Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Christopher Bell braves the rain in win at New Hampshire, Kyle Busch’s struggles continue, and more!

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

On Episode 37 of "Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour," NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick joins co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith for an insightful post-New Hampshire race analysis! In this episode, the trio provides a recap of the New Hampshire race, breaking down Christopher Bell’s impressive weekend sweep with wins in both the Xfinity and Cup series. They also delve into Kyle Busch's season-long struggles, including his collision with Noah Gragson at New Hampshire. Plus, they discuss much more from the world of NASCAR! Don't miss this action-packed episode, filled with expert analysis and all the thrilling NASCAR moments you crave! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The most entertaining part about that is the fact that his face turned bright red. Bright red. Bright red. He knew he'd screwed up. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour, presented by NASCAR and Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. She's Caitlin Vinci, and he's Mamba Smith. And I have a lot of questions today.

I have a lot of questions. And I think my very first questions is, who in the hell didn't send me the memo to wear cowboy boots? I have no boots, but how did this happen? What is the thought process here? So he called me and just, or no, I called you to talk about scheduling. And he said, what are you wearing for the show today? So I kind of described what I was wearing. And I said, I'm wearing these cowgirl boots because we're going to Nashville this weekend.

And that was the extent. That was the extent. So you coordinated your outfit after she told you what she was wearing. It made sense. I mean, it made sense. The cowboy boots were going to Nashville. My second question is, why do you own a pair of cowboy boots or are those someone else's? Oh, well.

That's funny. You bring that up. Oh, there's more to the story. So back in like 2018 when I was at MDM Motorsports, we were shutting down. And I was one of the last people there. And I was closing, like, cleaning everything out. And I found these bad boys in the lounge of one of the haulers. And I was like, well, I just got fired.

So might as well take something with me, right? And obviously no one was missing them because they would. grabbed him already. I do think that these might be Brandon Joneses. Yeah. Because he raised for this a lot. What kind of boots are those? Is there like a,

can you take one off? Can you take one off? I mean, I could have you. I mean, can you take it off? Is the brand on the bottom? What do you want me to do with it? We want to see what kind of cowboy boots are.

I don't know. Can I take it off like that? Like a. There you go. Oh, look at the sock. Wow. The sock game is strong. Okay.

Okay. So these are. Okay. Area. Is that a normal, is that a normal sock under, under a cowboy boot? I don't wear cowboy boots. I just know that I needed high socks. Wow.

These are hornitos tequila. This is a first for us here on Happy Hour. All right. It doesn't say Andy. It should say Kevin on the bottom. You should tuck your jeans into the boot. You want me to tuck in the, okay. I'm glad he didn't make me take my shoe off.

Okay. Listen, just for Kevin. I just, I don't know. I did not expect him to walk in in cowboy boots, but I'm glad he coordinated his outfit with you. Next time, maybe he should wear him too. Well, I thought about texting you, but you were already on your way to the,

studio and Kevin's got a busy day I don't have them anyway. I do not own a pair of cowboy boots. What's your size? I'll bring you back some from Nashville. I don't need any cowboy boots. They're uncomfortable. I've tried them on and they just don't look right it on my foot.

In the cowboy hat I look like Woody. If I had a pair of cowboy boots to it, then I'll really look. Then I'll really be over the top. All right, real quick, before we get into this, we have two clothes. We have two options for Halloween. We have Ninja Turtles. from earlier that we talked about because Kevin had a onesie

or we could be part of the cast of Toy Story and he had to be more than. Those are two options. The Halloween show gets onesies. We are wearing. Everyone's wearing one. Everyone has their choice of Halloween onesies. Halloween onesies.

I'm very curious what we'll come up with for me. Everything has changed since Kevin came out of the booth. The whole show is just off the rails from the jump. Sorry. Take control, Caitlin. All right. Well, we encourage everyone to continue following us. Of course, Harvick Happy Pod, subscribing on YouTube, leaving a review on the podcast version.

So big show on tap today. No shortage of storylines after leaving Loudon, that is for sure. But first, how was your weekend? I saw you went hiking. My weekend was great. This is like a whole new life for me. I'm off in the mountains, hiking. We spent some time at the lake and just knocking the kids off the tube and cruising around the lake.

So my weekend, my weekend was, was pretty good. But back to racing this week in the car, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So that's more my speed. More your speed. I meant not have any speed, but I used to being in the car. We'll find out. I'm going to find out. How was your weekend?

Because he did double duty. Whoa. He was on pit road, mid Ohio. I watched, I watched Mid-O-O-Hio. Kevin said he thought he did good. You did. I mean, listen, it's a different production when we go out to Mid-O-O-Hio. What does that mean?

It means you have zero resources. They're not as full as when we have our full, you know, Foxport cast there. So me and Heather DeBoe out there crushing it and Jim Trado, we had a great time. And it was fun. It was a good experience. Your guys finished. I mean, they finish on track, two, three, but they on the scoreboard is one two. They finished first and second.

Okay. They didn't finish first and second on the track. Right. But on the results, they finished first and second. So Swalwich won. Yep. William Swalich won. Brent Cruz finished second.

Brent Cruz. Can we get a real quick? Can you grade his burnout just real quickly? I know it's early on in the show, but can he just, and folks that didn't watch the Arcares, William tried to do his first burnout and he backed in the fence with no smoke. Well, people are going to learn right off the bat, whether you're a client or have a relationship. The burnout was terrible.

We're going to be honest. The burnout was absolutely horrendous. And there was no smoke. and we spun it sideways and we're backed into the wall. So we're going to have to have, we're going to have to have burnout 101 at KHI management with Swalich. So that was, that was definitely probably not what he intended to do, but he did that little half slide, got in the grass and backed it into fence. So that was, that was an F. Yeah.

It was an F. It was an F. Terrible. Terrible bad. That's okay. Yeah. But he still won. Yeah.

