Door Bumper Clear - San Diego Blew Ray Evernham & Bozi Tatarevic Away

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

We may be missing Freddie as he is on vocal rest, but we replaced him with TWO beasts of the industry -- Ray Evernham & Bozi Tatarevic! Tommy starts us off how only he can, and it doesn't take long for us to get knee-deep in all things San Diego. The crew discusses the racing that happened over the weekend, from Tyler Reif coming so close to Sam Mayer's massive hit. In Spot On, Spot Off, the topics were: - Was San Diego better than Chicago and Mexico City? - Could Corey Heim have been a playoff contender this year in Cup? - Discussing Taylor Gray's move on Carson Kvapil - Jimmie Johnson's comments on the lack of respect in the Truck Series As usual, we get to hear from our fans, and one of them *allegedly* used their one phone call from jail to join the show. After that, we hear from NASCAR's Jerry Kaproth on everything that went into making the race at San Diego happen — and how Ty Gibbs almost blew the surprise. In Ask DBC, we ask Bozi to power rank pit crews and Ray Evernham about when he knew Jeff Gordon was a future G.O.A.T. They round it all out with DBC Picks and weekend winners, which didn't hit the same without Freddie — so he needs to come back soon! Catch you guys next time on DBC. Don't forget to check out our merch at shop.dirtymomedia.com! 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.

Back everybody. I'm Freddie Kraft. This is Door Bumpa Clear. And I'm a spotter for a Bubba Wallace. And what's the guy? What's the guy? Dean Thompson and Gio Regerio. And how's everybody doing today? No, in all seriousness, Freddie turned me and Tommy loose on holding down the fort today. And we have some super exciting guests. Tommy, I know you've spent a lot of time with the one to my left here. Ray Evanham. We're super excited to have you. And Bozy, we're not even going to try to pronounce your last name, but how are you guys this week? This week? Excellent. I'm good. I think we met, well, maybe once before, Bozzi and I, but, you know, Tommy called me up. He said, hey, you want to do this? And I'm thinking, yeah, you know, and then I get here and I realize, Tommy probably knows more about me than most people.

A lot of our guests say that. You would be surprised. A lot of our guests are scared of what Tommy might say. No, I mean, well, the thing is, I know a lot about them, but most of the things I know about them, we did it together. So we really can't say much. It's self-incriminating. Well, San Diego this weekend. I was at home.

I know all of you guys were probably there. What was it like? How was it? What was your weekend like? I was here, too. Yeah. I think Tommy is the only one that's got red eye back here. By far over exceeded any expectations I had.

It was an unbelievable event. The people, the fans, the security, the snipers on the roof, the traffic. You couldn't really ask for a better show the way it was put on. It was great. I mean, I hope that we go back there, and I hope that everybody really got an education, more of an education on these street courses to, go to other places, right? I mean, you know, Ray knows, you know, especially what he's got going on.

It's going to all these cool places and creating all these cool places is going to keep the fan interaction going. And they ran out of merchandise, I think, the first day. Really? First or second day. And the place was jamming. I mean, the crowd after the race, I've never seen the crowd after the race just sitting there watching all of us push the cars back and yelling and everything that was going on. It was pretty electric, to be honest with you. Yeah, it seemed like everyone was excited to have NASCAR there.

What was y'all's kind of taken from, I'm sure you guys were like you, especially, were probably involved in some conversations beforehand of just like the buildup and everything to it. Like what was kind of your thoughts of how it all rolled out, watching it play out from social media and TV? Not really involved, you know, certainly from the NASCAR or even the ownership side anymore, but from the fan side, right? got to watch the whole race and really paying attention to what is happening in the racing world now

because of my involvement with IndyCar. And I thought that they did a fantastic – it was a fantastic idea, first of all, to get new fans and whatnot excited. They did a great job. I thought the course was good. I think there's probably some people think, well, maybe it was a little long, could you shorten it, do whatever. But it was a great TV show, and a race needs a tempo, right? It needs – and it needs a difficulty factor. Like any race is just too easy to figure the strategy or too easy to figure tire.

Like, I don't like that, right? Where it's just about whoever has the fastest car wins, right? But you add that strategy. You add the difficulty factor. And, you know, what's good for the sport is you're starting to get some really polarizing drivers back in NASCAR. And we talk about that all the time, you know. They don't necessarily have to love one guy. But if they hate another guy, you know, you start that cheering.

And I think we're starting to see a little bit of that with some of these young guys. I think the one guy you're saying everybody cheering and some of us hate, I think he made the best comment after the race and just he just said, I got spun out, right? Someone spun out. He wasn't mad because he knows he's going to do it to somebody else, right? So, you know, I thought that was pretty professional of him, so to speak, just to say, yeah, I got spun out. I'm on to the next one. I had a fast car. I had a chance of winning.

I got spun out leading. Who else is going to say, not many other people are going to say, I got spun out leading, you know? Well, not many others. How about Noah Gragson? What was his name? Kevin Magnuson. Kevin Magnuson, yes. That was. And I think that that whole situation is showing now that a lot of sports car and

F1 guys are getting exposed to NASCAR because we've had, I've worked with people like Camuio Kobayashi and Jack Hawks where some of these other people that have come to NASCAR and they're doing the sports car prim and proper, don't move, don't hit anybody, you know. And then they get into halfway through stage one and they've been bumped six times. where Kevin Magnuson, even in his F-1 days, wasn't ever kind of the gentle one. And I think Ward now has gotten around the Imso Paddock and the Indycar Paddock of like,

if you're going to go race against these guys, it's going to be rough. And Kevin didn't really take anything from Glaxen. And Glaxen, like, unfortunately, seems like a lot of times when he gets in the back there, he wants to become a nuisance more than trying to beat you. And, you know, they went back and forth, back and forth. And you could see, like, I understand that Noah wants to show,

hey, I have pace enough to beat this F1, Imza guy, but also if you're moving under braking, missing apex, that that's not the move. Yeah. And that 91 was outbreaking everybody. And you can see he was going to be a little aggravating during the race because of that and going to piss off the guys that usually piss off the people during the races anyway. So you have a select group of guys that when you go road course race and they're in a group. It's the 47, the 43, the 4, the 5th,000.

51, the 34 sometimes. That group of guys, they just, it seems like they just like, now we're going to go road course racing and get it over with, or they're just not good at it? I don't know. But those guys, usually by the end of every road course race, they have nothing left. I mean, nothing left.

But those are the guys we need to help figure the strategy, right? From the TV side, we need those guys. Yeah, exactly. We need them. You know, you were talking about the brakes, and that's something that, you know, working with the IndyCar stuff and now doing a little bit of observation over in the Formula One side. It's not really where these guys break.

It's how hard they break and how they get off them. Their break zones are so short. You know, I watch the guys in the Porsche Cup deal. And, you know, they talk about Kimmy Antonel and I'm going to tell you a couple weeks ago, I was focusing on with it. And his brake zone was so much shorter than everybody else, as you're thinking how they do that with the same equipment. So it's got to be, you know, it's form, you know. And that's what some of these MSA guys are bringing,

especially to the Cupside because those new cup cars are a lot like, a lot more like an MSA type car than they used to be. But it's pretty amazing what they can do with the brakes with these cars. Yeah, I don't want to get off base a little bit, but you've touched on a couple things that you've got working on. Tell us what you've been doing, man. You know, you just... The only way I can find you is either show up without calling you because I'm busy.

I'm always busy. I got to get, you know, knock on the window. I'm scare you. Just tell me what you got going on. I keep up through Aaron's Instagram. That's how I know what they have going on. Yeah, she's great with the social stuff. You know, I love the sport.

I love racing. So I'm still involved. And, you know, we're working on this historic, bringing this IROC series back. And I was hoping to be able to make an announcement today, but by Thursday, you're going to hear a pretty big announcement about IROC. And it's fun. You know, we're bringing back some of the original cars. We've had some of the original drivers come. Every show that we put on gets bigger and bigger.

You know, we had a show at 10-tenths that just sold out. And then the streaming numbers, everything was great. So that's good fun. But I'm a member of what they call the independent officiating board. So IndyCar has taken their rules and officiating. and hand it off to a board. And it's myself and Rajner, from formerly at Ford, now at Singer-Portia, and Ronan Morgan from the FIA.

And our job has been to make sure that there's communication, clarity, consistency, you know, improvement, and take the rules into the future. And that's been super, super interesting. It's also taught me that, like, man, from the officiating side, one thing I know for sure, you leave the track, half the people are happy with you. half the people hate you. Oh, yeah. I'm like, wait a minute.

You know, but it's been, it's been just super getting, getting out of the world that I have been in for so long and learning things again. And that's why I was going to ask you. What are the differences now since you on both sides? You know, I think the culture is the biggest difference. And I think that there's, you know, there's lots of things that IndyCar can learn from NASCAR, I think. and I think that there's some things that NASCAR can learn from IndyCar. That balance, you know, the number one thing is making sure that the fans are being entertained. Like I talk about that tempo that has to happen during the race and making it about the drivers and the character and making it interesting.

I think both series are starting to do a really good job at that. You know, Fox has become a partner with IndyCar, and I think that's helped a lot. And I think that the TV networks that are doing the NASCAR stuff are doing a fantastic. fantastic job. And that little bit of competition is stepping up. You know, this network's got this person and this nest and they're doing all those things. And they're getting the fans more and more involved. You know, the biggest difference that I see is the expectation from the competitor's side. We've had a couple disagreements on things. I'm like, look, my job's not to make your job easier. My job is to make sure that nobody's, you know, cheating or everybody's treated the same.

So, you know, like if the strategy doesn't work out for you, that's not my problem. Right. You know, but next week, the strategy may work out for you. So I think they're getting used to some of those changes, but it's not been, you know, I was just not used to, you know, to being called as many names as she can get off from the officiating size. Yeah. It's like being back at Walsh Stadium, right, when you were driving. Even worse, you know, but that's why I say, you know, we kid around about that. But I look back in my modified career and think, man, I was really fortunate to be able to learn early. And I learned with some grades, your dad, Richie Evans, Bodine, you know, like Gilhern and those guys from there.

And, you know, you learn how to race, you learn how to race fair. And if you don't learn how to race fair, you learn how to fight. Yeah, exactly. Is that what happened to you? You learned how to fight? He knows how to fight. He knows how to fight either way. in my own man.

He had no fight either way. All right. Getting into some more San Diego this weekend, the truck race. Where the hell did Tyler Rife come from at the end? That was so entertaining. It was good. I felt so bad he just clipped that wall and just shot him over a little bit and made him miss. But yeah, he came out of nowhere, right?

And, you know, he's a good racer. Him and Luca had some good battles with the late models. He actually drives a 7-N-Y legends car that Scott Allen owns in the, in the summer shootout. So, yeah, there's a little connection there. He's a good kid, good family. I'm glad to see those type of kids that don't really have all the money, right, and can show their talent.

That's big for all of us, all of us dads that are trying to do the same thing. So good for him. It's just, again, that one little mental mistake. But, man, he was taking the abuse, right? You guys, I don't know, you said you didn't see it, Rick, but he was, right, but he was, uh, them guys were trying to move them out of way and abuse them. Oh, yeah. He used all his skills from short track racing to get to that last part of the racetrack and

he just missed. But, uh, you know, Lane Riggs did Lane Riggs things, man. He's, uh, the kid's good. Um, he's, he's going to get a shot into the cup pretty soon, I hope, uh, because he's well deserving of it. And, um, yeah, he's just going to keep winning until, uh, someone's going to go, okay, we're going to give in and give you a shot and he's going to get in these things like like Corey has and make a point.

