Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Harvick’s BIG Announcement, Austin Cindric wins at Gateway, Kyle Larson receives playoff waiver, and more!

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

On Episode 31 of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick joins co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith for a special announcement and an exclusive recap of the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. Get ready for an in-depth analysis of the weekend’s highlights, including Austin Cindric’s impressive victory that ended his 85-race winless streak at Gateway. The trio also discusses the recent decision by NASCAR officials to grant Kyle Larson a waiver, restoring his eligibility for the Cup Series Playoffs. This comes after Hendrick Motorsports requested an exception when Larson missed the Coca-Cola 600 on May 26 due to rain delays at the Indianapolis 500. Additionally, they cover the thrilling three-wide photo finish at Langley Speedway in the CARS Tour, Shane van Gisbergen's first Xfinity Series win at Portland, and much more. Don’t miss this action-packed episode, brimming with expert analysis and all the thrilling moments you crave from the world of NASCAR! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The win is the waiver. There you go. The win is the waiver. Put it on a t-shirt. That's it. The win is the waiver. Kevin has just solved the riddle here. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour.

Presented by NASCAR on Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. She's Caitlin Vinci. And he's that other guy sitting in the chair, Mama Smith. Every time he switches it up on his introduction of grandpa. You never know what's coming out of Kevin Harvick's mouth. You don't. Hey, I just saw you guys like 12 hours ago after our nice gathering.

our happy hour gathering. Thanks to our digital leaders for orchestrating that. Yeah, Kevin, thanks for showing up, showed up late, left early. It was an adventure. It was an adventure. I had, I don't go downtown very often. Uptown, uptown. Uptown. Yeah. Yeah, see, that's the problem. So I went uptown. And when I got uptown, I said, well, I'm just going to park in the parking spot. So I park in the parking spot. And I look up at the sign. I'm like, well, I better

just check to make sure this is an approved parking spot. Well, it wasn't. I had to go find a parking deck. And that was an event of itself. Right? Everything's on the construction and the one I went to. It was in a maze underneath the building. And then leaving last night, the guy in front of me, so I'm going to get home early, put my kids to bed.

And so I go and I pull out of the parking deck and I pull up. And the guy in front of me cannot figure out how to use his credit card. So he's taking his credit card in and he's putting a credit card in, pulling a credit card out. putting a credit card in, pulling a credit card out. And it keeps saying invalid credit card. And I'm like, surely to God the guy's going to figure out that you just have to put the credit card in the machine and still it says, take it out. And so finally I get out of my car and I'm like, man, this guy's going to think this is strange. I said, hey, I'm coming up here to help so we can get out of the garage because the other lane was closed.

So I said, just leave your card in the machine. He's like, well, my ticket's validated from the restaurant. I'm supposed to just stick my ticket in the machine. I said, well, we've been here for 10 minutes. So maybe you should stick your credit card in the machine and leave it so that we can leave. He's like, yeah, I guess I should just pay. Do you think that guy realized Kevin Harvick helped him out of the parking deck? No, no, I think he didn't realize he was in the parking deck.

I think that's where that all started. He didn't realize he was in the parking deck because apparently he had not used a parking deck with a ticket machine before. What do you think was he? How old do you think this guy was? I mean, he was he was probably 55. He should know what the chip. He should have definitely known what was going on. I think he was just trying to be a cheap skate and just using his ticket because the restaurant told him that his ticket was validated

instead of just paying the $10 to get out of the parking deck. It was an adventure. It was. Meeting of the minds. Or maybe I had the lack of a mind because Kevin was giving me grief about the fact they don't know a lot of other sports. I did learn that Caitlin didn't know much about other sports. Because I just am very engrossed in NASCAR.

Yeah. And then we figured out that some at the table hadn't ever been to a baseball game. See, that was not me. There's only one of us that hasn't been to a baseball game. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to throw him under the bus. Yeah, we're not going to. He's not in here to tell himself anymore. Oh, yeah. All right.

Has it never been to a baseball game? Yeah, that is very surprising. Yeah, un-American. For sure. Un-American. I'll have to change that at one point in first. That's what they say. I don't know. Do you like baseball? I do, but I don't know if it's the best thing to watch at this point in sports.

You know what the best part about this, this part of the show is? What's that? She's looking at us like, all right. No, I'm not. I'm letting you guys do your thing. Let's go. We are, we are off the rails. Let's go.

It's like, okay. Are the idiots going to stop talking? That's basically what she's thinking. That is not at all. I would ever think. Okay, so a brand new episode on Tap. We appreciate all the closers, by the way. They've been showing up and watching and some big, big numbers over the last couple of months.

So we certainly appreciate it. Keep following us on YouTube. Leave a five-star review. And a word. because you only have one more opportunity to have Kevin Shera. I can't believe it. Your Fox, it's almost over. I know.

I can't wait to see what retirement actually feels like. Because at this point, I will admit that I'm actually tired of working. Are you? Everything that's, well, it's been a lot, right? I wanted to do a good job for Fox. And we had all these other business things that we started. I wanted it all to start going,

but I didn't realize I was going to torture myself for the first six months and trying to make it all work. So it will be very interesting to see what Sunday is like when you have a choice of where you're going to be. So that'll be the first time in 30 years that I've had a choice of what I was going to do on a Sunday. And you won't have to listen to Clint yapping. Right beside you.

That'll be some nice solitude for you. It is going to be a, we're going to relax for a couple weeks. Then I'll be bored. I don't think you're going to relax that long. No? No, I don't think so. I think you're right. Well, you've done an amazing job in the booth, by the way.

So it's been awesome for all of us to hear. Really? I mean, yeah, he's not all right. No, he really has. I've been in TV 13 years. He's done an amazing job. All right. And you've got a big announcement today, Kevin. You actually aren't going to be super relaxed because you've got some things going on. I'm going to let you take the reins and tell us what you're doing. Finally, it's late model season and we're here today on the show. So I figured what the heck, we might as well have the announcement on the show. So I'm actually going to drive what I would, it's been the first time that I've driven a super late model. I'm probably, I wouldn't even guess. It's been a long time. I've never actually driven a straight frame rail super late model car.

So I'm going to drive the Bush Light, Super Late Model, number 62 out of our shop at Five Flag Speedway, June 28th in the Southern Super Series race. Wow. And that's not it. Oh. Yeah, there's more. And there's more. August 3rd, I'm going to drive the late model stock race at North Wilkesboro. Oh, that's so cool.