So even if you failed the burnout, you still got the trophy. Yeah. So, but then you went to Loudon. to do intros, right? Yeah, we did intros at Loudon, which that for me is great because it's home. Like for, I don't know, the better part of 15 years, my dad had season tickets to both races when we had two. We were on the 50th row and then they put a row behind us to make it 51. And I couldn't see because I was able to stand up as a little kid.

I was able to sit up high and then everyone would stand up for like 10 laps out. They would just stand up and watch the race. And so when they added that row, everyone was standing up in front of me. So my dad got, he yelled at him at the track and they gave us the 51st row. Oh, that's funny. Moved you back a row. Yeah, moved us back one. So we were at the top.

But yeah, it was great. Matthew Judon was out there. I was wrapping the Celtics. Yeah, we heard you got basketball season's over. Yeah, it's over now. Hockey season's almost over. They thought that I was Jalen Brown. Yeah.

Really? Yeah, they thought I was NBA finals MVP Jalen Brown. I was out there signing autographs. So did you sign mom? Yeah, it's not really. I was like, because I felt bad. And I looked at one guy, because I could tell they were starting to all think that I was in because I was standing on the stage. So like I look even tall.

He looked important. He looked taller. I am important, but I looked taller. You look taller on the stage? Yeah, because they were on the ground. Oh, I got you. Yeah. Couldn't tell how short you were.

Yeah. And so when I came off, I'm like, man, this is going to be embarrassing for me. So I stepped down there and they're like, can we get a picture? Great job. Like, we're huge Celtics fans. I'm like, cool. Oh, yes, me too. More importantly, did you get your rental car situated?

Oh, did you see that? I saw it. No, I just made it up. I didn't see it. I didn't see it. Wait, what's this? I don't know. So when I, here's something for everyone to know.

He's getting frustrated. I'm so mad. So I had to get up at 3 a.m. so I could get to a 6 o'clock flight out of Cleveland to Boston. It's like an hour from Boston to the racetrack. I had a couple of interviews that started at 10. So it was like, I do know this.

Yeah, it was like, it was like, we're pushing it. And so everything was going off without a hitch. I woke up on time, got early,

like TSA suite, we're through. I get to Boston early. And because Cleveland hadn't checked out my car that I left at the Avis in Cleveland, the Avis in Boston

wouldn't let me take another car. Good times. That's annoying. Yeah. So I had to sit there for like 35 minutes. Luckily, the rain came on Saturday, so it pushed everything.

thing. All my stuff was canceled. But like, I was there for 35 minutes. So kids, use the Avis app. Return it on the app if you're going in the morning. Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of rain, you kind of help me to the next subject. I want to talk about, of course, the race this weekend. And NASCAR decided to wait out the weather, which I was pretty surprised, I guess, a little bit by this. And it was well worth the wait, needless to say, right? It was. And it's not that the first part of the race is totally irrelevant, but it's totally irrelevant. I think Tyler Reddick and his group, they played the cards to put themselves in position to be in position to win the race if it was canceled. When it started raining, they were leading the race.

But that was definitely not the case and not what happened. As this race unfolded, NASCAR decided that they were going to put the rain tires back on the car, dry the racetrack enough to get racing. And it started off right off the bat wild. And they rolled out of the pits. and it wasn't two laps later. Kyle Bush is stuffed in the fence under caution. Corey LaJoy has spun out under caution. And I was thinking to myself watching the race.

I said, this is going to be a disaster when we drive into turn one. They drove into turn one and they were five wide, four wide, all the way down on the apron, all the way to the top of the racetrack, in the middle, and did everything just fine. That's how I would have imagined it going. I think a lot of the guys learned don't get on the paint. And I think that they learned that the preferred lane at Loudon in that newer asphalt was a lot slicker than probably what they were anticipating. But Kyle Bush, he backed up and I think he was trying to get a feel for the grip level.

But it can't get any worse for him. No, we'll talk about that for sure about Kyle Bush. You, I know, spoke with NASCAR already this morning, just about the weekend and some of the decision making that took place. What did you learn? I learned that this is a process. And everyone should know that it's a process. Like we're learning the tires. I think everything went really well.

And me and Kevin were texting during the race about this. Like if they would have let everyone make their own decisions, it had an opportunity to get out of hand. And you want to ease into these situations because they are new. I at some point would love to see competitive pit stops. But NASCAR took the safety route, which is what they should do. There's cars coming down pit road. It's slick pit stops because the pit road is still wet. It's still very wet.

So if a guy slides through his pit stall and picks up speed and hits one of those crew members, like that's a really bad situation. That's the worst. That's the worst part about this whole situation. But what I'm, what I think going forward, we have to get over everything that happened at Loudoun. We've learned enough.

You know, I think on the racetrack, we could have had the racetrack probably could have been a little wetter. The spray was fine from, I've been in these situations. From a driver standpoint, the thing that limits what we do on the racetrack with the rain tires is only spray. The cars have plenty of grip. They drive fine.

