Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Kevin Harvick’s BIG Announcement! Plus, Ryan Preece Wins the Clash Amid Weather Madness

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith kick off this episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour with a big announcement, revealing a free live show ahead of the Daytona 500 on Thursday, February 12 at the NASCAR Fan Experience Set, featuring the full crew, potential special guests, and live fan Q&A, with the episode airing on YouTube and across podcast feeds for anyone not in Daytona. From there, the crew breaks down a chaotic NASCAR Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, reacting to Ryan Preece’s emotional win, William Byron’s runner-up speed, the Suárez–Shane van Gisbergen tension after on-track run-ins, Denny Hamlin’s strong finish and comments on wet-weather racing, and the fuel and late-race issues that bit Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. They also dive into the race’s record 17 cautions, NASCAR’s late refuel decision, weather delays, and what it all revealed about who came out swinging and who left with concerns. The episode closes with Mamba’s Social Sips and burnout grades for Preece. 0:00 - Intro 3:59 - LIVE Show Ahead Of Daytona 6:50 - The Clash Recap 34:50 - Mamba’s Social Sips 40:41 - Last Call Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We can't just be one foot in. This particular situation turned into a shit show. For him to go through all the things that he's gone through, that is not easy. This was at my house and my wife was operating that excavator. She'd be laughing her ass off. We will be doing a live Happy Hour show. I have been so excited.

Caitlin is so giddy about it. Yes. Welcome to Kevin Harbock's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Box. I'm Kevin Harbick. She's Caitlin Vinci and you're still mama. Yes, Sarah. Yeah. Yes, Dad.

New England. Well, listen, you might as well lock in your page his bed because we had a new England guy win over the weekend, so it's just going to keep it. I'm so confused on what day it is. I don't know. My schedule is in complete chaos, trying to move. We've got, it is a disaster. Kevin, so this is this moving attire. Is that what you were doing earlier today?

Yeah, we were moving boxes today, so I just figured I'd wear this today. Did you guys wake up like today and think, oh, yeah, Daytona's in two weeks, and then I have to remember that it's actually. And like, yeah, we're leaving in like less than a year. I was driving home last night. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, oh, Sunday. And then I realized that Piper had to go to school. I had to go to the gym. I mean, it's just you're in the middle of the week.

But when you go to the racetrack, your brain is trained. Yeah. It's Saturday or it's Sunday. And Wednesday just totally screwed me up. At least Piper is in school. My kids have been home for almost like two weeks because of the snow. She's gone twice. And I've had to be a teacher.

which I realized, I forgot to how to tell time on an old clock. Oh, yeah. She was learning about clocks. And I'm like, I don't remember even. How to do this? That's hilarious. That's pretty funny. Yeah, well, it's even better with Piper.

She's in the middle of learning all of her states. You want to test your, am I smarter than a third grader? Yeah. How many did you get? Well, I can get them all now. I can get them all now. Yeah, it's been interesting. But, yeah.

You didn't go out to the class. You said you were cozied up in your house. I was inside cheering you guys on. I was texting Josh Sims when I saw it. So Josh, obviously, he had his hat on and his gloves. I'm like, Josh, you're making us look bad. You got, Jamie's out here, raw dog in the weather and the elements. And he's like, bro, it is not.

It wasn't worth it. It was too cold. I knew we were in trouble when we walked up in the wardrobe room and there were beanies, down jackets, gloves, hand warmers. And I learned something that there are actually lap warmers. There you go. I had no idea. It's like a heated blanket.

I told you guys last week, I came in and showed you exactly what you needed for the race. You did. You did say. I needed nothing. It was fine in the booth. Yeah, Kevin was nice and cozy in there. From the time we started practice until the time when the race was over, I didn't know it was going to be like six hours. Yeah. But it was a bit long. It might have been longer than that.

It was good to hear you guys back on the tube. It was. It was. Yeah, it was good to kind of get back in a rhythm. You know, the short tracks are actually the hardest things to do on those little tracks because you can't get long-winded until stories like you can at Daytona or a mile and a half because so much stuff was happening that you had to be pretty brief about about your thoughts. And it's hard to circle back and finish those stories sometimes because so much happens in between that you forget. So those little

tracks are actually some of the hardest places to do. I'm sure they are. Well, you guys did a good job. And welcome in to another edition of Happy Hour. Make sure all you closers subscribe on YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure you follow us on social media, right? Harvick Happy Pod, you guys know the deal. Two for two. Well locked in. Well done. Well locked in.

It's going to be all year. I'm excited. We are excited. Today is our first edition of the Sips. Is it? Right? How about it? How about it?

We didn't do them yet. So yeah. No, I know what it is. I'll just check it on you guys. Your first Sippy Sips of the year. That's exciting. We have an exciting announcement for everybody. Oh.

