Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Reddick's Resurgence, Larson’s Disaster & Dega Chaos Ahead!

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

On this episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on FOX, Kevin, Kaitlyn, and Mamba recap an unbelievable weekend at Phoenix Raceway that blew the Championship Chase wide open with only three races remaining!Tyler Reddick picks up his 6th win of the season after a long drought since Kansas, while points leader Kyle Larson endures major misfortune from qualifying 22nd to hitting the wall late. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin’s pit road troubles continue, and the Championship picture gets tighter than ever with Christopher Bell closing in.The crew previews the upcoming race at Talladega Superspeedway, dissects rule updates, checks in on Mamba’s Social Sips, grades the weekend burnouts, and updates the picks standings.Chapters:00:00 Intro00:52 Kyle Larson Phoenix Issue / Updated Points04:05 Tyler Reddick Momentum08:10 Denny Hamlin Pit Road Issue + Points Situation09:50 Bubba Wallace Speeding10:18 Christopher Bell Consistency12:32 Ryan Blaney Surge & Upcoming Tracks13:14 Kyle Larson & Christopher Bell “We’re Not Friends” + Kevin Relating with Kyle Busch19:32 Is Joey Logano in Striking Distance? + Pit Road Issues21:43 Kaitlyn Reaction to Waving Green Flag25:04 Kaden Honeycutt Wins at Phoenix26:53 Talladega Preview32:17 Mamba Driver Shoutouts35:07 Mamba’s Social Sips35:53 Talladega Night 20th Anniversary Promo37:52 Greensboro Police X Post38:36 Kaden Honeycutt Gives Phoenix Flag & Helmet to Kid40:15 Heat Wave Tim Richmond Folgers Car Video43:14 Last Call & Burnout Grade44:59 Race Picks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Larson's weekend was a disaster. They struggled and ultimately hit the fence with a blown right rear tire and just let everybody right back into the championship, which is great for us. I watched the whole thing and I watched you practice with your flag waving, and then you go to throw the green flag here and there is no waving. No. Watch his technique. This is what he told me to do.

This is like that. I feel like that's like the little queen wave, like the little beauty queen wave. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR and Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick, Caitlin Vincy, Momba Smith. Sir? Rocket man. Rocket man. Hey, here we are. Kevin immediately said, what is that on your hat to Mamba?

Yeah, it's a rocket. To which we all wondered, what is it? Why is it tilted to the right, not to the left? I think when you look at the sky, most of the time, you think the rocket's going to the right. Oh, why would that be? I don't know if I wanted to go left. Huh?

I think it just looks like that. So you have no theory as to why it's point. That was my theory. What do you mean? mean. I was like, listen, we're lift off labs over here, baby. Lift off. We're lifting off. Just like this chase. It is lifting off. Right. It is.

We blew the lid right off the chase. We blew the lid right off of this chase. Yeah. We now have seven people in the hunt, wouldn't you say? We do. And mainly because Kyle Arson was not a rocket ship this week. That is true. It was more like a slug. Yeah. Man, I did not see that coming. But really wasn't just Kyle Arson. It was all four of the Hendrick cars that were off pace compared to what we've seen over the last couple months with the pace that they've that they've had.

But Larson's weekend was a disaster. Yeah. Really, really from the time they threw green flag, the green flag in practice. And until the tire blew out in the race, it was just had no speed whatsoever, didn't handle well. Couldn't do anything to, you know, to make the car have more speed. And they struggled and ultimately hit the fence with a blown right rear tire and just let everybody right back into the championship, which is great for us. This is true.

But look, when you race 10 weeks, it's really hard to go 10 weeks without having some sort of some sort of problem. It's not realistic, right? We've seen Denny Hamlin pretty much have something go wrong every week in some way, shape, or form, whether it's pit stops, blown tire, whatever that is. And Ty Gibbs has been the same way. And you look at Christopher Bell, he's kind of been. similar, but he, in my opinion,

Bell has been the one that's been the closest to Larson as far as performance week after week after week. And through the, he continued that this week at Phoenix. Larson did not, right? Yeah, I was listening to Cliff Daniels talking after the race, just like, we tried to throw everything at this car. We're still waiting for it

and to come alive. But he was like, this is this chase though. Everyone wanted to crown Tyler Reddick the champion. Then it was Denny Hamlin. Now it's us. And he said, you can see in a few short weeks time, a lot of things can change. Yeah, they, it just wasn't good from the jump. And it, which is very, second.

Yeah, which is very interesting. And the whole Hendrick organization wasn't good. It looked like what they look like kind of springtime earlier on in the year. And I guess we're going to have to find, we'll find out in two weeks, whether at Martinsville, because I think the package should be the same, right, Kevin? Package is the same, yeah. Yeah. So we'll find out at Martin'sville because obviously we're going to Talladega this weekend.