You don't need to worry about the race cars. The windshield wiper is irrelevant on the front of the race car. That's why it's not on there. You put RainX on the window. It's going to roll off the window. The only thing that limits the cars from doing what they need to do on the racetrack is if there's too much spray. So the drivers are all, they all seem fine with it. I think after we ran at North Wilkesboro and,

learn. I was, I was totally against the rain, did not want anything to do with the rain. We ran at North Wilkesport and I was like, oh, this is not too bad. These tires actually have more grip than what the slick tires have. But we have to step, now we have to, we've been through these situations. When the rain started, they should have thrown the caution and said, come in, do what you want to do. The pits are open, non-competitive. Maybe we have a situation to where we have the odd pit stalls come in first. We have the even pit stalls come in second. Keep running. Keep half the cars off a pit road. Let them change the tires. And whatever NASCAR decides is the tire that you're on, from there on, the game's on. You know, it's racing. If you have to come in

under green, you have to come in under green and there's not going to be enough cars. But I don't think they should, if you have to pit under green or we have to, you have to make a competitive pit stop while the green flag is still out, I don't think they should be able to jump off the wall until the car is stopped. I think there needs to be a few things. things that we have to put in place to protect these guys. You know, I've talked to some of the drivers. I think if you're on rain tires, I think competitive pit stops are probably, you know, I think it's still, I think we still have a lot to learn there as far as what's competitive pitstop and what isn't. But it sounds like a lot of the guys think if they're on rain tires that they're

going to be able to stop and make a competitive pit stop. So I think we have to drive pit road first. Yes. I think we worry less about the racetrack than we. we do pit road. We're worried so much about the racetrack right now. The racetracks are too dry when we start these rain races. They're honestly too dry. The tires burn up. The tires just burn up. And we saw that dry groove come into effect as we got towards the end of the race. We would have seen some guys put dry tires on those race cars at the end of that race when they pitted. Just let them go. The race just needs to, we don't need non-competitive pit stops or we need non-competitive pit stops until we know exactly what we need to do, but let them come in and pit. If they want to put more rain tires

on, pit, non-competitive, come back out in front of the guys that you pitted with, wherever you're running, whatever the case is right there. So I think the race was kind of, I mean, it was very intriguing, but we kind of, it kind of got botched up there at the end with the flow of the race. And I think everybody's being conservative. I agree. But we have to just, we have to progress here and move forward. I know that the, I guess the thing that they have said going forward is we have the rain tires to help get the track dry. Yeah. I think that the rain tires are just part of it now. I think from the, you know, the mile and probably St. Louis down that mile and a quarter racetrack. I think maybe Nashville is in that, in that area. I think once you, you got to come up

with something to say, okay, from here's your, here's your break. going forward it's on you. And that's just the way that it needs to be because it's going to be way too intriguing to not do it that way. There's way, there is way too much low-hanging fruit right here with the rain tires and strategy

and everything that we have to make this so interesting that everybody wants to watch. So this is obviously a very unique situation. Christopher Bell was able to make the most of it. Were you not really surprised to see some of those dirt guys right up in the mix because they're used to looking for grip

and moving around and obviously C. Bell, he was the guy who got it figured out. Yeah. You know, Christopher, I was able to talk to Christopher. And I asked him that. I said, what makes this interesting for you? What's the thought process that you go through to find the grip? And he's, he's like, well, you know, I did it under caution. So I, you know, I came out of the pits and that's, you know, you saw what happened to Kyle Busch and Corey LaJoy. I came out of the pits and I, you know, gas my car up on the bottom, on the apron. I gasped it up in the, in the regular. groove, it was super slick. I went above the asphalt and it felt like it had more grip. And when they dropped the green flag, he was four wide on the top in the, in the older asphalt above that preferred lane at Loudon. So it's, as a driver, it's very interesting to go out and try to

find that grip. But in the rain, the grip level is always changing. So you have to find the driest groove because that makes the most speed. Well, on the ovals, you also, and even on the road courses to an extent. You have to take care of those tires to a certain point, and then you've got to put the slicks on. And we saw it at Richmond when they put the slicks on. Most of the racetracks still looked wet, but those guys were fine in the two grooves. So we have to be more aggressive going forward. We are where we are, and we've learned a lot. The other piece that has to happen, the rain tires have to have a, they need a little bit of development. They need some stagger in the back of those tires. That was the first thing that we

We told NASCAR and Goodyear after North Wilkesboro, and we still have no staggering the tires. So I'm not sure why we haven't developed the tires a little bit further to have some stagger for the ovals. And they also need to make sure they bring enough. They're going to have to bring more trailers to the racetrack to have rain tires in there to be competitive. We can't go to these places and not practice in the rain because I think those are the times that we're going to learn. We got to take as many rain tires to the racetrack as we do slick tires. Yeah, you're going to have to bring more trailers. Well, guess what?

You wanted to have rain tires. Guess what? You're going to have to bring more inventory for practice, racing, and all the things that go with it. Yeah, I mean, and just touching on Richmond, part of that conversation I was having was we could see the next evolution of this at Richmond, which is like NASCAR getting out of the tire business after the start of the race and letting you decide, you know, when you want to put your slicks on. So that could be coming up not too far away. I think one of the interesting things watching when they fired off. First of all, I was texting Kevin. I'm like, man, Keelan could win this race now because Keelan runs legend cars.

And they run in the range so often. And he's like, I don't know about that. And when they fired off, I was shot. Yeah. These guys were all over the racetrack. And when Blaney went to turn one, I'm like, bro, where are you going? And he almost went to the grass. I'm like, oh, my God.

Like what? I need to ask him what that mindset was because it's one thing to go around the top. Right? because you kind of run loud and the groove is kind of up there a little bit, but to go straight for the apron of the racetrack, like how do you decide that's what I'm going to do and have the balls? Well, I think that the reason that they decided to do that is because the rocks are,

it's the old asphalt. So there's no, that, that middle lane of asphalt gets that rubber on there. And it's smoother asphalt as well. So both of those things make it slicker than with the old big aggregate in the apron in that fourth lane. So that was definitely the reason that they went to those two lanes. I think as the race ran, that middle lane got the rubber cleaned up and it got a little bit better.

But we also saw a bunch of guys bust their butt getting that right rear tire on the paint as they would cross that paint going on to the apron. Noah Gregson wrecked, you know, Bubba and I don't remember who the other car was. MTJ. MTJ didn't have an incident. Yeah. So we did see a lot of guys get in trouble. getting that right rear tire hung on that paint. It was regardless, like, if there was any place that you would want that to happen,

like, that's it for a couple of reasons. One, the way that track is, it's kind of a controlled chaos because your car never turns really all that good there anyway. Like, you have to slow down a lot of the corners, a lot of off throttle time. Second, the fans, if there's any place that the fans are going to stay through the elements, it's in New England, because we got to go to school with, like, 14 inches of snow overnight. So you're used to the way. Like they aren't leaving.