So, yeah, didn't even put that on your running. That's not on my notes here. I want to make sure everybody's surprise. So those are the first two things I get to do for fun. I'm sure I'll go out there and feel like you did. You don't race with those guys every week and probably get my butt kicked. But I'm going to have fun doing it because it doesn't matter if I finish first. It doesn't matter if I finish last.

I still get to drink beer at the end of the night and have fun with it. So regardless, I'm going to race to have fun, which is something that I haven't just gone to do at a race in a long time. Yeah, that is so good. That'll be fun. I can't wait to get back in the conference. car and start practicing and testing and hopefully be prepared for the race. It's not that far away. It's not that far away. No. When's the North Walesboro race? August 3rd.

Okay. Yeah. It's the reschedule. It got rained out. Right. And our drivers are off doing other things. They're on vacation and racing arc of cars and all those things. And the 62 was available. So I was like, you know what? I'll drive it. What Delana say about this decision? Yeah. Was I supposed to ask her? Well, she went on Twitter and said that KHI isn't buying a truck. And I'm like, well, there's always stuff that you don't know about. So I don't know. We're definitely not buying a charter. But no, she knows.

She's been a part of the process the whole time. And she knows that I still want to, I still want to race and have fun with it. I don't want to, I don't want to compete on the Cup Series side of things. And so that part with Delano was good. You know, and a lot of these races, I can go race as we go forward with Keelan on the same weekends that he's running his legend cars. As he moves up into the late models and starts to race the cars, we can do races together. maybe not in the same class or maybe in the same class. It just depends. But, you know, I think it opens up a lot of doors to kind of stay in tune with everything that we have going on with the cars tour, everything that we have going on with the teams, go run different series for short track racing in general. I've never been to five bikes speedway in Pensacola. So that's where they run the snowball derby. So going down there and being able to experience that track, I don't want to go down there and run the snowball derby. It's too much pressure. High stress. Yeah. I'm not looking for stress. I'm looking for fun. So we're going to have.

have fun. So Bush Light's been, been good to us. We had a 13-year relationship, you know, through the Anheuser-Busch side of things, you know, on the cup car. And they've kept me around this last week. And while we were in St. Louis, we went up to Anheuser-Bush headquarters there in St. Louis. And they actually dedicated a finishing tank to me with the forever logo and image of myself on the side of the tank. And we were able to see the tank. That thing holds 111,000 gallons of beer. Wow. How many cans? Did they tell you how many cans that is? It's a lot. It was only in, it was in cakes.

I don't remember that. I don't remember that. The number actually in cakes. I only remember the gallons because it was a, it was a much bigger number. Well, yeah. Is it harder to do you autograph on something like that? Yeah, because the Sharpie end was like that, that long. Yeah. So kind of, kind of looks, kind of looks a little bit, kind of looks a little bit out of shape there. But, you know, the, the intention is for that, that tank to stay there. It's right next to the St. Louis Blues. finishing tank that they dedicated to them when they won the Stanley Cup. So, yeah.

So it's been a great relationship. We had a good time. We got to drink beer out of the pigtail. That's always the best. I was going to ask if you got to do that. Yeah, it's got a little pigtail on the end of it. So it limits the pressure down into the, end of the glass. And you can drink before it's delivered down to be packaged.

Does it taste different right out of that? Absolutely. Really? Yeah, because technically it's actually two or three days before the born on date. Okay. So it's ready to be, it's ready to be. package, but it's not actually there yet. So it's actually not new.

It's newer. It's newer than new. I'll tell you what. At the S.H.R., they came one time, and we had a three-day old Budweiser's, and that tasted nothing like any other beer I've ever had. It is. And a lot of it, a lot of people don't realize beer itself is actually, you've got to take care of it.

Like, it doesn't need to get hot. You don't need to shake it up. The way you pour beer is actually not down the side of a glass. It's actually down the middle of the glass. A connoisseur. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Yeah, we had to go to beer school.

You were there. Did you just drink the beer? Did you listen? I just drink the beer. Apparently. I let the fight get about six deep and that I was like, oh, we're supposed to drink them as we're going. I just pounded them all. Yeah, you always act like you're an expert at the beer drinking.

He teaches some of the ways to... Not the pouring. Yeah, not the pouring. I'm a finesse to the pouring. Yeah. So that'll be fun. We're excited to have bushlight on at Five Flags. Hunt Brothers Pizza will be on at North Wilkesboro.

So it'll be a fun couple months. That's awesome. And what a cool experience for you. for the fans to get to see you race again. And the paint scheme, I want to give some love to this paint scheme. It's really neat looking. Love this design. Yeah, it looks a lot like our bushlight cars have looked for the last couple of years with the packaging.

And we just did a full-on program. So I did a photo shoot yesterday. I thought I was done with that in my race suit. So, yeah, I mean, it's a full-blown typical bushlight scenario. Either do it right and go all the way with everything. Oh, look at here. Look at that. We even have T-shirts.

We weren't even ready for you to do that yet. I want it now. Yeah. I was getting too excited. I want everyone now. They've got the whole program, you know, around that. And so you go to Happy Z shop and buy the t-shirts and support the cost. If you're audio listener only, Mamba just unbuttoned his other shirt he was wearing to reveal a new Kevin Harvick merchandise that looks really good.

I had to pay for this, by the way. Apparently, yeah, you're... So I didn't get a discount or anything. You got it at cost. You're fine. I got it at cost. I have to, look, I have to pay to support him. That doesn't even make sense.

At least you did it secretly without everybody knowing. I also support... Well, I bought a Keelan Harvick hat the other day. Did you really? It just came in the mail. Yeah, I showed you. Remember the order slip? How was the process?

Did it come into timely fashion? Yeah, it was very quick. Good. Yeah. Keel gives me stuff for free. It's like the camo design. Oh, the camo hat, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The real tree hats, they did do a couple of of Keelan hats. So yeah, this will be a new adventure going to the back to the short tracks and being able to have fun with, I have fun going to watch, but it's, it's more fun when you get the drive and hang out with the competitors and learn about how another series is run. And I think that's important to understand. Everybody looks at it from a different perspective. Different areas of the country are different than, you know, some areas of the country. What happens on the West Coast is different than the East Coast. What happens cars to her west compared to East is much

different car, style of racing, different people. So there's a lot to be learned. And I think that's really the exercise is to learn and have fun. The other competitors will really benefit from having him in the field, someone like him to watch and learn from. I always thought that when Kyle Bush ran the truck races, you know, it's one of the sports greatest talents coming down to the lower. It works there.