Yeah. I wanted to kind of ask you guys, like I know on here, Caden Honeycutt did a bunch of laps on the Sim and Sim is something I heard a lot about going into San Diego. And you mentioned when you were talking earlier about how going to a place like that, no one's ever been there. Everyone's just run Sim maybe. And it's a very even playing field. And, you know, how do you feel like, you know, when they go to run Sim other places, it's

obviously helpful. You have what you've done from last year and things like that. Do you think that it was just as much of a help? Or is it kind of one of those things where once you got there, none of us have been there. So how much can it help? I think a lot of it's who you have exposure to. And as far as Honeycut, I actually know the guys that give him some mentorship. So Jack Hawksworth drives the number 14 Lexus that I do pit stops on. And he's also a mentor for everybody from the truck series all the way to Cups. So we talked about Eric Jones and how he, you know, sometimes ends up in the back there. Jack's actually been helping him, and he's made some strides forward, but Honeycutt is one of those and a lot of these other younger kids that are on the Toyota

TD2 development program, they basically, which is interesting how they've structured this, Toyota has the Toyota Performance Center here in Moresville where they all do athletic training, but that also allows all these different types of drivers to run into each other. So these guys that, you know, are short track racers might learn some road course skills. And sometimes some of the sports car guys like, hey, how can I get into this ride over here? So I think that probably helped Honeycutt a lot because people like Jack, I mean, we've won on the Detroit Bell Isle. We've won at Long Beach, Sebring. And I think that's one of the other discussions we can have here is it's a street course at San Diego.

But from my perspective, I would say Sebring is maybe the closest place to it. And outside of all that, I actually sat down with Keith Rodden at GM last week just to see what they had done. And they obviously used R Factor as the company that does all the scanning. They use all the maps, how to love that, and then started building that stuff. But the interesting thing for me is when they sent these guys out like Connor to do that Navy movie and some of this other stuff, they had them actually go across the track, rub their foot on different surfaces just to get a highlight, you know, of like here's the grip levels. We think they're here and then take pictures. And then some of the stuff, I think, got moved around.

So that was another factor there. Yeah. But they built a lot of this off the media visits too. Yeah. Yeah, they, kudos to everyone who built the track, number one. They got one corner off from that deal. It was four foot off. Toyota picked up on it where the issue was.

It was, the wall was brought out four feet closer to the track and was messing up their sim a little bit. But that sim worked 24 hours a day for three days out there when those guys got there. They ran, I think they ran over 40 sessions overnight. Is there usually? the opportunity to do sim at the race track? Yeah, they have simulators there. All they're constantly working on is the tire and the track grip to try to get the sim. Because those are the two biggest things after everything else is figured out.

That's the two most important things that are going to get all your setups right of those two things. And if one of those things are off, you're going to struggle a little bit in Sim. But, you know, they, host far wasn't fooling around with a lot. Most of the people said eye racing was way closer than all the actual. The factory sense? Yeah, then all that in the beginning because they went out later and they did it, did a better job because of that. But, you know, you got to give those guys credit. You know, you're going to get what you get out of.

You know, Ray. I mean, you did it. You were the start of all, in my eyes, right, of every looking around, being a young kid and you coming down and getting into the sport. You started, you know, the Southern guys were like, you know, they had a little click. Right? They had a little thing. And Ray come down and, no, we're going to kick your ass and this is what we're doing. We're going to outwork you and we're going to do all the things.

So these guys are working, Ray. I mean, unbelievable. Denny Hamlin is a freak right now with all this stuff of what he's doing behind the scenes that nobody really knows how much he's. He's not just gallivanting around and winning these races. He's working at it. The 45, Tyler, same thing, you know? I don't want to interrupt you there. I agree. We can go right back to the Sim and, you know, we got something. But what Tyler Redick did yesterday, given that spot back to me, says so much about what this sport needs.

Like hard race and stuff's going to happen, whatever. But it was like, okay, my bad, have it back. Tons, tons of respect. It was more surprising that he made, like, it was more surprising to see someone make a choice like that than it was for somebody just to dump it. Yeah, 100%. The expectation now is you're going to get dumped. So when you see somebody show respect like that, it just raises everything to a higher level. Yeah. And we're talking about all the SIM and AJ Alamedega walks in with nothing. They have no SIM.

They have nothing. And he finishes fifth. So just to think of all the talent that AJ has, right? And how good that team is without any information. Imagine if AJ had some information going in today. I mean, they don't have anything, right? Those guys had, you know, Pratt Miller is doing all the behind the scenes work right now, but all the tools aren't built yet. So they have nothing.

But they've got some smart people with experience and a great driver. When you talk about the SIM on a new track like that, you know, Sim will help you visually, right? So in a lot of these young guys are more visual and feel, you know, the cars don't roll and stuff like they used to, right? So they, they, visually, it helps you learn the track. But to me, you go to a new place where there is none of that, and you got an old school guy that's a gunfighter, knows how to not spin his tires, knows how to use his brakes, you got a crew chief that works with them, you got some stuff based on say, oh, well, this is like, this is like this track or this is like this track, and you take all those pieces of put it

together. So it's cool to see because it's basically the tools that have put you and I on the shelf, right? I realize, like, I'm not going to be able to beat that computer. or someday, right? And now, you know, you see guys that are doing good against it. Yeah, but I think we were at the point is we weren't worried about us. We were worried about all the people that you needed to do that to back us up, right? That was the situation I was always in.

It's like, I don't have the infrastructure or the money or the time lost. Like, there's teams that started this stuff. You guys started it. I admit it. I was part of the problem, right? Engineers and simulation. You started it. Yeah, yeah.

And then they... And then it passed me, I didn't like it. Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's like all this information that we're taking, it's like, it's no longer into the cars, right? It's into the computers and figuring out all the setups and the floors and the downforce. And it's just like, God, you can go, you can sit there for hours and study things. But then you get an AJ, it just goes right out there and finishes fifth, right?

And it's like, okay, well, it still can be done maybe the normal way. it's interesting. Speaking of the floors, that was one of, so I covered the Indy 500. One of the things that, what kind of flabbergasted me is that some of the teams don't even like sort through their floors,

which is like standard practice for us and absolutely standard practice for Cup. And I'm like talking about the differences back and forth. I'm like, there's a lot of stuff that I like about IndyCar, but there's a lot of stuff that I feel like they're just leaving stuff on the table. And it's very fascinating.

I'm sure you've experienced some of it too. Absolutely. And there's, you know, people can say whatever they want, of when you look at the people that are winning and winning consistently, it's in the details. And they talk about the 10 car with Alex Pillow and the Chip Ganassi and that 10 car. It's in the details. And I still say Alex is probably the best sandbagger I've ever seen.

He goes just fast enough every week to make everybody think they got a shot. And when it comes time to sit on the poll, he goes, but that's, you know, that detail that you're talking about separates the, I think the top teams to the, you know, to the bottom teams. in any form of motorsport. The Polo car was fascinating to me. And the Chip Ganassi cars in general, they go to such a level of detail. I was seeing them with custom-cut decals to cover bolts.

There's sheets and sheets of decals where these other teams are like, hey, this looks roughly good, we're going to put it together. But that's, you know, even if, say, you know, Honda may not have the biggest advantage at Indy from a speed perspective.

They're taking off all these other boxes. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, yeah. Hey everybody, this is Dale Jr. And for the latest DBC gear, go to shop.dirtymovedia.com. We've added some new shirts. There's one called Win or lose.

We're drinking booze. Everything seems to be about drinking here at Dirtymo Media. Go check it out now. I know that we will talk about the Exfinity Race some more in spot-on-on-off. O'Reilly, gosh, how many episodes in this year are we, and I still call it the wrong thing? O'Reilly race, big ending. Austin Hill wins in a little bit of a interesting fashion. I felt bad for Carson there because he's come so close so many times.

He drove a really good race. They put all the stuff together they needed from strategy pit stops and everything else. And then he just gets punted at the end. Now, he may or may not have been the winner if he didn't get punted, but he just didn't get that chance because he just got pushed off the track. I think Austin Hill, his Saturday was played much more smartly than his Sunday because on Saturday he seemed to just stick around and save a little bit. And then, you know, at the end, he decided to go. Yeah, I mean, just he seems to struggle when he gets in those positions to put himself in a bad position, so to speak.

But, yeah, he won the race. That was good. Sam Mayer. Oh, my God. Yeah. That was a gigantic. I pulled that video and I was like, wow. Yeah, it was, I think it was pretty close to Seabell's wreck and G's.

So, yeah, they're going to be looking at that car and going over that. You know, the steering column, man, that thing moved crazy. But I seen him yesterday. He seemed like he was okay. Probably so. Yeah, so. The man cover. I got to tell you guys about the.

The manhole cover. The manhole cover. When they said that he ran over something, like, Wait, you guys don't even know. And they've showed the camera. I'm like, no shit. Is that the manhole cover sitting in the duck work? You guys don't even know.

So early that morning, I'm out on the track. And we're looking at some stuff because they changed some stuff. And I see this manhole cover. It's marked weld. And there's two pieces of tape. And where it's welded is obviously the direction of the car. So I'm like, so I looked up and Slugger was with me. And I'm like, slug, this thing's not welded.

So we go about our stuff. I forgot to tell the officials that. So was your fault. So I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there watching the race and I see this. So I text Slugger. You should not have told this story. Now we all know you saw it.

Last guy to see it. Yeah, I said, I text Slugger. I said, holy shit, man. This could have prevented. This was me. You could have stopped that. Right? And now, now I'm getting bashed on our little group that we have group chat.

You know, and it's like, you know, and then finally I'm like, Slug, you could have said something too. You know, so all night I'm worried about it. Then the next morning, um, hopefully we can get Jerry on the phone here and talk about some cool things. But I went up to him and I was like, man, I told him my whole story. He looks at me, goes, that wasn't the cover, Tom. You're okay. I'm like, thank God.

So they missed more than one. Yeah. No, that one was welded that broke up. There was a... The one that Corey hit was welded. Yes, it was welded. There was a little lip that was sticking over the pavement that, I guess, the splitter or the car bottom down and appealed that thing and just ripped the welds right out.

So, yeah, they showed me. pitches. It was welded pretty good, too. It's just, I mean, you go in that speed and hitting that thing. There's really nothing going to hold things there. You got splitters and rub blocks under the cup cars. And I mean, it's a lot of bumps and bottoming out. So it's not surprising. And it's not uncommon. Even like an F1, we've seen it. So it's up from Downforce. Yeah. Yeah. So you never know. It's just happened sometimes. Did you think NASCAR giving him his laps back was the right thing to do? Um, you know, I think that there's, a time when, and again, being on the officiating side now, there's still got to be,

there's going to be refereeing, right? And you've got to have faith, you know, in the past, they hadn't. Remember, Jeff Gordon had some concrete hit at Martinsville. Make Mary a Dover. But, you know, it's time maybe to change. So as the sport evolves, I'm like, okay, if it was on them, he shouldn't have been penalized. It's as simple as that, right? So, you know, I think as we go into the future and hoping that we can at least be consistent, but to the point to where we go, look, this is the new way that we're going to do it because the history didn't work good for us. So, yes, I agree.

Well, the past was old school shit. Yeah. Now it's like, we have to cater everybody. It's a different time. You know, how much, well, why didn't you just stop the race? and, you know, there's way more stories because of social media when it comes down to that stuff now. So, yeah, I think it was a great idea. I mean, it took them pretty long to fix it anyway.

So it kind of... They had the time for it. Yeah. So, yeah. The fact that he had to ride around, though, to make up all those laps took forever, forever. Maybe they could have adjusted that and just park the cars. I understand their goal there of like, hey, you don't want to give them a fuel or tire advantage. But, and I don't know how...

