Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Kyle Larson wins Vegas Pennzoil 400, Weekend Recap, and Kevin’s stories from Phoenix Raceway!

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

On Episode 5 of “Happy Hour with Kevin Harvick” NASCAR Legend Kevin Harvick sits down with co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith to give you the ultimate weekend recap of Pennzoil 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. To start, they recap Kyle Larson’s Pennzoil 400 Las Vegas victory, the highs and lows of the race and dive into what’s in store at the Phoenix Raceway. They also analyze Ty Gibbs’ impressive comeback following pit road troubles in Vegas.Next, Kevin shares his secret to success as the all-time record for Cup Series wins at Phoenix Raceway with 9 wins. But that’s not all – get ready for some exclusive content as Mamba talks about Daniel Suárez on stage with Pitbull after his win, Keelan Harvick’s Big Day and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So we get the manager of the club over and we say, hey, we want to buy everybody in this club a Budweiser. We bought like 1,200 Budwisers for the whole club, and they have the waitresses come out. And these Budwisers are on platters. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. This is Caitlin Bensie and Momba Smith. Episode three. Now, here we are again.

And last week was a good week. We want to thank all the people who've been listening and watching. your podcast was number one on the NASCAR charts. So that's really cool. We're grateful for who's been tuning in. If you like NASCAR and you have friends who like NASCAR, tell them to keep listening, right? That's right.

Yeah, we want to stay towards the top. Yeah, we very much appreciate that. Yeah. Speaking of appreciation, I want to appreciate Kev's shoe game. It's looking pretty lit. Lit. Yeah. Pretty lit, bro.

The week is lit. So, yeah, my shoes are the new Jauman's. And I know nothing about, typically about shoes. And Keelan comes in one day and he says, Dad, can you get me these new jaw shoes? And I'm like, I don't know. Let me see them. So I ordered the shoes. And they got to the house and I said, oh, maybe those are your shoes, Keelan.

He opens up. He's like, oh, they're too big. I said, no, you're wrong. They're mine. But good idea. I said, if you want some shoes, you're going to have to get a job. You did my boy dirty. Why did you do it like that?

It was a little bit dirty. So I'm going down to the 11-year-old generation of shoes. Well, I don't know. Yeah, easy. Come down. I mean, I'm 32. I would wear those. You'd wear these?

I think those are very age-appropriate. They look good. I guess I could play basketball in him, but probably one and done. Okay. You think he's going to have enough shoes to last every new episode? What do we say? Over under on this? Well, I was just asking for some advice.

I mean, I don't know how often that I should wear this. How often would you wear those shoes again on television? I don't know. I'm going to give it a couple months, probably in between. Do you think somebody would notice if you wore them within five weeks? Yeah, probably. Okay. You know that they notice everything.

You're going to have to get more shoes. I gotta be honest, I wear these more than once on stage and people always give me compliments, so I'm gonna keep rocking with it. They're sharp looking. There you go. I'm just a touch out of style. We'll get there. We're working on.

This is a long season, okay? We're gonna recap, obviously, everything that happened in Vegas. Look ahead to Phoenix where you are very, very good, I might add. You'll have your social segment. Yes, we will. But before we do all that, you mentioned the word. So you go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

So appreciate everybody and the response to the word was fantastic. Kev, let's run it back. Let's hear exactly the conversation with you and Bubba Wallace. All right, buddy. Well, that Columbia camera looks pretty lit today. So floor that thing. You're too old to be talking like that. It was seamless. You really did a good job there. Just line that right in. Yeah, everybody paid attention, but Mike Joy actually dropped it in the qualifying show. So he knew the word too. He actually, well, I kind of told him the game because if I didn't tell him what was actually happening,

and they would look at me when I said that, and Clint would have just lost a freaking mind, right? He still did. He knew it was coming, and he still cracked up. But I had to let Mike in because everybody, so everybody knew it was coming, producers, everybody knew it was coming. But I guess I was trending on Twitter. I had a text from my wife, and she says,

what in the world is happening? I just turned my iPad on. I pulled up Twitter and your name is trending. Did you fall down? What have you said? What is happening? So I had to explain to her what, was going on that I had said lit on television and everybody was a little bit caught off guard

because it's obviously way out of character for me to say it. So I guess we've created a monster. Something like that. Yep. Is that what we've done? We have. So what we're going to do too is for anyone listening and everyone out there, if you want to potentially be able to have some fun with Kevin, make sure you give us a five-star review and the word that you want us to use. And we'll see, we might slide it in there for Kevin. We're getting the fans involved now. So we're going to do this every week. Oh, it's on. Okay. So I'm getting the word on Friday and I figure out how to incorporate it on Sunday. Correct. And you know what that makes it even better was Bubba's reaction.

I know. Because I know Bubba, I know him well. And we talk, we we talk on occasion, fair amount. And his reaction was instant. Like it was spontaneous. And he was instantly like, oh, no. You are too old for them. Don't do that anymore. So apparently he was, he was definitely not in on the word. It's amazing how fast the fans picked up on it. Like, this was very quick. Yeah, so I'm excited to see what you choose this week. I know, I'm excited to. I'm not. But it'll be fun. I'm going to participate.

It's going to be fun. Okay, so we'll be on the lookout for that. But I want to talk about Vegas. Was it about what you expected this race to be? I mean, Kyle Arson obviously had a dominant performance. The closing laps, though, with Tyler Redick, the battle was good. What did you think? Well, I think from the beginning, we really expected Kyle Arson to compete and be the guy to beat.

And really, before the race, we talked it was Kyle Arson. versus his right rear tire. That was really the biggest battle that he was going to fight was, could the tire withstand how he likes to drive his car and how much would he fall off at the end of a run? And I don't think he missed a beat pretty much all weekend, and that right rear tire survived. And he can just drive his car looser than most guys.

