeah, no, he's not born yet, technically. He's not born. What time was he born? Well, maybe he was. I don't remember. I mean, you know what? What has screwed me up is, to your point, that the races will run every year back in the day at the same time. That's what he was just talking about on the way to the airport yesterday.

Sonoma reminds me of Luke's birthday, right? So Martin's Will was always mine, you know, Pocono was Tommy. So I always, now I am screwed up. All right. So, happy birthday, Luke. Hold on. Let's get the shit show done. And then we'll hold on. Yeah, sorry. TJ. TJ. TJ. TJ. T.J. T.J. Yeah. 23-11. And you can put 2311 on there probably. Yeah. You can put them on there for sure. That was a shit show. That was probably the worst day in company history. I think the best finish was 32nd.

Yeah, that's what somebody was in my mentions about. And like, yeah, there's been some rough days. But when you have all three, that is the worst in company history. One thing I had to say, I don't know. I didn't look to see. if we did it, but I see companies do this sometimes. They put out their big race recap post, you know, and it's if we did it yesterday, like we shouldn't have. You know what I mean? Like, because they always got like a picture

of the car, where were you finished? And like, was yesterday's 32nd, 36, 37? It's a good day. If I was 23-11 the social media amount, I would have just put they did, Freddie. They did, they did tweet it. Yeah. They tweeted just a... They needed. They needed to. And the picture of all the cars, 32, 36, 37.

You deserved it. You deserved it. This wasn't a brake rotor failure of the part of the company. It was a more of the 2311 company fall. It was a cooling issue. Not a whole part issue.

So TJ. TJ. TJ, 2011. TJ. That Wiper, the sports car wreck. I couldn't tell you who the driver was. And maybe TJ again. Yeah.

Was there any other shit shows? TJ. No, but there's something else I feel like happened. Put Allgaier and Chase, Elliot. Never mind. Did you have some? No, I was going to say, but it might not be better than that.

The champ off road truck, the end of the race. Oh, yeah, no, that was a good one. Because they, yeah. Was that on flow? It was on flow. Perfect. It was on flow. Yeah, so the champ, the off road race, if you didn't watch that, it was the two leaders

had such a big lead. They wiped each other out twice, I think, right? It was all over social media. We're a guy that's putting it on. We lost it. What happened to our guy? We don't have any live replay. anymore.

He's in a better I mean, if we're going to talk about this stuff, we'll get it. Well, if you do want to go back and watch it, you can sign up for FlowSports at FlowSports.compt. At flow sports. At flosports.com.

All right. Yeah, get your subscription. Tell them we sent you. Well, I guess you will tell them when you type in DVC. Duh. All right, DBC picks last week.

Weaver won. Picked Briscoe. What is what's going on? The guests are whooping our ass. Kelly, I'm cheering against you. Yeah, respectfully. I told Freddie before we started that of all the things I was anticipating coming into the show all weekend, I have thought about nothing but this pick. This is what I'm most stressed about.

That's the opposite of what I do. Unfortunately, I wing it every time. I will take Joey Lagano. Famous last one. I will take the 21. Josh Berry. Barry. I am going to go.

go with Stenhouse. You spent all week thinking about this? So I was going to take the 21, but since he's off the board, I'll go. You can't because I did. Yeah, so I'll go Kislauski. All right. Good pick. Quickly, let's break down some in-season tournament.

It doesn't have to be quickly. You can take your time. Obviously, we've been very critical of how the seating worked for this in-season tournament. I think William Byron's a perfect example, being the 18-seat as the point leader, how fucking ridiculous this is. But we'll go through it anyway. Well, here's the thing. I think the seating in the moment,

I was like, this is stupid. Just take one through 32. But now that we see some of the match us, I'm like, okay, maybe they knew what they were doing. If you want to go through quick and break it down, I got some stats here from old Daniel Sespitus. I'm just going to, I don't know. I've never met this guy,

but I'm just using his stats on the show every week. I'm about to start paying them. First matchup is Danny Hamlin, tied Dillon. And listen, Atlanta's a wild card. You know, this is a place where literally any, could beat anybody. But their head-to-head matchups at Atlanta, Denny is up five to zero.

So, I mean, Denny did not run very well the last race there, if you remember. Yeah. They qualified really bad, and I thought it was just a qualifying issue. I thought they had an engine issue. But even in a race, he did not run good. So, man, again, and then it's all about the big one, right?

