Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Chase Elliott wins The Clash in NASCAR’s return to Bowman Gray

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith are back to break down all the action from The Clash at Bowman Gray! The crew reacts to Chase Elliott’s big win, the intense short-track tempers, and what this race taught us heading into the season. Did Bowman Gray live up to the hype? Who made a statement, and who has work to do? Then, Mamba serves up his latest Social Sips. 3:10 - Word of the Week 6:05 - Clash Recap 31:40 - Mamba’s Social Sips 39:21 - Grade the Burnout 40:32 - Last Call! GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. Terms: draftkings.com/sportsbook. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). Sponsored by DK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think we should get rid of it. Wait, what? The All-Star race and the clash. He has a new proposal of a short track proposal, if you will. I loved what we did last night. I think that what we did last night was spectacular. And, you know, maybe it stays an exhibition race. But imagine if that was a points race.

Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by Echo Park Automotive and NASCAR on Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. She's Caitlin Vinci. and that is not Bob Hawkers this week. That is Mamba back in the chair. You feel smarter. I feel like he left some IQ points in my chair.

Oh, good. Yeah, there might be some leftover there for you. Yeah, some leftover from Bob. Where were you? Tell us about your adventures. I was in Mexico, went to Cancun. This is the second vacation. In like a two weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Me and my boy, Austin, Matthews, we went out and had a great time. Austin Boston. Austin. Oh, yeah. We're like travel buddies now.

I see that. Yeah, when I want to go somewhere, I just text him. Is this plus one for the wedding? He wasn't my plus one to date and so his wedding. That's great. That's good. What's the most fun thing you did? The most fun thing we did.

Oh, we're in ATV riding. In Mexico. Yeah, in Mexico. Nice. That was cool. That sounds fun. I've never done an excursion like that. And so it was really fun.

I enjoyed it. Nice. Well, we're glad you're back. You can only vacation so much before you have to go back to work, my friend. That's debatable. That's a debatable. You can call it work, I guess, if you want to. It's not really...

True. That's fair. If you were to see me jumping around at the madhouse this week, you'd understand that my work is different than everyone else's work. You do have a different style of work. We're going to talk about all of that, by the way. We encourage the closers to subscribe on YouTube wherever you get your podcast. Also, rate the show five stars.

Leave a review. And you get to do the social mention. Yeah, yeah. Make sure you follow us. Happy... Whoops. Got it backwards. He didn't even get that right.

Welcome back to work. We'll get you in a group. Like, it'll take me a minute. HarveyCapy pod. We've done 14 episodes since you've been gone. But other than that, everything's fine. You know what's funny, though, is I actually mess it up every time I go to tweet at the handle.

I always say it backwards. Okay, that's all right. It's more fun. You know that, right? It's really more fun. Way more fun. I've learned that about my TV self. When you mess stuff up, you become...

It becomes more fun. You rarely mess up. Yeah, right. Wow. Right. I mess up a lot. All right. You're giving too much credit. Here's what we got, guys.

Clash recap. Plenty to discuss. Leaving the first race of the year, Bowman Gray Stadium. You'll have your social sips. Of course. Yeah. And you guys mentioned it,

messing up on air, which Kevin did not do. You want to share the Word of the Week? I mean, he didn't mess up, but he was very nervous. Oh, my God. Ladies and gentlemen, it's our first edition of Word of the Week.

Let's run it. Very efficient with his passes of the lap cars. very efficient. But I think as we get to this 25-lap window, that's really when Ryan Blaney, you know, it was low-key nice as he would get to the end of the runs here with 25 to go and had that long-run speed. Wow.

When Roger Carreux tweeted, like, Kevin, I was not aware of your game. And I died laughing. Well, I can tell you that my game is artificial. I am more uncomfortable doing all of these words and friends. phrases and I have no idea. And my compadre here doesn't explain it very well. He said, just use the word low-key and just say something after it. Just refer to somebody, say low-key, and it still makes no sense. When I say low-key, I just think calm, quiet, relaxed, chill out. And that is not the way that you explained it to me. But you did a great job. Low-key-Nice, because low-key-nice is a very,

that's a great way to do. It was so low-key, I missed it. I literally was watching my mom and dad. I go, Did he say low-key? Did you guys hear? And they're like, I think he did. Lo-key-K-Nice, Raja says. Wasn't familiar with your game. Well, you know, sometimes it's good to be in touch with the younger generation. And I feel like this keeps me more engaged with things that I need to look out for in my household with my kids. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like you're one of my kids.

Yeah. I mean, pretty much. Raja, same thing. You know, we got this special bond that's going on. That's exactly right. Yeah. Well, way to go. First word of the year.