They get one race a year. If they say that they could still go racing, they were not leaving. And they stayed for a real ride. There was more people that left than I thought there would be. I mean, still had a fair amount of people there. But I think as we retrain our fans,

I think a lot of people, there would be more of an argument of staying than they're will leaving because of the intrigue that comes with all these scenarios that could pop up with all the rain situations. Well, there was like some severe weather. It seemed like two potential in the area. tornadoes, things like that. Maybe that's why more people ducked out.

It came in really quickly. It came very fast. While that was going on, I was driving to Boston. And Boston, it was blue skies. So I'm like, this is very strange that it was blue skies headed this way, but about to get dumped on up there. You referenced Kyle Bush at the top of the show, though. But where do you think his head is at right now in these frustrations? Because it's just, at this point, it's week after week.

Yeah. Misfortunes. I don't even like talking about it anymore, but we have to. And it's one of those scenarios where it just keeps getting worse. I mean, they ran at what I consider one of his better racetracks. They ran in the 30s in the dry and then crashed under caution. You know, he wound up, he wound up, I think, crashing twice before the rain came, if I'm not mistaken. And so I think that at some point it's got a, it's easier to be in Christopher Bell's.

scenario because of the fact that they had speed. He went through six or eight weeks there where they were just having miserable finishes, but they all knew they had speed in a car. The problem with Kyle Bush's scenario at this particular point, they don't have any speed in their car for the most part. They've had a couple places where they've been okay, but they don't have that speed like the 20 has to be able to keep the morale where it needs to be to recover from all these instances where they're having all these things go wrong. And right now, if it's a lot of, going to go wrong. It's going to go wrong with Kyle Bush because it is a disastrous mess, unfortunately, for everybody on that 18th. I, uh, backstage this week. I was talking to him and

he was giving me shit about being a fair weather Celtics fan and whatever. And I asked him, I said, hey man, didn't you race at Millbridge the other week? And he got excited because at Millbridge, he won and then Brexton won. And like, to Kevin's point, like, I don't want to talk to you about what's going on weekend and week out because I know it's not good. Like, if we're going to talk about something, let's talk about something that's like fun. And I hate it for him. Yeah, I hate it for him too. And it's just, unfortunately, in the scenario that you're in and on the Cup series side,

you're under the microscope, unfortunately, and you can't hide from it. And I know that Millbridge and all those places are fun. And I've been in these scenarios before where it just doesn't seem like you can get your head above water to be able to figure out what to do. And then it starts affecting the morale of the team and creates. conversations that you don't want to have. So it's going to be really interesting to see if they can dig out of this hole because they're getting further and further behind on the playoff side of things.

We saw Bubba have trouble. He's now out of the top 16. Joey Lugano had trouble, but he had great stage points and is now back 16th in the points. And then you're seeing guys like Chase Briscoe that are within 40-something points of the playoff bubble. And, you know, the 14. and the 41, they were terrible before the rain came. But they were able to regroup and put the rain tires on

and put themselves in position to have a second place finish and 11th place finished. Josh Barry finished third. He ran up there in the wet and the dry. But my point is there's enough guys up there like a Chase Briscoe that could get just a little sliver of confidence and be able to put themselves into victory lane. And that's really where it's going to turn this thing upside down

as if somebody like a Michael McDowell goes to a road course and wins a race or one of these other guys pops out of nowhere and wins at Daytona. There's still this mystery that happens because those points are starting to tighten up. And if you get another winner in there, it kicks those guys that are 15, 16 points out of out of the points and all of a sudden drags the next guy down. That's 30 some points on top. We're going to just going to continue to watch that cut line as the race is starting. to click by. So that was Kyle Busch. I want to talk about Kyle Larson for a moment because a little spirited radio transmission between him and his sponsor, Tyler Mon. Tyler was a bit critical, I guess, of Kyle Larson the way he was racing with Denny Hamlin saying he races you like that because you always

let him to which he said, shut the fuck up, F word up, which I don't know if I've ever heard him say that to somebody before. It was kind of out of character I thought for Carl Larson. Well, you know, I think it's, I mean, if you look at the scorecard, Denny Hamlin has definitely, gotten the best of Kyle Larson through the years. I mean, it's very lopsided. And I can see where the spotter is coming from on that scenario. But I also think that the spotter should probably keep his mouth shut and not say that. I think he needs to stay in his lane. I think that is something that the drivers need to worry about. And if you're going to talk about something like that, don't talk about it on the radio. I think a lot of times these spotters take a little bit more

leeway with with the things that they say on the radio than they probably should. So yeah, I guess the radio was much quieter after the comment. Yeah, it was very quiet after that for sure. It was much quieter. I know my place now, right? Yeah. I mean, like for like for Tyler, mom, the first spotter to say it felt like a moment of like when you're maybe not a little brother, but maybe a little cousin because Denny and Kyle are close, right? They do have a very good relationship. Yeah. And, you know, it seems like Denny has bullied him a little bit on the racetrack,

even though Kyle is one of the buddies. Yeah, he's one of the buddies. And he's never wrong. That's what it got. You know what I mean? So from a team of the five, if you're on the five team, you're like, I'm sick of getting run over by the 11. Yeah.

And I want my guy to do to run him back over. To your point, though. I don't know. You got to know your guy. And Kyle definitely snap back. It was just like a, yeah. Shut the fuck up, man. Like, what do we do?