If there's a big one, that changes everything. So, I mean, there's still a chance at Ty Dillon. Yeah. that's what I said being this wild card race. There's two ways you can approach this. You can just look at the matchups and go by logically who you know

or think is going to perform better. Or you can toss all of that out and say, well, it's Atlanta and it's a drafting track. Yeah, yeah. Who knows? Yeah. All right, so. So I would say, I mean, Hamlin's got to be the favorite there, right? Yeah. That's maybe the rat we go take

is just which one of these guys would be the favorite in the matchup. So the next matchup, the winner, the Hamlin Dillon would take on the winner of Bush and Keselowski. I almost think he got a favorite Kislauski. I mean, Kyle's also been very good at play. They both have to win. Right.

I mean, what do you mean? No, they just have to beat each other. I know, but they both have to win to get in the playoffs. I mean, that is going to be a tough one. I mean. In a, what have you done for me lately world? I think you give the nod to Kislowski. Yeah, I think Bush.

And Kyle's been really good. We talked about when he was here. He's been much better at these drafting style races. I mean, he almost won He should have won Daytona a couple times. All right, moving on to the next one. Bowman and Lugano. Again, Lugano, what's Lugano?

What's his seed? Lugano's 25. Yeah, Joey Lugano is a 25 seed in this thing. Spooky. I'm going to go Bowman on that one. He's been really strong. Yeah, the Fords and the Penskees at a drafting style track you'd give the nod to. But with Bowman, I mean, Bowman's run, again, what have you done for me lately?

That team has run pretty well lately. Yeah, better. Ligano. Ligano. Ligano. Ligano. All right. Bubba wins the next one, moving on.

Listen, of course... No, let's just move on. No, let's not even talk about it. Neimancheck versus... Well, no, the problem is... No, here's a... Move on, Smith. And then next week, it'll make a bigger conversation.

We literally get matched up against Swarres. It's probably his best fucking racetrack. Like, he runs so good here. Yeah. Let's just move on. It'll be a much better conversation on the other side of this, depending on the outcome. Yeah, we win. Get out.

Um, Chuck and Barry. I'll tell you, man, he's been... Of all the ways, I have heard, that last name pronounced. Never num chuck, huh? That's a new one. Well, it's been num chuck until the past two or three races. The boy is hauling ass. Hey, man, Eric, that team is fast.

The kid has finally figured it out, and the team is getting better, but the kid... Are they at, what, six, seven top tens now? Yeah, the kid is doing a phenomenal job. And the 43, if they could get the results to match what they're... how they're running. They're running. They're running really good. Yeah,

they would be up there too. All right. So who'd you say? And it's the same thing with the Ford's trying to control the track. Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon. Let's just pick Austin Dillon so we piss off all the Chase sexuals in one time. Yeah, I wouldn't. Everybody hates Chase Elliott anyway.

I'll tell you what. Now you've got to add on top of Allen and Trey Pool that want to get fired off. They want fired off the cup deal. Now you've got to fire who's the 17 crew chief? Is it Greg Ives on Saturday? the X-Finity? It's Adam Wall. No, Adam Wall.

I thought, I thought he was doing it. I didn't know who you meant at first. I didn't want to get rid of him. Well, because Chase didn't win in the 17 car, so now we've got to fire that guy. We've got to fire Tyler Mon as a spotter. You know, these people were just losing and poor Tyler.

Because they're not winning with Chase, and the fan base is going to want you fired if you don't win a race. Oh, yeah, they need to fire everybody. That's what they're saying on Twitter, Tommy. I don't Twitter. Look. Anyway, Chase Elliott, Austin, Dillon. I think you got to give the nod to Chase Elliott.

Austin is also good at plate racing But I think the edge He struggled there Yeah the edge would go to chase I think for sure Especially hometown track I feel like did he win there last year? Not last year but Two years ago

He won there recently The year with Corley Lejoy Yeah oh that's what it was yeah When Corey ended up in the fence That was two years ago now Yeah Justain and Jones

Chastain and Jones Chastain almost won this race in the spring Yeah he almost He should have won it He's almost won a Daytona race a couple times. He's too good at Blocking. He's got to go with Chastain. Bell and Stenhouse.

I'm team Stenhouse. Bell did win in the spring. This is the Battle of New Spotters. It's Philpott versus Cuzz. I think you've got to, I mean, Bell's been really fast here. He's been really fast on drafting. He won the last race.

He won Atlanta in the spring a week after being in attention to win the 500 and got wrecked in the last couple laps there. Yeah. So maybe he's figuring it out. Just me personally. I feel like he's snake picked though lately. But yes, lately.

And Carson, Hosevar better stay the fuck away from him. Who? All right. Carson, you want to go, we'll go standhouse for you on that one, Carson. That can be my own person.