With that course being so long, I felt like we were. sitting there for like 10 minutes waiting for him to start to use a time penalty like we use time formula one use time just okay just adjust the time yeah yeah that's that's tough but I agree they've set the precedent now so when something like this happens in the future I think everybody will watch closely mm-hmm yeah a cup race first time winner that's always always exciting and I think do you think like I mean we've talked about this a lot it's a new course new new everything for everybody do you think that played a lot into I mean Corey's obviously incredibly talented but played a lot into him maybe having

the opportunity. I think these types of courses give a lot of people an opportunity, but I also believe that Haim has been on the cusp of like running up there for a long time. And he got his chance here. And the most interesting part to me is that the group that was with him, obviously led by Bouti Barker, who's extremely experienced, but it's really more of like a classroom environment where Bouti's teaching all these people. Well, no, these are all old road guys. Yeah. Well, there's They're all, they just, they're shop guys now, and they get dragged out on the road when this car races. But they're all really good guys, and they all know what, what's going on. The thing that I was always worried about that program, and they picked it up yesterday,

did a fabulous job, was the pit crew, because the first couple of races, they were the ones that kind of put him behind as he was climbing. They fixed it, right? And, you know, Ray, you're a perfect person to ask about Corey Hyman. You've always had a good eye. You picked a couple of really good race car drivers in your career. to work with and drive your cars, you know, Jeff Gordon, Casey Kane. What do you see in him? Maturity.

You know, he, what he did in the truck series, he won half the races, right? Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, that's more than talent, and he's so young, you know, more than experience, he can't have that much experience. So that talent, but I've always said, you know, the young ones that rise to the top quickly have that ability to stay calm in their mind. You know, they can control their emotion, and that comes with maturity. And, you know, you go back to look at the people that are performing over there at 2311, and you think, look, I don't know Michael Jordan, watched him play a lot,

but he was a master at controlling the game, slowing the game, slowing the game, slowing the thinking down. And I think he's somehow leading his team, his drivers, his pick crew maybe, into that type of thinking. So pretty impressive, but Corey has a tremendous amount of talent, but I'm really impressed with his maturity for as young as he is. Yeah. And speaking of Michael George, I don't think he really has to say much. I think just this history, right? And look, he even rubbed off on Denny. Denny even made a comment, you know, this past week on what Jordan said about him over the winter that got Denny all fired up. So people like Michael Jordan in this world, there's not very many of them,

right? Can only, only need to say a couple things, right, to you. And you can take it how it is, but you better listen. Yeah. Right? And look, I think Corey Haim is an exceptional talent. But I think it also proved that you can leave the truck series and go into the cup series and be successful. It might not be a bunch of them.

But there are some of these kids that are ready. more so because the difference of the way that everything's driving now. I mean, the trucks drive different than the O'Reilly cars. The Cup drives way different than both of those other series. So it's going to, it's a learning curve now for every step you're going to do. So is he going to win more cup races? Absolutely. Will he be winning, you know, trying to go for championships in the next two, three years?

Absolutely. Maybe faster. He's already proved that, um, he's capable of winning. So it's, sky's the limit for this kid as far as I'm concerned. Is that the smallest amount of starts

for a rookie to win? No, SVG. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. And he, I think at Sv... 13. Yeah, 11 or 13. I think Jimmy Johnson was also 13.

Okay. So I think that was close. Dale Jr. was only eight or nine. Yeah. Oh, shit. There's a handful of people. Sorry. Dale Jr. was only eight or nine.

Sorry, I think Jimmy Johnson was 10 or 11. Yeah. They were close, yeah. Yeah. But again, like... In the next gen era, though? Next gen, I think, well, other than SVG. Other than SVG.

Other than SVG. Which, we're just going to not count that on that. He doesn't count for that. And that was an open car. That wasn't a chartered car. I think the last time that was was SVG too. And, yeah, I mean, it's exciting. I think it's exciting for a sport that kids are coming in and doing these things.

And, you know, it's a... It was, I walked through the truck garage after practice. and seen all the carnage. I mean, it was like a junkyard. Maconaleigh wrecked nine trucks and only brought four. Yeah, and I feel so bad. Yeah, and I feel so bad, and because after the race, there was not one clean truck.

And it goes to, you think, and it's like, those guys have metal still, metal fenders, quarter panels, metal fender braces, all the things. They're the ones that shouldn't be running and learning the craft of racing next to each other, run each other. And they're doing it more than the O'Reilly. Well, some of them are, but more than the O'Reilly's in the cup. And it just goes to show you the talent level difference. You know, the cup race was the shortest race of the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Because of red flags and doing things. But there's

the talent level in the three series and the one, in the two series. And once you get to the cup, you're like, holy shit, there is a difference. Yeah. I think Brent Cruz probably realized that this weekend. Yeah. I think. Brent hurt himself a little bit with his shifting. Yeah, well, you mentioned Kimi Antonelli. And Brent Cruz and Kimi Antonelli raced against each other in carts. So when Brent hopped into the car, I was like, I'm going to pull up the camera just to see right off the bat. He's got speed.

He's got speed. Like, I'm like, he just, he passed like six cars on the first two laps. But I think the muscle memory of being in the O'Reilly car kind of bit him there because eventually, so the O'Reilly car has a traditional H-Patch. So one is up, two is down, three is up, where the cup car has the sequential. So you just go down, down, down, down, down, basically. Or up, up, up, depending on which direction you're going. He went up. Yeah.

Instead of going down. 10,500 RPMs, engine blow. Hey, it happens. Yes. It happens. I know like, I can only say that because I've done it. You've blown a couple. My corvette with the sequential.

You've blown way more shit up than that. That's why I was a crew chief of the driver, right? But I did want to go back and say something about the truck race. And this is just my opinion, right? So what we see there, I feel like the, because they're younger, and a lot of these younger drivers are bringing the money to get into the sport and kind of, you know, buying their way in there. And I'm sorry if that sounds cruel. I'm not trying to be, but that's where maybe the officiating has to come in with driver-stuiting

and to stop that because you had a seven-time champion, one of the greatest drivers, most respected drivers in our motorsports world, Jimmy Johnson, tell them like, look, guys are out of control. I've never seen so much disrespect for what's going on.

So if they're coming up and the cars are driving different and everything now, I think that there needs to be more driver penalties, a stewarding group, like in IndyCar, we have Ari,

Lion Dyke, and Max Capas. Be careful. You're going to have something else to do. No, no, no. You know, you know that I would not be a good example for driver steward. No, no, no. They would go, yeah.

Listen here, Emma. Yeah. No, no, no. But I'm just thinking that's a way to stop some of that and help teach these guys and better prepare them for the next step. Great point. Because that's just... NASCAR, are you listening?

You listening to Ray? Yeah. No. I think we'll get to dive into that a little bit more and spot on spot off too. I'm interested to hear kind of everyone's opinions on that. Spot on. Spot on. Did you want to go first?

I think he's a whiny bit. That's what I think. Send it. Why me? Okay, spot on, spot off. I think I'm interested to see. I know we all have good sentiments about San Diego, but I'm interested to talk about it

in comparison to some other street courses. Spot on, spot off. San Diego was a better street course event than Chicago or Mexico City. Bozzie, what do you think? I'm spot on. I think the way they put the track together, the different surfaces,

the layout, everything else, just it made it exciting. I've been to Chicago. I enjoyed that race immensely. I thought it was very, very cool. And Mexico City watching on TV was fun. But Mexico City, I looked at it kind of like Coda. It's an F1-style track and the cup cars and everybody else adapted to it. Chicago was kind of a first try.

So it didn't have maybe as complex of a layout as what happened at San Diego. And San Diego, for me, as kind of a tech nerd, strategy nerd, It just offered so many things with how people treated their cars, strategy options. Like you had tireware, which I'm sure Tommy can attest it. Oh, yeah. Tommy loves tireware. It was just a cool environment. And then pulling up the TV and seeing a carrier, like cars racing towards a carrier, like just the scenery and everything. It's insane.

So like I like fully spot on. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, spot on. For me, the atmosphere, right? You know, like there was America, you know, they wanted us to be there. And everybody was proud in that pride. I like the track.

I thought it was difficult. Again, I like it when the track has character and the strategy is not set until the race folds out. Again, great tempo from a fan side watching. You know, that anticipation knowing, you know, this is happening and that's happening. So spot on a better race.

Yeah. And don't be surprised if we don't go back. I was going to say, what do you think the odds are? I think it's pretty good after yesterday. And don't be surprised that we we'll probably will be back in Chicago in the street cars too coming up but the you know what

you know with all the things that you've done Ray the ownership the crew chief and being on all the boards being with Hendrick right do you think these type of events need to move around so they don't get boring or you know like every three four years they come back or or what's

your view on that? I think you're spot on with that Tommy you know the most entertainment stuff TV shows, everything. They've got a four or five year run before they lose their luster. And then in two or three years after that, they're popular again, right? So I think moving them around to areas where it's fresh, but doing the diligence, whether it's the right area, can you put on a good show? Is it the right demographic like they did with this San Diego race? I think it's

important. I think it's important that we do keep our basic race course history, if you will, you know, the DNA of what we are in NASCAR, some of the ovals, you know, the Daytonas, the Charlottes, the Charlottes, you know, the Wilkesboro's, the places like that. But I also think that there should be a half a dozen of these things that move around. Yeah. Yeah. I think another cool thing about San Diego that I liked was just all of the content they did leading in, like the mini movie and having all those guys out on the base beforehand. Like it just, you felt like you were seen a behind the scenes leading into it, too, which I thought was cool. Have you guys watched the mini movie at all? Have you watched it? I know you haven't. You don't know how to work. Prime video.

I wouldn't even know how to load it. Has any, you know, you guys watched it yet? I haven't either. I just saw Connor sitting on the stairs at one point. That's the only thing I was seen for it. I haven't either. I've heard some, yeah, Connor does need a hug. He'll get plenty. That kid's got a future. God bless him. All right. Number two, if Corey Heim were in a cup ride full time, he would make the 2026 chase. Right? As much as I like him and is as, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, much as I know he's got potential, I'm going to say no, only because it's great to do it and debut like that, but the Cup series is tough. It's the best of the best, not just the drivers, but the mechanics, the teams. And it is so hard to put consistency together to do that. I think

that's tough for a rookie, you know, no matter how good you are, to just, to have that consistency to do that. Yeah, to put it all together for 36 or however many. The first year was tough. The first year was tough. The first year with Jeff, how many front rear clips? I was going to say, the only thing we put together was suspensions. Yeah.

You know, because of that car. What was it? 13? 13 or 14 front and rear clips and then two or three complete cars that we couldn't fix. First year, yeah. But, you know, the second year, you made it, right? And everybody's grown together, right? Communication and whatnot.

But it's, I think, you know, it's great to see the talent that people have. But, man, anybody that's been in this for a while. I will tell you it's hard. Cup is hard. So tell me about now the synergy, right? You got booty in that group, right? Then you got the 35 group, which congratulations. I think he had his best ever finished yesterday.

But now what do you do? Like, is booty up for that job? You know, will he come back to be crew chief full time because of the things that him and Corey have already started? Like, how do you look at that from the business perspective? You know, it's hard to judge because I'm not on the inside of that organization, so I don't know how everybody works. But if I, from the outside, I would say finding a, a crew chief that can be with him

that he gets along with, whether that's his truck guy or whoever, you know, I'm not trying to steal guys from team to team, but, you know, with booty as a advisor, booty as a, you know, booty's maybe the head coach and this guy, you know, just guiding, because you've got a young driver, and I'm okay bringing a younger crew chief in if you've got some guidance, you know, and I think inside of 2311 there's enough depth there, maybe to be able to do that. But I can tell you, from my own experience and yours, after 20, 30 years on the road, you're not as excited as you want to be. So you need a young guy with Corey that's excited to get to that race track every Thursday,

every Friday. I'll tell you, you mentioned the truck crew chief. Zippy will not go in cup, so don't even... Zippy is like his weekends. He will not know. He won't give up. Zippy like his weekends. He's just getting ready to walk again, the poor guy.