Because in Daytona, we will be doing a live happy hour show. I have been so excited. Caitlin is so giddy about it. You guys don't understand. I really am. What's old is new again. You get to have a live audience on a stage. So it's Thursday, February 12 at the NASCAR fan experience at 3 o'clock.

It's free for all the fans. That's when the doors are opening so you guys can all come and hang out with us. See Kevin Harvick in the flesh. That's awesome. Yes. And Mama's going to stay afterwards and sign autographs. So he'll be right there. I have to go to my next gig at that time.

but you're there as long as needed. Listen, I'm there. I'm there. Kevin said he's dropping off beer, so like, come on with it. Let's toss a few back. He did mention there could be some beer. The best wholesaler, one of the best wholesalers in the country right down there. There is. This is exciting, though, because we have talked about it for a while that we wanted to do potentially a live show on the road.

And for me... Mostly you, but... Well, the reason is back when I worked at Speed Channel, those were such neat environments being right with the fans, and they get to be a part of it. There's just a totally different energy that comes with it. So I'm very excited we're going to do this. Yeah. And if you follow the show

and don't show up, we're going to block you. So simple as that. If we find out who you are, we've got digital images of all your faces and we're going to use them. I am pretty excited because back when I was a kid watching like Kenny Wallace and all that, and that whole group, the OGs.

John Roberts. Yeah, man. They all were just really brought the sport together because there's something else to be excited about. Obviously, we're excited about the racing, but excited about all the stories and your favorite characters and cast up there. It's cool. Well, I mean, it's Speed Week. So, you know, we're leading into the biggest race of the year.

And thank goodness, we have a great partner in Fox that is allowing us to do stuff like this and leaning in to being a part of the event. So it'll be fun. This is a man. Y'all need to come out with those. I want to see signs. Signs. I want to see signs. Kevin Harvick, stand-ups.

Yeah, the whole thing. Bring it all. Bring it all. Remember it. Yeah. Bring it back. Let's bring it back. Hopefully Keelan's,

Keelan's first view of doesn't, yeah. That legendary story. The people in Florida are not the same as people in Watkins Glen. It is to be warm there, though. It might be shedding layers. If I was in Watkins Glen right now, I'd want to be in Florida. Yeah, but I don't think they'd be just dropping them out like that. You never know.

You never know. Well, to be determined what we may see, but make sure you join us. But make sure you join us. Again, it's at 3 o'clock on Thursday, before Daytona, in the fan zone, NASCAR fan, experience stage, you're not going to want to miss it. And it's free. And it's free. Free.

Free entertainment. That's right. Everybody likes free. Of course. We all do. It's for me. It's for me. All right.

So now we can talk about the clash and you get to take over from here. Guys, you guys know. We've been doing this for like two years now. And now that Fox is back at the helm of the show. It's Word of the Week. Let's go. it going. Kevin had a great one this time. Let's see what Kevin's World the Week was at the clash.

One more time when I keep you fucking . All right, so that was the 23, Bubba Wallace, and the 97. We've got a list. Yeah, I swear as he can be a bit of a curmudgeon as he gets underneath and puts that helmet on. So you see, Bubba not happy with him right there, gives him a little bit of a break check, slams into the door. Yep. Tough in the back of the field tonight. Mike.

There's not a bunch more to say about that. Yeah, the word went right by Mike this week. Oh, really? Maybe he thinks my vocabulary is better than it actually is. You said that you're not telling them anymore. Well, right? Look, I have to lean on Mike Joy sometimes if I get a word that I don't understand. This week, I used AI.

Oh. So I have a new assistant. And I think it's going to be better to just have those words pop up on the broadcast and them not know about it. I can tell Clint, but he never pays attention to me anyway. So if I tell him, he's probably not going to remember. Yeah. But it'll be better for them to realize the words naturally.

That was the perfect place to put it in, though. It was. That was the easiest word yet. You wouldn't have known that was going to happen, though. The hard part about putting the word into the broadcast is you never know when that moment is going to go. And they ran each other over like 785 times this week. So I knew at some moment there was going to be somebody that was pissed off like Suarez was and we were going to play it on the radio. So that was a giving.

It's a warm-up. It's just to get you going, buddy. So you came up with that one or is that one the driver submitted? No, no, no. That was yours truly. We have a list from the drivers. Yes, I believe so. I haven't seen this list yet.

Well, I think Bob asked them on the hangar day. Yeah, I think. We needed to be track relevant again. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I knew that that one specifically was going to work because they were going to get pissed off at each other. And at some point, it was going to be just really easy.

Did you have to study to find that word? Well, actually, over the off season, our closers, well, somebody submitted on X or Twitter or whatever, like a bunch of cool words. And the closers started tagging me. And they like, probably like 25 people tagged me in the same post. I'm like, I'll save this for you guys. So I pulled out for that one. Cool. Nice.