But in short track racing, I feel like everyone just wants to put a donut on his door. Like whenever, like, Tony came to Thunder Road or anytime you're racing with those guys, you race like a little extra hard because you feel like you have something to prove Oh, yeah. Just trying to have fun. It's a little bit more. Here's the thing now.

Like, if you're racing with me, you're probably not going to be as close to the front of me to be. Because I haven't raced in six months. Well, whatever. You're going to elevate the whole thing. Yeah. That's the goal.

That's what's saying. That's the point I'm trying to make. At least you're already ready to be humbled. Because, like, I just ran the limited race at Hickory this past weekend. And I had a great time. Like, I go with leafwalk racing, and we have a great time. We go to have fun, just like Kevin's talking about,

support short track racing. But it's a humbling experience. It is. When I go run an arc race and have like top five, top three speed and then go run a late model race and get my ass kicked. It's kind of... The hard part for the hard part for me is the way that I've driven cup cars for the last 20-some years. Cars are fairly straight, right? Yeah.

These cars, these guys are sliding them all over the place. And so the style of racing is much different than... Of how you drive the car is much different than a cup car or a truck or anything along those lines. So it'll be fun. We just have to get used to it. We know Kevin's not afraid of a challenge, especially when it comes to the word of the week. So you take it from here, my friend,

because we're transitioning to St. Louis. What a transition? Listen, I got a lot of experience in this shit. All right. Kevin, we're down to our last two, or down to the last one, but let's hear how you use the word for Gaze in Gateway. Yeah, tough to tell. I mean, the left front tire is definitely,

definitely flat right there but that car is Fugazi for the rest of the day it's what Fugazi done beyond repair like first off they'll like I know their faces were confused

and secondly when you gave the definition you did it with conviction I think that's really what through every they're like is that what that means because some people thought it meant something it's one of the very few words that I've ever said that Mike Joy does not know what it means made you feel good huh it did And I don't know, maybe it didn't mean anything.

I don't know. But, yeah. Laughing. So, Big Daddy on laughing at the boost reaction to Harvick Singh. Yeah. Yeah. And so Mike, Mike, I can always tell if it's going to be fun, not fun, with Mike's reaction. And the fact that he was, he was, usually it's Clint going crazy over there, punching you, hitting you, kicking you, laughing, being in his head, hand on the table.

And when Mike has a reaction, you know, it's either a. a great word, and for the first time, a word he doesn't know. He was dumbfounded almost. He was dumbfounded. He was just kind of like, wait, what? What just happened? It sparked a lot of conversation on social media about the meaning of the word because there were several meanings to it, but you used it correctly. So there you go.

I mean, there were, let's see, what does this say? This is a tweet. Rezi and EZ said, well coached. He's well coached and knows exactly how these words are used. Fugazi had me rolling. Yes. Fugazi. Fugazi. Oh, Fugazi? What did I say?

Fugazi. No, she said Fugazi. Oh, it is Fugazi. Fugazi. See, I'm learning something new. Normally I teach the words sometimes on the show, but we have a role reversal here. Some of these words are questionable as they're whether they're actually words. That's part of the fun.

It's in the dictionary. Is it? In the urban dictionary. Exactly. Urban dictionary. There's a difference between the two dictionaries on what's real and what's. You did a great job. Yeah.

We got one more. We got one more go for the 20, 20. What's your plan, though? I don't know. Are you thinking like, are we? going to go like way out of the box. We got a big phrase last. Are we going to use like a, just a phrase?

Maybe a phrase. I don't, maybe we can get our producers to kind of take a couple and put it up as a pole and see what the people are. Yes. Yeah, we'll do the poll, perhaps. A poll is always good to get a pulse of the closures. Pulse. Pulse. So it's not going to be like a Taylor Swift verse or something like that.

I do think that would be funny. I think it would be hilarious. California, maybe it'll be a Tupac. Tupac. I'd love to see Kevin insert a Tupac lyric. Then we're going to get into the whole debate of East Coast, West Coast rap. It's going to sound like I'm at home. We're going to have to call up Mark Martin to get into that conversation.

Yeah. He's a... Oh, true. He's the resident rap experts. You think he's well-versed on the East Coast, West Coast rap? I would say that Mark Martin is more well-versed in rap than most of our industry is. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. All right, well, we'll have to see what you guys come up with. We look forward to it. Wait a second. You guys. I thought it was just him. No, the closer. We worked together.

Oh, it's me and the closers. There's a lot of people over on the side of over here who impact some of the choices being made. Yeah. Like, I wanted to, we wanted to use the word glizzy one time and, you know, we had to adjust from that one. All right, moving on. Let's talk about the race because there was a big race that happened out in St. Louis over the weekend. Austin Cindrick was the man of the African. hour, maybe the man of the minute, because it was changing down to the minutes for him,

which we'll walk through the misfortune for others. But Austin Cendrick snapped to 85 race winless streak. Only had one top five prior to Sunday. Man, they really needed this one. I couldn't believe the way that the end of this race actually unfolded with bell blowing up, Blaney running out of gas. But you got to give it to Austin Cindrick. He kept himself in contention all day.

They ran up in the front all day, did everything that they needed to do to have a chance. to capitalize on a moment like this. This reminded me a lot of, I think it was 2011 Coke 600, where Denny Hamlin ran out of gas, and then it was Dale Jr. and we wound up winning the race, but you got to be close enough to, and be close enough to the front to capitalize on those scenarios.

But it all came down to the cycle of pit stops before these guys came out for this last green flag run. And Blaney pitted a lap before Cendrick did, and they were trying to jump him, right, track position. So they knew what they were trying to do, but they didn't get enough gas in the thing. And these cars are never really full of gas anymore. You don't ever top them off and you fill them up as much as they'll take to make the pit stop decent. So this was pretty much a calculation of what was in the car, how much gas we needed into the car.

And we never heard any radio chatter to Blaney about, hey, save some gas, back it down. Because he had a fairly good lead. I think they were, they thought they were fairly confident in the amount of gas that they got in the car. but that was not the case. They were a whole lap off, you know, from being able to finish the race. So Austin Cendrick comes back and capitalizes on the day and totally blows up the playoff picture. Oh, I love it. Like this totally shakes things up because he was way down in the standings.

And now he's going to the postseason for Austin Cinder. I mean, we talk about all the time. If you hang around the top five, you're going to, yeah, eventually things like these will happen. But you got to be around there. This was a race for Austin Cendrick that he's really good at Gateway. They were good. They qualified good. Last year they had a lot of speed.

So this was like one for them. I'm sure they kind of circled the feeling that they could get one. And I feel so bad for my boy. I got a, you know. It's a tribute hat. Yeah, tribute 12 here. He had it. They had it locked up until they didn't for sure.