And when you look at the finishing order, I would tell you the same thing about Tyler Reddick because of just their style of driving. I feel like Tyler Reddick was the better car. especially at the end of the race. And Kyle Larson just did an absolutely phenomenal job of putting his car in the right spot to airblock and do the things that he needed to do.

I was a little bit surprised at the end of the race just kind of where Tyler wound up on the racetrack. I really thought that he would stick with that high groove through three and four that he had made so much time with. And as a driver, I always feel like there's a little bit left. in the risk that you can take running against the high line when you get to lap coming to the white or, you know, at the white flag. But, you know, I felt like leading, he ran that high line coming to the checkered, but I felt like with two laps to go, he got himself in a bad spot in some bad air,

and he had lost all the ground that he made up. So he was frustrated after the race, which I'm happy to see. I love to see that emotion of guys just pissed off about finishing second. And I mean, that's the worst spot to finish because he knew that he had the best car at the end of that race and just didn't have the track position and couldn't make it work. And Kyle just did a great job. You've known Kyle Larson a long time. Do you feel like we're witnessing one of the greatest talents we've seen in recent years coming through in his career and everything he's able to do? He's out of control. He's just, he's so good. And he's, the thing about Larson to me is that he does it in different disciplines. Like he gets in whatever car and he goes fast. And not

everyone can do that. Like, there are good drivers that are good at their discipline, but Kyle seemed like he can just get in whatever and go compete at a high level. Now,

I think it's interesting because for a little while, I didn't think anyone was really on his level, especially at these tracks. Mile and a half, where you got a rim ride to create that momentum

to get that speed. Tyler Reddick, I feel like has pushed Kyle. Yeah. Like, kind of like how Kyle Larson used to push Kyle Bush when Kyle was coming up.

And now Redick is kind of pushing Larson to his limits, and he's getting a little better about how is he staying in the lead. So, Kevin, did you ever have somebody that was starting to, well, you saw them coming and, like, they were starting to push you to be better? Because that's an interesting spot. For me, a lot of times it was Kyle Busch, which I thought had a winning car this weekend. Pit Road mistake took himself out of contention.

But for me, we went, Kyle Busch and I went round and around. And it was from the early days at KHA, we competed against our own truck teams. we competed against each other in the Bush series, the Xfinity series, the Cup series. We ran into each other pretty much every way you could run into each other on the racetrack. And it was just a, it was a constant evolution of who could outdo who.

And that was fun. And that true competition and that true rivalry, it's not something that you create. It's something that happens. And when you have that rivalry, these guys don't have that rivalry. They may be pushing each other from, from, you know, a performance side to see who can outdo each other.

But it's different when they start running into each other. And we had, we're starting to hear a little bit of chirping. A little bit of chirping coming on post race. We got a little bit of chirping post race. So the fact that they're starting to chirp because that, that style of racing is frustrating. It's fun for us to watch. But it's frustrating because of the fact sometimes when you have a faster car, you can't,

you can't put yourself in the right position to get by a guy unless you just outsmart him, out thinking or something happens, whatever, whatever happens right there. And so I like the fact that we've got a little chirping going on. Yeah, you mentioned Kyle Bush and the fact that he had a pit road issue. There were a lot of teams kind of that did guys making mistakes, veteran drivers making mistakes, pit crew making mistakes. Were you surprised to see that? Not at all. Yeah. And the reason that I say that is you always see early in the year a ton of mistakes. As we go throughout the year, yeah, there's going to be mistakes here. here and there. But when we get, you know, probably for the first seven to ten weeks,

there's just going to be a lot of mistakes because guys are not on a rhythm. Vegas is a really fast racetrack. It's really the first unrestricted racetrack that we've, that we've raced on this year with that style of downforce and horsepower. But Vegas is a tricky pit road. It's hard to get on to pit road correctly. You have some corners in the middle of pit road with the quad oval there that you have to navigate the pit road speed and everything. comes with that. But the pit boxes are really, really slippery. And that's something that I always practiced before the race would start in practice. And, you know, I think that just when you try to get a little bit more there, you see exactly what you saw with Kyle Busch. You see him, see him slide

through the pits. But it wasn't just Kyle Busch. You know, Austin Cendrick had a great run going. William Byron. I was excited to talk about this one. He had the trash bag on the front of his car. The biggest trash bag in history. And he got the trash bag on. They got that off. And he made up some good ground. But then they had another problem on pit road. And then he had to start all over again.

And then he got frustrated. He had a lot of frustration on the radio. A lot for William Byron on the radio with the traffic and everything that he was having to deal with. He's good about not just coming straight out and blasting his team. But he was very frustrated on the radio because it's just, it's hard to pass. And when you have that track position and you lose it once, you can deal with it. When you lose it twice, you lose it. Still got a top 10, which is impressive.

You know, there was a beer can in the trash bag course. Really? Mountains are blown. Hey, one time we were at Texas and we came in from the race, this is not a lie. I promise, I promise you this is a true story. We came in from Texas and there was a $100 bill on my grill screen that was just hanging there. An actual, I swear to you. I swear to you. $100 bill. That's got to be good.

Yeah. We didn't frame one of the guys on the team actually works on my late model team now. Actually is the one who took it off the grill and he kept it. Yeah. That's impressive. I mean, you come in a lot of times and there'll be razor blades stuck in the nose. There will be stuff that goes through and is just stuck in the nose. But that was the most random thing that I've ever had was $100 bill stuck on my grill.

I literally, yeah, at least it was $100 out of five. I literally thought that the rap was pulling. apart. Because the color that was, it's that base color of the panels. And it happened to Ross Chastain. Right. In practice and qualifying, they had to go to the back of the field to be able to start the race because they had to reattach

the wrap to the hood of the race car on the one car. But yeah, that trash bag on William Byron's car was, it was pretty lucky that the engine didn't blow up because the temperatures went up so fast for him. And he came in and I think he said it was 350 degrees. And what happens when you get to that amount of temperature?

the trash, the ECU will actually go into survival mode and start cutting power out of the engine. And that's probably what saved that engine. But you see him tear that trash bag off. And he was able to go back out and got himself back, actually back up into contention. I felt like if he could have stayed up front, he would have been one of the cars that was closest. I felt the 24, the 8. And, you know, I think as Tyler Reddick was probably the best car and the five car of Kyle Arson, we're the best ones.

