Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Happy Hour Awards Show! Craziest Finish, Biggest Story, Driver of the Year, and more!

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

On the final episode of ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’ for the 2024 season, Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith recap the biggest moments from the year in the first ever ‘Happy Hour Awards Show!’ The crew reveals the winner of six awards: Best Word of the Week, Best Viral Moment, Best Burnout, Craziest Finish, Biggest Story, and Driver of the Year. Then, they react to who the fans voted for each award. Be sure to tune in next year!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's like I tell my son all the time. If you'd like to see all my trophies and come help me clean him off, feel free to come on by. Epic response. You said that to Kevin. Absolutely. Oh, my God. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Art, presented by NASCAR and Fox for the very last time this year.

That's hard to believe. Yeah. This is Caitlin Bincey and Mamba Smith, 75. Can you believe that? Episodes. You've been busy. I don't know. Because we weren't on all 75.

And, you know, I had absolutely no plan. I'm doing 75 podcast episodes, but this is. Here we are. This is just an example. Be careful what you wish for. You wish for a podcast. They gave you a damn podcast. They sure did.

It's been fun, guys. It's been a blast. It's been a blast. You know, I think it's been one of those years where I've learned a lot just because of the fact that you're so in tune with the sport in a much different way. As a competitor, you kind of sit behind the curtain and are able to not pay attention to everything. Right. And here you have to pay attention to everything because if you don't, you look stupid. Stupid. Foolish. Yeah. And, you know, we've looked foolish a couple times, but, you know,

I think that's, that's part of the game. And what we do. And sometimes you have an opinion, that's right. Not, not, not, doesn't work out. But that's okay. Yeah. We were joking before the show that we've maybe changed some rules even through this, through this show to the, to the conversation. To the conversation. Yes. I love the conversation. I love where the points conversation. has gone. I think it's, you know, it's an interesting scenario with everything that that has happened with the way that the Final Four looked this year. And Lugano talking about, you know, I don't think anything is wrong.

And then you got the old school fans who want to go back to 1955 and race for Winston Cup points. And so, you know, you can ever go all the way back. You don't unlearn what you know. And we know that this format is exciting. But it's, you know, it's interesting to see what that balance is between points, excitement, entertainment, and all the things to go with it. And, you know, when we went to this, the fans were obviously up in arms that, oh, we've got to have some sort of format that's not so boring. And now they all want to go back. It's kind of like going from a mile and a half to short track.

So it's just funny how the world cycles around that way. That point is crazy to me. Like, I think we're just to a point where people forgot why we changed. to what we have. Yeah. And I'm like, no, you really don't. Yeah. You really don't want it.

Like, because every time we have a long race, every time the race is like, someone's dominating. And if you look at Jeff Gluck's poll, was this a good race? They say no. Yeah. That's true. So don't tell me that that's what you want because it's really not where you want. But like, hey, what do I know?

Can't please everybody. No. It just can't. That is a fact. That is a fact. But it's been a fun year. As you mentioned, 75 episodes. Today is a very special edition of the show.

It is our first ever happy hour award. award show. So basically we have the winner of six different awards that were determined by us. So we will reveal our winner as well as the closers winners because you guys voted on social media for the fan votes as well. And I know you have some special Sips today also. But before we get to the awards, I know you guys want to talk a little bit about what you have going on in the offseason. Kevin, you especially have some cool things, right? We do. Yeah. We were we we're going to race a lot more. I'm going to race like 15 times next year in the in the pro late model and the late model. We're going to kick it off January 25th at Kern Raceway in California. I'm going to run the first super late model race of the cars tour west out there. So that'll be how I kick my season

off the week before we have to go to Bowman Gray. So I'm excited about that. How many races are you going to do before the end of the year? I'm not doing any. How many races are you going to go to before the end? I'm going to go to a lot of races. Keelan is going to race the limited late model for the first time this weekend at Florence on Friday night. And then obviously Dale Jr. will race the late model stock and that Budweiser number eight for the first time. So that's going to be pretty cool. Florence has been such a, you know, kind of a staple of late model stock racing throughout the years. And those guys have done a great job of creating this great event at the end of the year, year after year. I think there's 56 late models and like 30 limited late models probably be a couple dozen

legend cars. It'll be a great weekend. And I think that's the part that people don't understand when you're not from the East Coast. You don't really understand how many races are actually available to go do. We're going to race every weekend except for the two weeks of Christmas

and then you start again January 3rd. So it just never ends and there's always somewhere to race. Elena must be stoked about that. She's super excited. Totally stoked. We should do a happy hour current race fight. trip. I'm down.