You did it well. One for one. You waited a while to do it. Yeah, were you nervous? I was so nervous about it. I told you all he was scared. We got towards the end of the race and I'm like, damn, I got to get this done.

I got to get this done. I was thinking of myself, maybe I'll just skip it this week and we'll just go it off as I didn't like the word. And then I'm like, oh, I can't do that. That would be wrong. That would be a bummer. So we got, we've got something else new this week.

We do. You want to tell us about the best bet of the week? We're going to take the checkered flag with Draft King's Sportsbook, download the draft. You're Draft King's Sportsbook app and use code Harvick. That's code Harvick for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on Draft Kings, the crown is yours. And you guys know what this week's best bet was?

I see it on my paper. This week's best bet was Chase Elliott, who was the favorite to win before the race at plus 300. There you go. So in simple terms, if you would have bet $100, you'd have won that. 300. Okay. And honestly, if you just paid attention to practice and the heat races and qualifying and everything that happened the day before, you probably could have made some easy money. Yeah, I wish I'd bet now. Good job on that read. Oh, thank you. Super reading skills. Yeah, I knew I went to school for a reason. Everyone's just getting worked. We're just getting

worked into our talent here. That's right. Yeah. Okay, so we're going to talk about Chase, Ellie, but first I want to talk about your general observations from the event, because there was a lot of anticipation going into this, Cup going to Bowman Gray Stadium. You were both there. I was watching from afar on TV. It was incredible even just on TV. But what was the spectacle like in person? The spectacle in person was unbelievable. And a lot of that comes from the fans. And when you look at our television ratings on a week-to-week basis and you look at Winston-Salem, Greensboro, that triad area, always right at the top. And the only reason I bring that up is when you watch that race, they know exactly what's going on, and they cheer, they boo, they flip you off, they pump their

fist. But that's really, that's how I grew up racing, right? The fans that watched the race were very into what was going on and not scared to show that emotion. And I think that the racing was good, but the element of the fans reacting to everything that happened added another layer to it for me that I hadn't seen in a long time. So I want to thank those fans that were at the racetrack. It was cold, But those people show up to Bowman Gray on a week-to-week basis. I had never been there. And I know why now. Because I watched the modified race.

I watched everything that happened at the racetrack this weekend. They know how to get in the track. They know how to get out of the track. We had a lot of new fans that were there. But the racetrack is super simple, right? You go find your seat. They turn the cars on and the chaos starts. And I think our race lived up to everything that I hope that everybody had the expectations for.

it had wrecks, it had great racing, it had two grooves, which I did not expect. Racing was really good. Racing on the outside of the racetrack was good for our cars. You could, I mean, you could defend yourself on a restart. And I think that the one thing that this racetrack at Bowman Gray had, that the Coliseum was a little bit different in L.A., the corners weren't as sharp. Didn't have that inside wall.

It allowed, when you pinch somebody down getting in the corner, it just ran them in the grass, continued on. They didn't hit that. They weren't worried about hitting that inside wall or being able to run that inside wall constantly to kind of fin you off. It didn't have the pain on the bottom of the racetrack to get gripped up and make that the dominant groove. So I loved it. I loved it. It was, it was insane. Like, so when we, when we pulled out, me and the Wasserman group, we pulled out to get ready for pre-race. And I was like, it was like, the ore, the electricity that was running through that place was amazing.

Because the one thing that I was talking to some folks, one thing that we had this weekend that we don't typically have for night races, we started, and it was night, like night, night. Usually our night races start, like, at dusk. But this was already, like, the moon was up. Like, the energy was electric. The lights were flashing all over the place.

Lights were amazing. The light show was great. The fans, so I'm riding around the front stretch to the front stretch, and the fans are just getting hyped. And I'm jumping around and they're jumping around. I was having so much fun with them. So shout out to everybody who came out. I mean, it was a packed house.

The racing was phenomenal as we talked about. Guys, I think the madhouse spirit was really in our drivers. Like, they raced how the modified guys, I feel like race. They had an expectation that they knew that they needed to live up to. They understood the assignment. They understood the assignment. And they did it right. So I was super proud of the whole show.

A couple things. Sorry, Caitlin. I think a couple things that I look back at the event. I think that there aren't enough cars in each heat race. I think we just needed a couple heat races. I think four heat races, not enough cars, spreads them out. I mean, the first heat race was a destruction derby. The last one was okay.

I think we could look at maybe, you know, something there. You know, the LCQ was, it was rough. But I think when you look at the overall grassroots connection to Bowman Gray, having the cup cars there, having the modifies there, I think I would take those modifies and move them into the main show. Yeah. Maybe before the races, the LCQ on Sunday. I really think that you could still have some sort of pre-race show on Saturday and something on Sunday.