Fans weighing in. I like it. I love them. We have quite a bit to discuss here with this exhibition race. I would like to start with the positives, because there will be some negatives as well. Yeah. The positive being Ryan Preece got the victory.

It's so refreshing to see the emotion, the raw emotion out of him, and just the full of gratitude for Ryan. Well, Ryan has been a position to where he thought he was going to go home, not going to make it. He's been a position where he's taking a loan out on his house and borrowed money to race at Joe Gibbs Racing to prove that he could win.

and he's just one of those guys that just digs all the time and hardcore racer. Race is race modified. It's modified at Bowman Gray Stadium. He's already down at New Smyrna, racing his super late model. I'm going to race is modified down there. So he just loves to race. He's always worked on his cars. And I think the coolest part about this is, you know, hard-ass Ryan Priest.

And you'll hear it when hopefully you guys have listened to the interview. a Victory Lane interview with Ryan and listen to our interview that I did with Ryan, you know, after the, after the race. But it's, it's fun to hear the hard asses when it hits them. And, you know, I've been hit by those emotions when you just can't control them and you can't talk and it just overwhelms you because you don't really realize how much pressure is on you and how much pressure you put on yourself. And, you know, those do-or-die moments where, you know, you might have to go work a construction job or, you know, fabrication or whatever that job may be to make a living and realize that your dream's dead. And, you know, when you actually reach the

pinnacle of what you thought you should and get to Victory Lane in a cup car, when you've been working your whole life to get there, you saw exactly what that means to him. And, you know, that emotion coming out was pretty awesome to see. Yeah. I mean, he's one of my New England brothers. It's like the guy, the people that come from the New England area, they are, we are hard-nosed racers up there. And we don't get to do it as much because of the weather. And we, those people up there probably don't get the amount of respect nationally that they deserve for being great, not only drivers, but mechanics on the cars.

You know what I mean? Everyone has a second job. So it's like, it's like a lifestyle, but it's not the same as it is down here. And for him to go through all the things that he's gone through, you know, he started racing at like JD Motor. Yeah. Like I worked on his car on his, um, K&N car when he came to MDM Motorsports. He drove for us before, like even before that. So he was just grinding and grinding, grinding, and then he saw flashes. And then we were in an era where like he bet on himself and won at

JGR. And then it was like nothing. It was like, well, what? He won. He did everything he's supposed to do. That's really like a kick in the, in the chest because you're like, well, what else more could have done? And, uh, he was. he just never quit and working out obviously with the KHA group getting the partners together and all the things. It's it's really I'm really really happy for him, happy for Heather, happy for everyone back home because I know they're going nuts. And now it's just one more reason when we go to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for them to be excited. I asked him, I asked him on our interview this week. I said, well, did Miss Heather wash your mouth out with soap?

Yeah, there was a FOMB. Dropped a couple of EMPLs after the words. Yeah, that was funny. But it's, you kind of noted this on the broadcast. He's kind of been carrying the flag for RFK. I mean, you look at last year, he had 14 top 10 performances. It was the best season he's ever had in Cup. And now he has a lot to build on just coming out of the gate with this.

You never know when it's just going to gel with a team or the crew chief and engineers or company in general. And it, it has just gelled for those guys. And, you know, it's just they've assembled the right group of people with the right personalities and figured out how to, to talk to each other and make their cars fast. And consistently last year, he ran in the top 10. And that's hard to do in the Cup Series. He spent a long time at JTG trying to do exactly that. And, you know, it's not something that you can just fall into. It takes a lot of work, but it takes the right people, takes the right system to be able to put that group of people together and make it happen. So I'm super happy for Ryan and really everybody at RFK because,

you know, that they put a lot of... of effort into trying to make their cars better and get themselves into Victory Lane. I think Chris Busher, we thought that he was going to be the dominant car last year with all the momentum that he had from the year before and even Brad himself, Brad being hurt, not being in the race and, you know, kind of some questions on, you know, where his health is. I think that that was the timing of Ryan's win was big. Ryan, sorry, KV, but Ryan, I just want to note, like, last year you saw his road course stuff get better. Like he has become a well-rounded race car driver and what we, what he had to do to win

at Bowman Gray with the weather like that is not easy. I feel like his reaction just exemplified what it means to win. I know it's an exhibition race, but like Carson Hosevar was talking about it, we still do all the DIL, the prep work is the same even though it's not a points race. Like a win is a win and you're going to lose a lot more than you're ever going to win and you could just sense how much that moment meant to him. Well, it's it's a race. And whether it's a race for it's still got money on the line, it's got a trophy on the line. And it really gets your season started. Those guys hadn't, most of them hadn't been in a car.