That'd be fun. Go watch him. We could have like the, we could have like the first podcast at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace out there. There you go. On the road. You see. Happy Hour on the road. And I sing. She can sing. She can sing. You can sing well. Yeah. What's your favorite song to sing? What's my favorite song to sing? I don't know if I have a favorite necessarily. But I like singing Chris Stapleton songs. I know that sounds strange because that's a male vocalist. But his songs sound really good with a female voice. I think we should go and have Caitlin sing.

Maybe so. I just want to go watch Kevin race. That too. I'll do karaoke. You could be the pit road reporter. I'll be the pit road cheerleader. Yeah, cheerleader. The prolete.

I'm surprised he didn't have champagne for the award show here. He tried to get me to dress in a tux. Yeah. Absolutely not. If he's not going to go out, you bought some new shoes just in just. I will say the laces are freaking cool on this thing. What do you think that's all about?

I don't know, but I like it. And it's the fact that they're on your feet. That's just surprising. Delana texted us about that. I think it's surprising that these shoes are on my feet? Yeah. It's like fuzzy laces. Fuzzy laces.

Winter. Yeah, I like that. Related did text us a box. Yeah. That showed up a house. And was like, really. I just blame it on you guys. That's fair.

Because I am not a part of this. This is you too. I got a Christmas gift this morning when Kevin got to the studio. Let's rephrase that because we don't want Caitlin to get jealous. Oh, yeah. You didn't bring me again? Exactly. See?

We'll hurt her feelings. We don't want her feelings hurt before we even get the show started. Choose that fit me perfectly. Oh, that's nice. Me too are cute. Offs season is going to be good. Are you doing anything? You got anything planned?

Nope. I literally have nothing. So I'm just going to just chill, I think. That's the way it's going to be. There may be some things. We have to go to the award show this week for NASCAR. What is that? Friday night.

Yeah. I'm just kidding. He's like he really probably doesn't know. He's doing whatever Kevin Hubbard does. Exactly. No. Time so. Yeah.

That's right. But this is the real award show, what we're doing right here. And you get to go first with the very first category. All right. As the last time you were first. We're just going to let that one. Let that lie. All right, ladies and gentlemen, the first category is best word of the week.

Now, Kevin did a pretty solid job. I love this. Look at this. It looks like the Oscars. Yes. I'm very impressed with the graphics. Thank God we have good people behind it. I know. I know. They actually speak of good people. They actually made us a whole little clip of all the words of the week.

Oh, even better. I can't wait for this. Let's run the tape one more time. Tyler Reddick, yeated Corey Hahn right out of the way right there. Don't be doing any capping right here, Mike. No, no capping. He was like, man, I want all the smoke right here. And we all know he's as cool as the other side of the pillow. He's one of those crew chiefs that just, he's got that dog in him playing. He's just in there digging all the time. We have not solved the enigma. Inigma. You got me. You know, the weather has created quite the enigma with track conditions.

That car is Fugazi for the rest of the day. It's what? What? Fugazi. Done. Beyond repair. You don't want to come on the pit road and bumble the bag and make all the mistakes. Kyle Larson, yeah, he's him.

There was definitely a huge hula, l'boula boule about Kyle Larson's roof rail and everything that he had going on. We got quite the kerfuffle right there. Quite the what? What did you say? Curfuffle. All right, buddy. Well, that Columbia camera, it looks pretty lit today. So floor that thing. You're too old to be talking. Yeah, and as I listen to that, I think Cliff is sitting on the pit box just thinking, you know what, boys? Today, I'm just going to let him cook. Oh, so many good ones. Oh, my God. Bula blue. I really blew that one. Enigma.

That was so great. You digs good, though. My favorite part about the whole thing is after Mike really got into it, it was, he knows every word, every meaning, every syllable of anything that I can possibly say. So as soon as I would screw it up and he'd be, I'd screw it up and he'd be like, what? That's not how you say that. So great. You got to start coming up already with words for next season. I know.

I'm going to need your help so we can do this. It's going to be here before you know it. Listen, and your winner. Wait, what? Nominees first. Oh, wait, wait, sorry. I almost messes up. We knew that was going to happen.

Dominique. Lit. kerfuffle. Yeat. And got that dog in him. That's right. I know what I picked. I know what I picked.

And your winner is... Oh, not what I picked. Yes. Let's go. So I picked lit. I picked lit as well. And I'm going to tell you why I picked lit. I picked lit because this silly little game started at the beginning of the year.

And I was like, oh, my God. I'm going to look like a complete idiot. And everybody thought it was fun. And the more I looked like an idiot, the better it was. Well, but it was, yeah. But Litt was the first one, and that was kind of the word that kicked the whole thing off. And I said, you know, you just can't go against your first.