So if that, if this happens again, like now, now we have a problem going. going into homestead, but I don't feel like it will. It was surprising this is the first time, and God knows how long that Cliff and Jesse and then boys on the five weren't able to sprinkle some fairy dust over the car and kind of bring it to life. And they did a good job managing their day, like as bad as it was. They stayed with it. I think they were going to end up with like a 17 point lead, 15 point lead, and then

they blow a tire. And Kyle was even, he was complaining about being tight. And probably that last run, he was just tight and trying to push. And it got, car got a little better. sure they let some air out of the right front tire trying to make it turn out. Like, you know, you saw all the tire failures start happening towards the second half of the race when everybody was out of things to do. So they start letting as much air out of the tire and sometimes more air out of the tire than, than you want to. But the only thing I worry about with the five is, is now you look

at the way that they ran throughout the year. And now you look at this weekend and it's kind of, it looks like that. Looks like that. And so much of this sport runs off of momentum. and whether the momentum falls at the wrong time. We saw how long it took Tyler Redick to get that 23 races. It took him 23 races to get the Mo back. And it's not like he didn't run bad. But when he wasn't winning, he made unforced heirs. That part.

They made mistakes on Pit Road. They had parts failures. They had all kinds of stuff go wrong. So my point is when that momentum falls out from underneath you, sometimes as in Reddick's case, it took 23 weeks to get, to get back to Victory Lane. And we're going to Talladega. He's won there.

So, you know, that is, that is a place that Tyler Reddick has won, but it's not a place that Kyle Arson is won. It's not a place that Denny Hamlin's going to win. He hasn't been good in the, in the Gen 7 car. So, you know, you have all these stats and questions and ensure guys can overcome all those things. They're cup winning, they're winning cup drivers. And so just like Tyler Redick this weekend, you know,

we said that they probably, weren't going to win a championship and might not win another race the rest of the year. Well, here they are back, which tells me mentally they can battle through the things that they needed to battle through to get to this point. The other thing I can tell you, they didn't have the fastest car. Just like they didn't at the first five races this year, they didn't have the fastest car for the most part. I mean, I can say four of the five for sure. They didn't have the fastest car, but they had Tyler Reddick on the restarts and they put him in position by grinding and making good pit calls and doing those things, which is a good.

exactly what they did this weekend. They put two tires on, wound up behind the guys with no tires, and he had a great restart to take control of the race. And it was over once he got to that position. So my point is this looked a lot like their early season wins where they wanted on a restart, not by having the fastest car. Yep. So they're the grinders of the series with six wins. And I think that all six of them came in pretty similar fashion. I would say to Atlanta, he probably had the fastest car just didn't have a fender at the end but it was still the fastest car at coda coda he was he did a great job i mean he had SVG hounded him for however many left so coda but then again was his car his car is probably better than SVG because if they had similar cars i'd like to

think that SVG's superpowers would probably be a lot to hold off so so maybe it's two of the races yeah but but still the majority were won by putting tyler in a position to capitalize on restart for sure. And he was able to do that this weekend, just as he did in so many of those races at the beginning of the year when he won five. Tyler Reddick saying, our team never lost motivation to be a better race team.

So you're talking about momentum, Kevin. So how much is this going to kind of rebuild them, you think? Could this help make them have a true push to a championship? Do you think they're in it? 56 back. If they can go to Talladega and score some stage points and have a chance to win, I mean, it's just, so easy for somebody like, I mean, Larsen doesn't have a great track record there. Denny Hamlin

doesn't have a great, great track record there. So in theory, you know, the potential to make up ground on Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson is there from a super speedway standpoint, Talladega and Daytona. So, you know, I think that the, the potential to do that is there for, I mean, Bell's been okay on the Super Speedway. Briscoe one Talladego last year. Briscoe one. won Talladega. So there are, there is a, I mean, Legano, Briscoe, Blaney, Reddick, those guys have won. So to me, those are the guys that you got to point at as those are the, those are the clear cut favorites going into Talladega to make something happen. But you just never know, right? Like it's, it's some of the, it could be the first time that Denny Hamlin shows up at a Gen 7

race. I don't know. Is it, can he do it? Yeah. We have to race different than what he's been racing in the Gen 7 car and get out of his old style of how he used to race the Gen 6 car, yeah, he's going to have to do something different to do what he needs to do to score stage points and win a race. You mentioned Denny Hamlin, a series of problems for them. Again, you were listening to him in the media center saying not hitting the panic button, but what do they need to do right if they're going to potentially win this championship in the next three races?

Yeah, I mean, they had a good race car. They've had a good race car. I feel like most of the chase. but you have to be great to elite. You have this. And then you have something like this happened, which honestly, the way it all worked out almost gave him another life because they come down down Perry Road here with the flat tire. Right after this, the caution comes out.

Well, he also got a speeding penalty. So the caution doesn't come out. He has to come back down here right now. He's two laps down. They had a chance to get a lap back. They don't end up doing that and they have a long, long last stage here. but they just have to keep staying around. They made up ground on the points, right?