I think that I would disagree with you. Only from the perspective that I look at it, just knowing a little bit more about 2311 of like how they operate as a total organization where from what I've seen, it's all the teams, everything shared versus a lot of the other teams, especially in your day where it's like a little bit segmented. My thought is that Corey Hime right now had people that are kind of semi-retired road people from the shop, plus a lot of young engineers that Booty's mentoring, staffing this car, and they had their PDG pit crew. So Joe Carroll, tire changer, first ever race.

And he won it. So it was good, but it's also his first ever race. So that shows that they've built their engineering program. They've built their pit crew program. Even with the people that just do this off and on, like Liz Prestella, you worked with her. I know her very well. She got called on Wednesday to go in. And she works in the shop doing parts and all this other stuff.

But that's the type of deal of like everybody's in tune and plugged in of being able to do this stuff. And people are being mentored. And talking with Liz, you're one of the people that comes up of like she got mentorship from you, mentorship from Sam Hunt, booty barker, all these people. And if you have people like that, I don't think it really matters who you choose. So whether it's booty that keeps us crew chief or they take the 35 people, put him in there, anybody that gets swapped out. And if he gets a prime pit crew, so the 35 pit crew right now is half of what was Tyler Redick's crew to start the year. Because Tyler Reddick's front tire changer and his Jackman both blew out their knees late last year.

So they took the 35 guys, put him on the 45, and then had some new guys on the 35. So now you have guys that have won multiple times with Tyler Redick this year on that 35 pick crew, which is what I assume Haim will get next year. Haim has experience. I know Zillich had experience too, but I ran into Haim two, three years ago when Bubba decided I want more road course experience. So they came down in Daytona when we were racing for the Rolex 24, ran the GT4 race. And Heim got a lot of practice there that people maybe don't even know about. So people look at, he's always got a lot of late model experience, all this other stuff. But there's so many other pieces there that I think Cup is very hard. But I think Haim is one of those people that's right on the cusp that he could be a 14th to 16th

plays driver with all the right things going for him. So. But which part will you disagree on the booty parker? I'm trying to think, well, wait a minute. He won't make the chase. That's the only thing I disagree. You would do it. You disagree.

He would make the chase. I think I say he'll make the chase. I was confused. I was almost ready to go, okay, look, I'll bet you three cup trophies. I always just like my dad, it might take tomorrow for me to figure out what he said. Yeah. But just looking at all the pieces. But I disagree with you of like, you guys look at it.

You guys look at it. Build a single team. I look at it as build an organization. So you get to the point now, Himes moving to that 35 car. Now, do you, as an owner and as a strategist, do you keep that car going with other young kids to keep that growth growing within your organization? Is that your next step as a business? I would say if I had a business plan and could afford to do that. I would try and even if it didn't run every race to put that much pressure on them to maybe run more than we thought.

You know, maybe you say you'd run 75% of what's left to get them that experience without overloading them. So that, again, that you can continue that mentorship and let them grow in between. So they've got they've got time to stop and think about, okay, how did that go? What did we do? How can we prepare better rather than having to just get there the following week? Because when you start something late, you know what? You're so focused on just getting there that sometimes you don't have enough time to get better. Yeah, I think Denny eventually will be that guy, right, that will do that probably, you know, go have fun for 12, 15 races a year maybe, building that group of people that they can just send into the other teams that won't skip a beat when other people's leave or retire or want to come off the road.

So it's a growing process with these teams that keep strong, right? And that's why that team is going to be strong for a very long time, right? The infrastructure, right? And you were big on that when you first got down here, right, was the infrastructure. You laid the groundwork of, you know, saying all these, this is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it.

We're going to have backups. We're going to create a full-time pick rule. We're going to create training. Like, you had a guy that started all this. Back to me being the problem. Yes. Some of us get work on it. So it's all your fault.

Yeah. It's evolution, right? It's evolution. The sport has to evolve. And when I looked at stuff like that, I didn't always pick tracks that I wanted to be better at, right? Or they need to be better at. I wanted them to experience some of the emotion. That's why send them to Daytona, right?

Because that, oh, my God, the distractions. Bristol. The noise. The noise. Martinsville. You know, the stuff happens quick. So we, we, and that way it wasn't their first time dealing with that. And then they could focus. focused on the car. But again, that's a big part of it. And I keep going back to, I think,

that that's what, that 2311 is somehow brought in that mentality of being able to focus and slow the game down a little bit. Yeah. I think that's the big deal. I think a lot of people will go, oh, are they cheating? Did they get some settlement? Is Toyota doing this or that? And I think a lot of it's just the small bits and pieces. They're outworking everybody. It's the small bits and There's nothing secret there. You know what it takes to win. Detail. As I said, we can talk, you know, the guy that's winning is always cheating.

And then you look at his car and it's way nicer or better prepared. And again, I'm involved in a lot of, I see a lot of cars going through inspection now. Yeah. And you can tell. The Ghanasi cars, they're right. All right. Third one, I tweeted 54 doing 54 things after Taylor. Gray's contact in Carson Quapples' chance to win at San Diego.

I'm going to ask you, spot on or spot off? I'm spot on. That was the 54 doing 54 things. What did he do? Spot off for what he did. That wasn't a wheel hop. That was one of the many fake wheel hop scenarios I saw up this weekend. Okay. All right. So. I'm spot on with your tweet. I thought that was completely unnecessary. It was. Should have just raced it out?

They could have. And they were racing before that. I just don't think it had to be that way. for that to happen. Yeah. Well, I can't be spot on or spot off because I didn't see it, not even the highlights, but I will tell you from my new position, if you are a driver who runs into the back of another driver, you are at fault. That's the bottom line, right? They do that with real cars in insurance, right?

You know, it's called avoidable contact. And so it sounds like... Hey, look at the Jeski. He was a perfect example on Friday. That some bitch should have hit five. trucks and six walls. And he saved it. He did everything he possibly could not, not only not to run into the wall, but to not run into any truck that he met, you know, he decided at the end when he got completely sideways, he made a mistake. And he cleared it, man. It was, I mean,

time again, he should be an example on the board of talk. And he's the, he's the guy that takes the rookies around, by the way. But this, they, they could be a steward. Like, hey, look, that's unacceptable. You know, you. You know, you're. You get a stop and go or you get a time penalty or you're out for a week. Yeah. You know, they're on the lower series, you know, the truck, O'Reilly, I almost said Bush. Yeah. Yeah.

That will help those guys be prepared to get the cup. Yeah. I feel like they did it for a little while, maybe a year or two ago where, like, they held people for a lap or two occasionally for some of these incidents and then kind of stopped. So I don't know, like, what the mindset was there. Well, I mean, the mindset is from how they were brought up and how they were racing. right and the legend cars and you know how they do those again don't get me started on that but we save that for the last topic i'm sure you'll have a lot yeah i mean a lot to say on that one all right

go ahead uh after the truck race jimmy johnson discusses respect between the drivers and says quote that is completely out the window and he feels torn as both an owner and a driver and ray i know you touched on this earlier and a when you've got a seven-time champion one of the most respected the drivers, you know, in the history of our sport and still very well respected, it goes back to, you know, I keep saying this stewarding, and whether that's two or three drivers, like they do an indie car with Max Pappas and Ari Lyondike, if there's contact or if there's, you know, an unavoidable contact, they make a decision and someone's penalized or their call to the hauler, if you will, for a conversation with these guys. And, you know, through all of the indie next and

things like that, it prepares guys. And it happens weekly, you know, obviously there's going to be a conversation with power and Ray Hall, right? Power, no way. He's involved in something? I love Will, but he's that tough year. You know, they, I just feel like that keeps things in order, and it's a panel of people, and they go and talk about it themselves, and there are some set boundaries. And if you cross those boundaries, it's no different than having a technical infraction with

the car. So I think it's very important to have some kind of sports. supporting control, especially in the feeder series. I agree 100%. It should start when they're first start racing. It should be taught right away on doing things. And I do believe that it starts from the beginning. It starts from the legend car racing, how they do that,

and how they race and how they wreck each other going into corners and rub it on things. And, hey, the car's tour is tough too. It is. I mean, and the level of competition. We constantly talk about the, we always are saying, you know, it's a constant fine line of like saving them from themselves sometimes. You know, you don't want to over-officiate it to where you're having, you know,

robotic races and things are boring and nobody's, everyone's afraid to make a move or do something, but you also don't want to, it's just a fine line. And I'm sure you understand that. It's hard to walk and it's hard to balance what's entertaining level of racing versus, okay, you've taken it too far and then having somebody to say that and lay the all down. Yeah.

It's a tough situation. But hopefully Jimmy, at his status, it will resonate, right? Well, maybe not. Ah, he's old. You know, what does he know? Well, it probably goes to show why they tore up so much shit in the truck race compared to everything else, too. I mean, he was out there seeing it.

I hope that people listen. And I also hope that Jimmy comes back. I want to see him in a truck more. That was entertaining. Yeah, because Jimmy with a truck arm suspension just clicks. Like, I worked with him in 20, three for a few races, and it was tough adapting to the next gen. But seeing him in that truck looking at his pace, just even in practice, by the time he got

to the race, and I actually, at the end, I pulled that up, and he was the fourth fastest driver in the entire race. So, you know, if... He hasn't forgotten how to race. No, no. I want to see him... I mean, his beard's really, is gray like yours and mine, and... Yeah, you don't...

Might be a little dust on the bottle, so they say. I want to see Jimmy Johnson, trucks, or Riley, whatever else. Anything with the truck arm, I think it'll be exciting, and maybe some of these kids will learn something. Yeah. Well, he's going to be driving in the I Rock race in Monterey. So, yeah, we've got his car prepared. So we'll just send it out there. He keeps saying to put a crash clause on these guys? He owns his car. Oh, he owns his car. Yeah, he owns his car. Yeah, so he owns his car. Mr. Hendrick owns Jeff's car. So these guys are starting to really to get involved. I'm a little concerned about Kurt and Jeff to maintain their own cars. So I might have to have some officiating,

but we'll see. You might have to have a little panel with those two. Yeah, we might have to, you know, impound to go to the tunnels. Jesse. or something, I don't know about it. You're going to get crazy. You're not in my shop. I'm really worried about that. Really worried about that. How many IRA cars are at your shop?

Oh, wow. I think we have 15 or 16 cars between my shop and Rob Kaufman's. That's awesome. That's really cool. How many entries do you have for Minority? Oh, 21 entries. That's so cool. That is cool.

I love to see it coming back. Do you ever see it coming into the NASCAR? tracks with the fans again, the I rock type series. I know you talk about the other series, the SRX series. I mean, what happened there? Because it was, it was good, but then it, then it all of a sudden wasn't. What was, what's your thought process behind that? I think there's a space for a type of motorsports entertainment. And again, you have to control it. You know, I think that people spend a lot of time, learn, you know, there's a lot of these guys that are retire and are under 60, 45 to 60. So it can be like a seniors tour maybe, you know, but it's got to

stay on smaller tracks, keep the speeds down, shorter races, you know, entertaining. And again, that would be my dream. But there's a lot that goes along with. I said the world has evolved a lot since the original I Rock. So the sports have evolved a lot. You know, so having active drivers it'd be really difficult scheduling, sponsor conflicts, manufacturer conflicts. It's just hard to do. But an entertaining thing like we did with SRX and, you know, straight up, the first year was mega, man. We knocked it out of the park and did whatever. And I just didn't agree with the way that we were going to approach the second year with the partnership.

And I said, you know, if you do that, you know, I'd be out of business in two years. So I was, I hit that on the head. They should have bad on that one, right? But, you know, and again, you know, people say, oh, NASCAR was nervous about it. But, you know, and I will say this, honestly, that it's not like they interfered or stopped us from getting sponsors or anything like that. You know, they weren't a big fan, but, you know, business is business, right?