Yeah. It's just not possible. Can't forget your first, as they say. Well, I picked kerfuffle just because I thought that was a squirism kind of. Yeah. I thought, man, is there really, I can't believe he actually said that word. I couldn't believe it. And got it out of his mouth correctly.

He did a great job. We started with all these urban words, these newer words. Yes. And I picked Litt because the reaction from Bubba, I think, just like, like kind of like was cherry on top. And then I didn't realize this, but you talked to Ross like the next week or something.

And Ross was like, Kevin, I heard you were talking about being late. I'm not that. Like, he has talked about that whole thing. It was creating like a whole conversation in the entire garage area

after each word, which was, I can't wait for it to be back. He just, we just got to hope that we don't eat his ass off the show. Yeah, we'll try not to do that. Yeah,

let's see who the fans voted for. Who the closers pick? Oh, yes. Oh, look at that. Oh, really? Totally. Got that dog in him. Listen, we were... Forty-three percent.

We, Kevin, technically we lost. By a lot. By a lot. Yeah. Seven percent said lit. 33. I think that just kind of goes with the age bracket that that probably voted. Got that dog in him was good though.

Got that dog in him's pretty young. You said it like very confidently when you did that one. That one was early on too, I think. Yeah. That's okay. That's okay. Yeah. That's the good part about it being our show.

We could be, we can have seven. percent of the vote and still win. That's right. Okay, very good. Love it. Can't wait for... Like a typical voting. Yeah. 2025 words. Can't wait to see them. All right. Here is the next award, and this one has some very interesting selections.

It was the best viral moment. There were some really good ones to choose from, I might add. Look at this one. Yeah, more fun graphics. The curtain opening. Just love this. I'm all in on this right now. Okay, guys, so here were the nominees.

Who could forget this? Ricky Stenhouse Jr. versus Kyle Bush, the fight, of course, that took place, that we will never forget that one. Michael Jordan and Tyler Reddick celebrating after Tyler clinches his spot in the championship four. Good choice there. Jeff Burton,

watching his son Harrison win the race from the booth, which was very cool. And then Hendrick Motorsport celebrates its 40th anniversary of the team's first victory at Martinsville. That was a pretty cool viral moment. Yeah. Okay. As well. So those were the nominees. I have this lovely card here that C.J. Wolliver did these for us, which they turned out great.

We need a drum roll. We do need a drum roll. I try it. I got my vote counted. Ricky Sinhaus Jr. versus Kyle Bush is who we agreed on. Right, guys? That's who I voted for. No.

You didn't? No. I do love this moment. It was amazing and it went everywhere, but the Jeff Burton almost punching Lee Diffy in the head. Yeah. The call, the whole thing for the Burns, I love that. But this was probably the right. Well, this was twofold because he had the fight, but then you had Bob Pockris' epic involvement in the whole thing, right?

That is definitely, you know, the face that Bob wound up making and going viral with and now is just a part of his social media platform. But that moment, it's just one of those moments that was not like any other moment because of the fact that Ricky was locked into the racetrack and all waiting behind the holler. Right. Post it up. The shorts. Kevin love the shorts. Yeah. I'm still not a fan of the shorts, though. No.

Yeah. Have you told him that to his face yet? Okay. And he's aware. That I could basically go fly. That's basically what he told me. There you have it. In Mississippi turns, I was probably differently said. And Jason White, big country, just yeating guys off the back of the truck.

Oh, yeah. That part was amazing. He was definitely just keeping the back of that tailgate clear. And big country is a big man. They don't get a name big country For no reason. For no reason. And it was like swat and flies for him, not hard.

Swat and flies. They were in a kerfuffle. They were in a big kerfuffle. Okay, but you didn't vote for it. You were more on the Burton train. I do like that as well. I just thought it was really awesome. And the Michael Jordan Tyler Reddick thing

was pretty awesome too. There were a lot of great moments throughout the years. The fans vote for it. I don't know. Let's take a look. Fans, closers, who all did you pick for the most viral, best viral moment. Looks like, yep, they agreed with us.

57% are on Stenhouse, Kyle Bush, the lowest group voting for, oh, the Michael Jordan, only 7%. Well, I'm surprised. I'll take a P2. Yes, P2 was Momba selection for the Burton family moment.

I'm okay with that. That's cool. Yeah. All right. Kevin. Kevin, Bob. This is your turn. You know, I think as we go to the third one here,

this one was a, it's, it wound up being more difficult to judge the burnouts than I really thought it was going to be. I could tell because you gave everyone the same grade. Yeah. And it's really hard to, it's hard to grade the burnouts because every track is a little bit different. Every moment is a little bit different of how they, how they either put it on TV or how you do it.