Even on Saturday, if we'd have taken and left the modifies on Saturday and made them part of the heat races and practice and qualifying, I think it would have felt more connected instead of having to be there all day Saturday. So that to me, was just a couple things that I think we could do differently to make it a little bit more engaging. But overall, it was a home run. I think the one, sorry, KV, the one thing moving forward that we need to look at is, I don't think we can do this every time, every year. Like, I make it, keep it special. Like, maybe there needs to be a rotation, like, every third year, we go to another short track

and bring that type of energy to a new short track. I don't know if you can do this thing every year because- I don't know, buddy. I don't know. If you can do it, we've got to keep switching it up, I feel like. Well, that's what I was going to ask is we've seen this event evolve over the years, move different venues. Where do you feel like this one stacks up and what do you want the future for Billman Gray to be? I think we should get rid of it. Wait, what?

The All-Star Race and the Clash. Oh. He has a new proposal of a short track proposal. I loved what we did last night. I think that what we did last night was spectacular. And, you know, maybe it stays an exhibition race. But imagine if that was a points race. Do you, okay, real quick.

First question, 40 cars? Yeah, but I mean, you're still going to get 23 make the main and 24 back. Okay, so not 40 cars in the main at one time. That's where you finish. Okay. No. I think that I think you have practice, heat races, qualifying. And I think the effect that it had on Bowman Gray Stadium, I mean, you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the infrastructure at that racetrack with.

safer barriers and the lights that are permanently going to stay in that stadium. That's a big investment. And when you look at that effect, and let's just say, you know, Jamie Murray mentioned Hickory last night, when you look at Hickory, it's rundown. And it's one of our most historic racetracks that we have in racing. And if you took that event to a Hickory Motor Speedway and upgraded the facility and fixed the grandstands and fixed the press box and the bathrooms and the surface, and pit road and infield

and made it everything that we had last night, then you're fixing the infrastructure of your whole system. So, you know, I think if you have that exhibition event and you move it around like that, I think that there's definitely something too moving it around. It'd be hard to take it away from Bowman Gray at this point because of the reaction to the fans and how good the racing was.

But I almost think that you could try to make all these events some style of points race that, you know, you almost create a short track series within the schedule where you had Bowman Gray, Hickory, you know, pick another, any other race, any other short track across the country where you could start having this short track. Maybe it's a summer series. I don't know. I love that. Instead of the bracket idea where you have this bracket, let's just do it for real and make it real life. And if you win the, you know, the short track summer series or or grassroots series, whatever you want to call it. Then you win a million box and put some sort of bonus

that's real life instead of a bracket that's kind of artificial. But let's create some sort of grassroots short track series, probably three or four races. Two's not enough. But if you had something like that, I think it adds some intrigue to everything that goes on. And then you could attach some money to it and a little point system to go along with it.

Okay, okay. He always comes up with good ideas. Man's cooking over here. But I think, you know, one of the things with this sport that's difficult is appealing to the new fans and old ones. But it seems like any time we go back to some of these historical venues, North Wilkesboro now, Bowman Gray, it's always very appealing to everybody. And so there's got to be some balance of kind of paying homage to the past while still moving and evolving the event forward. Well, think about the places that we could take it, though. You know, especially if you move it into the summer and let's just say it's, you know, the all-star race.

instead of the All-Star race, you have these, and the class, you have these three, these three races that go along with it. But, you know, you could move that around too. And you could go to Bowman Gray, Hickory, and Berlin. And we saw the SRX race at Berlin. You know, they put 9,000 some people in there. And, you know, if they had some infrastructure to go along and soft walls and all the things that go along, you think about all the places that you could affect across the country throughout the year, especially in season. You know, if you had a spring series, summer series, whatever you wanted to do. I mean, there's, there's a, million things that you could do. I think it would be pretty exciting. And I think we proved that,

you know, you can go to these small racetracks as we went to the Coliseum. I was a skeptical right from the beginning. I'm like, there's no way this will work. And sure enough, it was, it was a hit the first year at the Coliseum. And now we can go do all these things. But I don't think you want to rip it out of the country. I think you'll offend our grassroots fans of, you know, places like Bowman Gray and the places that you could affect your own house here in our country, you know, instead of trying to make it global, let's just, let's fix the structure of our system that we have here from the grassroots up and use our biggest stars to do it. You're Australia.

No, I know. I like what he's laying down. I still would like us to take things overseas and stuff, but only from the standpoint of... But you're taking care of your grassroots fans here. True. Right. The only from this standpoint, which is when it comes to logistically with the weather, like it worked well this time.

If we push it, like you really got to think about where we can and how. Like the All-Star Race, you could obviously do that any time because it's right in the middle of the summer. You could take it anywhere. I love that. I think if that was the All-Star Race, a short track somewhere anywhere in the country, I love that. We got to think about where it could be for the spring or the February time, right? because it's cold in most places. So there's only a few areas, but I still like the idea.