Ryan had. But most of those guys hadn't sat behind the wheel since they left Phoenix. So, you know, to kind of get the rust knocked off. There was a lot of pressure on these guys leading into those practice sessions to get their cars right, you know, to just make the race. And that was Ryan's goal. He said it. Our goal, our only goal was to make the race. and that was kind of the first race within the race, was to get into that top 20 or into the top 23 of the field. So it's, you know, I think there's definitely wins that are popular, and this is definitely one of those wins that's popular in the garage. It does seem like that for sure.

So you kind of reference the things leading up to it. One of them was the LCQ, last chance qualifier. This was very exciting and some good respectable race in there, right? I don't know about respectable, but respectable for Bowman Gray. You just have to know at certain places you're going to get run into. You're going to have to run into people. And, you know, the LCQ race between Corey LaJoy and Austin Cendrick and what wound up being A.J. Almondinger, but it got technical.

And these guys passed each other a couple times and figured out that they needed to stay wheel to wheel to get Almonddinger back into the race so that the retaliation couldn't come. And really in the end, staying door to door like that when Almonddinger gave Cendrick that shot, having that car up on the outside of him right there of Corey LaJoy, saved the two from going up the racetrack and Almonddinger driving by him. So just a great finish to the LCQ. And Bowman Gray has produced some good finishes and good racing with the things that we've had happen up there when the track's dry. Yeah, it's really fun to watch when the track is dry. It's really interesting to watch when it's not.

But I thought the racing, when they got to race and use race craft that they typically do, I thought it was really good. And yeah, they were beating on each other and people were mad. But that's literally why we're doing it. That's the matter. That's part of it and what we expected to see. So I think if we didn't see that, we'd think something was wrong. You know what I mean?

So I thought that the racing all in all was good when they got to do it. It has that nickname for a reason. It lives up to its knees. The unique part. And I was, I mean, it was super cold and sleeting and raining in the second half of the race. I was surprised how many people actually showed up for the race. But the people that showed up never left. They stayed.

That's amazing. I think, and how many times if they got to watch a race in the rain at Bowman Gray? Shout off to them, seriously, because it must have been freezing. Those are the MVP's. That's a dedicated race fans. I thought there was a lot more people there than there was going to be. There was more people than I thought was going to be there. And then to Kevin's point, everyone that was their state.

And look at this. Yeah, if you're watching along on YouTube, this is what that racetrack looked like a few days prior. Obviously, the track personnel diligently working to clear that thing off. We had record-setting snow here in North Carolina, the most snow we've seen in 20-some years. So this was a pretty large undertaking for everybody and that community, obviously, in Winston-Salem. But they got it. They got it ready. There's not too many times that I've seen the jet dryers used all.

on the on the infield. Yeah, no. That's a new, that's new. That is definitely, definitely a new one for me. But you had to keep up with it because there was so much snow that was coming down. And ultimately, it kind of bit us in practice a little bit. The snow was packed up on top of the walls and it got warm enough during the day. It started melting underneath the safer barriers.

And they had to go out and keep addressing it. And actually dug the wall between the safer barrier and the wall out after the, you know, after the practice sessions and things. happened before the LCQ to keep the water from running out the track. But they had shovels out there in between. But I think that we deserve these folks from NASCAR, Winston Salem, Bowman Gray, Fox, all the people that were on the grounds in order to just get this event to happen was a massive undertaking. It took way more time than everybody thought it was going to take as far as being there on Wednesday. You know, you got to realize our crew was there a week before the race, the trailers and everything, cameras and everything set up around the racetrack.

And so it was a massive undertaking just to get this event to actually happen with all the weather and things that happened. So lots to deal with. And the hits just kept on coming on race night. Yeah, Kevin is referencing more weather made its way in around the halfway point. And I want to bring up something that James Small said after the race. Obviously, Chase Briscoe and Company had a very strong car throughout the course of that. He was very frustrated with the officiating side. And NASCAR bringing cars to fuel,

obviously on Pitt Road. And then just, he said there was a lot of miscommunication. He felt like on tires, minimal information on what was going on, your perspective on the officiating for this race. Well, you know, I think there were definitely some moments that could have been officiated, you know, definitely smoother. I think that, you know, this event is so unique because we don't count caution laps. We had rain and sleet in the second half. And so when the things started happening and the event started to become a wet weather event, I just wish we weren't so tentative and just especially at the clash.