And they had a great race. But all the things that happened for him, Cindric to win, to have one guy blow up. When's the last time we've seen someone in the top top? kind of blow up. Yeah. Like it never happens. And then to have someone run out of gas, also almost never happens.

So, but congratulations to Sandrick. Yeah. And you guys. And Christopher Bell had him covered. I mean, he had him beat bad. He was the guy that could, I mean, he came out, what, 12th, 11th, 12th there at one point, drove back to the front, ran all these guys down. And all of a sudden, he's blowing up.

But the, the motors at this racetrack and the way that they downshift with the double downshift into each corner. And I don't know if Bell was actually. doing that into turn three, but he was for sure downshifting twice into turn one. A ton of shifting, but also a ton of opportunity to overreb the engine on the downshift, especially when you're going from fourth to third under a braking. If you just have a downshift it just a little bit too much too soon, then it's going to go through the rev limiter and really put some strain on that engine.

So it sounds like I would venture to say it was a broken bowel spring that he got lucky with and didn't break the rest of the need. Grenade it. Yeah. And grenade the thing. Just wound up breaking a valve spring, dropping a cylinder, and got a little bit of help from his teammate. I was going to say, that was really neat to see.

Mark Twix pushing him along down the straightaway. I don't know if they told him not to keep doing it or if NASCAR told him not to keep doing. But he was running like. But it picked him up six tenths of a second. Did it really just getting that push? Wait, but 30th. What was Martin running at that point? I don't know.

But he had some audio that his crew's like, yeah, okay, the 20s in front of you. He's blowing up. He goes, I wish I would have blown up like a. Yeah, he was a little. 100 lives to go on Sunday. Definitely. Martin's getting a little, like, feisty there with the chief. Well, I think it's time for Martin to make a decision, right?

Does he want to race? Does he not want to race? Is he going to... And how long does Joe Gibbs just sit back and have that controversy of Truex trying to decide, am I going to race again next year? Right. You know, you hear the frustration on TV, so on the radio and everything that he's got going on. So where's that balance of, okay, I'm Joe Gibbs racing.

We just need to end this year-to-year stuff. and start to build a stable program. I mean, I know Martin is going to be consistent and run in the front and do the things that he needs to do. But at some point, you've got to rebuild. You look at Hendrick, they stopped and rebuilt. You look at the 54 car at Joe Gibbs racing with Ty Gibbs, jumped right in there and was able to put him in contention

to at least be in the conversation of winning races. So I think with Martin, at some point, that has to get old of just continuously going back and forth on a year-to-year basis of, you know, are you going to come back next year? And so I think that that decision, I think that it sounds like they're putting more pressure on Martin this year to say, okay, earlier, we got to do something because we got to know what we're planning around here and move forward. It reminds me a little bit of Kurt Cousins and the Vikings when he kept getting those

franchise tags and one-year deal and one-year deal. And you can't really build for the future when you don't know where your main guy is going to be if he's with you or not. So to your point, it's time. Yeah. And I think, you know, if it's time to take a chance on another guy, you know, there, there are those opportunities to lower that budget. We've seen a lot of those teams lower the budget from the, from the driver's standpoint,

is hiring a younger guy to kind of start that cycle of building somebody up to being a top tier guy again from a, from a pay standpoint, from an experience standpoint. So it'll be interesting to see if Gibbs keeps going on with that, with that, you know, all that talk of being on a year-to-year basis. So I don't know. Yeah, Bob Hawker's did ask Martin over the weekend if he had an update, which he very quickly said no on the retirement conversation.

So we'll have to continue to follow that. So what about the Kyle versus Kyle situation we saw here? Kyle Larson versus Kyle Bush. Well, it all started off of a turn four. You see the two of them wrecking right there. But really, the story started off a turn four. Kyle Larson went to pass Kyle Busch and he went up to side draft and he touched the left

year quarter panel of Kyle Bush. And I don't think Kyle appreciated that. Kyle Bush appreciated that. And he got to the start finish line and started to come down the racetrack and actually started squeezing Larson down the racetrack. Well, Larson finally just stopped. And then they, you know, they banged fenders and they got to the, you know, the entry of the corner and were basically door to door and the car of Larson on the inside.

got loose underneath Bush and they both wrecked. So I don't know. It's kind of like the Truex situation. You talk on the radio with his radio chatter and all the frustration that he has on the radio. Kyle Bush is at that point where he's on the radio, frustrated and doing all the things that he's doing. He's had, you know, a couple of those moments. Saw North Wilkesboro getting in the back of Stenhouse when he got frustrated with him. And, you know, I viewed that as a little bit of frustration from Kyle Bush on with Kyle Larson pretty quickly over, didn't look like a lot. of contact. I don't know what you think, but it didn't look like a lot of contact to me. I thought that was just a normal, I mean, we have fenders for a reason. And it's not like he,

he doored him in the corner. It was down the straightaway. And I don't know, I just felt like he's to the point where his fuse is very short. Yeah. The rowdy of rowdy Bush. It's always kind of been short. Yeah. He gets them. He's just like, you know, and I think that that pressure's ramping up on Kyle Bush, too. I've been there. You know, it's those scenarios where you hadn't, now it's a year, hadn't won in a year. He's won 19 years in a row. And now he's looking to extend that win streak. He's had a lot of terrible things happen with the pit crew.

The pit crew hasn't done a great job at all. Kyle's had a couple of these moments now, a few of these moments with a few guys on the racetrack. So his fuse is short, but it's short for a reason. And that's because the cars aren't running good and they're not getting the finishes. Well, this time a year ago, he already had three wins. And you guys showed a graphic on the broadcast of drivers

who'd already won at this point in the season. They were all former champions. It was Martin, Kyle, Joey Legano, and Ryan Blaney. Are you surprised at this point in the year that those, that group of drivers I just named have still not found victory length? I'm a little bit surprised with Blaney. Obviously, this weekend, Blaney was in position to win the race. Ligano has, you know, we saw that dominant performance at North Wilkesboro. But outside of the Daytona 500, I don't really view him as being in contention to be that dominant car and lead the laps like we're used to see in Joey Ligano.