We can sprinkle them. We can sprinkle them throughout the year. I mean, one in the spring, one in the summer. I'm here for that. And maybe one, like probably one right before, I mean, would you make one a playoff race? You can. I'm just saying, like, if you had one at the beginning of the year, one middle, and one at the end, it kind of, it kind of spread it all out. It's intriguing.

I'm here for that comment. It's worth the conversation. That's why we're here to start the conversation. And we know Kevin is great at that. Listen, we got to pump life back into short track racing somehow, and that was a great event. But when you look at that crowd, those people know about racing that showed up to that race last night. They know about racing. And those are the people that we need to really re-engage with our sport to really get behind.

They're the ones that are going to put the backbone. They've always been the backbone of our sport. And they're the ones that can really push that fire in the sport with getting re-energized. about things that we do. Kudos to NASCAR for pulling us off and bringing the racing back there. We can all agree it was a big success. Is there any way to make it even better? Chase Elliott winning.

That's how you make it even better and that's exactly what happened. First win for Chase Elliott. This is actually hard for me to believe it when I looked back that he hadn't won since April in Texas. Yeah. So it has been some time for the Chase Elliott fans, but he came out with vengeance. Obviously, like you mentioned, strong right out of the gate. this team, I feel like this is exactly what they needed to start their year. Coming out of the gate like that is not only great for the sport,

but it's great for Chase Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports and their team. And really right from the very beginning of practice, you know, first practice, you looked at his car and you were like, man, that thing is pretty good. Now, when we got to the second practice, a lot of things changed. You know, you really got to see some, you know, there was a difference in how the cars looked in the first practice and qualifying came around and it really shook up who were the good and who are the bad cars. But the consistent part of that whole process was the nine car.

And those guys were on from the time that they unloaded that car onto the racetrack this weekend. The nine car being strong, 912, 23, 24, 5, 45. Like those guys, those younger guys, that's where the torch is being passed to. It's important for those guys to run up front, beat and bang with each other, win races, because that's what's coming next, right? These are going to be the next champions. Right.

With everyone retiring and moving on. So I think something that's very much low-key under the radar is the fact that Rodney, Rodney Childers and Matt McCall over at Spire. And the relationship between Spire and Hendrick has only been growing as Spire moves along and getting better. So now Spire has some top crew chiefs and top minds in their building. That's only going to make. Chevrolet stronger and it's really only going to make Hendrik stronger. And the last time, Rodney had Hendrick equipment that he was able to work with. What happened, Kevin? What happened the last time that... Spankton. Spanked them, he says. Listen, so that I'm, if I'm the competition,

you get like the Chevroletes between Hendrik and the track house and spy those guys are going to be, they're going to be strong this year for sure. So I want to go back to Chase Elliott for a minute. I know it wasn't a points race, but, you know, it's still a nice accolade for our driver to get the first win at a place like Bowman Gray, be the first guy to do it, right? Yeah. How do you think this will just re-energize his program that kind of was a little hit or miss last season? Well, when you look at their results last year and everything that they did, it was very

consistent, right? And I think in today's world, you're measured by how much you win. And the way that you win is being consistent and putting yourself in position. And I think that that road back to that consistency of winning for those guys, you know, could be good, hopefully it's this year, right? And that's what they're hoping for is, is to put themselves consistently back in victory lane multiple times. But they were always in the mix. And I think they were just so quiet that, you know, a lot of people put a lot of pressure on really everybody at Hendrick to go out and win races. And that's the expectation that they have internally as well. So, you know,

I think, you know, Alan and Chase, or, you know, they've been around the noise for a long time. I don't think that they did anything different. I think that when the moment, starts to go your way, it's a real thing. And you're able to put all those pieces together and stuff falls your way, then you win multiple races. But it's not easy to do in this car. And you can get off track real easy. But there is nothing better than starting the gear with the clash win or a Daytona 500 win to just get that momentum right off the bat going in the right direction. He looks like he's got a little bit of a swagger back. Like he seems a little lighter. I don't know what's been going on, you know, with him and his personal life at home necessarily. But like he seems like

he's a little happier being at the racetrack. We've seen him out during the offseason doing a lot of different stuff. I think he's just with Barstool in Chicago. I think he's doing a lot of that the incentive program. He's obviously taken advantage of that and doing his things outside of the race cars. So Chase Elliott being, having his swagger, good for the sport. Good for everybody. It is good for the sport. So I want to go back to kind of the big. beginning to the LCQ event. Which you referenced was a bit wild, a lot of beating and banging, some feuds that already seems like might be brewing for the new year ahead.