I've driven the car with the rain tires on there before. And I know we didn't have the windshield wiper on. I've never turned my windshield wiper on one time when we were in a wet weather race because it just, to me, it just doesn't work. I'd rather have the window wiped and Rain X put on the window. But, you know, I just, it feels like a tough decision, but I feel like we just, either we're in the rain business or we're out of it, right? Like if we're going to have rain tires and it starts raining and there's not standing water,

which there was not on the racetrack, we're going, we're not going very fast. And, you know, if you've got the wet weather tires in the pits, give them five minutes, put the tires on, send them out on the racetrack and let's go. And we heard it from several of the, you know, we heard it from Kyle Larson, we heard it from Chase Elliott, we heard it from several of those guys that were on the radio saying, let's go. And, you know, ultimately it took so much extra time, 15, 20, 30 minutes, whatever it was, that it pushed us off the air out of our broadcast window on Fox and ultimately pushed us to FS2. So, you know, I know that they're nervous about the safety of the competitors, but there's really not that

much to be nervous about. As, you know, I think that the other conversation was the spray, which was never an issue because of the fact that we're going so slow there. So it was, you know, I feel like, I feel like on the old ones, if we're going to be in the rain business, we've got to put the rain tires on, send them back on on a racetrack. The only thing that I would like to look at, our guys don't, the only time they learn what's happening with wet weather tires is in the race. Right. You know, I think having those double file restarts right off the bat the first time, you know, if we, if we could just get, the cars strung out, we would have been in better shape. Because they don't know how far to drive in the corner. They don't know where to run on the racetrack. The middle lane was like ice with the

rubber. And you just saw that with Ty Gibbs immediately on the restart right there, slid up the racetrack, couldn't go anywhere, sliding, spinning the tires. But if we're going to be in the wet weather business, we got to be more aggressive in putting the tires on the car. And we got to figure out how to get good year to build a right side tire, left side tire, whatever they want to build that has staggering it for these ovals. We've got to just do it appropriately. If we're going to, we can't just be one foot in. We've got to be committed.

We've got to be committed to it. And having driven the rain tires before, you know, they drive fine. Yeah. Now, this particular situation turned into a shit show. Right. Because, and I've been here before at the Coliseum. When we went to L.A., I'd finally been tired of getting run over. And you just start bulldozing people.

And that's what this turned into. The drivers lost their minds and started bulldozing people. because you're just constantly getting run into. And the way to pass was to slam into the guy's door beside you. And, you know, when it's wet like that, it becomes finesse. Or at Bowman Gray. Yeah. In the wet.

Yeah. There was not much finesse. So, you know, I think that when we had this scenario a couple years ago, it was the same way at the Coliseum. Yeah. And this time it just so happened to be, there was nothing wrong with the tire. There was nothing wrong with the track conditions.

It was just the fact that they were all tired of getting run into and turn into bulldozers. I think, too, we need to decide what we want this event to be. Like, from the standpoint of what we're doing with the clash itself, like, I think it being at L.A., I loved it at L.A. I also loved it at Bowman Gray Stadium. I also remember loving it at Daytona. Like, now I don't think we're going to, I don't think we'll see it at Daytona. because the amount of work the Speedway cars take and then risking, wrecking, you know, on a high level

and then you're losing cars and like the money aspect, the business part of that part is really tough. Even turning the lights on at Daytona versus turning lights on at Bowman Gray is a lot different, right? I don't know what exactly the answer is. Maybe it's a short-track situation. Maybe we move it up earlier

and do an international situation, like some type of exhibition in a warm weather climate. I don't know what. what it is exactly, but we need to think about what we want this to be because we've now you, we've kind of exhausted a lot of the options and what we're going to do? It's, I think we should use our resources here. You know, the international thing is probably a big check, but I think it's great that we go to a place like Bowman Gray. You look at the

soft walls, you look at the lights, you look at all the improvements that went into that racetrack. Ryan Priest mentioned New Smyrna in his post-race interview. That place needs some work. Need some help. And my point in this is using that race to go to different places to help rebuild the infrastructure of the short track system is needed. And if you want to go, I mean, New Smyrna has the same weather Daytona is going to have. Bakersfield, California has great weather this time of year. There are places that we could go to be able to put a little money, a little enthusiasm into that particular market to cater to some of those short tracks. So we could get three, four, five years down the road and then worry about what we want to do next.

But I love the fact that, and the racing has been good at Bowman Gray when the racetrack was dry. And racing was good at the Coliseum the first year. The second year it turned into exactly what we just saw last night. So, you know, you can get some good ones. You can get some bad ones. But I like it at the short track. So you wanted to stay at Bowman Gray? I don't think it's good to stay at Bowman Gray.

because of the weather. I like the short track in general. Bowman Gray is a great place to have it. I think we've put on good shows. I think the fans are, we have hardcore, rabid fans that are at Bowman Gray, and we have a great fan base there. But unfortunately, when that race falls,

it's just so questionable with the weather, and we got bit by it this year. We got lucky last year. It's a high risk, high reward. I think we all, as all we all are fans. And as we want things to happen and all other things like that. You got to remember, be careful.

We talked about last week. Be careful what you wish for because there is the other side of the coin. So we just got to remember that. There you go. All right. So let's talk about some of the things that happened throughout the course of this race. And maybe we'll start with William Byron, who was the runner up. What kind of flex did you see him demonstrate in race one?