And I think now when they look at things, they realize, hey, you know, you know, rising tide raises all boats. But, you know, I think IROC as a brand has still resonates with people. So why couldn't you call that IROC? I wanted to. And again, that was one of the things I disagreed with the other partners there. And as I said, it's like any other business, right? Or we were talking before to have success, it's got to be a good team, right?

And I have been on really good teams that have been amazing. been on some teams that could have been amazing because the resources were there and everything was there. It just wasn't a good team. Yeah. I would have loved to – I will envision that how to – And I do want to clarify, and I'm not talking about Tony. Tony Stewart and I are still close, you know.

He'd be watching this and then he'd be – Then he'd be blowing up. You'd see me out of a black eye, and I was saying, yes. It depends on what day with Tony if he's mad or happy. I love the guy. Oh, yeah. Well, he just – He's just who he is.

Pure racer. Yeah. You're not going to find a pure racer. No. Yeah. So at the end of the day, I would have hoped, and I thought it was coming that it would have been purchased by NASCAR, right? And then created this senior group and they did all these things because, well, back up on the senior thing. I still think we're still missing the cup drivers going on Saturday nights and racing at these local short tracks.

You know, going to to. Tell out to Kyle Larson. Yeah. Yeah. What is the fan base that he keeps growing and doing that on, you know? Yeah. And again, I agree with you. I mean, I'm busting you a little bit, but bringing them to the short track, keeping them safe.

But again, that's a balance. You know, you look at TV and the money that's put into watching, you know, NASCAR. So, you know, the more I learn, the more I realize I didn't know, but there's got to be a way to make that work. I would love to have, have, be able to do that, but I certainly understand how, you, I'm trying to figure out how to say this. Well, the drivers are getting, the drivers are getting paid to do certain things now. So it would have been great to grab those 15, 16 cars that you built. Yeah.

And bring them to Stafford Motor Speedway for a night and have 16 drivers, which they're going to be getting paid to do anyway, and go put on the show and create, set up the trailers, the novelty trailer, get the things, you know. And have been part of NASCAR. And then having these little kids have a dream, right, and seeing all these things and doing what needs to be done. I mean, that's how we would brought up, right? And I know the world's different, but you're still a kid.

And you still have dreams and you still have heroes, right? And how are you going to create this, right? On the internet, social media? Like, how are you going to get to feel and see these people of shaking hands and getting a hat and getting a signature at a local, short track and doing these things. I just think there's a, there's a space there. Can you go, can you go figure that out, please? I agree with you 100%. There's, you know, look at the heroes coming up. You know,

you've got to be able to go see your local heroes. That's so important, so important to support the short tracks and to keep those short tracks going because that's where, that's where the fire comes from. Yeah. Right? I mean, I didn't know anything about NASCAR, you know, when I was watching, you know, Buzzy Ruderman and Gilhern and, you know, all those guys coming around. And, you know, your dad and Wayne Anderson and Jazeambach. I'd only heard about those guys, you know.

And then I got to race with your dad and with Charlie. And Tommy's dad, do I have time here? Tell him. Yeah, yeah. So Tommy's dad was just a really, really good guy. Helped me with my chassis. And just he would always go and help. And then we got a little bit quicker

And to a point where we were running with those guys And so we're running Wall Stadium one night And me and Tommy Sr. We're kind of running side by side. We're going side by side. Well, the older Troyer cars, the sheet metal was like this, right, on an angle. And that's where we used to clip the fire extinguishers, right?

So, you know, the little clip on fire extinguishers. So we're going around there, my fire extinguisher comes unclipped. And it rolls down under my seat. every time I step on the brake, it's rolling up under my pedals. And then I step on the gas, it rolls back. And I'm trying not to hit him. And I remember, we come off a four, it rolls back. I take it, I flip it out the window.

Well, I flip it out the window and it goes right across in front of the seven car. Right? So we finished a race. I don't know, we finished, you know, fifth, six, seven, you know, and I come in there. And then Tommy comes, he is, his face is red. And his father was intimidating. I can imagine. He was intimidating.

He is mad at me. He's like, you crazy son of a bit? You threw the fire extinguisher at me while I was trying to pass you? I was like, no. No. I'm telling you. And after we had to laugh, but I'm seeing myself, please don't kill me until I get a chance to tell you the story.

But I'll never forget that. I was like, what do I do? And it was a wamp until that, you know, so he was pretty sure that I threw a fire extinguress. Like Mario Kart. Okay, I'm looking forward to this one. We do a little thing called reaction theater every week where fans can call in and voice their opinions from this weekend's race. I'm excited to see what they may or may not have said about San Diego. And now that Freddie's not here, we're not going to hopefully have any fat joke calls.

So I can't wait to see what we have. Hey, man, this is my one phone call from jail. It got me. But I had to go see Creed. I had to. Did one of y'all come bail me out of jail? I wish so badly that that started. with this is a collective call from yeah so you guys know the story oh that was wild they're friends

who the guy who the guy who jumped over the fence his friends with sheldon yeah he knew him growing up right the guy thought the race was over and was jumped jump the fence and asked him say what are you doing race over right he was looking at the right front too no no as they got talking sheldon asked how's my damage look the guy looked and he looked at him and went bad so shelton couldn't say at the time it was his friend because he didn't want to come over to radio thinking like his team had somebody jump over. Right. So he had to play dumb through it all.

Oh, wow. So when the guy jumped over to fence and went back, Sheldon was like, boy, that boy's in trouble. I mean, that's the worst track you can possibly think. Well, yeah, that's a federal, that's a federal crime for doing that on a Navy base probably. That NCIS arresting him. Like, that's the only time I've ever seen NCIS in real life. Real life I've only ever seen it on TV, special victims unit or whatever.

How's the damage? it's bad. And I'll give it to the guy, though. He climbed that, he climbed two fences in flip-flops. Flip-flops. Then went to the bathroom and came out like nothing happened. It was great. Well, not great.

Don't, don't. It was bad, bad. Yeah, don't go on the track. Don't do that on a Navy base. Anywhere, really. Well, if you go somewhere regular, you'll just go to jail for like a couple days. But don't say I set you. He was out really quick and they were going to mail him the charges.

I'm like, when I was growing up, if I was just getting mailed the charges, I would have What are what trouble we would have got? He would have had a lot of mail. We would have got a lot of mail. And a fake address. It wasn't your parents' house. That's impressive. Hey, it's me.

Adam Dreddy. Some guy named Pork or Kligerman or something comes up to me after the right thing. I tried to kill him. Hey, buddy. So I tried to kill you. You wouldn't be alive right now. I'm Adam and Dreddy. Yeah, I didn't see a lot of that.

But Parker wasn't happy. Parker was mad. I think he said something about, like, him being a disgrace to the last name. And, like, he was mad. Yeah, they got into it afterwards. And I, since the trucks don't have the onboard cameras, can't really tell. But from what Parker described, I think it was in a high-speed section where he was trying to retaliate. And that's what got Parker angry.

And then they went back and forth. First off, that noise in the background was like a thousand frogs because it just rained. And honestly, they sound more feeling than the damn truck booth. I mean, they have the excitement of Helen Kelly. honestly I'd rather listen to Gilbert Gawfrey read Good Night Moon with two turtles fucking in the background every night for the rest of my life and have to listen to that shit again. I guess he wasn't happy with the coverage. I guess he wasn't happy with the coverage of Fox. You have the same camera people, right?

You have the same infrastructure. Well, this point came because I mentioned how different the broadcast were from Friday to Sunday and just what you could see. Like from Friday, it kind of looked like they were racing in a, a. parking lot. And then the, as the weekend went on, the views and angles got better and better to where from home you could feel that military base, you know, atmosphere. But on Friday, it just was giving parking lot. Man, Taylor Gray. Floppy-coppy-toppy had that thing in the bag until that cocksucker just wrecked him out. He was going to Victory Lane the first time. He'll get there this year. Go one.

That was me with a voice changer. He's key call it. Sloppy, sloppy. Is that his nickname? Sloppy. What? Sloppy.

Sloppy. Well, sloppy will win a race this year. Sloppy's a great nickname. That's his new nickname. Sloppy quaple. Swoppy quap. Sloppy quap. All right, two more.

Time time, baby. That's, you just want to celebrate. Like a grandfather of clock. All right, this last guy called in twice. Cup Series qualifying just wrapped up at Naval Base Coronado. I am very, very confident as Brad Kislauski fan that he has a strong, strong chance at at least the top 35 this weekend.

T-34. We know what that means. Top 35, motherfucker. So he was right. He fucking did it. Let's go. Six never quits. Six never quits.

Poor Brad Kay. It's a struggle bus right now. He's having a time. All right. To leave an audio message 24-7, you can call our number at 704, 802-9572, and we will play the best ones each week on the show. Do you think Freddy will call in one of these next couple weeks? He can. He's got tulips in his throat.

Tulips. What? Oh, polyps. That's what? Tulips. He can text us. He can, yeah. He can make an AI video.

Or like an AI song like those people do for us sometimes. Do we even miss them? No. Okay. Do you? No. Okay. I've gotten to talk more than I've ever gotten to talk today.

I mean, look, yesterday he couldn't talk. No, that motherfucker was doing podcasts all weekend, spotting all weekend. He said he was getting injections so he could do anything. But he was put in a position where he can hardly talk, spot. Car finishes, what, second? Coincidence? We'll leave that one up to the poll. All right. Shit Show Hall of Fame.

We were actually just talking about, I think, the one that would probably win this weekend. Sheldon's buddy climbing the fence. Did you guys see anything else this weekend? I mean, that really took the cake. I mean, it was not any other. That might be of the year. He's the leader. He might overtake Chris Wright from our initial.

We get one of those every, like what they call a generation? You know, early we had the guys steal a Pace Cart Talladega. Remember? And then we had the guy climbed up the fence. fence in Richmond and he was kind of like laying up on the fence up there. Yeah, but this guy didn't even know. When did somebody steal the pace car at Talladega? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just, and took off. The red, it was firebird, right? Like in the middle of the night. Like, in the cars were lined up, paste cars lined up on pit road. You know, two fireboard paste cars.

Oh, we're talking like before the race. Right before. Oh, yeah. Right before. Right before. And it like, the doors opened, pastecar fired. Jumped in and took off and they chased them down. They put up a blockade and everything.

And Talladega. I don't know that we ever saw that guy again. He's in Guantanamo. With this guy who climbed the fence, you know. Yikes. It's like the streakers that go every year at the Super Bowl. He was just going to say hello to his friend. That's brutal.

I mean, the way he was walking after the Port-a-John walking through the crowd, he was just saying hey to Sheldon. Yeah, he just was like nothing ever happened. There was just no. This guy doesn't know. He's getting ready to get tackled in a minute. Every sport highlight. Yeah, I don't think anything will be.

that. All right, so we have changed shit show up a little bit. So if you find a shit show, tag us or send it our way on social so we can laugh along with you and on the show. So I know we talked about the track layout and some cool things about the track, but on Saturday morning I went out with Jerry Kapparoth went out on the track and met with him and we drove through some things. And I was just asking him a bunch of questions. And, um, I walked back in the pit area, I said, man, what an incredible feat to put this together and the timeline and things. And I went back in the trail.

I wrote a bunch of things down to talk about today. And then I was like, you know what? I am not going to do this justice. I need to get Jerry on our show today and be able to ask him these questions because he's basically the guy that, you know, in with NASCAR, they're going to throw a bunch of shit out on the wall. and they're going to tell Jerry go try to figure it out and come back to us. And that's Jerry Caparoth behind the scenes of NASCAR, what he does with a great group of people behind him, what he does.