That's going to be so frustrating for a driver, something like that, debris, you know, trash bag, derailing your whole day. I mean, I know there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, and I always look at it as, hey, it's kind of a balance just, you know, for William Byer and you say, well, I just won the Daytona 500 and caused, it was a part of cause. Now I'm in the trash. I'm in the trash. So it should be pretty easy to balance that out on Monday morning.

I got a trash bag stuck. I still finished in the top 10, but I did win the Daytona 500 was a pretty good luck. Yeah. You got to ebb and flow with it as the good luck comes and goes. You can always go back to guys, we're on the Daytona 500. That's right. That's right. You know, speaking of winners and stuff, Blaney, the champ here,

Rain and Champ, he's looking like he's racing like a champion. You know what I mean? Like they seem like they have confidence to where they're like, we've been here before we've done it. So when we get behind a little bit and speed, they're there by the end of the race, right? Two back-to-back, third place finishes. And they've got that chip. on their shoulder, like they feel like they deserve to be here.

And I feel like he's racing different. Is it different going from champion being a champion or non-champion to being a champion? I think so. I figure it has to be. It's just, it's instant confidence forever. Yeah. Because you know you can do it. You've won that championship.

You know how to go out there and make that happen. And I think for Blaney having that confidence, they're racing just like they did last year. They didn't have the fastest car by any means. The Ford's were really on, most of them struggled. Yeah. Blaney was the fastest for it again, which that has been the typical case. But I think in the beginning of the race, it took him a couple runs to figure it out. And obviously, they're dealing with a new style body to get the balance right on their car.

But I look at his typical Blaney now, being able to just do what he needs to do, to put himself in position to try to compete for the win at the end of the race. And they just, they do a good job. And whatever he and Jonathan have going, you know, they just need to keep it up. because once you find that chemistry and that confidence and are able to take what I've viewed as a seventh or eighth place car and finish better than that, then you're having a good day. And I think they didn't make any mistakes. And that's what I preached to all of our guys. Don't make any mistakes.

Do the small things right. And you will be able to finish well. And Brad Kozlowski had one of the worst cars there. And he finished 13th. Right. And that was just by having good restarts, getting everything he could out of each run to not lose. a bunch of positions on a restart or make a big mistake or pit road or any of those, those issues. And he finished 13th with what I viewed as a 25th place car. And, you know,

when you look at his teammate, Chris Busher, you know, they made a mistake. Right front tire falls off into the fence and end of day. So that's, those are the things that you just don't want to happen right now. So we're talking about any week. Right. So those are veteran drivers. One other driver that stood out to me that's not a veteran who's still coming along in the cup series is Ty Gibbs. Yeah. Thought he had a very impressive day, even though they did have the issue there on Pit Road. What do you make of what you've seen out of him already?

Is this kind of like his breakout year? Are you thinking in the future? Well, you guys know I'm on the Ty Gibbs train. I do. Well, that's why I brought him up, you know. You know him on the Ty Gibbs train. I think he and his teammate, they got frustrated. He was frustrated with his teammate this weekend on the radio with Martin Truex

and the way that they were jerking those cars around. And you could visually see the frustration with the maneuvers that they were doing with the car. radio back that up. With Ty, he's he's got the speed. And I think if he can just stay off the radio, I think it would do him a lot of favors. If he could just learn how to yell at himself, I think that would go a long ways with him because then he wouldn't have to answer all the questions during the week about something that he said. I think that I think he's got the speed. He's got the racecraft. He's just got to put it all together. And it's very similar to Blaney, right? We've heard him frustrated a lot on the radio and before this year. And he's still going to be on the radio,

but it doesn't seem like it's as much right now with that frustration. So being able to be frustrated every once and a while, not all the time is different once you get that confidence and you get that win. And I think he's going to, he's going to get, he's going to knock that win off at some point this year. He did a great job not having first gear and getting off of pit road. Yeah. Like, that was, I thought, for time, That was massive. I'm like, okay. Not a meltdown, but you're already frustrated.

Like, don't forget that you got to rev it up. And he got the rev up high enough to get the tire spin to get out of road. So he did all the right things. And then finish in the top five. Like, so I feel similar to Blaney where they've been there done that. Now ties kind of had adversity, bounce back, had a good finish. And they also had a bad pit stop too. Yeah.

So, I mean, he drove from the bad pit stop back forward too. So they had a good car. Corey LaJoy was another one that I was watching because he was having a great race until he wasn't. Right. Did you think about Corey's day? I mean, Spire as a whole, they've been pretty sporty. They have.

Hosebar was good too. Zane Smith was fast in practice, so all three of those spire cars were good. They're right there. I think Corey is really stepping up. I think the whole program's stepping up, but Corey's trying to take that step as a veteran driver and leading that organization

and being the guy because he does have Holsovar right behind him. He does have Zane. Right behind them. You know, so him, him being that is really important for him. And now they just got to, like, put it all together. Because it still doesn't have the finishes yet.

To your point earlier, do you feel like Josevar is pushing him, kind of like we were talking about it was Kyle and Kevin. And, like, now, because Carson has done really well, even in his cup starts last year. He's obviously probably motivating Corey in a different way than he's had in the past.