Well, he was in contention all night. And I think that, you know, we saw a certain point where he and Larson started to fade. He didn't fade as bad as Larson. He had his issues during the race. And we saw that all night from a lot of people that were able to rebound from their issues to get back up towards the front of the field. So a lot of moving and shaken from the front of the pack to the back of the pack as we went through the whole night. So it was, you know, look, William Byron is, you know, he's got the experience now. He's got the stability in his team.

He's got an organization that is, you know, proven winners with Hendrick Motorsports. And they're in a position to contend for a championship. and I think the maturity of the team and starting to fill those holes of things that happen, you know, have slowly been filled to put them in a position to be contenders. So Hendrick swept the front row. We saw four Gibbs cars lined up right behind them after qualifying. And I really think that's going to be the story of the year. Oh.

It's Hendrick versus Gibbs. There you go. And that's just the way that it is. You know, with the small changes in the rules this year with the cars and everything that's happening, it's going to be hard to make up ground on those guys. I think the only question mark is that new body and what tracks does it benefit or hurt the Chevroletes on. Hendrick versus Gibbs. What's old as new again? Here we go again. One driver who had a solid showing that is with a new team this year is Daniel Suarez had a top five performance. Seems pretty happy with what his

group brought to the table. There were some unknowns, obviously, with him going over to Spire on how that would go. He's paired with Ryan Sparks. I would say he's probably feeling encouraged based on what they saw. Yeah, I mean, it's a race that, like Kevin said, there's still money involved, it's still a trophy, it's still a race. You want to show up, you want to make sure your process is right to getting the cars right, right? So that is a good step.

You want to have your first step be a good one, no matter what. Is throwing me off him in the seven car? It is a little bit. It's so, like the seven car has been for Spire. It's like their home car. Like, that was their first number, I'm pretty sure, other than the 77, seven in general, right? And so I look at that. I'm like, I think Spire's so heavy and swore as over there. I've been thinking to him as track house for so long.

So it's going to take me a little bit to get used to that. I mean, during practice or qualifying or I don't remember exactly what it was on the air. But I called Connor Zilich. I called him Shane Van Gisberg for multiple laps. And my compadres in the booth weren't saying that it was the wrong car. It's like, I don't worry about it. I'm like, no, I sound like an idiot. Yeah.

It could just called the wrong car. But it's the same for us. We're learning the new cars on the racetrack and the people who are driving and when they move around. But for those drivers and teams, they're doing the exact same thing. They're trying to figure out the brake pedals feel different, the way that everything is done. The process is all different for those new drivers. So good first outing for Suarez and that team. Let me ask you this.

When a driver switched, right, that maybe you switched from a car that you knew the driver of and you probably didn't have any run-ins with, right? With somebody that maybe you have or haven't, whatever, and then they do something that you're not used to out of that car. Does it catch you off guard? You know what I mean? Like, because Bubba and Swarra is like, I think they've had a couple like little dusts, nothing crazy.

Svara's an SVG is of interest. Right. I mean, like, so when he switches, you're like, wait, who's in that car again? Like, because Justin Haley and Bubba probably never really run together much. Yeah. Well, it's, it definitely doesn't take long. Yeah.

Maybe a race or two, and sometimes you've forgotten. who you're racing with. But when a new guy pops up in there and or even a young guy that pops up in there that you're not used to racing with, it definitely changes the way that you think about the situation. So you definitely have to understand who you're around and what you're dealing with. You mentioned the trackhouse cars. What did you think about what we saw at SVG and Connor Zillage in this event? Yeah, I thought in the wet, it was, it was good. In the dry, it wasn't Great. You know, Ross was kind of just middle of the pack all night. And I think, but that's been our question. Where would these trackhouse cars be as the performance of the cars? Where would

they be for these drivers? And what's that going to be like as we start the season? So, I mean, there's a lot of hype around Zillich. And we, we know that he has the skill set to drive the car fast and has won and everything that he's raced in. SVG. Obviously, we know that he is going to be a contender to win all the road course races. And we expect Ross Chastain to win. And really, from a trackhouse standpoint, Ross Chastain is expected to be the leader of that organization to guide the process of making the cars fast. So a lot of pressure on all of those guys. Different scenario for SVG with the points. Connor coming into the series and the expectations that are set on Ross to be that leader and winner of the organization. I'll be interested to see how SVG would the

point system being different, depending on how well he's doing on the ovals. I expect him to be better on the ovals. But again, a lot of it's to your point, how's the team overall doing? Because he could get better and it might look worse, but like the cars didn't get better, right? So it's going to be, we're going to have to play that by here.

But when he's in the situation on the road courses, but we need points, but he's going, you know, throwing haymakers with like a Chris Busher. Like how does he now operate? Because when he got here, it was the other system. So he only knew one way.