But I want to get him on the show. What's up, Jerry? Good morning, Tommy. I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned a couple things. I don't think the common fan know how much work that goes into just doing this. So how long ago did this project start? It started about two years ago, Tommy, and it would not be justice if we didn't kind of touch on the overall process and the team out of NASCAR design and development, i.e. the construction part.

So what happened on this is Ben Kennedy was, and is interested in developing new markets and kind of looking around where we could be in Southern California. So it started with a trip with several of us came out to Southern California, and we initially looked at a couple different places. The one place we looked at was Fighter Town or Miramar base up on the hill. And that was kind of a wide open, basically just a bunch of runways. And we could have operated the race there, but ultimately been continued. to look, looked around the San Diego area, and basically about two years ago, kind of identified that Coronado would be the place we should really go.

And the Navy gave a little, a brief glimpse at that point. But from San Diego, you could see, you know, what the views would be and what it would offer. And at that point, our government affairs and Ben, and there's other people that got involved and started to have that discussion with the Navy. So the first part, Tommy, is kind of identifying the area, you know, where we wanted to go. And then the second big part comes with our D&D, our construction group. So they came to San Diego.

They initially laid out the course. Then they take over, you know, procuring the walls, some from Long Beach, some from Las Vegas. then they start in with the fan facing part of it. So they really start accumulating all the resources and all the assets that we needed to have the race. And then where we fall in, our group starts to pick up was the competition side. Like what should the track actually look like?

What should the changes be? What would the safety part of it be? Those type of things we started to implement. And then at that point, then we started to bring the drivers on board. So it's kind of a longer process and there's many people involved, Tommy. Yeah, you mentioned it was you guys got the walls that I called them the bricks. You laughed.

You got them from Long Beach, the Long Beach from Indy and F1. How many blocks did you say did it take to build the track? Well, it's 3.4 miles. I'd have to actually do the come because we had some spares and forth. But 3.4 miles with blocks on both sides plus the pier road. So I'm not certain how many blocks we ended up when you add all that together with the pit road and the spares and so forth. But it's a massive number in light of the fact that they're pretty heavy. So the ones that we receive from Las Vegas, you know, you can only put four to five on a tractor trailer.

So that's a lot of loads of blocks. That's crazy. I think one of the guys was like, well, we put up 3,400 of them. and it was a lot of work. You could see all the stuff in the background, especially when I was up on the roof spotting, all the things that were set up that we don't even realize that needs to be set up, right?

The fan zones, the parking, the fencing, all the stuff that needs to be done. It was an incredible job. Also, the biggest take I got as well as you guys made a point of sitting outside the NASCAR hauler on after practice and just you guys just sat there and hopefully you were going to get some input from the drivers.

Because I did ask you, I said, you know, why are you making these changes? Because we made some changes Saturday morning, put some cones, breaking cones up, sealed a couple different places. Did some, for the chicane, they colored the tires a little bit more. So I was like, well, why are you doing this? While the drivers said, I said, well, what driver? Is it a driver counsel? No, we just basically sit in the back of the trail and we'll wait for the drivers to come with some comments and then we look at them and we make the decisions from there.

So group effort, I'm proud of you, Jerry. You do a really good job for us, man. You know, they send you to all these things way before we even know about them. Tell us that little story about Ty Gibbs, man. That was pretty funny. Yeah, so one of the initial site visits was going to be a Monday after a Kansas City race. So on the Monday morning, we get on the 6 o'clock flighter thereabouts from Kansas City to San Diego. And landed, did not wear any NASCAR clothing.

We were going to kind of do an actual visit here at the base. So as I'm riding in the shuttle from San Diego Airport to the San Diego rental car, I feel somebody grabbing my arm, right? and I'm thinking, what is this going on? So I turned around a look, and here was Ty Gibbs, just in the row behind me. And I look at him, and he looks at me, and he says, what are you doing here? And I said, well, you know, yeah, we're just looking at race tracks. And he goes, well, which track?

And I said, well, you know, we got auto club just up the road. and, you know, we're just kind of thinking about all that. And I didn't want to, you know, I couldn't tell him what we were thinking of because we're your way. So, so he goes, okay, okay. And then he touches my arm again, he goes, why didn't you fly into LAX? He knows, he knows. Yeah, he knew you guys were up to something. I looked at him and I said, well, I really like the driver on the coastline.

And I thought to myself, I can't get off this damn bus fast. What was he there for? He was hanging out with some buddies, right? He went to some friends in, I think, not Santa Barbara, San Clemente. I think he was heading up too. So he had some family of friends up there that he was heading up. So anyway, we got away with that. And still we were able to kind of keep their wraps on the whole design for a couple weeks.

It's kind of like one of the first times we went to Chicago and we were looking at the street course and it was snow and it was November day and this guy was pointing out to this this whole racetrack on where we could go and couldn't go and as he was talking

I'm just thinking God I hope I get home by spring but it was hard to envision the track yeah so it's been it's been a process and you know a lot of people involved Tommy the D&D guys really did a great job on putting all this together one of the interesting facets

that I do enjoy is like the two weeks leading into this the orchestration with all of the fan facing and the hospitality the construction and you know you don't realize that there's only so many lulls and there's only so many tractor trailers we can take access and there's only so many people that can maneuver around you know

when there's grandstands that have to be constructed and you know maintaining the safety of all that orchestration is it's pretty amazing right there's probably three four thousand people working on this facility a couple weeks prior to and me think about it that that takes a lot of movement you know everybody had to leave the base for certain things and come back it was that was a pretty that was pretty interesting the other part of that Tommy that I do find interesting is you know if you see it around post race last night you'll see that within 10 minutes of the race, you know, there's walls that are coming down.

There's signage that's being removed. Some of the roadways slash runways have to be opened by midnight, you know, tonight. So you don't realize how much goes into deconstruction as well. How long do you think that will take? That will probably take two weeks, but what happens, Tommy, is critical areas identified by the Navy have to be available in a shorter time period. So it depends upon the location is when they get that back.

Some of those areas between 8 and 16 have to be opened by today, as well as the corners at 2 and 3 have to also be accessible to the public by today. Incredible. Incredible, feed. Awesome job to everybody involved. It's your group. I bet they're happy, too. They got some new roads put in.

All right. I think that the police officers said they have, They've written more tickets there with those new roads than any other year. But great, great show, man. You guys are behind the scenes doing all the work. And, you know, hardly anybody listens to this show, Jerry. So tell us your next project. I don't know what that'll be.

That'll have to come from up a minute. Don't bullshit me, Jerry. Just tell us the itinerary. Just where you're flying. I'm going to follow you on the plane. I'm going to get flight to wear out. ask me to stock me on a car rental. Yeah, man.

Well, I appreciate it, Jerry, and I'll see you this weekend, man. All right. Thank you, guys. That's cool to hear everything. I couldn't have did justice because he, I mean, Jerry's such a good guy and the shit he has to put up with us. God, he goes through a lot. It takes an army to do this, and I just figured it with him explaining it and knowing the ins and outs of everything, what goes on. And it's just, again, sitting on top of the building and just looking.

And there's a reason why this track was so big is because all the scenery. I mean, you can go to every different part of the racetrack and see different stuff. I mean, the track along the bay there, they had to have Navy SEAL training there just in case the car went in. Like, they thought of everything. Yeah. They were training in case. I wondered about that. I was watching.

I thought to myself, I wonder if there's, you know, know. A possibility that somebody could end up in the water. Or no, if they actually had, had, you know, people, safety workers there. And, you know, of course, you know, my daughter and they're like, I bet it's the seals. They were. They trained it. No, we met some good people, man. We, we met a whole group of guys that did all the underwater welding and that was education. It just, we went to a command post that did all the helicopter training and all the stuff. You see all these young kids, all the students are there. And we went through a great, great education on that with all the simulation that they had

another building and how they load the rockets. And a couple of the guys got a chance to get into the helicopter and shoot, you know, not shoot, but, you know, due to stuff. I mean, it just, they gave us an experience. And I think the fans got a really good experience as well. Yeah. Now we move on to AskDBC, where we ask the questions that you have all been wanting the answer to. We had Jerry Caproth on earlier who gave us some super good.

insight into the San Diego naval base event, but we've got two for you guys at the table here. Bosi, what about the current Cup series pit crews? Who would you say is kind of like the fastest, most improved, needs a change, like some of those kind of categories at this point in the season? So this year, the Joe Gibbs Racing Pitt department is just firing on all cylinders. So based on my tracking and kind of how I rank them in Cup, four of the top five are JGR pit crews right now. And the 20 has been kind of just, if you look at any of the charts, they're just way off to the side because even in the JGR pit department, they're better than everybody else. So if you want a good pick crew, try to steal one of the JGR guys. But the one challenge, so Christopher Bell has obviously had a lot of challenges this year.

And now they've run into another one because Blake Houston, their front tire changer had to get some work done on his right hand. And I think that's going to impact obviously their rhythm and everything else. impacts a lot of stuff down the line, which Tommy probably knows because now they have to pull guys. And so for them, the 38 car is one that JGRLIS crew members to, and it's the first one out. So if somebody gets injured or suspended, that's where they pull guys from. So they had to pull Mike Loria from the 38th, and then another guy got pulled up from the Devo squad to be on the 38. So the 38 pick crew.

They're champions, right? They were champions. Yeah, they won the pick crew challenge. And my belief is that they've been key to Zane Smith's success this year. And for Ryan Burgente, who I appreciate what Ryan Burgundy does because a lot of crew chiefs and engineers will play it safe. But he's always like push, push, push. And that pick crew gives him that opportunity because there are a lot of house pick crews that are ranked 20th. And we'll get into that in a second or lower.

But that 38 pick crew at any given point is between 9th and 12th for a crew that's the backup crew for JGR. Yeah. So I believe that's allowed, Briganti, a lot of opportunities where they can take some risks and some stuff and has pushed them forward. So JGR is knocking it out of the park. What's impressed me is Hendrick had a slow start with some of the pick crews, but the nine pick crew has been at the top.

So they've been like one, two, with the 20 crew for most of the year. But some of the other ones have been a little slow start. But the 24 crew over the past five or six weeks has just bolted up the charts where they were like 15th-ish, a lot of weekends. but recently they're like fifth or six pace. So 24 pit crew. Tracked him as most improved. And I think I talked to Byron at Martinsville about it.

He's like, we have all the right guys, all the right stuff, but it just wasn't clicking. And it looks like they find something to click. So I think that should provide some runway for Byron to kind of go on a run before the chase. And the crews that I believe need a change is the Penske-Pit Department overall. I think there needs to be some changes there. So we saw it with Ryan Blaney's crew. They pulled Skip Flores off middle of last year. Then they put Landon Honeycutt, who was brand new Jackman on the car to start the year.

He had a little bit of rough time. So they pulled him off after a lot of criticism. Gosh, I can't keep up with these pit crews. Like, it sounds like they are just like. Well, that's the thing. And that's the big thing is then a few weeks after that, they swapped the rear changer. So what I said on Dirtymo Overdrive, as that first change happened, I said that I believe that this will be detrimental to them.

Yeah. Because it just throws off their whole loggos. It's amazing what's going on behind this. Would you ever imagine, Ray, you started with Rick Henry. Again, I did it. With the 24 car. These tire changes in Jackman are making more money than you did when you were a crew chief. Then I'm making now.

Well, yeah. You're just on retirement, man. You're just flowing now. But they're making more money than the money you started as a crew chief for that 24 car. Would you ever imagine that? Yeah, because I didn't get paid much when I started as a 24 car. But, you know, again, we talk about that evolution, right? You're talking about I started at 1992.