What are you talking about? I'm proud of him. I'm glad. You know, I think, I think a lot of those, I think a lot of those spotters talk too much. And I think sometimes they think they're driving the car. And so everybody's out there wanting to be competitive. But as a driver, you don't want to hear that. I would have told him to shut the fuck up.

All right. Well, there you have that. And I love Tyler. Tyler, Tom is a great guy. Yeah. Yeah. They're all great guys. Yeah.

But sometimes you just got to stay in your lane. That's right. That's the quote of the day. Stay in your lane. Speaking of not staying in your lane, Michael McDowell, would you make at this situation towards the end with him and Ryan Blaney? I didn't like it. I understand Michael's thought process of saying, hey, I need to go for it. But man, we weren't even racing for the lead. We were racing for second. And he just wiped Ryan Blaney out. And I thought it was, you know, I think you could probably argue the point that you want to argue as far as taking a chance. I got to try to win a race. But wipe in the second place. car out for for no reason to me is is not right. I didn't I didn't like the move at all.

Yeah. He called it a low percentage move is what he called. Is what Ryan called it? No, McDowell. Yeah. Well, at least he analyzed it because it did do or die. It was, but like he you would have thought that he would have tried to go to the bottom and get to the 20 instead of going in because where he entered the rate way entered turn one there had been no grip there already. So like he it's not like you could have doored the 12 and then you both made it through like where he doored him. He was already sideways when he got there. So Ryan was just along for the ride. And it sucks for those guys because if you look at it, he had a chance to win. Yeah. And so that would have been, so he, in the dry and in the wet, he had a chance to win. Like their car was good on both ends.

And I think they were the ones applying the most pressure to whoever's leading, whether it was Reddick or Larson or Christopher Bell. And he was right with Christopher Bell. They were like tip for tat right there. And then if you look at it, Gateway, he had it all but wrapped up, runs out of gas, wins Iowa, and then here he had another shot. Like that's low key three in a row. Like they are firing right now. That changes their playoff position a lot. And now he has 25th.

And I mean, he's still in the playoffs. Yeah. And I agree with Michael. It was a low percentage move, but it just wasn't, it wasn't smart. And, you know, I think for for me, if you're going to, if you're going to make a low percentage move, you better have a car that's fast enough to win a race because, uh, it's And if you're going to wipe them out, at least wipe out the leader. At least get all the way to it.

Yeah. Hey, do you think so, do you guys think real quick? Because Gateway, a lot of off throttle time, Iowa, there's off throttle time now New Hampshire. Phoenix. Ryan's already been, in that 12th team, has already been really good at Phoenix over the past few years. Is he now becoming a championship favorite to go back to back now? Mamba is hoping. We know he is high.

Here's the deal with those guys. I think that they're, I think that they're short tracks. stuff, I think is okay. I think that St. Louis was good. I think Loudoun was good, both places that you're shifting, right? Iowa, you know, that that was kind of one of those scenarios. But they were good at all three races. And the problem that they have are the mile and a halfs. That's the problem. It's just going to be, can they get the mile and a half programs fixed to the point where they can be competitive to run in the top five? And I like the speed. I like the speed in the 12 car. I think that they're back better than they were at the beginning of the year

and being in the conversation, but I gotta see them, I gotta see them do more on the mile and a half race tracks. We're back, baby. We're back. We're back. He's hoping. He is hoping.

Okay, so that was how this race weekend went. But before the race even happened, there was a very funny moment that occurred with our now winner at Loudon, Christopher Bell in the media center, doing, you know, answering questions about the future of Joe Gibbs racing. He completely slips up, reveals a name, just a first name, Chase, when Chase is in the car. But this is for funny tweets from Kyle Larson saying like, oh, Chase Elliott, you're out,

like have fun at Gibbs, all this thing. That was pretty entertaining, right? I mean. I think that the most entertaining part about that, the most entertaining part about that is the fact that his face turned bright red. Bright red. Bright red. And he knew he'd screwed up.

He is the worst liar. He wasn't lying. He was being honest. That was the problem. He knew he was in trouble or felt like he was in trouble and knew he had said something that he shouldn't have said. But I don't think it's really any secret. I mean, Chase Briscoe's going to drive the 19 car. We had been talking about it.

And I think it's, you know, there's been obviously so many conversations that have happened that it just flew out of Christopher Bell's mouth. But his face turned bright red. I felt, I felt bad for him because he knew immediately that he had let it slip. Good. Now we don't have to like speculate about that shit. Yeah. At least he won that. At least he won the race after.

He swept the weekend. So, like, he messed up on Friday, but swept the weekend. So I guess no one's going to be mad about it. It was a weird weekend for Joe Gibbs. So motorhome caught on fire. That was so crazy. Yeah. Motor home caught on fire in the motorhome lot.

And then Christopher Bell slips up with Chase Briscoe. And then they win the race. And then Briscoe runs well, too. Yeah. They finished one too. Yeah. I wish he would have said, I wish he would have caught it and would have said, you know, Chase. And then I wish he would have started saying,

it. Like if he could have just if he could have been quick enough to just start saying it. But you know that's not Bell. I know he that's not him. He's so serious and so he's so to the book and just wants to do everything right. And that's the funny part.

That's what makes it so funny because he tries so hard to make everything be perfect. And then it's like, oh, Bob, asked Larson. He goes, do you think now you're going to have trouble like telling him Bell secrets and stuff? And Larsen's like,

nah, you probably feel so bad after this one. He'll be locked in next time. Did you ever slip up in a presser? I don't know that I ever. I don't know that I ever. I did. You know, the last one that I slipped up with was when I broke my ribs at Indy.

And I didn't tell anybody. When did you break your ribs? Well, I broke my ribs in Italy. So I went to watch Keelan race. I don't even know. I guess it was. That's right.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was last year. Yes. No, it was last year.