I would think so. Remember when the Patriots drafted Jimmy Garoppolo and Brady kind of all of a sudden snap back into this next elite level, quarterback. Like, there's a little bit of that. When you start looking over your shoulder, I got to believe that, you know, you don't really want people to think about it. I think there's a little bit of that. I think that the seven car of Corey the Joy, I think that they had sporadic good runs last year. And I think we talked about this a little bit in one of the previous episodes,

but you've got to learn how to race different at the front. And being able to do that and race with the guys that are at the front of the pack, it's just a different style. You're not fighting fighting for your life every lap and shredding water, mid to backpack like you do back there. And you just don't have to, you just, you don't have to put yourself in those positions that you would and the style of racing from the midpack back.

The one thing I will say about Corey's spinout is all the, all the spinouts that we saw this weekend all happened over those bumps in turns one and two. Ryan pre-started it in practice. We saw Zane Smith wreck off a turn two. You know, Corey spun out. all on its own. I mean, Brad was close to him, but he didn't, he wasn't touching him by any means, spun out by himself in the middle one and two. So, um, but they had a great three quarters of the race. And, you know, I think it's, it's definitely one of those races where they're going to look back and say,

dang. Yeah. We needed, needed to finish that off. But, um, still, still run well. And all three of those cars ran well at some point this weekend. So it takes a lot to put the whole race together. It's a long race. So when we spoke last week, you said that you felt like Vegas was going to be opportunity to see kind of where everyone was at. Because it's a super Speedways were over. This was a mile and a half. So now when you're looking at everybody, who is clearly dialed in and who maybe is still behind the eight ball? Well, the Hendrick cars are, well, two of the Hendrick cars are definitely dialed in. I think you have the, you have the 24 and then you have the five. Those cars are, those cars are

dialed in. I think that the nine and the 48 just seemed to be missing something compared to those two cars. I think Tyler Redick's going to be around a lot. in that particular package with what I misspoke about last week. The same diffuser that we ran last year, so that mile and a half package is the same as what we had last year. The diffuser changes this week along with the spoiler and everything that we have for the short tracks and road courses. So with that said, I think that the Toyotas and Fords still have some room to work with

understanding their bodies. I think the forwards are the furthest off. I mean, Blaney, I think overperformed compared to, the rest of the forwards. I think that the Toyotas, I think they were pretty solid this week, but that's a pretty typical good racetrack for Joe Gibbs racing.

So, look, Kyle Arson and William Byron are in the mix. Lugano qualified on the pole, but kind of went straight backwards. Without the web glove. Yeah, without the web glove. But I think it's, I think it's the, you know,

it's the Hendrick camp that's the camp to beat right now. Yeah, I mean, you know, the Toyota's at 2311, they got speed. Even though Bubba was... Had to cut his lug nut off. Had to cut the lug nut off to finish the race. But he, I mean, obviously he had speed because he hung right with Larsen and Reddick and was helping Reddick have a shot.

Which I thought that was cool because, you know, Bubba obviously could have messed with Larson and didn't. And then gets behind Tyler and tries to, you know, help him out a little bit more. And so that was cool to watch. So they're going to be right there. Surprise. Surprise visit in the time.

Top 10, Noah Gregson. Yeah, I haven't read that. Like Stuart Haas, the 14 had speed in qualifying, I think. He was in the final round of qualifying. And then, you know, the 10 ran well. And I want for Noah to have a quiet year, but a successful year. Like, I want us to talk about his performance and let his performance speak for himself. And let him keep progressing like that.

Yeah. I think when you look at the 10 car and you look at what they did at Daytona, had a solid finish, didn't. didn't score many points before that, but had a solid finish, figured it out by the end of the day. Vegas fired right off out of the gate in practice and had speed. And that's resulted into a solid finish. And I think when you're talking about a sixth place finish, I think, is where he finished. Yeah.

And so that's the type of day that they need, a quiet day, just solid, quiet day because he outperformed his other three teammates by a fair distance. So I think that's, I mean, that's a tip of the hat to them just because of the fact that they did run well from the time the green flag dropped in practice until the time the checkered flag dropped in the race. Yeah, good for Noah and Company. Now the next race for everybody is Phoenix. And I want to brag on our guy here for a minute. He's probably not going to like this. But he had nine wins there, four consecutive, 20 top fives, 31 top tens, and over 1,700 lap sled. Those were your numbers.

It was a good place. And you and I should just leave. Yeah, I mean, you don't need us to talk about Phoenix. That is amazing, though. And it's actually very rare that a driver has that kind of success at one place over all those years. I mean, I think of Jimmy Johnson at like Dover or something. But that's incredible. Well, thank you.

It was definitely a place where we enjoyed a lot of success. And for me, I grew up as a kid in Bakersfield, California. And Phoenix was the place you wanted to go if you were racing the truck series or the, the West Series Southwest Tour cars. That was kind of our Daytona 500 as we would go through the season. You wanted to go over there and perform well while the Cup guys were at the racetrack because the Southwest Tour race was there. At that point, the Winston West cars were getting a provisional in the Cup race.

Oh, were they really? Yeah. So they got two provisional right before I started racing the West Series. They actually got two provisionals in the Cup race to run during the Cup weekend. So that kind of gave it a little more. more flair, I guess you could say, to be able to go to Phoenix and kind of showcase what you could do if you could just somehow figure out how to keep yourself in contention and get seen during the cup race at one point or another, that was a feather in the cap. But, you know,

as a kid, I spent a lot of time over there, I raced my Southwest tour cars and trucks and was able to gain a lot of laps in the beginnings. Well, not in the very beginning. In the very beginning, I crashed a couple times, but we were able to gain a lot of experience. And I always felt a sense of pride when I would go to Phoenix just because that you wanted to do a little bit better there than you did everywhere else. But I had a ton of laps before I ever ran in the Cup series, whether we got our first win at KHA there in the truck series in 2002. So that was pretty cool.