that surprises me a little bit at this point in the season. I think that they ran, they got a decent finish this weekend. Kyle Bush, you know, I look at Kyle Bush. He came out and, you know, had a chance to win. He ran well at the Daytona 500 this year. They came out like gangbusters last year, right out of the box all the way through this race last year. And then it kind of tapered off. I feel like the performance kind of just leveled off. And, you know, we've seen some sporadic peaks of performance as, as they've been. gone from last year at St. Louis to this year at St. Louis, but never that beginning of the year newlywed phase like they went in at RCR when he first went to RCR. So to me, that's a

situation to where everybody was on full alert, okay, we got to make this work last year. When we start this relationship off new, and they got to figure out how to get back to that level of participation and all the things that they were doing in the first six months of that, that relationship with Kyle Bush and RCR. Brad Kislauski, he's definitely kind of firing on all cylinders. He's been like just RFK has really been elevated, I would say, in the last couple weeks. Yeah, they found it, right? I mean, we talked about earlier on in the season, they don't have the speed, they don't have

the speed, they don't have the speed. And now it seems like they've turned around and found what they needed to to be consistent. And that's the difference between the eight situation with Kyle Bush and, you know, RFK or even Ryan Bwaini is like, these guys, these three, They run in the top 10, like, pretty consistently. So they're, there might not be dominating, but they're putting themselves in position to maybe steal one or if they have just a little bit of a better day.

Whereas Kyle Bush is like just outside the top 10 or 15, and it doesn't seem like they're getting there. It doesn't seem like they're having that consistent speed that you need to get a win to make your way into the playoffs. So, I mean, if I'm the eight bunch, I would say that the panic, I'm not hitting the panic button, but I'm definitely like hovering over it. I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it because I'm like, we got to, we got to start taking big swings.

When you take big swings, you might hit a home run, but there's a lot of strikeouts in between those. But then you go to Dover and they qualify on the pole. Right. Right. And so it's there. It's not like that Kyle Bush can't do it. It's not like RCR can't do it. It's there.

But how do you find that consistency to keep that speed in the cars week after week? And, you know, it's just a, it's a little bit puzzling, to be honest. I think they're confused too. And I know it's, I know that with this car, it's harder than it used to be. be consistent, right? Like, it's harder to to maintain that top five and maintain that ability to be able to put those cars on the racetrack to have that speed every week. But,

man, I just, I feel like they should be doing it more than they are. And I think Kyle Bush is one of the drivers who's admitted he really benefited from a lot of practice time, right? Is that affecting him, you think, the fact that we have a lot less of that now? Well, they're good with, he's good with analyzing the car. I mean, there's not many people that are better than Kyle Bush at, at, what they do. I think with

the scenario with with this car, I think a lot of those tools and techniques and things that Kyle Bush just knew like the back of saying, hey, it's not on the right front spring good enough. It's not doing this, this, and this with the old car. Those things are a little harder to come by with this car to say

it needs this, this, this, and this with this next gen car. So having a short amount of time to do that, not having a lot of time in the race car to keep analyzing things and keep assessing things makes it difficult to be able to understand exactly where you need to go with the car in such a short amount of time. Because basically this week we qualified at 8.30 in a morning, local practice and qualified, combine everything. So there was one 30 minute session and, you know,

everybody qualified after that. So that's not a lot of time. And then you're kind of guessing what the pace is going to be because the race was going to be in the sun, in the heat of the day, not like it was in practice. So you got to, if you miss that pace and those are the types of I feel like they're missing is what the pace is. So when you miss the pace, then you miss the travel, then you miss, you know, where the air pressures need to be as far as how low and all the things that go with that. So just doesn't take much to be able to be off in this car

and not have the pace that you need. I don't think Cobb was just someone that struggles with confidence, but I do think winning is contagious. And I do think if you, if he does some more explainer, I know he's, I think he's maxed out in the trucks for how many races he can do, If he can get into the Xfinney series and run a little bit more and run better, you just feel better. And that helps, I feel like you.

Right. Like when William Byron runs late model races, he would win a late model race and then he'd show up in a cup day and he'd win. And Larson kind of the same thing. It does matter for yourself, just that you're, you know, you're locked in. And I agree with you on that. I think when Kyle could run 50 races a year, I think it helped him just not get as frustrated with things. Because even when it would go bad on. Sunday or Saturday or Friday, whatever the day it was.

He always had another day. He always had the next moment to figure it out. And he was racing during the week. And he's not being able to kind of blow that steam off to be able to get out from underneath that frustration. And you can see it. Like, unfortunately, the frustration just keeps mounting more and more and more as the cars don't run good.

And you check another week off. And now he's having to answer those questions. Now he's on a losing streak of a year. And that's a pain. in the butt. And it makes you mad. It pisses you off as you have to answer those questions on a week-to-week basis. And then you're more frustrated. And so all the way back to where we started this segment, I think that's where that little bump from Kyle Larson got frustrated. And you can see the frustration in Kyle's interview with the answer that he gave. And you got, you look back for two teams,

the 12 and the 8 that were in that photo finish at Atlanta. And now you look at that race and you're like, they both, I mean, obviously the 99 needed two, but all three of those cars really needed that win. And they didn't get it and Swares did. So it matters. Frustrations mounting definitely for some teams. As we always typically see in races, pit road is a factor. There was an interesting incident that happened on

Ty Gibbs pit stop. Nearly taking out actually his cousin, Jackson Gibbs. As you can see here, this was a pretty dangerous situation. It looks like Jackson kind of catching his breath there. On the right front, pulling back like a dog

on a leash. So like on the right front, Watch the hose. Yeah, right there. Oh, my God. It's like they tried to yank you. Yeah. Whoever's over the wall is pulling, and Jackson didn't have enough room to get around the nose yet. So there was no slack.

Like, see how tight it got? Yeah. And it was definitely two-tire call. There's no, there's no tires sitting on the ground right there. No. It's not like Ty wasn't planning on taking off, and the crew guys didn't know. It was just, looked like something got kind of tangled up in the hose, and the hose got tight. And he wasn't far enough along along the nose.

but, you know, you have to kind of wait a beat for the tire changer to take a step. And then you're, then you're counting on the fact that he takes his normal steps. So when he stopped right there and Ty was already going, at that point, you just got to kind of hope for the best and hope that he's going to just fall softly. You think, do you think, Ty, because he knows it's his cousin. You think, you think that he was like, ah, he'll be all right. You know what I mean? Like, if it's not family, you know what I mean? It's like, I would almost feel a little bit not as bad.

Like if it's a guy that, you know, it's on my crew, I'm like, oh, Philly Babel is my cousin. I'm like, hey, he's beat on me a couple times like that. You'll be a right. It is the older cousin. Yeah, the older cousin. Yeah. So I want to give a shout out to some of the unique names that were in the top 10 from this race.