Why does she, like, have all the power? Why, because you pick the rest of them? I mean, Bell has not had the best, the last couple. Yeah, the last couple weeks. But Bell is the favorite. Are we supposed to be helping the fans bet here? or are we just blabbering? We're just offering.

We're just giving our opinions. I said the bell would be the favorite. Okay. But then you said let's go in Carson. It's a fucking joke, Tom. You ever heard of a joke? Remember those? I know you're 87 years old now

that your days have gone by. Happy birthday. Vaudeville, maybe I should bring back that. Remember the silent movies you used to watch? Hey, I grew up with three channels. My mom's school, up Hill and the smoke. I did. My mom used to pack me up in the winter clothes.

out the door. Croucho Marx used to be Tommy's favorite. Anyway. Briscoe and Gregson. Ooh, this is a tough one. That's Briscoe. That ain't tough. All right.

Just because you said Briscoe, I'm going to pick Noah Gregson. Yeah, Briscoe would definitely clearly be the favorite there, I think. Yeah. Priest and Byron, again, this one, this is probably the, this is probably the Priests will be good at Atlanta. This is kind of similar to the Bush-Keslowski matchup, I feel like, where it really could go either way. I think you probably have to give the slight edge to Byron just on consistency,

but Ryan's been really fast lately too. And the Ford's, again, you have to account for the fact that they're going to be controlling the race more than likely. The theme for me is always with drafting tracks. I always start with the Ford's. Now, they don't always end up in Victory Lane, but they're going to do a very good job of dominating and running up front. Usually if they don't end up in Victory Lane is because they wrecked each other.

Right. But they do it from being up front and controlling the race. Yeah. They usually wreck each other trying to get to the checker flag first. Blaney and the 77. You know what I love about this matchup? Blaney next. Is how these two were also mad at the end of the spring Atlanta race.

The 77 guy spun them out, right? Yes. Yeah, that's Blaney, I think. What you got next question? Larson and Reddick. Kyle Larson. Here's a battle of guys that neither one's really got a great. I mean, I don't, Tyler won.

Is there any of these that just say this guy's definitely going to win this size? Maybe the first one. Danny was probably the one. It's like the most favorite, I would say. That's what makes it fun. Tommy? I know. That's why these guys that thought about this was they weren't so dumb after all.

I just don't like it. What we got here? So I don't even know who you would give the... Larson. You think so? Just based on favorites? It would just be based off the standings, really. I mean, because it's a toss-up, really.

This is legit, just a toss-up. Yeah. Reddick's team has been so inconsistent this year. Really good one weekend. You think they got it together, and then the next weekend, it's like, where are they? Yeah. agree. McDowell and Almondinger.

McDowell. Yeah, I agree. I think. I mean, AJ, I shouldn't even say that fast. See, there you go. Think about it. You know, AJ's been good at Daytona, Talladega.

But you could say the same for McDowell. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's, I don't know. I would say McDowell would be the slight edge, just car speed-wise. I'd say, you know, 11 verse 22 seed if the gambling world was like plus, if you wanted on who you think it would be. Yeah, well, I'd say if it was, you would make Almondinger probably the

underdog, but that would be the one you'd bet on. Right. That would be the time you'd take a chance. Exactly. You know, that would be the one you're like, all right, this guy can easily beat him. And like that, like that's the, like the Reddick Larson one, that's almost one where you'd see like even money on the betting, you know, like where you'd be like it's, you know, it's minus 100 each or whatever it is.

But yeah, you could see for sure that would be one where you might take the risk on an underdog. Gibbs and Haley. Can we just not pick one? I mean, again, that's a, that's a evening. Ty Gibbs. But Justin's good there, man. Yeah, I would go Haley just because I have more faith in him on drafting tracks. I agree.

He's pretty intelligent when it comes to those style of races. Well, I don't know. We ever want to call Justin intelligent. Racing IQ on drafting tracks. I got you. I understand now. I love Justin, by the way. Zane Smith and Austin Cindrick.

Yeah. All day long. Cendrick is probably, if he's not the... Cinder could win this race outright. Yeah. If he's not the best plate racer right now, he's in the top three, I would say. Hamlin called Cindrick, I think, after the Daytona Funder. He said he is the best plate.

Plate razor drafting. And I think a lot of it has to do with the guys up top. I think you, you know, I'm not, again. Don't say it. I mean, Freddie, you're okay. You're just okay. Listen, like, we talk about preparations, spotter preparations, what you do leading up the weekend. These are the most important ones for us.