We won our first cup race with Stuart Haas racing there. I think it was the second or third race that. we were actually on the racetrack together. We went over there and won. So that was, it's always been a great place for us. We were fortunate to have a lot of success. And for me, very fortunate because it was in front of my longtime fans

that had watched me race there since the mid-90s. And to be able to perform well there and have success at that particular racetrack was always something that was pretty cool. Wow, that's amazing. Does it like, what wins stand out to you? Is there specific ones? Definitely the Stewart-Hoss win. getting to victory lane with them so early in the season and just checking that box

and being able to say, okay, yeah, we're for real. Because at that point, there were still a lot of questions. Stuart Haas had had a couple of kind of offbeat years compared to what they had done when they started with Tony there. And to be able to say, okay, that wasn't a bad move. That was actually, that's actually going to work out okay for them because, you know, they've come and won. I think, I guess it would have been 2007.

whatever the race was with Jimmy Johnson to be able to hold Jimmy off and with a late race restart there. That one was fun. And then the beating and banging with Carl Edwards coming to the start finish line and winning by, you know, a couple inches was pretty neat. So Carl had a couple of new tires on. And for us, we had stayed out on the racetrack and we're kind of vulnerable at this particular point. but it goes to show you how fast our race cars were. But we're going to come into turn three here. And Carl's just going to send it on the apron.

And I knew right there, I'm like, oh, you got into me. I need to hit him in the door to slow down the momentum where he's going to go right by. I slowed him down just enough. And then he realized I need to slow him down. And we had some pretty serious contact there, but a great finish for the fans. And at that point, had a pretty good streak of wins and things happening at Phoenix. So special place. My grandpa used to go to Phoenix, and he had a motorhome, and he would take it over a month early.

Because at Phoenix, before they put the tunnel in, you had to go over the back straight away to cross over into the infield. So I would drive my Southwest Tour trailer and stuff over there, but he would always go over there a month early and parked the motorhome because of all the cup fans that would come in. So he'd go park the motorhome, and it was right at the end of the chain link fence. And every year when I would get there, this motorhome was parked there. He'd be standing at the fence smoking a cigarette. And he would yell at me until I would come over to that fence and talk to him because they'd always stage you in line back there and put you in line to pull the trailers in. And when everybody was there, then they'd pull you in one at a time. And if I drove by that campsite, my grandpa would yell and scream until I came over there and talk to him.

Classic. Yeah. It's been a long time. Looking at that video, that's the old configuration or the start-finish line was down what is now the backstretch. Right. I always get this very confused. Yeah, I did too. And when I race there in the fall, I raced the arc race in the fall,

and I was calling the turn one, turn three. I was very not helping my guys with that. Like, very messed up. Can you tell a little bit about the difference between the configurations? It's because the old one used to have grass down the dog leg, and now we can run through there, and it's elevated and all those type of things. Really, it's all different.

They actually put banking in what is now the front straightaway. Yeah. And they put that dog leg, the dog leg's in the same spot. just way more banked. Yeah. So that their whole theory was, how were we going to design this racetrack so we can make it have a stadium feel

and everybody can see more of the action? So they took all the motorhomes out of the infield. They used to be covered with motorhomes. He had a tough time seeing from turns 1 and 2 down to 3 and 4 because of the tops of motorhomes. So they put the motorhomes around the outside of the racetrack more than what they were and built more grandstands in 3 and 4

at the start finish line like they are currently. So the front stretch is, is more banking. Turns one and two is kind of the same and three and four became a little bit more banked as you drive into the middle and the exit of the corner. So still that flat track feel. I mean, you still got to get through the middle of one and two and be able to get the car rotated three and four, but you got a lot of banking to drive into off of four. So we were fortunate to have success on both styles of racetracks. But I think the fan experience is a lot of. lot better. When you look at pre-race and Victory Lane, all those things right in the infield

right there so the fans can see what's happening right, right below them, kind of gets everybody involved in a different way than most tracks. This place, this place, the fan experience is legit. Yeah, I mean, the fans, they show up in Phoenix, and that's the place where they have the, those people have the, um, the lazy boy that they put on the scooters that we always see on Fox. That's great. And I think Clay has, what's that segment? He's got the tailgate kings. He's going to, you might need to go with him. He might get lost in the Phoenix camera show back up.

That's what I'm saying. They like to get down out there. Yes. And when you stand at the top of the grandstands or in the suites and look out over the motorhomes, it looks like they go into the mountains. They go forever out there. It's one of our top three camping destinations on the circuit. But the fans in Phoenix always turn out.

Yeah, great venue, obviously, for NASCAR to go to. Now, of course, hosts the season finale champion. How many championships would you have had if we were doing? When that race at the end every year, wow, you probably nine-time champion over here. Yeah, I had a couple. But what does, like, make a driver so good at one specific place? Is it, like, all the experience you were talking about from when you were younger? Is it just a feel you have for it?

What enables that? Well, when I went to, when I went to SHR, the first thing that Rodney told me is, okay, what do you, what do you need? What are you looking for in the car? Because it's just that that time that we spent on the West Coast growing up. We grew up in a lot of short flat tracks. And when I went to RCR, we spent a lot of time at Milwaukee. We spent a lot of time at the flat tracks.

We were always really good on the flat tracks. So I did a lot of testing. I grew up on those style of racetracks. And Phoenix was just a racetrack that I had a lot of experience and a lot of laps at. So I think it's just a, it's really for me, it's a feel with the brakes and when to release the brake and how much break pressure to use. And I always thought we did pretty good at the partial throttle through the center of the corner to keep that mid-corner speed up. up. And I think Phoenix, you can, especially with the new configuration, you can get away with that partial throttle through the center of the corner, especially if the car will rotate. So between the braking and the partial throttle, I think those are two things that most people didn't have figured out the partial throttle before SMT. And I think that the partial throttle thing really started to stick out once SMT came around and they were able to study that a little bit. But even at the last race there, the biggest advantage that we had was under the brakes. And being able to get that break package right. So who are we watching? Who are we eye in there when we go to Phoenix?