Carson Hosevar is a driver we haven't talked a ton about, but we all watched him in the truck series and what he was able to accomplish there. Obviously, the Phoenix race last year when he was in the hunt for the championship, you could visibly see him beating himself up in the truck. when all of that transpired. But he's learned so much. And he did some cup starts last year. It was very impressive in those.

And he just seems like he's consistently making gains. The thing I like about Carson Hosevar is he's making laps. And in the first year of your cup career, you need to finish all the laps that you can. To gain the experience that you can, not tear the cars up, be able to put yourself in a position to get the experience that you need to be good. And we talked about this on the broadcast of Carson being able to, whoever's talking to him is doing a great job. And he's being a great listener because of the finishes and the laps that he has run. He's run a ton of laps this year compared to some of the other guys that compete in the series.

And that tells me that the focus is to finish. We know I like to categorize Carson as a gasser. I mean, when he puts his foot down, the car is the intention is to go fast. but there's just, there's way more to it than just going fast. You can't just go fast every week. You have to be able to figure out how to finish these races, put yourself in position to do exactly what Austin Cendrick did this week. And that's what a lot of them don't learn.

They don't learn how to finish races, keep yourself in contentions, do the small things, right? And you don't have to be that gasser every single lap of every race if you can do all those things. Do the details, do the small things. And the rest of it will take care of yourself. If you work on your car, sure you have to have some speed. But you don't always have to be the fastest car to get good finishes.

And Carson Hosevar did that. Justin Haley continues to do that in his car. And it's fun to watch the guys that kind of fly under the radar. Don't get a lot of credit for what they do. But Hosevar is going to be good. Yes. They, this car has allowed this to happen. Like the reset of everybody and everyone reset at zero.

The old car, I don't know if Spire would have been able to be this good with such a driver. Like, he's carrying the company. Like, he runs 20th or qualifies around there and then runs up in the top 15 and then the top 10 this week and he's doing a really good job. He's got that dog in him.

He's got that dog in him. Yeah, to get that in there one more time. At least one more time. Was that the first one he did? No, what was the first one? No, the first one he did was lit. Yeah, okay. He did got that dog in him in Bristol. No, we're going to recap all this words, though. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we are. Yeah, yeah, we're going to do. We are. Next one,

The Sonoma is concluded. We won't recap. Can't wait for that. I can't either. We'll grade them. I've learned a lot of words this year. You have. You've learned a lot of it's year.

Okay, guys. So the other big storyline that's kind of gone on for far too long, that is officially... It's a saga. It's officially over, though. What that word means? Just move on. Sometimes we just need to act like he doesn't exist. I'm just asking.

Kyle Arson, guys. He's been granted a waiver for missing the start of the Coca-Cola 600. There was a lot of talk about this, you know, because obviously he was running the Indy 500. I imagine that a conversation had to have taken place between Hendrick and NASCAR once they realized the weather situation they were in to make sure this was going to be okay. Because it was not like the weather crept up on everybody. We all knew that that was going to be a factor. But NASCAR took a while to make this decision. They made the right decision, I might add.

But it's just this waiver conversation continues. to get interesting. And it's, it's not Sega, saga. The saga ended with everything that, that, everything that happened with Kyle Larson was great for racing. Not only was it great for NASCAR and great for IndyCar, but it was great for racing in general with all the storylines and all the effort and all the time. Not only Kyle Larson, McLaren, Hendrick Motorsports, all the people.

I mean, there were millions of dollars spent on this particular situation. Lining in a helicopter back at the 600, running across the racetrack to get back in his car for nothing other than the show and just to, you know, to fulfill his commitment. But I think this is a perfect scenario. I agree. There were a lot of high-level conversations probably between everybody, the top level of NASCAR probably all the way up to Jim France and Rick Hendrick

and all the folks at Hendrick Motorsports. I would assume that those. conversations went all the way to the top. And, you know, when it took longer than what we all thought it should took, you know, I think a lot of people probably thought some things were going to happen. And I'm sure that, you know, I think the one thing that was talked about were there were a lot of politics and tying this all together with the charters and whether there were politics being played from one side to the other. I think there's a lot of things you could read into this situation, right? But when you listen to Elton Sawyer talk, really,

what was happening is they wanted to make sure they were thorough to make sure that they made the right decision to put themselves in a position to make sure they had dotted all the eyes and crossed all the T's because this is a pretty high level decision of everything that was going on from the from the from the from the waiver standpoint but I think that the best thing that came out of this is Kyle Arson got the waiver as he should and I think it's as I've said it's time to talk about whether the waiver is is is right, right? I think when you look at the points that Kyle Larson has, he missed a race, he's still second into points, he's still in the championship hunt. I know that this is put in place

for injuries and different things like that, but I just, I'm not a believer in the body of work not being the same for everybody, right? So if you're, if you're sick or injured and you can't get in a car to start the race, it's terrible luck. It's terrible timing. It's a terrible situation. but is it still fair to the guy that's put in the whole body of work that's made it to every race and been there every week with his team to be able to succeed by being there every week. Yeah, there are risks. There are risks to snowboarding. There are risk to running another series.

There are risks to running in the race on Sunday. And no matter what that risk is, there's always going to be risk in everything that you do. Sometimes it's not your year. but I look back to 2015. Kyle Bush won the championship. We finished second. We had the dominant ear and got beat by a guy who missed eight races, seven races,

whatever that was. I don't know that's, is that fair? I don't know. Is it not? It seemed okay as we started the process, but as it's evolved, it seems like you can get a waiver for pretty much anything.

And, you know, I think if you've got enough points, then you should be able to race for the championship, as Kyle Arson will do by missing a race because he's had a great season. And Elton Sawyer, we obviously have his statements now. He talked about the fact he felt like Kyle Orson made every effort to be there, obviously, to the Charlotte race. He referenced also the fans, the fact that, you know, fans were coming to Charlotte with the intent to see him race, which played a factor also in just the whole decision-making process.

Yeah, I mean, fans went to both places to see him, to see him race. You can look at the TV ratings for that. Yeah, I mean, like, it was obvious, right? So I agree. I think at this point, the waiver system, look, no one, no one's going to not race because they've won one and are in. Right. Like in other sports, we see basketball players, especially they kind of sit out and like the NBA had to make a rule. So you had to play at least 65 games to get your awards.

Like, I understand that. But our guys aren't, our guys are not going to sit out because you can't. There's only 38 races and you have sponsorship obligations. And like, no one's just going to sit out because if you do, you're going to fall behind. You can't sit out a couple weeks and then roll up for the playoffs and think that you're going to go out and beat all these guys. Like, we just talked about it with weight model racing. You got to do it every week and you got to be locked in every week. And I think at this point, the waiver should be more for, like, injuries, more for like, especially at track.