Retirement year. Oh, yeah. Retirement year. So I went to Italy. to, during the off week to watch Keelan race, it was raining wherever we were. And I was walking out of the cart trailer and it's got aluminum steps, buddy. I hit the first one and I landed at the bottom one. And it was rib, rib, rib, rib, all the way down, all the way down the steps.

I laid at the bottom of the steps. I'm like, oh my God. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, Italy. And I can't get off the ground. I finally got myself off the ground. I sat in the chair. And for two days, they had to pull me out of bed. They had to pull me out of the rental car.

I'm there with the 10-year-old, and he's having to take care of me because I can't get out of the car. I can't get out of bed. So you kept a secret, though. Yeah, I came back and we raced Nashville, and I knew I was in big trouble at Nashville. Didn't you hit the wall in Nashville, too? No, I didn't hit the wall at Nashville, but I hit it the next week. I hit it the next week in qualifying at Chicago. But, you know, some of those scenarios you just, I feel like, in your own situation that you just need to,

power through it and keep some of those things to yourself. But I slipped up at Indy and talked about breaking my ribs and how we had to work through the summer because I had broken my ribs in Italy on vacation. But I didn't mention it like that. I'd mentioned in my interview, well, we've had a lot of things that we had to work through this year and, you know, this, that. And then I said broken ribs. And immediately NASCAR was like, what? Who knew about this? And sending me text messages and wanting to know what had happened. And I was like, well, that's. that's long and over with. We've worked through that now.

That's what athletes do. No one wants to see someone to do their job. That kind of think athletes for everybody. If you're not going to get out of the car unless you absolutely cannot. Right. You're tough. I slipped up a little bit. Nobody should have known.

I wish I was there for this because I would have had so many videos in pictures. Yeah. The worst part was I went to do the Nashville Sim when I got home. And I couldn't, I couldn't ride in the simulator. Yeah, because that's really rough. Because it was, because it was bouncing so hard. So I had to wait a week to get in the simulator. But, I mean, we had a chance to win at Nashville.

And we got a flat tire with like 14 laps to go. So that was obviously your time at Seward House Racing, which kind of brings me to the next point, news item that came out since we had our last show. Hoss Factory team to operate one cup charter and two explaining teams next season. What do you think about all this? I think I should just put my notes on the table. because I have no idea what is happening here.

Now I'm confused, right? Is there a spat? Is there something that happened with Gene and Tony? Was Tony just fed up with not being able to do the things that he needed to do from the competition side? Because think back to this, they tried to hire Kyle Arson, tried to hire Kyle Busch. Both of those things got vetoed, one from Ford. And I don't know the ins and outs of the whole Kyle Bush thing. but I don't know.

I just, it is very odd to me. I thought, I thought front row was going to move into the, into the Haas shop, and now Haas is going to keep a charter and to Xfinity teams. So it just, it's,

it's just really weird to me that it, that it has worked out this way, that, that Gene and Joe Custer are going to, you know, going to run factory, what's it called? Factory Haas Racing.

But, you know, I think when you look back at this whole thing, this is, this is how Haas started. right it was jean hoss and joe custer and they started up hoss and they couldn't they didn't run very well so they brought in tony stewart to to bring in the notoriety and the people uh in things that they needed to do to win a championship well they brought in tony stewart they won a championship but tony brought all the people um brought in myself and rodney childers won a championship

brought in all the people and now i mean it seems to me that hey we still want a race and tony was like screw it i'm out of here i'm not going to race this way with whatever is happening and moved on in life. And now they're right back to where they started. So, you know, I think it'll be very difficult for them to run this team competitively. I'm excited. You are. Yeah, I'm excited because because it's, it's full circle moment, right? Like, they had the long run that we were both a part of in different ways. And now instead of going away, they're going to stay. And that one, I'm excited because that saves a lot of jobs. A lot of people that don't need to just be out trying to find it. There's a large, there'll be a large group of

people that will be able to be retained by But do you think they'll be able to retain the good people? Because I don't. I don't think without a marquee name like a Tony Stewart or Dana Capacrick or Ryan Newman or myself or whoever that is, I just don't see any route to retaining any of the good people. I think it depends on who's leading

the ship. I know, obviously, Joe's going to be, you know, but this is exactly how Haas Racing when it started. This is the same way that it functioned when it started. Why would they be able to keep the good people now. Do you think, I feel like it's in a different place because you're coming off of what it was of Stuart Haas versus building up, like you're pulling back. Do you think if a Rodney children stays, because people want to work for Rodney. And I feel like that, you need something like that. If it's not a driver that's bringing that, you need a crew chief that's bringing that.

That's how I feel like. Yeah, but I just, I don't, I don't see that there's any way that a Rodney Childers or somebody stays. I think there's, there's too many unknowns. I mean, we already, we, gone through a whole process where they told everybody they were leaving the sport. And now we're like, oh, just kidding. Here we come. We're going to, we're going to run a full-time cup team, and we're going to rename the team. So either there was a disagreement with everything that was happened or Tony just wanted out. But I just, I have a hard time believing that they can, they're going to be able to keep the key people around in order to be as competitive as they need to be to run up front. So let me ask you this. I'll suppose you guys is.

out with them keeping a charter. And the driver. You got, yeah. And I mean, I don't know what Riley's doing. I don't know where he's, I mean, it has to be Cole Custer. I'm assuming Cole's staying either in the train car or the cup car. Here's the part that I don't like about all of this is Cole Custer gets drug in the middle of all this stuff, right?

You know, so it's his dad running the team. And Cole does a hell of the job. Cole does a great job. He's one of all three levels. Yes. All the levels. And, you know, I just feel like that if Cole could ever break out of this whole thing with the Haas and Joe and all the family ties, like I believe he could make a, you know, a career out of this. But, you know, I think that there's just so many things, so much baggage that goes with the, with the situation right now.