So let's go into the best burnout and see our wonderful curtain unfold right there for best burnout. The first one was SVG at Sonoma, the second one. One was Joey Lagano after the All-Star race, which I thought was fantastic because it rattled the windows in the booth. And Joey Legano, again, after the championship race. So, solid choices. I think you have, we had some, we had some pretty good, I think the unique part about this is SVGs obviously being an Xfinity race. The storyline behind the SVG epic, the epic scenario that that was created. Yeah. With the, with the, with the, with the

drifting and everything that went with it. We had to put it in the category. So best burnout. Let's see who the winner is. SVG at Sonoma. Did we all agree on that? Three for three? Okay.

There you had it. Here it is. This is amazing. When I thought about it, I had to because all the elements of Austin Hill, flipping them off and beat each other up for the win, like, had to do it. Yeah. And just the way that that whole thing unfolded and, you know, you, you, you know, you, you had to go back and look at the bird hanging out the window and the burnout right next to the car.

And we didn't show it right there. But he followed him all the way back to pit road and just kind of, yeah, just kind of hounded him all the way back to pit road. And then once he went on to pit lane, went to the front straightaway and did his burnout. So that was definitely, that was one of the more unique moments of the burnout that I've ever seen. The only way that I think you could have beat that is if it was like Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman at Martinsville a few years ago when they locked horns for a minute and Denny like and they would know that's like the only way because that was just so beautiful. It was good. And I think if, you know, if Bowman would have had his finger hanging out the window

flipping off Hamlin. That would have been great. Or Hamlin had, that would have just made it that would have made it that much better. Let's see if the fans agreed with us because the fans have Yeah. They did. Yeah. Overwhelming. It was a no-brainer. It was like the election this year. Yeah. 81% I guess. I think it's, you know, it's like we talked. You have to have those, all the stories that go along with it. The fans have seen so many burnouts and so many Joe Lugano burnouts and donuts. When it has something unique that goes along with it and you can kind of hound your competitor, as you said.

Makes it a little more interesting. It does. Now we're challenging all the competitors for next year to come up with something cool and different. Let's see if they can't start stepping up. What would you do? What would you do? What would I do? I don't know.

I always thought that if I won another race, I would climb the fence like Tony did. Yeah. I don't know. You got to come up with something you need. Your foot's bad, and you don't know if you can make it to the top. I mean,

but the old Achilles is still a little tender. Wouldn't you put the, wouldn't you put the walking boot back on? I don't. I'm done with the walking. Oh, you're done. Yeah, yeah. It's all healed?

Ah, I think we're like 80% healed. Okay. Yeah, it's still good. Have any other injuries. So your celebration would be like a, maybe you do like a little limp. Maybe I want. You know what I would do?

Yeah. I would do. I did it across the stage with my Arker race when I did the at the start. I would do the stanky leg. I'd get out of the car. Oh, my heavens. Stanky leg on the roof. That'd be awesome.

Yeah. That'd be great. When Keelan won it at Dominion, he said, Dad, if I win today, I want to stand on my, on the roof of my car and fake an injury like Lane Riggs. That's my boy. Oh, my God. So he stood on the car. He stood on the car and acted like he was, like, he was hurt like, Lane Riggs. was. I don't even know what was hurt on Lane.

His arm. Throw his shoulder out. That's right. Keele came off the top of the car holding his shoulder. Like he was throwing his shoulder out. Fantastic. That's funny. Kids are created. They are.

Next, our next award is the craziest finish. Okay. We had a lot of really good finishes. Sure did. There was a lot of close ones. Xfinity and Cup, to be honest. So let's see who are who are, nominees are.

We got Kyle Larson beats Christopher Bell Christopher Boucher by 0.001 at Kansas, which I know the 17 which I had that one back because that's the one that got away for sure.

Daniel Swares beats not only Ryan Blaney but also Kyle Bush at Atlanta when there are three wide looking like cars, the movie, coming across the start-finish line. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. beats Brad Kislauski by

0.006 at Talladega. And then Austin Tilling wrecks his way to Victory Lane at Richmond. And he just did what he had to do. I find this to be the most difficult category to vote on because all of those finishes are pretty spectacular in their own way. And, you know, if one of those finishes didn't have the other three, it would be. It'd still be just as spectacular. But can you imagine that we had all that in one year? And the honorable mention of Ryan Sieg losing to Sam Mayer in Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. That was also amazing. So. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, your craziest finish goes to Austin Dillon with another W at Richmond. Let's go. I listen.

It was. It really was. I picked it. Got that one. One, two. Got that one. I mean. Moving through.

Did we all pick this one? I did not. Oh, you didn't? Would you choose? No, I picked Kyle Larson because I thought it was the most authentic. It was. Hardcore racing finish that we had it of the year. Swares, beating Blaney.