Were you surprised at how racy they were in that? Well, they were rough. I don't know what we'd call it racy. They were rough. And it started right off the bat with the Dillon brothers. And they basically ran over each other and screwed themselves up and got themselves back in the field. I'm sure that that wasn't a pleasant conversation with Pop Pop, because it wasn't very

smart to be running each other over and retaliating. And eventually they lost control of the race, lost the lead, lost second, and wound up not making the show and Ty was crashed. So, you know, I think that LCQ, I think it took an hour and 45 minutes or so forever to run 75 laps. And we got done with that and we are like, oh man, we are in for an absolute destruction derby. And, you know, honestly, we could have a destruction derby. We've seen it at Kansas. We've seen it to Talladego. It can be anywhere. It doesn't, it would have gotten blamed on Bowman Gray if the main event had gone that way. But, you know, that's how sometimes these races go. I think, you know, the biggest surprise was Kyle Larson being in the LCQ. I thought he was in big trouble.

He was one of the cars that was good in the first practice. And from that point forward, struggled. You know, I didn't know if he would be rough and kind of out of character in the LCQ. But he didn't didn't have to be. Everything kind of fell his way and he put himself in a good position to maneuver forward. And that's really what you needed to do when you were behind. And we saw that starting to watch the modified race on Saturday. You know, Tim Brown, Bert Myers, those guys went to the back of the pack. And they were patient because you got to choose on a restart. And you got to go by this guy that wrecked. And that pack of cars had trouble, had to pit. Next thing you know, they passed half the field. Didn't have to do anything. They didn't have to do much.

And that's really what Larson did. He put himself in that position. Then kind of lost control of the race there at the end with the 43 car. Eric Jones, you know, got control of the race on the outside. Yep. You know, and when the caution came out was ahead of Larson when they threw the caution. So very, there wasn't a race or a moment that wasn't, you know, some kind of, there wasn't some kind of headline that you could grab out of it.

But the one thing that stuck out where the Dillon Boys running over each other for sure. What also stuck out to me was Ty Gibbs and Justin Haley Already having a little situation going on And Ty Gibbs just full on sailing into him To make his exit there Yeah, Ty had had enough I think Ty was like running He was running in the top like three, four, five

For a lot of that time and then get Yeah, he just said all right I've had enough boys and exit stage right Yeah I've never seen them These cars you can do that You can climb each other which is new Like you couldn't really do that with the other cars So it's interesting how that happened so fast.

But they were putting on a show before all that happened. But also got to give a shout to Bert, Bert, Myers. I really wanted him to get out of his car and take his helmet and throw it at Ricky. Just because I thought that would have been a beautiful madhouse, perfect moment. But, you know, they did what they came to do and they were respectful and they end their race. What did you think of that? That was crazy. Yeah.

You know, really in the first practice, I thought the 54 car was going to be. be one of the cars to contend with. And then we got to the second practice. His really flipped the other direction, fell off bad, then didn't qualify well. I felt like in the heat race, he was too patient when he had the opportunity to get into the back of the 48 and move him out of the way. And that was really the moment to me that kind of flipped the switch that said, okay, when you have the opportunity, you better move the guy and take advantage of being able to get to them. Because if it gets strung out, then you have, especially in heat races, then you have a, especially in heat races, you're not going to have the opportunity to get back to that back bumper.

So when you get to a guy, you've got to take advantage of it right at that moment. And he didn't do that, put himself in the LCQ and then got beat around in the LCQ and then ultimately lost his temper. So in the end, I don't, that wasn't a great start for his, his new situation with, with his new crew chief, I think, and their changes at, at the 54 car. I think there's some other guys ultimately that, you know, had some, some good quality days with their new situation. So a lot of this is how you get the year kicked off.

And there were definitely some hurt feelings in the LCQ. Yeah, if you were, if you were, there was nowhere to hide because you want to be in the league, control in the race. But then second place was on your bumper the whole time trying to move you. If you were second, that wasn't safe because third was doing the same thing. Right. And like there was just nowhere to hide in the top five to just ride. You just had to be going the whole time.

Right. Which made it great. You referenced, I think, last week on the episode, how teams need to come out. you know, and get things going right away. So I thought Denny Hamlin and Trackhouse were two of those that seemed like things moving correctly. We're all going to question Denny Hamlin, right? That's just the easy target. So everybody wants to put the blame question, whatever it is on Denny.