And, like, if you get hurt driving the race car and you're able to come back. If you, I mean, even like something like if you're having a birth of a. child. Like I would, I would be like, Yes. But like, there's got to be some guidelines. There's got to be. It can't just be. It can't be everything. It can't just be, it can't be everything. And it can't be, you know, just at the decision of, of a couple people. A couple people, right? I guess it can be.

Everything else is. But, yeah. But, you know, I think it's in, you know, I like strong leadership. Like, I, I, I like the days when NASCAR ruled with an iron fist. I love those days. You know, there's nobody I respect as much as I do Mike Elton. And Mike Helton, he led this thing with an iron fist. And it's become not the same with as far as that that goes, being able to lead as hard, you know, as Mike did. But we respected him and we had a lot of, he had a lot of authority on what he was doing.

So I think it's, it's just got to be more clear. Do we need it? I don't, I don't like it at all. Like, I don't like it for injuries. I don't like it for. I don't like it for... I don't think it matters. Childbirth.

I just... I don't like it for anything. Do we need the waiver? I think that's where we're at. Because if you don't have it, what's going to change? Yeah. I don't think anything's going to change if you don't have it.

If you're 30th or more in points and you have a win, you have a shot at your seating in the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to go that far, why don't we just... Why don't we just have a drop? Why didn't everybody just get one drop? If you're going to make it okay for one guy to miss a race, why is it not okay for the guy that races all the races to get

rid of his worst one. Yeah. Why is that not? So is that the solution? We're coming to this conclusion. I don't know what the solution is. I like simplicity. Yes.

I like simplicity of who gains the most points, the top 16 guys that gain the most points. They get into the playoffs. That's the simplest thing. If you miss two of them and you can finish 16th, more power two. Then you gangster that thing. Yeah. Christian Eck is in the Argus season a few years ago.

missed a race and still won the championship. He did what he had to do to get those points back. And let's not forget. You can also just win. Just win. Yeah. Al Davis, baby. You know, you've given, you've given, you've given, you've given, you've given the way to get into the

playoff of winning. And if you can't win, you don't deserve to be there, right? And that's the thing that makes Kyle Bush's 2015 championship, at least you can stomach it, right? Because of the fact that he won. Yeah. He put himself in victory lane. He met the criteria for that particular year.

But if you can't do that, I don't understand why we need to make it more complicated than it needs to be. If you can win, then you deserve to be in it. And if you can't score enough points without a win, you don't deserve to be in it. And that's really all the waiver does is grant somebody access that might get in on points. And the guys who can get in off of winning usually win. Right. Right. I mean, Chase Elliott didn't win last year, and he missed the playoffs. If we didn't have the waiver, it would have never even been talked about. All he had to do was win. But instead, it got close enough to where we're talking about Chase Elliott being able to get into the into the playoffs on points. Yeah.

And just leave the win. The win is the waiver. There you go. The win is the waiver. Put it on a T-shirt. Put on a T-shirt. That's it. The win is the waiver.

Kevin has just solved the riddle here. Yes. Time to eat the waiver and just win. Yeah. There we go. Win is the waiver, baby. Win is the win. Win's a win.

I love it. Win's a win. Okay. So hopefully no more waiver talk for the rest of the year. But it is time now for Mamba social sips. Yeah. So cue it up, my friend. Welcome to your favorite part of the show where Kevin just sits there and I get to talk. So we're going to start, though, with an awesome epic battle.

It's been a year of closed finishes. And we had another one at Langley Speedway in the Cars Tour race. One of Kevin's cars cars was actually involved with this. What a finish. on the inside. It is Carson Quaple in the middle. And, oh, man, I feel really bad. Connor Hall.

Connor Hall, who won the race. Connor's actually local to there. He's local to Langley. So there's a big win for him. But that three-wide finish, unbelievable. It's hard for me to say that Brent Cruz still lost the race. I'm not saying he won it, but like it's so close. I can barely tell.

Yeah. Well, when you look at the pictures, I mean, it is like a couple inches on the front of the nose that Connor Hall won by. But I think everybody, late model stock racing won. Yeah. You know, the fans at Langley, they had the place pretty much sold out. And, you know, the late model stock, cars tour, late model stock stuff just puts on a, that's the type of racing they put on 90% of the time throughout the year.

Very rarely is there somebody driving away from the field and dominating one of those races. So that was definitely an epic finish. No, who's from there. Oh. That's why I started my career. Langely. As a reporter there, yeah. for several years before I came here to Speed Channel.

But that's why you go support your local short tracks because you see finishes like that. It's great racing every weekend at the local spots. We love local short track racing. Yes, we do. All right. So moving right along, SVG. Oh, no, sorry. Not SVG yet.

We're going to go to the crew member who flatten the hood of Jesse Love's number two, Wayland Chevrolet from the top rope, Kevin. Whoa. Oh, my goodness. So because the body is the composite, it's really hard to actually make it move. Like, after there's damage. Apparently, he knew that.

He had a running start. Stop the people's elbow on that thing. Yeah. And they got it back down, but just one more time for... Yeah. Oh. I love that. You know how hard it is when I first started as a crew member?

Kyle, I was on Larson's car in Canaan. he banged off the wall and the deck load was all messed up. I have one of those yellow mallets and I'm giving it all I can give it. You didn't commit like that.

It didn't commit like that. Someone came in and dropped an elbow out of it. It takes body. You talk about swinging that hammer. I can hear my dad tell me right now, if you're going to swing that, if you're going to pick that hammer up and swing it like you mean it.

You weren't swinging it like you mean. Not like I meant it. That was awesome. And we're going to stay right in Portland because SVG got his first exfini series win up there, which is back to back now for college because AJ won there last year.

He had an awesome burnout. Yes, he did. Yeah, this is the beginning of it. Yeah. This is down in the corner. So the road course, because the road course is so long that he's doing a dirt. And then he does a drift for like, I don't know how far.

I don't know how far this is, but it was forever. Then he gets a football. You got to remember. He does a little bit of rally racing. So those handbraking, sliding maneuvers are not far from what he's normally used to doing. So took a little rugby football

there, signed it, and kicked it into the stands. That's very creative. I like new, I like new celebrations. New celebrations. Here's, here's a thing about SVG. He won a cup race already. He's got an exfinite series race now. Andy Lally made a tweet saying that

they should just put him in the truck series next real course race so he can be the quickest person to winning in all three series. Right now it's Joy Lugano. He did it in 30 combined National Series starts, 20 cups starts, seven truck and three Xfinity. What say you, Kevin Harvick, put him in the truck. I mean, if you put him in a truck on a road course, he's going to win. If he doesn't win the first one, it'd probably win the second one.