Eh, you know, it was exciting, but it was a Super Speedway. Stenhouse, Keselowski at Talladega, Super Speedway, Austin Dillon. He won kind of a wrecking ball type moment. I just picked Larson over Busher just because of the fact I thought it was the most authentic. I feel that. Also, before we see what the fans voted for, if you didn't notice, there's a 22 car that was leading the race coming through three and four. That would have been win number six if he actually was able to make the start-finish line.

Who'd add six on the season. Anyway. Little note there. Fans, closers. Let's see what you got. Yeah. What did they think? There you go.

They went with you. They agreed with you. Not by a huge margin. I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, it's just hard to get off of people train. Yeah, don't worry. I got something for your train here in a little bit. 44%. But I think that that shows.

I think when you look at the Austin Dillon at Richmond being second, it really shows that, I mean, that was one that you could go in four different directions on your argument of what you thought was the best finish of the year. That was pure racing, the Larson. Yeah. Just pure racing. Nothing altered. Everyone was just.

And I'm super happy that the fans actually did vote that one because of the fact They're picking the pure racing one, not the fabricated drama one. There you go. Okay. Well, speaking of drama, that leads me right to the next category, which was the biggest story of the year. And there's some really good ones to choose from for this nomination category. So the first one, we talked about this for quite some time because it was announced pretty early on in the goings. The closure of Stuart Haas Racing is the first nominee.

Kyle Larson attempting the double, of course, was a huge, huge story when that was unfolding. 2311 suing NASCAR. This story still isn't over. Could probably be the biggest story in 2025 too. And then 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Shrix Jr. announcing his retirement. So those were the nominees. I know what the fans are going to pick already.

You do? You do? Yeah. Okay. Here's what we got. This is what we agreed on, supposedly. 2311 sues NASCAR. Yes.

I did you pick that? Yes. I didn't. No. You didn't. I picked. Did you pick five? I picked Larsen doing the double.

Okay. Right. Well, I just thought for the scope of the sport that that was a big deal because it's going to continue on, like we said for some time. And we've never seen anything like that in the history of sport, which is why I went with it. When you look at the 2311 front row motorsports NASCAR lawsuit, I mean, it's happening today. Present time. And it's going to be a story as we go through the offseason into the winter. And everything that you've seen so far, it doesn't look like there's a lot of momentum on the team.

side, it looks to me like if they're going to keep battling down this road, they're going to wind up racing as open teams, which is going to create a story for a scenario where one of their cars could possibly miss the Daytona 500 or any race throughout the year if you have enough open cars. And whether taking this stance with Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan and his team and the front row team, does that move the needle to make anything better for anything else? So it's, it's, it's such a bold move that we have never seen it to this magnitude in the sport. And I think that they obviously, the teams, those two teams feel like that they're, that they're fighting for something that could change the path of, of what they believe the sport should look like as a team owner.

So it's, there's so many things in so many directions that this story could go. It's, to me, it was, it was definitely the biggest thing that happened. It's definitely, it's definitely probably the biggest thing that happened, but I was like, let me keep it more on the racetrack. Like, what was the biggest story on the racetrack? And I think, and then I started thinking about what the double also created. It created that whole conversation. It did, yeah.

With Larson versus Max, that's, again, still going on. And we got so much hate for that whole conversation. But, like, people have been using that clip that we had on this show. was who's better? And that's where I feel like that's where a lot of this stem from. I think too, it brought so many new eyes. You know, NASCAR fans over to that side and vice versa, which was cool because it was

more of a cohesive motor sports moment, if you will. And he had a child actually winning. Like that was the other thing. And I think that that motor sports moment is really what it's all about. And then it became the story of Kyle not making a lap in the Coca-Cola 600

at Charlotte Motor Speedway to be able to finish his NASCAR season, which ultimately, ultimately this moment right here with Kyle Arson and not running the Coke 600 cost him the regular season championship and probably a bid to the final four. Yeah, hard to believe. I mean, yeah. That will, again, theoretically. You know, I think, I think if he wins the regular season championship, he missed the,

he missed the playoffs by the final four by seven points. Yeah. So, you know, if he comes back and starts the Coke 600 and does all those things, probably in the final four. Not for nothing, but that will once again be a story as well. In 2025, we know that. And I think that they,

you know, Jeff Gordon made it pretty clear as to how that was going to go if it happens again. Yeah. I think that there's another story, right? Like as we go through the off season, do we need the waivers?

Is your win the waiver? When is the waiver? When is the waiver? I mean, that's what I believe. The win is the waiver. And the waiver conversation has gone away as we've gone through

so many stories towards the end of the year. But I'm still of the opinion that the waiver needs to stay away as we go through the end of the year, into the next season. So it's when is the waiver? When is the waiver? Love that. That's right. Speaking of winning, what did the closers think?