But you can't deny the fact that they came out of the gate. First practice, horrible. Couldn't get out of their own way. second practice fastest qualifies up front wins his heat race leads a lot of the race puts himself in position and i think that you know a lot of a lot of people don't give denny hamlin the credit that he deserves for how he can compartmentalize things and is able to let all the noise and all the chatter not bother him and he knows what to do and when he needs to shift his focus from 2311 and everything that's going on with the lawsuit and his drivers over there,

not having enough sponsorship on his car to just going in and saying, okay, I need to focus on what do I need to do with Chris Gale? What do I need to do to make sure that this system is set up how I want it to be with my driving style, be the leader of the team to say, okay, we need to do this, this is what I feel, you know, and let Chris make the decisions on the car, proved it all this weekend. I mean, they came right out

and served notice that, no, not much has changed. I think Chris Gavehart being behind the scenes, working in the shop is going to probably help all the teams, you know, within JGR. But I think this weekend, Denny Hamlin served notice that things aren't really going to change. We're still going to be contenders.

I like that phrase. Serve notice. Serve notice. No kid there. Everyone was there. He did what he had to do. He ran up front and short track. that's in his wheelhouse.

If he didn't run well, you'd probably be a little concerned because this is something like that. Well, and here's what happens, right? You go to the first race. You're expected to run well, short, flat track. We think Denny Hamlin, right?

Yep. Joe Gibbs racing car. We think those cars should run well at that particular race. And now the noise goes down. They spent the time, they spent the time to do the things that they needed to do

to make sure their house was in order. And we all wondered if it was going to be in order. 11 cars in order. And they went to the racetrack, performed well. Now they go to the media day. And the questions are, they're already set. The conversation they controlled by their performance.

And they go to media day now. Denny Hamlin will have to answer lawsuit questions. Now he doesn't have to answer questions about the performance of the 11 car. Right. Because first race on track, they made it happen. And they don't have to answer the questions at 2311 because their first race on track. They were quick, too. Yeah. They did what they, you know, performance

trumps at all. It'll be just fine. Yeah. It'll be just fine. Everyone, they are locked in. I think, as we talked about, and I think our first episode, after they get in a week or two in, it'll be back to business as normal. Well, there you go. So one other performer I thought stood out to me was

SVG, who had never raced a quarter mile asphalt oval, and he was in the top 10 all day, pretty much. Yeah. And for me, the Martinsville race last year in the college car was probably his shining moment in the cup car. And from the outside looking in, you're like, okay, we're going to go to Bowman Gray and we're probably going to see him perform well because of what he did at Martinsville. And you heard a lot of the guys talk about how it reminded them more

of Martinsville and how you rolled the corner into things that you did with the car, just a shorter track, but a lot of the same techniques. So, and that proved to be right. He had a good qualifying run, had a good heat race, put himself in position to be competitive all night and ran a good race. And ran a good race. So I think as we go to some of these other styles of racetrack, I think that there will be some learning curve there. But it seems like the Martinsville Bowman Gray style racetracks are not going to be that issue for SVG. He had fun. He liked that. He likes that type of racing. Yeah, and the interesting part with him, and we talk about this on this show sometimes,

but he's not used to banging into people. No. So he was very, he was very, he was very, he was very, he did a very good job at how hard he hit people when he was aggressive, when he shoved somebody out of the way. And, you know, there was just, there's, there's still other guys that don't do that, right? They just kind of hack it up and knock people out of the way or chop them off or run them in the fence. And there's a line to everything. And being able to protect yourself and be aggressive is a fine art. He's going to be in the playoffs. So if he, he's going to be there. So if he starts figuring it out, that's a dog. Yeah.

That's a dog. So that was the clash. And if that's a precursor of what is in store for 2025, there's a lot to look forward to for the fans this season. All right, Mamba, you're up. It's time now for the social Sips. Ooh. Ooh.

Yeah. I can't believe she didn't. I can't believe she didn't reference her. Reference what? Reference or lead. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. It's coming.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your favorite time of the show. and Kevin and Caitlin's Mamba's social sips. All right. Now, we're a motorsports show. We are. We predominantly NASCAR. But when the things that happen outside of our bubble, we like to talk about a little bit.

So there was a massive mega trade in the NBA, sportsball, Caitlin. I know what the NBA is. Is that basketball? Yeah, that's right. Okay, that's right. Gotcha. Luca Donkick.

can't even pronounce his name. Luca, anyway. No, go ahead. No, I can't. I can't. You picked this. I know, I can pronounce him. Donchitz.

Donchich. Word of the week. Luca and Anthony Davis. No, I'm not doing it again. They got traded. So, Luca from the Mavs and AD to the Lakers. So Luca's in his prime. He's 25.

He's led the league in scoring. Like, this trade is like if you took Tyler Reddick, who just won the regular season championship and went to the final four. and he left 2311 and went to like track house. Like you don't let your shining athlete, your tops dog walk out of the building. And in this one, they just shipped it out. Have you? Do you know why?