And yeah, I think that, I think that's a great idea. Andy Lally, great idea. We got one more thing. Oh, you got another one. One more. It's a big sip today. Yeah, big sip. Big sip.

Listen, we're drunk. Gateway. No, that was last night. Gateway, Gateway is a tight, tight front stretch. The burnout from Austin Cendrick compared to the burnout from SVG. Kevin, give us your rating here. Well, the style points on this one are not as high as SVGs, but the execution of the donut. Yeah. I don't know.

It's pretty tight right here. And this was a very good burnout. But where do you go? I don't know. Those cup donuts just. Those cup donuts just have a little more. They have a little more. A little more meeting.

Yeah. A little more meeting than the Xfinity wins. So honorable mention to SVG, but where are we grading? Because right now you have... That's pretty darn close to Luganos. Yeah. So Luganos, the thing about Luganos is you were there and you felt like it shook the building. This one shook the windows too.

Is it? They weren't as close. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. It was, those donuts were good. And it's, once you get those donuts going like that, like it's, it's hard. to keep them going. And when the smoke

gets like that, it's hard to know if you're going to hit the fence. And the narrow front stretch. I don't know if he hit the fence because there was so much smoke. So from the smoke and donut perfection, huh? There you go. Pretty good one. What are you great? We need a number here. And my numbers and my letters, I forgot what I am. Just tell me if it's better than Lugano's or not.

I don't think it's better, but I think it's pretty equal. Ligano's still leading. Ligano's still leading. That's all I think so matters. For Lugano. A little, still leading. Welcome to the Sips. Thank you, closers. Also, I should give an honorable mention to the racetrack because there was a packed house out there this weekend.

They do such a great job with all the entertainment and everything they provide for the fans. They do. And we went to the UFL game on Saturday. And St. Louis fans are just, they're another level. And they supported that UFL game, but they supported the NASCAR race and they support the IndyCar race. They support pretty much anything that happens in that town. And I love how those sports teams and events and all those people in that city, work together to make sure that their events are successful while they all coexist.

So fun to see sports well supported. Go other sports. I don't know all about them. She has no idea. Is UFL? Is that like a- Stop it. No, no, no, we're not doing that.

All right. Last call, guys. Time now to give our race picks on who we believe can be victorious out there at Sonoma Raceway this weekend. This is a tough one. You can take the honors. This is a tough one. I think that new, we've got new pavement.

I think it's going to come down to not a lot of tire fall off. I think it's going to come down to strategy. And I think it's, I'm not even going to pick anybody this week. No, that's not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's not picky. I'm not picking. No, no, no, absolutely not.

So you had, you had Truex, Josh Barry. I don't even know who the other one was. Or? Who the Chevy was? The what? That went out there and tested it. Oh, okay. Those three cars that tested it.

And then you had SVG, do the, do the, do the, will force test for Chevrolet. It might have been Chastain that actually went out there and did the test. So I think those guys will have an advantage to get started right off the bat. But we have a 50-minute practice. This is going to come down to taking some risk on pit road. I'm going Martin Trex Jr. There was a time where this was one of his best racetracks.

He was an excellent road course racer. We know he's still looking for that first win of the year. Maybe the old 19 team can relive some of those glory days with the wine, sipping and get a victory. I'm between a couple guys. I have one picked. You're pulling a Kevin. No, no, no.

I'm actually, but yeah, but I think they deserve some love. Justin Haley. Oh my gosh. Wow. He's, this is a place. It's open for a guy. Right. And if TikTok can do some magic on strategy,

and like this is a place that you can do that. So like I don't want to pick him, but I do think he'll have a good day. I think the 24, need to get their stuff rolling back. William Biden needs to get going back. And he had a really phenomenal weekend and Cota. But I am going to go on a little bit of a limb and give it to Chase Briscoe.

We are going Chase Briscoe. Another guy that can really flip it on strategy. He's good on road courses. I think they need one. And I think there's a good place to get one for him. Well, it's going to be interesting to see the style of racing because I think everybody knows it's going to be difficult to pass, which sometimes. leads to carnage.

Always. So I think this could be, this could be one of those races that's a complete disaster or just a completely snooze fest. I don't know. You just don't know which way it's going to go. It could land somewhere in the middle,

but a lot of times on these new style repaves, you go extreme one way or the other. We haven't seen a road course repave in a very long time. Well, we went to Watkins Glen, but it's been, you know, it's been several years ago. that they paved Watkins Glen. Actually, this is the second time that I've been through this cycle with Sonoma.

But it's tough to pick out those guys who have been on that side of being so successful here like Truex because of the fact that all the little tricks of Sonoma of which curb to hop on, where to drive, where the drive and the most grip is up off the corner and all those little tricks to the setup that made turn and grip for old Sonoma surface

not really there anymore. So he's saying my pick, good. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm saying your pick could be great. Your pick could be great. He don't know. Mine could be great. It could be a disaster. He's the weather man this week. He don't know nothing. Nothing. Yeah, I'm guessing. Hey, that's okay. We're all guessing together. Um, and you have a busy week, as I mentioned, it's your final race for Fox. But you have a very cool guest joining you on the Thursday episode of the show. Tell us about it. Yes. Yeah, we've got Alex Rodriguez this week. A lot going on in the baseball world on Fox coming up in the future. Arod, he's obviously got a huge, uh, a huge, uh, baseball background, so he was pretty good at it as he went through the years. So I'm intrigued to hear about some of those Yankees stories and some of those team changes and all the things that come with being A-Rod. So it should be fun. Have you talked to him before? Briefly. Briefly.

Not like this. So you're definitely going to ask about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox because he was right in the middle of all that. Maybe. You know what happens? You know what happens when we get into the – we get 30 minutes with everybody. And we get in the middle of these interviews, and I get to about page two or five. And then I'm like, all right. That's time to wrap it up. Yeah. Missed most of those questions.

Overprepared again. There you go. You and Caitlin do that well. Yeah, both overprepared. I, on the other hand, was a terrible student, so I just wing it. Well, we look forward to that conversation regardless. And best luck to you in the booth this weekend for your last race. We'll, of course, be listening.

We encourage the closers to continue following us on YouTube, subscribe, leave a review, leave a word potentially, and make sure you follow us on social media as well. Well, we'll see you guys after Sonoma.