Who was their winner for the biggest story of the year? All right, they agreed with Kevin and I, 51% saying the 2311 suing NASCAR story. Next was SHR closing down with 29%. I'm actually a little surprised by how many people went with the SHR one? Yeah, well, it's just such a... As we've gone through the year, and I've been fortunate to interview a lot of great guests on this show, you really see who moves the needle. And I think we all forget how much Tony Stewart moves the needle.

Moves the needs. Tony Stewart moves a needle on people that are listening and paying attention, and the things that he says carry a lot of. weight and are very impactful. And when Tony Stewart is getting out of the ownership side of NASCAR, that's a pretty big moment. And I think that when you look at that, you really see the impact that Tony has on the racing world with the things that he says. And oh, congratulations. Daddy. Daddy smoke. Daddy smoke. Tony Stewart and his wife had a had their baby over over the Dominic James Stewart.

They kept that Jay and the James part in there. I can't wait. Once they get their feet on the ground, I'm going to visit. I just, I have to see this with my own two eyes. The baby? Well, the baby. And I want to see dad holding the baby. I know I know mom's going to be a great mom.

And I know Tony's going to be a great dad, but I just have to visually see him hold the baby. And I have to, I just want to be there long enough for it to crap its pants. And he has to change the diaper. That's fair. That's fun. Everyone wants to see Tony have to change a diaper. That's basically what.

Yeah. Moral of the story. If I can, if we can somehow convince him to go in the car and we can take the baby somewhere by ourselves and it happened in the car, that'd be better. It would be way better.

Yeah. You know. Just setting him up for failure. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. It's not failure. It's the experience.

There are no real failures. You're going to have multiple failures as a parent. That's just part of the process. But what a fantastic. What a fantastic scenario that for him to be a dad is something that I'm super excited about. So congratulations to Tony and Leah. Yes, agreed. Congratulations all around.

All right. You got the final category, Mr. Kevin. Yes, we have the final category, which is Driver of the Year. And we have what we think are the top four nominees for the driver of the year. Our first one, we talk about a lot on this show with, is Kyle Larson. Had a fantastic season and pretty much everything

that he drove. Tyler Reddick had a great year, regular season champion. Joey Legano was our season ending champion and with what I would consider a great comeback to the way that they started the season to wind up in Victory Lane at the last race

and as the NASCAR Cup Series champion. And Ryan Blaney had the momentum, won the penultimate race at Martinsville leading into the championship race had the fastest car. Definitely. At the championship race

and in a position to become a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion came up a little bit short to his teammate. So... Good choices there. Let's... This was the hardest one for me. I'm not going to lie.

Really? Yeah. It was not for me. Yeah. Well, I think that we might be surprised to each other picks. I know, maybe. Let's find out who the choice is

for these three chairs. That's my guy. Al Larson. That's who I picked. That's who I picked. is not who I picked. Ooh, I am surprised. I did not pick Joe Lugano.

I did not pick Kyle Larson. I picked Joey Lugano. Yep. And I picked Joey Lugano because I thought Joey Lugano was the best driver over the last 10 weeks. I don't believe that. It says of the year, though, not the last 10 weeks. Yeah, but in the end, Joey Ligano was the best driver of the year because he took a complete crap car.

with his team and turned it into a championship winning car by the time they got to the end of the year. And every moment that they had, they capitalized on to put themselves in position to win a championship and left with the trophy, the check, everything that they had. You know, and that's hard to do. When your team is off, the best drivers shine. Yeah. And they get back to the top quicker than the guys who don't know anything about their car and can't communicate with their team. well. And you heard him get out of that car at the end of the year and he said, I may not be the best driver, but I have the best team. And sometimes the best team is better

than the best driver. I, yeah, that is true. Best driver is your guy. The best driver doesn't always win and typically they don't. But so I went with Larson. Yep. Because and I was Tyler, our producer Tyler is texting. He's like, I need an answer. I'm like, I don't know. It's one of these two. I really, I don't know. I was throwing a ball over myself about this one because. So you were Stalin to try to vote for Blaney. I was, but I couldn't. I didn't have enough wins. I needed the championship to say Blaney.

Because if he would have had finished off Phoenix like he did, Martin's Real, I think I would have put him there because those are two like high-end elite performances. Larson missed winning the regular season championship because he missed a race. He gave everybody one full race and still almost won the championship. Like I just had a good run. and, you know, it didn't work out for them. But I just felt like overall, he did so many things out of character, out of the normal scope that I'm like, I can't not give it to him,

even though I really wanted to give it to Joey. Yeah. I did too. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's tough because, you know, Lugano won the championship and Kyle Larson won everything, did everything, everything but the championship, right? Like he did, he, and we've talked about it here. I mean, we believe he's the best driver in the world.