No, why? Do you know why? Yeah. Oh, why? Absolutely. Oh, tell me why. Because they, they have that whatever they, he was getting ready to have a super mega, whatever eligible deal as a player if he stayed there

and they were going to have to pay him like $200 some million. So you're saying that the Mavericks didn't want out to pay him, so they shipped one out to L.A. $345 million is what they owed him. Oh, my. Yeah. On the Supermax. Yeah. On the Supermax deal.

So to me, it's a dollars and cents thing. Okay. Have you seen any, obviously we don't do trades? Has there been a move like that in NASCAR that you can remember with someone left? Not because of dollars, just someone left in their prime from a really good situation to somewhere else. Well, I think that the only thing that you could really compare it to was when all the things were going on at DEI and Dell Jr. decided he was going to leave the family company at DEI and go to Hendrick Motorsports. But not just out of the blue. Right.

I mean, that was very publicized. And I don't know that I can think of a situation where. What about Kyle Bush move? Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I don't know. But this one just seemed like Anthony Davis was surprised.

I think everyone was surprised. Yeah. I mean, your move was pretty big, too, when you went from R.C. It was a year and a half early. Yeah. Yeah. Not an hour and a half. Right at the trade day line.

Seems like a dollar and cents moved to me. Hey, well, I just love crossing over sports. So Luca from the Mavs to the Lakers, A.D., from L.A. to the Mavs. Now, moving right along. Offseason, we didn't do much during the off season as far as... Who's we? We as far as the group together. We as a group.

Oh, I got you. But we all did some stuff individually, and you went to a couple of Panthers games. I did. Now, there's an awesome video of Keelan with this great handhake that actually went viral. No, it's a young fan. Yeah, young fan. Young fan. He's a young fan.

With Sam Franklin Jr., who's a big Keelan Harvick fan now, started following him, I guess, a couple years ago, right? And then he was at one of the Keelan's car races. He actually went to one of the Winter Heat Races, watched Keelan Races, legend car a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And so, you know, Sam is, I mean, he's a stand-up guy first off. And he and Keelan have become friends. Keelan's gone to practice. And so it's fun to be able to see him interact with guys that are at that level of being a professional athlete. But you can still be a good human. And for him to see that and be around those types of guys is something that is fun. So I don't know how they caught that little handshake with that young fan. But I can tell you,

that the NASCAR fans absolutely ripped the NFL. It was awesome. And it was actually pretty entertaining to follow along and play along. And the next week we went, or the next, now I guess the next week, we went to the Monday night football game in Minnesota. And I took a, somebody took a picture of Keelan and I sitting behind them,

sitting behind us and sent it to me. And I posted it, I said, we had a great time with this young fan. So crickets. Crickets. Crickets. The NFL just disappeared. Yeah.

That was awesome. It was fun, though. The handshake was clean too. Yes. They create, I mean, they worked on that before the game. Well, of course, you can't just do it one. Yeah, you got to work on it a little bit. It was well executed.

Well, executed. The handshake thing is like the word thing for me. It's like, uh, I get confused. Okay. That's not surprising. Yeah. All right. So the Super Bowl is right around the corner. And it is on Fox.

Love that. Do you guys have Super Bowl picks, Chiefs or Eagles? Who you got going? Chiefs for me. I'm going with the Chiefs. Okay. Who you got. No, Eagle.

Wait, why the Chiefs? I mean, I just enjoy watching Travis Kelsey. Yeah. That checks out. I just... Well, I mean, as a player, not... Oh, I just thought you thought he was hot. No, no, I think I just love his personality and everything else.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, you? We did have the general manager on the show. That's right. Fred Beach. No, I remember. Yeah.

I didn't know if you remembered his name, though. I appreciated him being on the show. Yeah, and he's a wizard, right? Huh? He's a wizard. He's a wizard. Yeah. Only thing I don't understand about Veach is how in the world can you be a Clint Boyer fan?

Did you guys see the Boyer fan? Is he a Boyer fan? Did you see the Boyer fan on TV? I told him, I was telling Clint after the commercial break and they showed the Boyer fan on TV sleeping. I said, this is how you raced. You know, it's so boring. Was that the little kid? It was a little kid, yeah.

I said it was so boring that fans would fall asleep because they didn't know where you're running on a track. next thing you know, you did your crash interview and you woke everybody up. Dang, Kevin. Sorry, Clint. Hey, if I don't give him grief somebody, somebody, he'll give me grief. Yeah, you got to get to him. You either. Look at this kid.

This is the boy or fan. It's like, oh, Clint's in the back. I'm asleep. Oh, whoa. Clint's back. Oh, my God. Glad he got out of the ambulance. Geez.

All right. So two Chiefs. I'm going Eagles just to break it up. Go Chiefs. All right. Fly Eagles, fly. Fans, remember that we have our mailbag questions at Harvick Happy Hour 4 at gmail.com. Nailed it.