So this is, for everyone else, it's back to the old. But for him, it's completely different. Well, it's, you know, I think when you, I want to go back to one more thing, you know, from the race, we saw Kyle Bush. We saw, you know, Denny Hamlin. A lot of these guys go into the pits, work on their cars, fix their cars for, to go back out on a racetrack in the wet. You're going to get in this position again.

And all these guys were not all of them. them, but a lot of them were craving the time on the racetrack to be able to understand what they needed to do to get better, understand their race cars and collect that data to be able to know what they needed to do to their car to make it work right in these rain conditions. Because in the end, in the results, it doesn't say anything about whether it's wet, whether it's dry, whether have field crashed, whatever it is, you've got to be able to navigate these different scenarios. and our guys do a great job behind behind the wheel of being able to adapt and adjust to all these

different conditions. And so it was definitely something that was really, really useful for a lot of the notebooks for all these teams. If you don't think that it could be cold like this at Martinsville, because we've been cold. It snowed at Martinsville before. We could be in this situation literally at Martin's Route, a track that if there's anyone to compare to Bowman Gray, it would be that. So this could really pay out.

So there is another positive that came from all that. There are a lot of positives. You know, I just, if we're going to be in the wet weather business, let's just own it. Yep. Like, let's not, let's not overthink it. Like, the tires are good, the cars are capable, the drivers are capable, let them go out there and just get after it. Especially this situation, because there's no points. Right.

So everyone's trying stuff anyway. So like, just let them. It's kind of perfect opportunity. They all drove into turn one and the whole field didn't go straight in a wall. It's not going to happen. Yeah. I mean, it's just not going to happen. We've done it at Richmond. We've done it at Loudoun. We've done it at, you know, Bristol. We've done it at a lot of the places that we've, that we've, I just, it has to just be second nature. And we just got to quit worrying about it so much. I know that we're always worried about safety and we should be. But there's not that as much to worry about with the wet weather tires is what we're worrying about. Okay. Well, there you have it. That was the clash. And now we are moving on to the Daytona 500. We can't wait for that. But next, next, that's good grace.

That's a huge race. Yeah. We will talk more about the Daytona 500 on our live show that you can't miss. Caitlin's live show. No, it is Kevin's show. KV special edition of Happy Hour. We're going to, it's a show's name is here. It's just Kevin Harvey Tapper hour.

Presented by Fox, presented by KV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You're next. Mama Social Sips. Look, look, speaking of whose show it is now.

There you go. It's your favorite time for the first time of the year. mombers, social sips. I can't wait to do this live with y'all. That's going to be. You better come up with something better than normal. No, when we do social sips live,

you're going to see how much of these clothes really love this part. You're going to see. But let's get into it. All right. So when I was looking at through social, you know, I was like, do I do stuff throughout the off season? And I was going to find most of the off season,

but then the snowstorm came. Perfect. Well, this ought to be good. So we have a snowy sips for you. Let's start with Chris Busher. Or Texan, you know, he's a little bit of a cowboy. They do some cowboy stuff. They do some cowboy stuff.

He's an excavator out here. He's riding. He's riding. Is that a sled? No, it looks like an air mattress. Oh, it's an air mattress. Yeah. It's hard to explain what he's doing because I don't know the proper redneck words for this.

But he's holding on to a rope that is tied to an excavator and the excavator is being slung around in a circle. And he is, I mean, he's stroking. He's going pretty fast. He's lucky he's not in bed next to Brad Kozlowski. With an injury. I want to know who was operating the excavator. I know one thing.

If this was at my house and my wife was operating that excavator, it would be as fast as it could go and she'd be laughing her ass off. See how far she could throw me. Yeah. Yeah, he'd be God's a first. I've never, I've not, I've not seen that activity before. I like it. This seems like a brand new activity.

I would love to run the excavator and take you. Yeah. Shocker. There's still some snow out there. We can still do this. No, no, no, no. We're good. We're good.

We're going to stay right here. Jerry Lugano, he's been running around with his son Hudson around his, around the shop, and property. And they took the, the UTVs out, the side by sides. And they were having a ball. There's some awesome video They're drifting around Obviously that's a really good donut

What do you rate that? Kevin, that's pretty good Those are some ripping donuts right there I was waiting for him to shoot through the front door Yeah Great control That was a good one He's good at him

That's Kiana does that in the cup car too To be honest And then this probably Is my favorite so far Of the things that I've seen on social Obviously we have the race for the seat show here on Fox with Rams trying to find a driver to fill in their extra truck.