And it's more about anticipation because I talked about this a lot on a different show. I think I talked about with you on your show. In these races, you have to know what's happening before it happens. You can't react to things in the moment because you'll be late. That's where you see the late blocks. You have to know which guy's going to be aggressive. You have to know which guy's going to be the one that tries to force the middle in certain situations. It's just all about, it's not really so much about the race.

It's more about the drivers in the race and what to expect from them in certain moments. So when fans, when they hear, like when the TV plays the audio a lot at these style of racetracks, they'll hear guys like Coleman or TJ or you the word that's always used is energy right and so for the fans that's because you guys are anticipating and trying to give the driver an idea of what the pack is doing and how things are playing out to anticipate what line could do what or what driver might be ready to do something

because that's the biggest thing for us and you know you look at that and where that the biggest thing for us is figuring out where that energy is going to come from because a lot of times you think it's easy to say oh the guy in seconds pushing the little guy and the leader, and that's where that line's going to move. But that really started three or four rows back, where those guys got tied to the next guy. And so it's just all about anticipation

and kind of knowing what's going to happen. And we've been lucky enough to be pretty good at this stuff, maybe not so much with this car. But, you know, it's just like, and Doug does a really, really good job. Tyler Green, another one does. Like, there's a lot of guys that put a lot of time and effort into these plate races.

And it shows. Coleman was another great example of that. Did we do the last one yet? No, so one more. Bush and Gillland. I want to give Gilden's ship because he almost wiped us all out here. Was it two years last year? The first race last year, I think,

where he was letting McDowell up in line. He was going to qualify in the top four, right? Yeah. He's going to qualify well, so he's going to be up there in a while. And I just, man, I just wish he would, again, from being up there and watching, I just wish he would just knock it down a couple notches, right? In the beginning of these races to get to the end.

It seems like he's working so hard in the beginning to do things, and he ends up hurting the car. He ends up either bouncing off the wall or bouncing off something and hurting something and getting... I mean, look, at most of the last run, there was 25 cars on the same straightaway yesterday. Yeah. I mean, that's not normal. No. Right? So you have to...

You can't make mistakes. Right. You cannot make mistakes, and you have to have these cars in one piece. At the end of the race, to capitalize. And Todd is a really good race car driver. You can see it. He qualifies well. He's got raw speed.

He does things. But just gets himself sometimes in trouble. If he would knock it down just a little bit of his overaggression, he would start finishing better than learning more, right? And just it's all about patience, you know? He's not the only one. No. But you bring up a good point.

I think he is one of those that they live in this world of. have to get what I can get right away because of track position, track position, track position, instead of sometimes playing that long game of this is a 500, 500 mile race, keep yourself in the ball game so you have a car left at the end. Yeah, for sure. So with that being said, if he does that, he beats him. If he doesn't. I think both of these guys are pretty good drafting.

And they're going to be upfront. Yeah. I think they're pretty good in the pack. So it's survival. For sure. Well, who do you guys Who do you think is going to win? We'll say that now.

We'll make a pick for who's going to win the whole thing. What's the last race? Indianapolis. Indy. You know, just look at half. I think Hamlin, I think Hamlin ends up winning. Well, no, there's a road course in between there. There's two.

Chicago and Sonoma are in here. Is it Sonoma or Watkins Glen? Sonoma, I think. I thought it was one. No, yeah, because Chicago and Sonoma back to back. Chicago is next, right? to Atlanta. It's Luke's birthday. Hamlin's going to lose to Chicago.

To who? But I don't think he loses to Keselowski. If Keselowski wins. He's worse than Keselowski. At Chicago? I don't think so. Oh, yeah. Have I not told you lately how great that guy is? Sorry. Sorry. Unfortunately, he didn't mind missing Mexico.

No. I mean, he didn't even have a show, did he? That's how much he didn't mind missing Mexico. I'm going to say Joey Lugano. You know, that is a fantastic pick because that's who I was going to pick. Oh, is it? No, it really was. Just because I feel like this is what he does. Like he wins this.

There's things like this that come up and everybody wants to write him off. And then at the end of the day, there is. And you're just like looking to who he's, I mean. Joe only wins if Emerson wins this weekend. If Emerson beats Suarez. You got to tell him who Emerson is. Oh, Bubba. Bobby.

Sorry. Bubba. Tommy calls Bubba, Emerson Fiddabell. Apalda yet roadcourses, which he's much better now. I mean, Joey's got a clear path if Bubba wins here. I'm going to tell you what, we're going to win this week, and then we're going to be Joey at Chicago. Has that sound? Put it on the books. Emerson is not going to do well in Chicago.