I nailed it. You're pretty good. Listen, this is that bad? Not that you warmed up. I was thinking, I thought you were going to say tool bag, but. No. No, that's over here. So we'll be answering questions next week.

So make sure you start throwing them in there. And obviously, keep sending them. messages of the word of the week because, you know, he likes it. He likes it. I don't know that I like it. The low-key one came from Twitter. Oh, really? Yeah, that came from Twitter. Okay. Yeah. Well, I enjoy the fact that it makes you guys happy. It does. It does. It makes you guys happy to see me completely uncomfortable. I giggle. I'm okay stepping out of the box and making fun of myself. I'm just warning you, I'm going to butcher something completely off the rails this year. Well, that's fair. That's okay. That's the whole point. You know what? You know what time it is? I do. It's time. It's

to grade the burnout. First one of the year. And I'm so glad that Chase started with this one. Started strong. I was pretty happy with this one. And I think the thing that makes it better is the fact that the crowd was so engaged and right there cheering and screaming. Like this isn't normal just cheering.

This is very, there's a lot of emotion behind the people that are cheering here. And I think the drifting up next to the wall. Yeah. I don't know if he touched the quarter panel against the wall, but it was... Maybe into the one first turn up there, but it was a second. And then whipping it into the... I'm glad he didn't hit the drain. Went around the train.

If he'd hit the drain, it wouldn't have been so awesome. But wound up at the 50-yard line to do his interview. I'm giving it a 10. Oh, right. A 10. Hold the phone. Last year, we didn't get a single 10. You're starting a year off with a 10 on this one.

Yeah. I mean, who else is going to drift backwards? Who else is going to drift backwards again? the wall and have the fans just going bonkers. All right, boys, I don't know what you're going to do, but y'all got to have to do something really cool to get that. That was good. Yeah.

That was good. All right. There you have it. It's like crazy. Starting out with a 10. Okay, guys. So time now for our last call. So this year we're actually tallying our race picks.

And the way we're doing this is the winner. If you get correct, is 10 points. Two through five is six, six to 10 is three. So after the clash, for now I am the leader. Because I picked Joey, so I got six points. He picked Chase Briscoe. You picked Burt Myers. But I was...

So we're both in last. But hang on, hang on. I was told I had to pick another one. And my second pick was Ryan Blaney, who finished second. So I feel like I should at least get three points. No. You were very... You were very much, Burt Myers.

You're zero. I feel like I deserve three points. Yeah. I feel like you're not the refer. here. Not the referee. All right. Well, I have six.

They're at zero. For now, I'm sure Kevin hates that I'm leading. I have a question, though. Tanked, man. I really thought Briscoe was going to be on fire. Look good in a heat race. And then wheels fell off. Well, I have a question.

So how many times did she have to pick Kyle Larson? What do you mean? Last year I felt like you picked Kyle Larson like 11 times. He won six times. So he's always a viable option. There's no limit. Okay, fine. I'm not going to pick him for the 500, though.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think he's finished a speed rate, Super Speedway race. You know what's fun? What's fun? We have a week off. That's right.

We sure do. Well, Kieland's going to race at Florence this weekend. He's back in the late model. He's kicking off his late model season. Nice. And the next week, we're going to launch some my favorite news of the year. Oh, okay. All right.

I'm here for that. Just to be clear, though, we're not taking a week off for this show. We are not. We will be back. Well, let's just rephrase that. Caitlin and I are not taking a week off. We have no idea if Mama's going to be here or not. But surely we're sure we can make his chair smart again.

Can't make it look better, though. And you are busy today. You already had a very cool interview, which is your Thursday episode. Do you want to tell us about it? Yeah, we had Eilocastonet. Eilio castanet. Was that one more time?

Don't antagonize him. Don't start with me. What a guy. It's fine. We know who he means. Who do you mean? I'm confused. Eilio Castornevus.

Which it was a good conversation. It was a great conversation. conversation, unlike the one I'm having right now with my ex-friend that I don't like anymore. That I don't like anymore. We're going to wind up wrestling in the middle of this episode before it's all said and done. Have you ever had your ass kicked in the middle of a podcast? No, but, you know, the first time. There's our first time.

I'm going straight for your gimpy leg, too. I'm going to break your knee. I mean, oh my goodness. That came around full circle so fast. It was so beautiful. Elio. It's Elio! I got yelled at by Jamie Little yesterday and had to pronounce his name right.

Oh, really? It didn't help. There you go. Well, that's because you just sit here and whatever. Well, we look forward to that. That will be very interesting. Obviously, he's making some waves in the NASCAR scene, so that will be Thursday. All right, closers.

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