Because this is a different deal. I think it's, I think with the, this is officially the new diffuser week. I'm going to get that right. Reiterate that. I'm going to get that right this. Lock it in. Lock it in. And I think that if you just had to pick based upon what we saw last week and last year and what we've seen at the beginning of season, I think it's going to be the five, the 24. I like the 20. I think that the 12 will be the best forward. I would go with probably those four guys to start with. But I think the door is open for us to see anybody if it's if it's that much different with everything that they have going on with the diffuser and everything that's changed this week. So the door is a little bit open for there for there to be some more guys to creep into that picture. Yeah, I mean, the guy that,

the guy that won there last time we were there, he's looking pretty sporty right now. So no, Ross. Ross won there last time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I'm thinking, well, you would have thought that R.B. would have won it because of the celebration. But Ross is going to be, I think it's going to be a thorn in their side at Phoenix.

And he had a good car. He had a good car at Vegas. They had the pit road penalty. He battled back and actually ran the last part of the race on two tires. So I agree. I think that until beaten, he's run well there pretty much every time they've been there. So until beaten, I think you have to put them in that mix as well. So you were mentioning when you race there.

recently. Yeah. What was challenging about this track? What do you think is the tough parts of it? It's kind of, it's a real momentum. Like, so three and four. Yeah, three and four. You got to really slow the car down to get to the apron,

but also you got to be able to carry speed to get down through the dog leg. And if you don't carry speed off that corner, you get eight up from behind you. And then they, all of a sudden, they're inside dog leg. And then all of a sudden it's three inside, you're fourth on top. And you're like, what do you meet? Where is everyone coming from? Because everyone, you can run so wide through there.

So that was hard. And then when you do get back on the racing surface into three, if you're carrying too much speed, you can really bust your ass down in three and four. You can get into the gray really quickly, and I did that. And there was a nice stripe down the side of my flagpole buddy's car, and it didn't look very good at the end of the race.

And so, but that place is tough. It's just tricky. It's a weird, different type of short. I'm going to make it simple for you. Here we go. You're going to drive to the line into one. You're going to aim for the line on the bottom of the racetrack. You're going to let off the brake, either touch partial throttle or floor it.

Stay on the white line. When you light off at the two cones into three, you're going to aim for the wall, put the left front tire in the trough. As soon as you lift off the brake, floor it, drive to the start, finish line. You got that? You lost me at like something about the second line. He said line like eight times. There you go.

It's that simple, though. But for the drivers who are listening, though, they should take that into account from a true pro at that place. Yeah. I mean, that's the, that's the simple part of it. Now you've got to get your car to work. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the old days of thunderline.

All right, kid. Now you got the, now you got the driving part done. Now go get your own car. Yeah, no. There you go. That's right. You think it'd be weird watching from the booth? Not at all.

I've enjoyed watching. He's locked in. After all those guys have run into each other. We hear them chirping after the race. You don't have to chirp back. You don't have to worry about who's mad. Who's not. how your car is running, whatever the scenario is.

I just get done and put my headset on the counter and worry about where I'm going to eat dinner and how fast I can get to the airport because it's, there's just no pressure from that competition mindset. And I think I lived in that for so many years. And going to Phoenix, it will bring back a lot of great memories and a lot of, you know, a lot of fun that we had through the years. But I'm just, when I was done at Phoenix in the fall and able to close that chapter and move on to the next one. It's been, it's been fun. And I hope that how much I'm enjoying myself

comes across in the broadcast and things that we do here. Absolutely. Because it's just, I'm having a good time. And being able to be involved in the sport that I love and, you know, really have, have built my life around is fun to be involved in a different way that's not competitive. That reminded me of something, because I was standing by your car when you pulled up at Phoenix at the at the end of that race. And just to see all those fans, the photographers, everybody around you, like kind of capturing that last moment when you got out of the car. That was, it was sad, but I mean, I was happy for you. But what was that moment like?

Yeah, it was, it was a relief because that week was, that week was long. There was a lot of people there. There were a lot of emotions going through your head because it was the last week. There was no more next week. And up until that point, there had always been a next week or a next year. And then it all hit me going into that week. I was like, uh-oh, this really is the last week. There is no more next week.

Now you're going to have to deal with the emotions of dealing with that last week and dealing with everybody being there and dealing with, you know, seeing your kids when you get out of the car and having to hug your wife and tell her that that was it. It was a great ride. And for me, it was looking at the team because those guys all have to do something different. They have a different driver and everything that you'd been a part of building to that point was over.

And it was official. And so I think that for those emotions, and everything that was going through your mind at that point. It was that week was a lot to deal with. And when it was over and I got out of the car, I was like, okay, I don't have to answer any more questions. I don't have to worry about any more emotions. And it was finally official that it was over with.

You're not a super emotional guy, I've noticed. But maybe you were in traveling. I was emotional that week. I mean, you know, the standing ovation in the driver's meeting and the kids on the radio and everything that was that was happening during that week was just, it was emotional. And there were a lot of people there. There were a lot of people that, you know,

cared about everything that you did. And the biggest thing I learned last year, what you did in your career meant different things to different people at different times in their life. When you go back to the 29 car at North Wilkesboro, hearing people's story from where they watched the race, where they sat in the grandstands, you know, I was with my dad, he's not with us anymore.