So that's 35 years ago, basically. And it's changed, and it's an important part of what's going on. Now, I mean, everybody would kind of like to see it be maybe less of a part. But that's just the way the sport's gone. You know, it makes a difference, you know. And the competition's so close. track position is so important. You know, the one, I'm going to give you a little bit of the old Ray Everingham there,

my theory on changing all those guys and that stuff that much. You know, sometimes I look at the coach rather than the players, right? Because it, with a pit stop, you could have five of the most unbelievable guys. And, you know, one guy has a little bit of a problem. And that sets the tone for the pit stop. And if it's not the same guy over and over again, you know, there were times I probably voiced my opinion in areas that I shouldn't have. No. Believe it or not.

No. Believe it or not. But that was one of the ones that you're like, look, you know, sometimes you need to look at how you're coaching or training that person or a little bit of psychology about what the problem is. Because how many times have you seen a guy that was great all week long in practice? Like, fantastic, but could not pit a car with motors running by them or whatever. So it's an important part of what they're doing for sure. And look, we are a Penske, pit stop pick crew team, and we're getting ready to start a new tire chain. It's never been on the wall over the wall next week, right?

We've started in Jackman three, four weeks ago that's never been over the wall before. So we are kind of like the training group for them. But you touch on something right that's kind of like as the growth of the sport and how you started, you were hands on on everything. Do you feel it became weaker for you or not as strong you had to start letting things go because it got so big and you couldn't keep your hands or your eyes on everything? putting all those different people in place. Like how did these groups, like Hendrick,

they have taken all the people, the Chad Canalsas, you know, Scotty Maxims, you know, all those guys that were working when we were working on the road, now they're management, they're growing these things. It takes, like 2311 has all the X Gibbs guys, you know, the crew chiefs, the winning guys, the wheels, you know, all those guys that are running that.

It's so important for the, to hire those people, people that have the education from sweeping the floors to winning races to lead. And back when you were building it because you did, there wasn't those people yet, right? So you had to put all these other guys in your positions, right, that weren't really as strong as you needed. How do you sit back and go? I think what I learned from being at the Penskegee organization, which when I say that, I meant I rock. Jay Signoree. I was very lucky to have a mentor like him, but understood process, right? So,

if you want consistency and the ability for people to learn, you've got to have a process in place for them to follow and then, you know, help them along the way and learned, you know, that continuous improvement process and building that culture, like building a culture is way more important than people think, especially in a big team, right? You know, you talk about the pit stops, the guy you're bringing out for, it hasn't gone over the wall. When we had a situation like that, when we would do pit practice, I would make somebody else go blow them by them in another car at pit road speed, reasonably. Just enough to spook a moment. So they get to know what that was like. Because to be doing a pit stop and feel that for the first time, not good. You know, you need to understand. You know, you need to

understand what it's like to have a car going by. And we had, I had great people that were willing to buy into those processes, right, that would follow that. And then they would add, you know, that whole group IQ and it got better and better. And it started to get so big, it just wasn't fun for me anymore because I couldn't connect with people. Like, that's why people say, why did you sell your team once? You know, I wasn't enjoying it. I enjoy, I'm like, I'm a fixer. I want to be in the fight. I wouldn't be a good general. I'd be a good captain, a special forces. And I just didn't enjoy it because I like to be part of that culture and developing that process. And that's what people like Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs and, you know, Roger Penske are good at. They're good at

developing that process and developing that culture. Culture at Penske, much different than the culture at Hendrick. Still very successful. But it's a culture. in place. Yeah. Sorry, I just had a brain fart. I forgot where we were going. I'll just see. I was so boring that I put you saying.

No, it wasn't. It wasn't. You're like culture. We got so many things. Well, I was thinking about JRM and culture. Like, I was just thinking about it here. Like, no matter what new people you bring in, they come here and they say, oh, it feels like a family or it feels like this or it feels like that.

Like they can come into the environment and mesh with that rather than people. And they've got to step up because this is a winning culture where you are expected to excel. Yeah. And when you know that coming here. And it took a while to put that in place. But like you are expected to be at the top of your game or trying to get there when you come here. And that's the kind of people you want. Yep.

I'll finish my Penske thought. What my thought is is that if you're pitting scared, like you're scared that you're going to get pulled off a car, I think that just causes tension that's unnecessary. And I believe that the pit department, the coaching staff and all the pick crew athletes there are top tier. They have a lot of really good people, but I think the puzzle pieces are mashed together and maybe things need to be shuffled around. And that might not happen until the offseason, but that culture piece is really what they need in order to pull them up. Because Ryan Blaney should be contending for the championship, but his pick crew is, you know, 20th-ish to 30th place depending on the week. And they should be a top-10 pick crew.

And I think if the season keeps going how it's going, we might eventually even see them swap the 22 and the 12 crews. if Lugano doesn't make it into the chase, because his pick crew is the only one that's kind of stood out from the rest. They'll make the right decisions when it's time. They always do. Ray, when did you kind of know that Jeff Gordon was going to be somebody or be a star early on? First time I ever saw him drive, right? So the first time I ever saw him drive live. I used to watch him on Thursday Night Thunder. I was like, this kid is.

Before you were born again. I know what it is, though. I was looking to something I'm actually going to drive a midget indie tomorrow. Really? For the BC39 advertisement thing. But I got the fire suit out and I was saying, my fire suit's older than you. Oh, yeah. Wait, it better be approved.

It's, I better have those. My old I rock fire suit. Oh, boy. You know. I think it's like 10 years or something, right? That's allowed. Yeah, this is from 1980. Well, if it's older than me, it's at least 25 years old.

This is 1887. So Andy Petrie. Andy Petrie was doing a program at that time with Leo Jackson's son-in-law and they said, hey, and Phil and Steve Markdall. And they said, will you come down and help us with this kid because I had left Iraq? And I was trying to run all my own stuff. I was building cars and trying to race and all that. And we came down to Charlotte.

So that would have been 90, 1990. And we had one car, right? And it was a Buck Baker school car, a Pontiac with a Chevrolet V6. in it. We didn't even have the Buick powerful motor. Eight tires and wheels had borrowed everything. And Chuck Bound was there, and he was a reigning champion at that time. And we got out of Charlotte, you know, they got to observe Jeff to, you know, say he's approved for the race. And I said, Chuck, we just check this car out. And so he goes out and drives it around. He goes, no, it's okay, good for the kid, you know, talk to him a little bit. And so Jeff gets in the car. And I don't think anything of it. I climb up on top. of the hauler, the radio's on, he's sitting there. He's like just sitting there. And I'm like, and his hand comes out the window and he goes, he motions, you know, come down.

I go down the ladder. I was like, what's up? He goes, how do you start this? So, you know, we go. Whatever, whatever. But he went out, I guess what I'm saying is he went out. And then I think it was less than five laps. Maybe it was more than five laps.

I don't know. But regardless, he was running about a tenth of a second, faster than what Chuck Bound had run with the car. And he got in the bumps. Remember the bumps used to be low at Charlotte? Got in the bumps. It gets completely sideways, just straightens the thing out. It keeps going. I said, hey, man, come on here.

Let's talk. And he comes in. I go, you all right? He goes, yeah, I'm all right. Are you all right? You know, I said, you can't keep doing that. You know, or you won't be all right. And he just was so good all day long.

but his, you know, talking about Corey Hymn, Jeff's maturity inside the car was like a different person. Outside the car, he's breakdancing, playing with a Game Boy. He, I mean, he didn't, but inside the car. Game Boy. Yeah, yeah. I know, I almost bought a Game Boy Lego set yesterday to make one.

All this stuff from the 90s is popular. It's coming back. I'm not bringing back low-rise jeans, though. Well, I'll tell you a story about he used to tuck his shirt in those long jeans to still bust him about that. But his ability, you know, through my years at Iraq, the one thing that I've learned, the great champions have an ability to take describing the car to another level.

And you've worked with people, you know what I'm talking about, right? And they go another level in description of what they're feeling or what the car's doing. And you're like, whoa, this kid is. He, I knew he was his ability to drive the car and then describe what it was doing, like things like, like, hey, when I go in the corner, I feel like the weight rolls over to here, and then it's in the right front. And then as I'm getting to the gas, I feel honestly like the left rear is driving. Is this thing got a locker in it? You know, stuff like that.

You know what I'm like? He's never run Charlotte before and going probably faster than he's gone, you know, in that midget and stuff. And boom, boom, boom. Tony Stewart was the same way when he first drove with me. It's just. You're like, it's just a different level. They've got a different dimension in what they feel. I watched the clip on Tony last night.

I don't know what show it was on, but he described some things. It's like, I wish all these kids would listen to this. I got to go find it and post it, but it's a... Post it on what? I don't know. I can tell him I got to post it. But, yeah, it's, again, the select few

have that know all these things that can pick these cars apart and do the things that need to be doing. I mean, Kyle Arson's. Yeah, another one of those guys. One's that fit fit in there, you know, it's, uh... Well, again, going back to that slowing the game down, like, a second to you and me is one thing. A second to them is much different. Yeah. Much different. You know, like, I mean, I drove. I don't know if you, you drove much, but, you know, the point is I'm driving around there, and all I care about is not wrecking, right? You know, like, mostly because it was your car and you couldn't afford to put it back together in the beginning. But the ability to do that and think and describe isn't that difference.

And Roger Penske has a good saying about, hey, they look out of a bigger windshield. And that's really what it's about. You know, like Jeff used to be able to think about positioning on the racetrack and getting ready to pit and saving fuel and do all those things at the same time leading those races. I call it higher mental bandwidth. In sports car, I've gotten to work with some gentlemen drivers and a lot of very high-level pros. And within the first five minutes on the radio, I can tell you who's who, even if you haven't told anything about it, just because they're so good at describing every little piece. And it goes back to your process discussion too. As a mechanic on pit lane, if I'm listening to a driver describing this, this and this, I start thinking in my head already, all right, we're probably going to have to move the bar.

We might have to get these springs or do this or that. Yeah, it kind of almost makes everybody better because you kind of already know what's coming. and makes your car faster. But you got to have those top-level people to do that. Yeah, that's such an... Like, I'm just thinking about where we started with that and then where it ended in just the whole breakdown of how far into this.

You're ready to go back racing. No, I'm not. I'm saying like I'm genuinely interested in the breakdown of it all. Am I done racing? I guess. I'm like Tom Brady retired is what I call it. You want not Tom Brady retired. I'm semi-retired.

You want to go run a midget tomorrow? Yeah. I'll call Doug Bowles and say, hey. Tell them I'll do it. Yeah. My fire suits, SFI, I'm like, yours probably at this rate. I just brought that out because I know if a spark hits, it'll just go push. Oh, yeah, it'll disappear. That's so cool. So you're going to do like a promo for the BC 39?

Yeah, for the BC39. You know, we were close with Brian and his family. And I think it's amazing what they've done to save lives. And I think it's even, you know, Doug Bowles is just such a great historian of the sport and really means it. And for them to build that midget track there and run that USAC race inside. of Indianapolis Motor Speedway is just really impressive. Yeah. I got to race that once and then be a fan twice. It's always fun.

Okay, DBC picks. I really did not think that I was going to pull this off, but I won. I won. Because you and the guest picked SVG and Zilli, and I picked AJ Almendinger. God Almighty. I won. Tee. Where are we going this week?

Sonoma. So look at that. Yep. The ones that aren't in a gray, right? Ray, you'll pick out of this pink box and you can pick anybody that isn't grayed out, and then you'll pick out of the purple one. To win Sonoma. Who just, well, we're picking highest finisher or winning Sonoma.

Anybody who's not grayed out? Yeah. Anybody who's still pink in that box in Freddy's. He's used all the good. Yeah. The road courts guys. Well, but yes and no. It looks like we still got redick in there.

Yeah. All right. Well, I've got to go. I have to take that pick. All right. Yeah. God Almighty, Ray. Bozzy, you're next.