Well, it got one driver, Stephen Mollazi. He basically did a whole ad for them. It's like an infomercial. Yeah, let's see a little bit of it. Here's my problem. Not only am I a law student at Temple who works a full-time job, but I've also been racing in NASCAR for the last five seasons, and it's a lot of work to find sponsorships. The thing people don't realize about NASCAR is I have to find $50,000 to $100,000 in sponsorships just to cover the cost.

Per race. For some races, I've been able to get sponsors. But one time, I sold my car to race. This was my last time in old Jimbo. With racing being insanely expensive, I don't get to do it as much as I should, but that's where Ram comes in. To celebrate the return of the Hemian... So I know this kid, and he... fully funded shot over 25 races.

He is a diehard. Like, he wants it really bad. And I just felt like if you're going to have a program like this, that you're looking for someone who's a diehard and for the brand, you need to give something like this shot. Can he drive? He hasn't been able to drive much, so I don't know. Well, where do you come from?

He came from carts. He came from car. Like you just go from law school to trucks? Kind of. He did carting, and then he got into a truck, and now he does, like, starting parks a lot for Rayum. and when they have the funding, they run the whole thing. He got Outback to sponsor him, which I think is pretty,

we had Outback at Stuart Haas. Yeah. We used to have Blooming Mondays every time we got a top 10. I think one year we got 32 of them. A lot of top 10s back in the days. Yeah. And, no, I don't think it was 32, but it was a lot. Maybe it was 28, 29.

Still, it's a high number. Something like that. Yeah. And they loved it because every time that somebody would go in to buy a Blumen Onion, they would have an average ticket price of $32 at the Outer. at the Outback with their free blooming onion. Oh, really? Yeah.

That's awesome. That's pretty good return. That's not bad. Yeah, we were driving some traffic. We were getting it going. Full circle, right there. Full circle moment. Good for Stephen, though, having his

putting his story out there. He sold his own car to race. I know. That's wild. That's extreme. That's pretty extreme. It's pretty extreme. And it was some type of Dodge, I think, too,

that he sold to do that. So he's really locked into the brand. Don't forget, the mailbag. We got it back this year. So Harvick Happy Hour 4 at gmail.com. Send us your thoughts. Yes. You could also leave a voicemail.

Good or bad. Good or bad. Thoughts and questions. That's right. Yeah, we love hearing from you any way we can. And obviously leave a voicemail. 805-317-4175. That is your first Mamba Sips of the Year.

It's going to be a long year. And I love you guys for it. You know what my favorite part is other than the Sips? I know what it is. And this one was tough. This one was tough. So we got to grade them on a curve. We got to get a little grayish here.

Yeah, we got to kind of grid on a curve. So let's see Priests. The only other ones that I really remember is C Bells at, like, New Hampshire. And that one, this was better than C Bells at New Hampshire. Wait, you mean just in general? Yeah. Elliot, SBGs had some really good ones. Elliot's last year here at Bowman Gray was really good.

But not on rain tire. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, in the rain tires. I mean, specifically rain tire. Rain tires are, they look pretty grippy. He got some smoke out of it, though. He did the best he could with what he had in this situation, I feel like. It was loud. Yeah.

This part kind of. I don't think it was very good. He probably should just nose it up and just burned it, melted. I mean, look, you guys know I'm honest, so I'm happy for Ryan Priest, but his burnout sucked. There you go. So are you going to grade it? Yeah. It's not an F, but it's probably more like a C-minus.

Kermudgeon. You know the visit. Yeah. Is that how we're grading them this year? Do you want to do numbers, scale? Yeah, we got to decide. I'm going to change, so we'll just do it however we want. So give me a number.

Yeah, it's not very good, so it won't matter long. Scale 1 to 10. He said it wasn't an F, but then he gave it a C and not a D. So, like, that's why I, like, need a number. He gave it a C minus. I mean, he's still one. So, yeah. Five out of 10.

Only because Tyler told me. He just got told me. He just got told me. He just got told that every year. So, you know, Tyler's like, get her. Move on, Kevin. Pick a number. Pick a number.

I barely made it. My GPA was like 2.0. Oh, plus. All right. So we got five out of ten for the first burnout of the end. Not your fault, priest. The problem at Bowman Gray is you have only down to go after Chase Elliott's last year. So compared to Chase Elliott's last year, I mean, we should just drove straight to victory lane.

There you go. Oh, man. We will probably see something spectacular at the 500, though, whoever wins that. That's a hard one. It's hard for the banking. Okay. Well, yeah. It's hard.

I'm trying to sell the hope here. Hope is not a strategy. Hope is a bad strategy. Hope is a bad strategy. Okay, wow. You just blew through those tips, buddy. I'm pretty good. Good job.

Yeah, you're three. I'm glad you showed up today. You're welcome. That's right. Ready to rip. All right, closers. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube wherever you get your podcasts. We will see you Tuesday for a very fun edition with Bob Pockris,

who is doing a season preview with us. He will be there. So thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Go, Pat.