Right. Kyle Larson is best, but there's just, there's more layers to winning championships than just being the best driver. Do you think if he, if he won the regular season championship, would you have picked him to, as your best driver? Like, if he doesn't win the actual championship, no, that's not enough to make it. No, because it's so difficult, it's so difficult to take a, a slow car and figure out with your team how to make it faster throughout this season. That is his experience. That is experience in the shop. That is communication.

That is performing on the racetrack, taking advantage of your situation, surviving to keep yourself in the game. Those guys, I mean, look at, there was at one point where we didn't think they were going to make the playoffs. They were terrible. Absolutely horrible.

You went to Phoenix and almost ran last, Lugano and his team. And so to prevail through those types of scenarios are really what make those multiple-time champions. And there are a lot of guys that come into this sport that are fast. And the guys that know how to problem-solve are going to be better than the guys that are just fast. So I guess I didn't evaluate it the same as you because you were basing off of the playoffs. I was more looking at the whole body of work of Kyle Larson as a driver the entire season. All the different style tracks they were able to win on.

Of course, as we documented what he did in other racing series, I just felt like he really elevated himself as a competitor this year. So that's why I went with him as my driver of the year. But I see your point. I see all the points here. It was a tough category. That's a tough category. It is a tough category.

I also love it because this system and the whole thing, because we don't have this conversation if largely just dog walks him. Yeah. Like everyone thinks he was going to. Yeah. Well, let's see what the fans thought. Yes. Who do they agree with?

This is going to be interesting. Hmm, 63%. That's not very surprising because a lot of people were very upset. They're very emotional about these Joey Lugano championship. So I'm not very shocked that they didn't. They didn't want to give them credit for winning the All-Star race. Joey didn't even get second. No.

He almost got last. Right is 1%. You know what's crazy about that? Blaney is 1% on that voting 1% lower than the champion who won five races. Yes. I think that's a little. Well, I think it's very difficult for people to understand, you know, that driver communication. That driver is an asset to the team to help with the direction of the problem.

And when you, let's just take the Hendrit cars, for example, those guys fired off at the beginning of the year and spent the first half of the year, taking turns dominating winning races and running up front. When you look at the end of the year, William Byron's not as fast compared to the competition. Kyle Arson is not as fast compared to the competition. Now, Kyle Arson was in position to capitalize on some things, but he wasn't, the speed of the cars was not what it was at the beginning half of the year. And I think a lot of that is just the driver communicating with the team to say, we need this, we need this, we need this, we need this.

I like this decision. I don't like this decision. And it's not that Kyle Arson's crew chief doesn't believe in him because Cliff and Kyle have a great relationship. But how can you keep moving the needle? And sometimes it's hard to be the leader. Okay, well, how far do we need to move the needle? Do we need to keep pushing? And I know they didn't let their guard down, but they just didn't push as hard as, you know, the other guys had to push because they weren't as far behind. They were ahead. And sometimes that's the hard part about being the leader in the clubhouse is you don't have to push anymore. Which is also why

that little, if you win the regular season and you go all the caveat. That little, that little caveat. That's why I kind of like that because it's hard. Everyone's like, people are like, oh, so they're just going to take the weeks off? No, like you got to stay locked in, but now you're going to find a different way to stay locked. I still like the regular season champ going into the final eight. I do. As we progressed, not the final four. Because then all those races in between matter. You've got to be able, you still want to collect bonus points.

You still want to, you know, collect everything that you can so that you can protect yourself in the final round of eight. So, you know, I think that if you're going to do something like that, I think that's the proper way to do it, not straight to the final four. I like it. Thanks, Joy Lagano, because I think he was a part of that. That's right. We'll see if anything changes in the offseason. Yeah.

You know what time it is now. For the final time in 2024. Well, the only part I don't like about this sip today is you're not sitting in this chair and you can see the Happy Hour logo because when you sit in this chair and you pick your cup up, you can see my face. Well, yeah. My face is. Because I'm right-handed.

My hair's falling out, which is not, you know, not far off. Well, not in this one. Well, yeah. See? That one's a little bit of... Everybody. Ready to go. This is broadcast, Kevin.

Welcome. Welcome to Mamba's social sips. The last one of the 2024 season. I have enjoyed every bit of this so much. I have no clue what this is. Listen, we've got a lot. They have no idea what it is. It's all on my phone right here.

We've got a lot of love throughout this year. We've got a lot of support. We also got some people that didn't. Oh, I love. I like that. Love us so much. I love one I hate on us. So,

mean tweets? This is a, we got some mean tweets, some mean comments. Not a bunch, just a couple. Don't make me cry. This first one,

no, no, Kevin, Caitlin, everyone loves you. No one, yeah, everyone loves you.