Whatever the scenario was, heard all those stories and you started to realize how much, and you forget this while you're in the car, but how much driving that race car and who you are as a person means to people outside of the sport because that's why they're watching. And whether it's because they're emotional about who you were or what they were, they've got stuff going on in their life. So I think sometimes in the competitive mindset, you lose sight of what it means to people who are watching a race and what the impact that you have on them. I've seen you smile, playing, and laugh and be mad, but like in the driver's meeting, the, you had the shades on. You were like, he was like,

try, like, you could tell. He was, it was, it was, yeah, he was not. Yeah, you were unwell at that point. They caught me off guard with that one. Nobody, I was pretty aware of everything that was going on. And they, they completely caught me off guard with the, with the driver's meeting. So, that was, that was definitely a surprise. I'm sure, emotional moment. But we're glad that, like, we still get to see you all the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like you're done. Yeah, no, I have a nine to five job. So, welcome back. Welcome back. And welcome back to you. You're going to the track this weekend out of Phoenix. Oh, welcome to work. Yeah, I know. I've been off

for a couple weeks. She fight back in action this weekend. We're on it. We're going to be doing driver intros. So what have you been watching on social? We're going to be making some social, some social moments this week. But, okay, so, Kev, we talked about post race, a little bit of the chirping. So after Daytona,

LaJoy and Cindrick had a moment. They had a little bit of chirping going on. The joy was basically like to Austin, because Austin was mad that He made a move and LaJoy's like, man, I'm going for the Daytona 500. I don't care. And we're not friends. Like straight up said, we're not friends.

Well, after this week, Ross, talking to Bob Pockris, was a little bit like, yeah, you know, we had a good run. We fought there at the end. I want to, you know, it's cool to see Blaney learn how to use the air blocking. He's got that. Yeah, a little bit, a little shot across the battle. And Blaney saw it on Twitter or on X. and he responded with a little, there it is. That's ironic, because, you know, obviously that's from,

that's the emperor from Star Wars. So, of course. So they see each other. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm excited. I mean, what do you think? Well, I hope that neither one of them back down because I want to watch. Don't quit now, boys.

Stay in it. Let's keep it going. Let's keep it on the track. And even if it's on Twitter or whatever it may be, I love the chirping. So the more chirping we have, the more excited I get. I hope that continues. He was down and out on himself too because he sped on pit road all three races so far. Oh, wow.

And so part of that interview, he was just like very dejected. Like I can't believe I've done this again. Like he said he had an out-of-body experience. Yeah. Well, that's tough because he's had good cars. And when you're in, I didn't know it was all three races. So when you have that repeated mistake happening over and over, you feel like you're lighting a team down because those guys are doing their part.

But the thing that I would tell him is, hey, you've got fast cars. Let's just clean it up and let it go. And let's just keep that gas pedal down and stay positive about everything that's happening because they're capable of winning multiple races this year. For sure. And we're going to stay at the house. We're going to stay at track house. So after Atlanta, Suarez, you know, wins.

Everyone's stoked. He ends up going to Nashville, which is like the second home of track house, basically. When we go to Nashville, like, it's their place. he's on stage with Pitbull while Pitbull's performing in this concert which I'm like I'm like here we go there it is I'm losing it like when I saw that

I'm like are you kidding me like what a moment that's pretty crazy transcend your racing into like just entertainment has there ever been a win for you or something where you won and then you had an extra party like you had something on that level because that's pretty high

well that's that's pretty high for sure I don't have anything that's that's that high but when we first started at Stuart Haas Racing, and it was actually after the Phoenix win, the first Phoenix win that we had with, with SHR, we went to Las Vegas. We stayed over in between the two races.

So we all went as kind of a team bonding. We're all going to go to Las Vegas. We're going to spend the week together. We're going to have headaches. We're going to do everything that we need to do to bond. We're going to have headaches. Is that we said? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to have it together. That's a whole together time. Yeah. So we went to, we went to Las Vegas and whole team went, we went right after the race and we said, all right, we're going to go to the club. So we go out to the club after

the race and at that point, Budweiser's like, hey, if you ever get in a moment, feel free to just spend whatever you need to. We'll reimburse you if it's a great, great experience for everybody. Thanks, Budweiser. I said, okay. So we get the manager of the club over and we say,

hey, we want to buy everybody in this club a Budweiser. So we bought like 1,200 Budwisers for the whole club. And they have the waitresses come out. And these Budwisers are on platters. And they've got 15, 16, 18, I don't know, waitresses that are coming out walking through the club. And they're just, they've got sparklers blowing up on all the, all the platters and all these Budwisers and just handing them out to everybody. And then we did a toast up on the stage.

and, you know, gave free beer to the whole club. Okay, that's pretty awesome, too. That's really cool. Imagine just being there randomly. You're having a good time in Vegas. Well, they're giving you random Budweiser, and you're like, why am I getting it? No, we announced it up on the stuff.

Oh, you did. Okay. Oh, you. And everybody explained what was happening with all the free beer coming through the club. Okay. And everybody had free beer, and we did a little victory toast and had a great time with it.

That was one of those headache nights. Yeah, in the morning. We need to reenact that here on the show. Yeah. Budweiser's come out with the sparklers, maybe our last show of the year. Yeah, I don't know. Who do we get to deliver them, though? Maybe like Jamie McMurray and...

Josh Jones. Adam and Josh Sims. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good. Josh Sims. Yeah. I'm here for that. See, you have some moments.

We're going to keep pulling these out throughout the year. He's got moments. Yes. And the last one is Keelan. He went out a big weekend. He did. That was huge. He got some dubs in the legend car.

And then he went from the legend car. race to a UFC fight, which obviously you're heavily invested with Cabor Soroni. It was a, it was a, it was not a UFC fight. It was a local MMA fight. Oh, okay. At the racetrack. It was at the track? I did not even understand that.

It was at the building in Dominion. That building, they had the fights out there. Wow. So, yeah, the kids got to go from racing to fighting, which seemed to go hand in hand, I guess. But he did have a good weekend. He won all four races in his class, finished second overall. and was able to. It was kind of one of those semi-wet, semi-dry type situation.

So it was really good experience for him to be able to go through all that. And see what it's like to get punched in the face. So now he's got to have those life experiences. I think he felt like he got punched in the face after he opened these shoes up and realized that they weren't his. They weren't his. He is fun to be a teammate. I got to be a teammate with Keelan last year.

He dumpstered me. Did he? Yeah. I mean, it was pretty bad. Dumpstered. What? Dumpstered. Please give me the definition.