But it, let's just say this. If it's going to be a one car team, it better be Cole Custer driving it. I think that if it's not. Cole Custer driving whatever that sponsor, I would assume it's going to be a Hoss automation car based upon the release. It better be Cole Custer driving it. He's the most experienced driver that you can go get. He's within all the things that are entangled into the Hoss and Joe Custer's situation. And Cole has been able to deal with it and succeed and do the things that he needs to. Cole Custer is a great race car driver. And I think that if he isn't the one driving it, it's going to frustrate it. It would frustrate me.

Okay. We'll have to continue following. the story? Who do I think? Who should drive it? Who should drive it? I think Cole should drive it. I think it will come down to how much money. He was digging on the way. We were talking about it. How much money? How much money does Gene want to spend on that on that cup car? If it's going to be good, he better spend it all. So do you want to bring, do you want to bring in someone with that has money? Or do you, you know what I mean? Like, how do you want to split that up? You know, so like? It can't be about money. When I went to Stewart Haas Racing, it was never about money. It was always, what do you

need to win. And that was the thing that Tony and his group brought, what do you need to win? And Gene Haas backed it up. And he was like, okay, whatever you need to win. If they're going to be competitive, it can't be run off a dollars and cents. It's going to have to be run off of, I'm here to fix this and I'm going to spend some of my money. Let's go. That's how you make it competitive. Three sole charters and you're backing up. There's plenty of money to make that thing go. You better back the Brinks truck up so you can keep the people. Let's run it. Because it doesn't run well. good people.

Do you think, so do you think Cole, out of all the drivers that could be available, do you think that he is the one that they should, like, straight up? Or do you think it's Cole because he's dealt with all the stuff and has earned it? Both. Okay. I think, I think that he's earned it and I think he can deal with it. And I think they better support him with a boatload of money

because you're going to have to over, overpay the people to create the foundation that you need to reestablish it. Foundations. got to have the people. And the only way you get the people is to pay them. Pay the people. Show me the money. Pay the people.

Pay your people. And he's got it. Gene Haas has got the money. Yeah. So if you're serious about it, spend the money. There you go. All right. We'll continue to follow the Haas factory team story as the season progresses.

It's your turn though. Yeah. Your segment. You're up, man. Oh boy. You got a lot of sips today. You do have quite a few on here. Yeah, we have a couple.

There's been a lot going on. socials so it was hard to pick but uh last everything's hard for you yeah welcome to mamba sips by the way Kevin just sit there and look cute um the the uh over last week uh right after the show actually the summer shootouts been going on for what this is week like three now kevin for the summer shootout yeah it's like it'll be race four but okay yeah we had a double header to start with over at charlotte bandeleros legend cars this kid named killer Killa Cam Truitt

did he won a race and the bandos was so excited and he had a great interview with Lenny Paticki and I think everybody truck drivers Exfinity Cup

could really take from this this is so big for me I've this is actually my first win but I have one thing to say it's over baby it's over first place in the book

and that's the bottom line because Killa Kamm said So somebody give me a heck, yeah. Because he just laid it out and he mixed killer cam with Stone Cold Steve Austin. He's like, because Killer Cam said so at the end. It was so great. It was awesome.

So Killer Cam, he's around all the time. So I know him pretty well. And he is the hardest working, greatest kid. He sells all of his own sponsors, calls him all. Does everything itself. His dad is awesome because he makes him do all these things. and he is all in. Killer Cam is all in.

And that was an epic speech. It was. It was amazing. I know. It was one of the best. Great kid though. I love that. Yeah.

So Killer Cam. Bright future. It sounds like ahead for him. Keep doing your thing. Also over the, I don't know when exactly this happened, but T. Payne. Who Kevin didn't know who that was.

Is he in pain? No, he's not in pain. He's a rapper, Kevin. Oh, I got. That's his rap name. Yeah. I didn't know. So T Payne, he's actually an amazing singer.

But he's a great artist all around. and produce all the things. He's been around the racetrack a little bit, and now he's getting into the drifting. And his first drift event didn't go that well, but he recently won a drift event. He got excited when he saw it was. Yeah, it was at Kern.

Is that Kern? Is that Kern at your train? Yeah. So T-Pain is out here drifting and won. Who knew? And he was so excited. I thought that was cool. And T-Pain.

If you want to keep messing up on motorsports, come on over. We got some things to show you. Yeah, and we also have our in-house singer. Oh, geez. Maybe we could butt me. Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

We're going to get you to sing the national anthem at some point, somewhere. Maybe so. What's your song? What's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your song. Like, if you're going to audition for. I was going to audition. Yeah. What would you sing?

Good question. Probably something by, like, Adele or Lady Gaga. Oh, wow. It's like, she's got a powerful voice. Yeah. That's big time. Yeah. You sing?

Do I sing? Yeah. Not well. I sing happy birthday really well. Okay. My birthday. My karaoke song is roses by outcasts. Really?

Rose by outcasts. Okay. I sang, I sang karaoke one time. What did you sing? Madonna. Don't you have a good voice? No.

I thought you did. No. God, no. You thought he had a good voice? He sang one day in here for like a second. What song by Madonna is this? Material Girl. Can you give us a line?

No. No. He was close to doing it. It was the most Devo version of Material Girl. girl that you've ever heard. Sounds like we need to go to a karaoke bar. We can figure out of them. Yeah.

Too close to home. You're going to have to go way further away from home. Might be somebody there we know. Just bucket shop and Montford. Nope. Too close. Okay, fine. We'll figure it out.

Different state. Also, John Forrest, legend and NHRA. Don't even need to, everyone knows who that is. And if you don't, you can just Google him because he's that guy. Scary wreck this weekend. This is why I think. Those drivers that run NHRA Nitro series, just drag racing in general, are top when it comes to just the brass balls to do what they're doing. Like it's out of control.