It's just me and him that they're kind of, if you're about. So this one is from, uh, V-D-D-R-F on Instagram, it looks like. Victor or V-V-E-R-F.

No, V-K-D-R-F. This was 12 weeks ago. So I'm not 100% sure which post this was. but he said Kevin Harvick was overrated when he was competitive now he just wants to get in front of the camera always been full of nonsense

that's fine just full of nonsense Kevin it's like I tell my son all the time if you'd like to see all my trophies and come help me clean him off feel free to come on by epic response you said that to Kevin absolutely I also tell my son that he says

when somebody asks what he does he's I race cars I'm like, no, you don't. You're not a race car driver yet. You haven't raced a car yet. Awesome. Yeah. So that was one, you know. And then another one was, this is from, this is on YouTube.

This is three months ago. So about the same time. Chuck Hickley, something like that. Oh, no, Chuck. Chuck has a weird face on here. Okay. It's not a, it's not like it's a secret why Kevin is jealous of Mamba's hair. What he has left is leaving the chat at a rapid rate.

Better due to do a Ligon. sooner rather than later. No one cares. Well, here's the thing. And I keep going back to the 12-year-old because, you know, I think that the 12-year-old is very, very similar to social media, right? With some of the responses, it's very easy. And he always says, well, at least I have more hair than you.

Your son says that to you? All the time. I said, well, enjoy it while you can, buddy, because genetics are a real time. Yeah, we're the same. You're going to get this. Genetics are a real thing. Just look in the mirror. I don't see the obsession with giving men a hard time when they start to lose their hair.

What's the big deal? It's like sign of nobleness and aging. Yeah. Or just, you know, people look good bald. Oh, by the way, buddy, I hope you feel good because Joey Lugano has a disease that his hair falls out. He's out of pisha. So there's also that. Yeah.

So there's that. You know all you got? That's all. I just had a couple. Oh, just two. Two mean tweets about me. Well, I couldn't find any about me. That is a bunch of guys.

I see you respond to him all the time. That's a bunch of shit. No, but those are different. Those are outside of the closer space. Those are just like, you know what I mean? So I didn't want to pull in people that don't deserve. I got you. To be a part of this.

And I don't know why people bother sending me tweets to Kevin because nothing fazes him. He does not give a fuck. It's so funny. You don't. It's so funny. I mean, you know, it's the whole, the whole hate thing is, is I do kind of take, I like it. It's fun. It is. Well, here's the thing, right? Like, there's a lot of people. So if you, I'm going to get out my soapbox here a little bit. If you look at the things that people post, you look at what you post, you'll get maybe a thousand likes, right? If somebody likes something, they're just hitting the like button or just hitting the repost button. You'll get like 50 comments and there'll be like 15 nice ones. And then there's like 20 not nice ones. But there's the ratio of people that appreciate what you're bringing to the space far outweighs.

what the other is. I just don't care. I told someone, I just don't care about your opinion and everyone got mad at me about not a caring about this random person. How dare you? I care about your opinion. Just don't be a jerk.

Don't be hateful. It's very simple. If you want to have an opinion and you don't like my opinion, I'm fine with that. Trust me. I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. But I'm not going to change my mind. Unless you give me something

that's actually worth reading, talking about, and thinking about. Be respectful. It's a much better way to get your point across. I haven't always done that. My point got a lot better. Got heard a lot more when you were respectful about trying to deliver it. So, yeah.

Speaking of it, social media is a, it's a wonderful space. It's a wonderful space. And shout out to all the closes that do give us love. You guys were locked in all year. We tried something new. This whole thing came together, whether anyone knows it or not, it came together in literally, I think a week and a half, maybe like 10 days.

Literally. Like I got our... It swiftly came together. Yeah, I got a text at a random Tuesday at 8 o'clock. Thank you to our producer Tyler for his tireless work. I think it got thrown on them too. Maybe so. But they did a great job with it.

Kevin has to have a podcast. Built these graphics. Who do you think his co-hosts should be? It was awesome. They flew out here, met with all of us and the rest of history. It's all we went. I've enjoyed it. It's been fun.

Thank you, Kevin. Yes. Thank you, Kevin. It's been a privilege. I didn't do anything. I just sit in the chair. No, thank you for the shoes, really. It's all.

Not these ones. Well, at least we got rid of those brown pumas. Bro, I love the brown pumas. Can't wait for the footwear next season, the attire. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. Yeah. I got that KHA bonus coming in from the show.

Are you going to be the communications director? Taking resumes. That's right. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a great year. Once again, appreciate all the closers and everyone who kept subscribing and join us all season long. We will see everybody in January.

25. Stay tuned on the release and the return for Happy Hour.