Dumpstered, meaning like he, he, I was trash and he was great. Okay. Like, I got you. Yeah, I wasn't, you know, but it was fun to be around him. Yeah. He won't listen to me about racing. It's hard to just show up and whether they're 11 years old or 32 years old. I see.

I feel like you're hanging on this age thing because you thought I was younger about two episodes ago. Yeah. And now since you found out, it keeps coming out. You're closer to my age than I thought you were. That's funny. But that's good that, like, I think it's really cool to get to see your son win and already having success. Well, and this weekend, he was there by himself. So he's able to experience those things and have to learn on his own and do all the things that it takes in order to put himself in a position to have to fend for himself.

Because this is a fin for yourself world. Once you get to the top level of the sport, and obviously I'll be there a lot as we get into the second half of the year. but right now he was able to have a good weekend with his buddies, and they had all kinds of fun. Yeah, we started with every time he won, we get ice cream. And now, that's gone, I mean, I'm sure he still likes it, but it's not as much as it used to be. So now I've got to find something else to real men.

Yeah, something new. I guess maybe MMI fights, basketball games. It's getting more expensive. You're going to have to, maybe it was just cut off a couple pairs of shoes and buy some basketball game tickets. Yeah, yeah, it was better when I could just take him to ice cream because it wasn't that expensive now. That was like five bucks.

Now with basketball games. A hundred bucks. We're in a whole other level here. You got that one more item on your list about reclinens? Oh my goodness. I almost forgot. Thank you, Caitlin. You're welcome.

This is my favorite. So when we're in L.A., we and our social team, shout out to Isabella and Kaylee and Ais and honestly, because they brought this to my attention. They're like, do you recline your seat? Because you get upgraded so much. Do you recline your seat on the airplane? And I'm like.

Kevin flies private. Yeah. He's getting nervous. I'm like, yeah, of course. So do you recline your seat on an airplane? I put that thing. As soon as that dink goes off, I'm putting my seat back. So your seat goes back too.

Yeah, that's my thought. Yeah, if my seat goes back, your seat goes back. We're in the same position that we were before we were sitting up straight. Nothing changed. It was a big deal. They thought it was disrespectful. To put your seat back? Yeah.

And I'm like, it only goes back. but like this much. That's overthinking it. It is a very slight. That's overthinking it. I'm reclining it before. When they do that, when the flight attendant does that last up and back,

I am. I thought they didn't let you do it then. They were like, you're supposed to be upright. Who's going to tell you not to? I'm a real follower, I guess. Do you put your seat back? I did this weekend because I remembered this conversation

and I flew Vegas commercial, obviously, in a middle seat. You booked your ticket late. It doesn't get much worse than that. So I did. Is that true? You booked your ticket late? Yes.

See, that's the only reason you wind up in the middle. If you waited too long to book your ticket. Or you don't have status. I'm executive. That's right. No big deal. Listen, guys, yeah. But I did.

I reclined back this week. That's what you do. That's what you do. Okay. All right. So now we know the proper airplane etiquette. We're going to, a little airplane etiquette every week because it gets different. It does.

All right. Time now for our last call. What we're looking forward to in the weekend ahead? Kevin, you're up first. What do you say? Well, you guys know that I'm going to stick to the competition side of things. I'm, I get geeked out over the, over the rule changes and everything that comes with that.

So I'm geeked out about the diffuser change and everything that comes with the diffuser and the spoiler and the whole package this weekend to see, is it going to be the same guys? Based upon past history, it's going to be, you know, a lot of the same players in the game. But this definitely opens the door to have somebody up there that's a surprise. And as they go along, they'll figure it out more and more. But I love the fact that, you know, you come into these types of weekends with, I have my, I keep my expectations low on how big that change could be, but I think it's, it's still a door open of something that's different.

Okay. We'll probably doing a lot of diffuser talk on the show. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's needed. It's important. I got two a little bit. One, I'm a little worried about Clint, because I do know how crazy the Phoenix campground is. Oh, boy.

So when you're talking about, for tailgate kings. Yeah, for the tailgate king. I am a little, I'm a little worried about you, Clint. It's to be easy out there. They're ready for you. And two, the dog leg, man, the dog leg on the restarts, someone is going to be upset over the weekend with how that shapes out. I tell you, what's upset after the dog leg on the weekend is my back. That's usually what's upset on Monday is the fact that my back hurts because it feels like you crash every time you go down there.

I'll purposely stay off of it. They'll be like inside, inside. I'm like, I'm not going back down there. My back hurts right now. I'm only going down there when I know the guy's going. going to pass me because if not, it's going to hurt my back even worse than it already hurts. So the compression of the spine is intense through the dog leg. He's big on the compression because when Corey slid off the apron off the racetrack this week,

he's like, just wait for this, wait for this head. It's like, you ask any driver that has driven this car that is there this weekend and they're going to tell you that they dread every time that they have to go on the apron as bad as it hurts. That's going to be my question. I'm asking for him. I'm looking forward to seeing Kevin's next word that he slides in that broadcast somehow. Very seamlessly.

Because the bar is high now. The word, the word was definitely, definitely went over well. Yeah, over very well. Now, now we started with an easy one with lit. Now we have to move on. Are we going to make it more difficult this week? It's not about difficult. It's just about like if you can get it in there, right?

And in a very, like, what's the word? What's the word? No, I'm just going to get it in there smoothly. Yeah. Seamlessly. Yeah, seamlessly. All right. So that's what I'm looking forward to.

And also you got Shane Van Gisbergen coming up. Yes. We've got SBG coming on the show on Thursday with what is hopefully a great interview. It will be. Hopefully I don't mess it up. But that's definitely the, I'm the newbie when it comes to interviewing people. I try to help you out. Yeah, I appreciate the help.

And it was, you want to do things unique and try to ask questions that haven't been asked. But we'll see. We look forward to that. And we want you guys to keep subscribing to our. us on YouTube. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X at Harvick Happy Pod. We'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in.