So basically in John's car, the engine's in front and it exploded right in front of him. And John's like 70. He's in the 70s now. 75, I believe. Which is crazy. And still is as much energy. But it exploded in front of him. hits the outside wall or crosses the lane, hits one wall, comes back, hits the other wall,

gets out on his own power, he was alert, they take him to the medical center, and then I think to the hospital after. And so we just wanted to wish him a happy recovery, a good recovery. Yes, he's a legend in drag racing, just as a person in general. And we hope him well. Yeah, obviously thinking about him and his family. Absolutely. So that was Mamba Sips.

Thank you guys very much for joining. No. Well, yeah, but no, I didn't miss it. We're just rolling into the burn. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So, because that's its own kind of little special. Yeah.

It's on a little spot. So, uh, this one was kind of weird. Because he's on the, it was pretty good, I thought. Yeah, he's on the treaded tires, but like I felt like they blew out immediately when he started spinning them. And I'm like, I don't. Yeah, but it was great smoke up until that point.

Yeah. And I have a feeling that the rain type. were probably about out of tread anyway. And when he started, when he started lighting those back tires up, I mean, it was instant, big time smoke because obviously the racetrack was dry. The tires were hot, but they had some massive grip, but for a very short amount of time. So we're giving it a what? Yeah.

What do you say? You know, I think, I think it's a middle tier burnout just because of the longevity. Middle tier. Yeah. It was, it was short. Yeah. I think it was good smoke, but didn't last very long. So we're going to, we're going to sell.

I'd just give it a C. A C? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, Swalich was an F. This was a C. That was a zero.

Yeah. I think, but I think in Bell's defense, I mean, it's tough to, to be able to do a burnout on rain tires. So we're going to, we're going to number that out. We'll number it like a 7.2. Yeah. I mean, we give, we give letter grades. We give number grades.

We just give grades upon comments. We don't really have a system, so we just do whatever. Well, here's the problem. If it's just letters, once it's A&A, like, we got a difference rate. Most of the young kids don't even have a letter system for their grades anymore. Oh, really? Yeah. It's like a one, two, three, four, five.

What? Yeah. It's, don't even get me started. Are you going to do a big burnout at five fives? No, no. No burnouts. I own the car. I don't want to pay for the axles.

Excited for this line? I am. You kind of mentioned it a little bit. I'm a little bit nervous to be honest with you. Really? Yeah. I think, um, going back to be competitive and do it in something that it's not like we're going to a slouch race either.

I think I picked the wrong race to go to, but I'm going to have fun. Even if I run last, we're still going to have fun because I'm stepping outside of the box, which is something I heard Chase Elliott talk about many years ago when he went to the Chili Bowl to just step outside of that box outside of your comfort zone a little bit. And remember that you're a retired race car driver going to have fun. Both our guys are racing this weekend. Your buddy Clint. Oh, I can't wait.

He's racing. I hope for him. I hope there's some sort of crazy story. He's going to be on the show next week. So we're going to get the full recap of what we did this weekend. What is your expectations? What's your expectations for Clint? Because he isn't really racing.

I think he's going to do good. I think you guys underestimate, especially there. I think a lot of people will underestimate Clint. So hopefully he does well. I will remind people that when Greg Bivel came back to the truck series, oh, yeah. After nothing, he just came in and spanked him. He did.

Real quick, before we, because I know we're getting to the end, though, rain hit this weekend, and I didn't bring this up, that goes in my plus column because it affected the race. We're getting closer to the over, under. For Kevin's dinner. For the dinner that you're going to have to owe me at the end of the season. So basically, I should just commit to buying dinner. I mean, do you want to go to dinner?

Is that what you're asking me? Are you asking me to dinner? I mean, I'll take you to dinner. I mean, I'll take you to dinner after the last show. What about me? You can go to. We'll take everybody. All right, guys.

Time now for the last call. And as I mentioned, we're going to Nashville this weekend. I'm going to go first. I'm going with Josh Barry, riding the momentum from this week. I don't know. I'm going with last year's winner, Ross Chastain. Okay. I think it's hometown.

A lot of people. It's kind of a different racetrack. I don't think they've run as good as they need to run. But he's just been. knocking out decent finishes. And I think that this, this, this racetrack is unique enough to get somebody like Ross in contention to win. Okay. There you go.

I'm going to go with Alex Bowman and Blake Harrison, the 48 ally. There you go. LAT. It's there. It's their race weekend. It's their allies race weekend. Up until this weekend and even this weekend, he was running in the top 10. I think he has, he was tied for the most top 10s of the season with like seven or eight.

So, and he was running in the top 10 when they had their issues. So I think it's time for them to get a win. It is definitely time. The Ally 400 with the 48. Only thing it worries me about that 48, we saw the Gibbs cars go through this with their engines. So hopefully it's an isolated situation, but we'll see. Yeah. It's hard to tell until you see the next week, right?

Yeah. And sometimes those valve spring issues kind of creep into all the teams because sometimes they use some of the similar valve spring. Do you think the shifting has something to do with that? Oh, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that goes into it as to where they ran a scenario of the motor. Yeah. Lots of different things. So we just, I'm just mentioning it just to keep an eye on it. Just to keep an eye on it.

And you referenced Joe Gibbs Racing. Obviously, we're the ones that had the engine. As you said, your guest this week is a JGR guy, Mr. Chris Gay Park coming on the show. That's exciting. It is exciting. And I love to, after we had Cliff Daniels, it was very intriguing to hear him talking. And I think Chris will be very much the same way. Very intelligent, very well-spoken, and knows and has been around racing for a long time.

So I can't wait to hear stories. Leaders of men. You know, Cliff Daniels, and now Chris Gabbart, love that. Neither too. All right. It's been a great show. Everyone keeps subscribing on YouTube wherever you get your podcast. Leave a five-star review.

And we will see you after Nashville.