What are you talking about? You know, all right. Sour today, Tommy just, we'll see. Just looking at how the bracket is laid out and looking at both sides of the ladder. if things continue to go as they've been going, again, if you think logically instead of all the things that could happen over the next five weeks, I like the side of the bracket that Byron is on

because I think he has a pretty good shot based on how that team runs, right? They're leading the points, so they're consistent. If you just play it by that game, I think Byron on that side of the bracket can go at least get to the final round. Now Blaney beats him in round three if it gets there. That's a matchup that I would have.

that I would look at. The easiest bracket is the last one there, around. The bottom right? How come we don't have different names? Yeah, bottom right, though. Yeah, the pink one. Yeah, that is the weakest. Blaney is in the...

Blaney, Byron, though, is the one that I would watch. Blaney, well, that side of that four group right there, Blaney and Hosevar. If he beats them, all good news, you get to take on Larson or Redick at Chicago. Yeah. But that's what I mean, though. That side of the bracket, if Byron gets past priests, and then either Briscoe or Gregson, which again, you think he would. Then you look at the next part of it, which is Blaney-host of our Larson Reddick.

All of those potential matchups are pretty interesting to watch. That's going to be the toughest one and the other one's going to be. What do they call it in soccer? Like the group of death? That's the group of death over there. That'll be interesting. Yeah. It'll be fun to watch.

For as much as it was shit on, I'm actually kind of excited to see it play out. I just wish they did it by points, but that's fine. Well, yeah. Well, where would you be? We'd be having the same conversations. Oh, okay. To your point. Anyway, regarding your decision or whatever the hell, I lost my list.

Hey, little James one Saturday. It was on my list. Yeah, James, it was like, I know this is probably happening to you pretty often, but I felt really old Saturday this weekend, Friday and Saturday night, because I got to watch Landon Salamito, Sean Salamito's son wins Friday in Seacock, Saturday at Riverhead. He's, I don't even know how old he is now, Bandolero racing. It's Sean, somebody I spotted for us, the Salmino family really,

in general. I've spotted for all of them. And then Saturday night was really big for Jimmy Blewitt. James Blewant won his first modified, our first sportsman race, 75 lap, or wall stadium. Family-owned car, the Red Way and Blue 76, back in Victory Lane where it belongs while Jimmy's healing up. So that was

just, it was awesome to see, and Jimmy's all it's nice to see Jimmy crying in Victory Lane. Like, I like when he's usually, he's very emotional. He's a very emotional person. He's a very emotional person. He wouldn't know anything about that. No, no, never. But I'm just really proud of those kids. and Michael Christopher again

Winning two in a row He did a really good job on Friday night Yeah it's just All these kids Kids these days Carson kids Carson's kids Ant Carson's kids

Ant Carson Anty Carson Anyway I think we've made this long enough Andrew no It's 1130 It's 2 hours 30 PM

Tommy I got to go Kelly Thank you very much for dropping by I'm sure this will not be the last time we see you in this studio.

I hope not. I enjoy doing it. I appreciate it. Carson, what we got this weekend? Nothing. Cars stores off, but I'm going to South Boston for the first race of the Virginia Triple Crown. Oh, shut out.

Oh, Shobo 200. Who put the money up? Was it Flo? Flo. Our friends at Flow. Brandon Brown, he runs, I think he still runs South Boston, right? He's your general manager. Yeah, general manager up there.

They put everything that runs in South Boston usually puts on a great show. Just a super racy racie racetrack. Thomas, what are you up to this weekend? We got Lancaster to a race at champions on Thursday night. I'm going to get Luke up there to run that race to get ready. What's he running in your car? Yeah. He's going to run. Actually, he's going to drive

Jack's car, the white car, and then we're going to run... Does Jack know that yet? Yeah. And then and then we're going to run White Mountain on Saturday in the black car for the NASCAR tour race, which will be on flow. Oh, awesome. I am just going to go to Atlanta, Friday,

Saturday. Sunday off. Could be dangerous. Might have to move the start time back a little bit on Monday. But yeah. Again, saw a lot of DBC fans this week at Pocono hanging out up there by the elevators and stuff. It was good to run into a lot of people. Looking forward to Atlanta. I'm maybe going to sweat off a couple pounds because it's going to be hot this weekend. You got just one car this weekend?

No, Corey's drive. Corey's back this week. So that'd be good for you guys. Corey's, and that's a place where you mentioned it earlier. Hold on. Let me get one more in there before we leave. Let's see. Aligning with your position on earlier, Corey runs really.

well at Atlanta. So we're looking forward to it. We'll see everybody out in Atlanta. Stay cool. Stay hydrated before we get there. That does not include beer. That's not going to help. It's got water in it.

Coors light. Got your Coors lights. Thank you. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back next week. See you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.