All right. Here, if you want to see it closer, you can have my sheet. Yep, I'm also... Sorry, I stole yours. I'm also old, too, so it's, uh... Let's see. I'll go with... You said pink, we can pick them?

You're in the purple one. You're in the guest drivers. The ones that aren't great out. That's not great out in there. Almondinger. God dang it. Tommy, you're up. I'm going to go with chastain.

I'm going to take Zilli. You had him? I still have him left, yeah. Wow. Well, maybe this will be his, like, one good luck charm that his year finally turns around. He gave us a good, like, glimmer of hope at San Diego before he got crashed. You are kicking our ass this year. I know.

He's going to be one of the ones. There's no doubt about that. As soon as it starts to shake out, he will. I was breaking cruzies chops the other day through text. And I'm like, I'm sitting there because I'm always trying to help these kids, right? And I'm not sure if I'm helping them or they think I'm just breaking their chops. And I'm like, man, you need to slow down. And there's two ways.

There's two things going on. Brent's car is so fast if he slows down, right? Creates that, like Lee was saying with Jeff, he's going to win a bunch of races, right? Zillage needs to slow down because his car is not up to what he's. he's capable of doing, right? So there's two things of slowing down, right? Zillard, you slow down so you're not wrecking, so you finish? Well, obviously, yesterday was neat.

Saturday was not Brett's fault, and yesterday was not Connor's fault. But overall, Connor needs to slow down a little bit so the car can catch up to him. Brent needs to slow down and react to the car, and he's going to be better. Because you can see it. Certain parts of the race when he's in a precious situation that things get a little scary for a little buddy calms down and does that. So I send them text, and when they stopped texting me back, I go, okay, I'll quit breaking his chops.

But those are both, both those names, you know, again, I've watched those kids, you know, in the TA2 series and stuff like that and watched what they did when they were 15, 16 years old. They're going to be big names in our sport. Yeah. I can't wait. It's exciting just to see what's coming, considering people like seeing Haim and Hostavar yesterday,

and then you have, you know, Brent Cruz and Connor's. Zillich, like, there's a lot of, like, really good competition coming in the next, like, three or four years. Weekend winners. Did you guys see anybody win? I mean, I have a whole list that I will go down, but if anybody saw anything off the customer. Any winners that you noticed this weekend that you want to talk about? Short Track winners? I did have not seen much.

I didn't see anything. Who won Wall Stadium, do you know? It's on here somewhere, were they? The weather hit them, the little storm. All right. Then I'll just rip down this list. And then you just holler if somebody... Did Freddie do this?

Yeah, I guess so. This is Freddy's list, yep. This is Freddy's list. He did something for the show at least. This is longer than the Gettysburg dress. Okay, Brad Sweet wins Super Dirkup at Skagit. Mitchell Moles won USAC Sprint Cars at Williams Grove on Friday. Freddie Raymer wins...

Wait, Freddie Raymer? Junior. Oh, Junior. Junior. Junior wins the 14-Rase at Williams Grove. Brandon Shepard led every lap of the Lucas Oil Series race at Smoky Mountain on Friday. 60-year-old Dale McDowell, Love him, wins 30K Saturday

with Lucas at Smoky Mountain. There's still hope for me at 70. See? Yeah. Smokey Mountain is also a badass race track. If you've never been there, I highly recommend it. Clinton Boyles won his first IRA sprint car win

at I-96 on Friday, and they had another first-time winner on Saturday with Brock. That's so far away. I can't see at Hallett. At Butler. And then Chris Andrews wins the ASCOC race,

Thursday at Wainsfield, Cap Henry at Fremont. Seth Zabbo at Butler on Saturday. Mike Richmond got his first career 358 mod win at Utica Rome. Otto Citterly wins Super Modified Race at Oswego. Gold figure. And Stuart Frieson with a perfect night at Fonda on Saturday. Bowman Gray, modified Hunter Lapper, Danny Bone.

Tommy Neal and Zach Orr won the sportsman races. Street stock was Jaden Cordell and A.J. Sanders and Rocket Hills split the stadium stock features. Riverhead, Richie. Help me, Tommy. David. Davidowitz. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Great mods. Riley O'Keefe, another Legends car win, and then Frank Dum... Oh God.

It looks like Dumichich. Dmitich Jr. Only Freddy from the Good Life of Mastic can say these names. Yeah, I'm too southern for some of these. All right, some random ones. World of Outlaws, David Gravel, $300,000 at Hussitz. Buddy Kofoyd won

$170,000 over this week, Wednesday and Thursday at... or prelimin nights of Hussis. Yeah. Also another incredible facility. $300,000. It's a lot of money. 300,000.

Where does that money come from, right? But see, they paid, they paid $20,000 on Wednesday night. Yep. They paid $100, I think, on Thursday night or $150,000 or $150,000 again on Friday night. $300,000. But where did you get the money from? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. You always has big money races like that. I know, but where? You can run, you can win, you know, you can win, you know, If you're on that open wheel, those either, you can make a grueling schedule, but you can make a fine living doing it. You know, there's, between that world about laws and high limits, you can run for some money. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, you've got to be good. And whenever there's big money, big money, don't be surprised to see David Gravel's name. Yeah. I went, yeah. I went that one year and just disappeared and run all those modified races, won four championships of one year. I started with $32 in the bank account. I ended up with minus $4,000.

Hey. Yeah, I'm with you. You're going to the wrong track, maybe. That sounds like anyone's... Yeah. Sounds like anyone's journey in racing. Started with a few bucks. And where most of these races shown.

Oh, I think you should tag the line this time since I'm reading them all. Come on. Come on. It's flow sports. dot link slash door bumper clear to sign up for 15% off. All right. Sheldon Houghton Shield wins Friday's prelim at Hussitz. Bobby Pierce makes it six weekends in a row with...

Kids on fire. His win at 141. He's on it right now. I saw him drag his fiancé Abby into the wife. Are they married now? Wife. Into the pond at the Gator Pond. Bobby Timmons wins at Ricky Craven Speedway up in Maine.

Mason Gooddale, Bando Race at Seekonk. A.J. Cantor win number three on the season. Freddie put that on. He put in there. Who is that? Who is it? Like a young, little kid. Adam works for me at the shop.

He runs one of my shops. Carson Brown. I guess I probably sponsor him. I don't even know. You don't even know. Can you sponsor me? No. I need a couple bucks.

No. You got plenty money. And Hornhart? Oh, you sound like everybody on Twitter. Carson Browns holds off time Majeski to win the ASA race at Slinger. Connor Hall sweeps the twins at Langley. Seventh and eighth win in a row undefeated since he returned to Langley. I think he's cherry picking.

I think they need to really inspect that blue car. That blue car is something else. And Landon Huffman, our resident complainer, scored three wins. this weekend at Wake County and Tri-County. Tim Taft wins Peerstock feature at Claremont. Dean Big Daddy Brumitt wins at Princeton Speedway. Mohawk Raceway, 358 mods was Chris Raby. Sportsman Tristan Leducer Pro Stock Tommy Lizote.

Davey Franick, David Herbert. And they took the wins at Cornwall Motor Speedway in Canada. Brad Bowden, 4-10 at Farmington. Dale Howard won the Greg Hodnet Memorial Riverside. Rusty Slink. won the Barney Oldfield Memorial at Oak Shade Raceway. Kenny Burke Holder, Chargers at Jenner's Town, while 4-year-old Charlotte Berkholder won the Juice Box race.

That's cool. Rodney Wells wins the late model at Path Valley. Michael Wright at Airborne Park. Lane Woods at Orange County. Chrissy Wallace wins at Orange County as well. Casey Johnson won four races at three tracks, Wisconsin International, Madison and Jefferson. Chloe Dennis out of Maryland won two races this weekend.

Bob Filmley, Andy Buckley, Gail Ruth Jr., William Baker and Jacob Wheeler, all scored wins at Tri-City Raceway. Kyle, oh, they even gave me a pronunciation. Kokenauer wins the Dean Gibson Senior Memorial Pro Stock Race at State Line. Bob Dorman wins, Super Lates. Jake Wilbur wins Rush Late Models. Tyler Landis wins the Crown Vic Race at Showtime.

Robbie Thorne at US 30. First win in only his third start. Dylan Bloomfield won his first power I race at Spoon River. Mark Johnson, Rocky Warner, Kim Duel, won at Albany, Saratoga, Nick Lascaula won the pro stock race at Seaconk. Michael Butler made it 5'4 7 at Lakeview, Rich Bickle, and Ricky Baker scored wins at Grundy County, Marshall Willing at Princeton Speedway, and Brody Dilworth won a quarter-adget race in Huntsville.

And I got to tell you, these guys really appreciate us. Yeah. Because I get messages all week long. All the time. Yeah. Thanking for the shout-out. So pretty cool. I'm impressed that you remember all these cars and all these people. Lou Carr and all this stuff.

It's, you know, even though he doesn't seem like he's online. He follows all this stuff. He knows. He's probably the most well-connected person that doesn't have social media. That's fair. All right, Sonoma this weekend. You're going? Yeah.

Where are you guys at this weekend? Anything exciting? Oh, wow. Yeah. I am at a lacrosse, a lacrosse tournament in Asheville. I did not have that on my. Does Kate play? Kate, yeah.

Me, I'm like the slowest guy on the planet. Now, lacrosse would not be my... Yeah, but I don't... I didn't have that on my bingo card that's what you were doing this week. Yeah. Well, I really... I didn't do the right thing, my first marriage and the first child, and I just said, as much as I love racing and as much as I've committed,

I'm going to make sure that with Kate, so I try and support when she was riding the horses, but now she does volleyball and lacrosse, but a lot of that's on Aaron. Aaron... Oh, I can see you at those games. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I got involved a little bit with a... I was not happy with some of the coaching.

Did you get into a sideline altercation? I was like, whoa, you know, like, hey, how about the... You know, so I know nothing about lacrosse, right? But I put my opinion in for their officiating anything. And you're going to be on their board too? He's going to be on that board. He's going to be the president of like 15 boards by the time it's all that and done. Let me tell you something.

What about you? Bozzi, what are you up to this weekend? I will be at Watkins Glen, Inso Weather Tech Sports Car Championship. So I'm the tire carrier on the 14 Vassar Solve and Lexus. So you'll see me run around the car for six hours with some tires, hopefully. Sweet. Tommy? Looking ahead to Sonoma.

Sanoma and Jack, Jack's actually got a late model race this weekend at Hickory. And getting ready for Wilkesboro. What? Is it just a local weekend race? It's the Carolina Pro series. Oh, okay. Yep. We just rebuilt his car and go test Wednesday, Wednesday or Thursday before I leave at Sonoma.

I'm about ready to come back. You got a modified for me. Yeah, man. Come on. You know, everything I got, you know, like, I've got my winning car still that I think it would be good. I see it. It would still be fine. It's from 1991.

It don't matter, man. Right. I could run that all-star car that Hermie's doing on the smart tour. You? No, Ray. Yeah, well, so far the older guys have not made out too good. I don't know if we want to do that. All right.

Well, I think that brings us. Yeah, we miss Freddy, I guess. What? Why do you miss Freddy so bad? Name five things you miss about Freddie right now. Well, I think he misses a lot because all of his things that he does on a daily basis, he can't. Drinking and talking. Drinking, talking, loud noises.

What else did they tell him? Oh, wow. Yeah, a bunch of things. He's got to eat healthy? He's lost like one and a half pounds so far. Wow. Yeah. Big weekend for Freddie.

All right, well, we thank you guys for listening. Keep sending us your weekend winners. into reaction theater. If you have some wine in Sonoma this weekend, just remember that number is 704, 802-9572. And Ray and Bozy, we appreciate you guys joining us. And looking forward to seeing you guys next Monday. Yeah, man.

Peace out. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.