But they need a car that's, they need to bring a really fast race car to the racetrack. They haven't brought race winning cars to the racetrack. They brought good cars. They brought top five cars. They brought top five cars. But the problem is the rest of the top five are your chase competitors

and they've been winning races. So like it's coming down to three races, right? And it's like, well, we got to win. Like, you're going to have to win probably a race. Lights are on. The lights are on. And the stage is as bright as it's ever been. Right now.

Welcome to Mambaus stage. Yeah, welcome to the big stage, big guy. And if I'm, if I am. To the main stage. Oh, man. If I was out of all these guys, I said to the Toyota group, if I'm Tala Redick, I feel the best about going to Talladega because my teammates aren't, I'm not racing against them for the championship.

So I would go into it thinking I have a little bit more help. Could have been. Could have been. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't for Bubba's speed and penalty. Yeah. Freaking, hey, man. And they had something, they had something.

Can't beat yourself. Rolling. You cannot beat yourself. They've done that to themselves twice here. And Bubba talked about it in practice too. But going to Talladega, you think you'd have some extra help, whereas the 11 is going against the 19 and the 20. Like, you can't expect those guys to just push you all the way to a win because they're running for a championship too.

The 20th, saying after the race, we qualified well. We had a fast car. We've been running up front. The last thing they need to do is win. Do you think he's the strongest of the Gibbs cars right now, Christopher Bell? Man, that's a tough question. I mean, he and the 19 have been consistently the strongest of the four cars as we've gone through the chase. He seems to be a little more consistent than Briscoe.

You know, I think Briscoe has had moments of being great on a couple weekends, but I think Bell has been consistently good. And, you know, but like on the weekends when he's like, go back and look at Charlotte, I felt like Bell had the best car and didn't win the race. He just hasn't capitalized on those moments where he felt like he had the best car, but Brisco beat him a couple of those times when he had a, I felt like a faster car. So I think consistently he's been, I think out of all the whole field, I think Bell's been the best car now over six weeks as we've gone through those races. So I guess it's seven weeks, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know, I'm bad at math.

You're right. Anyway, there's three left. Anyway, whatever that is three. Seven and three is ten. That is true. Good job. Good job, Kevin. Wait, hold on.

Just let me check your money. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think after, after, after, after Phoenix, I mean, I think you would have to put ballot P1 as far as the first seven races and in what's happened. Christopher Bell been very strong. Crazy too, that he had an injury. And he was able to overcome all of that in the regular season and what he's doing now, I think speaks pretty. They are.

And still five points behind. Still five points. He's fired up, though. Like, he is, I mean, talk to him in the garage this weekend. They're just laser focus. And I feel like they feel like they should be leading this championship by a good margin. I think they feel like they've, to Kevin's point, missed on some very big moments that would have changed this whole thing. I mean, just like you and the point.

Just like me and the point. So I'm always second and just like, C. Bell, we're always right there, but not quite enough. But I mean, if he is what this much further at Sharman. We're talking about this in a completely different situation because he would have won. So I think they're pretty locked in, which is probably dangerous for the rest of the field. And now ORB Ryan Blaney is also rejoined the situation and the conversation. He's in the conversation, but I think Talladega is in his wheelhouse. For sure.

I think Martinsville's in his wheelhouse. Two out of three. Yeah. So that's really what you've got to start looking at, right? and whose wheelhouse is it for these next three tracks? And I think that Blaney is definitely in that in that conversation to say that, you know, there's three decent tracks. I still don't believe anybody's going to beat Reddick and Larson at Homestead.

You don't think Seabell can beat them there? I mean, he can, but I wouldn't call him the favorites. I wouldn't call him the favorite. So speaking of Christopher Bell, him and Kyle Larson were a topic of conversation over the weekend And when all three, Denny and Bell and Larson were in the media center together, which I loved. It reminded me of the days of old when they'd have you guys all up there together to kind of throw some jabs. Well, anyway, Christopher Bell addressed being friends or not with Kyle Larson. Take a listen.

Has that competitive relationship evolved at all or changed like throughout the years? And is it safe to call it a friendly rivalry that may not have quite the bitter edge to it, though? I mean, I don't know. I think Kyle and I have, yeah, I mean, we've raised each other really hard basically our entire career. And we, I think it's fair to say that we're different people and we hang out with different people. And we're not friends, but we're acquaintances and we embrace each other hard. Yeah, Kyle. Just gave everyone their quote.

We're not friends, and that's going to be on every headline. Headlines. No, yeah, I mean, I would agree. I would agree with that. And I think we've said in other press conferences, I think nobody's pushed me more than Christopher to become a better racer. So I appreciate that.

And I think in all forms of sports, there's always athletes that push athletes, and he's been the guy for me to push to get better because he's beating me so much throughout my career. So, yeah, I appreciate the competitive rivalry for sure. But, yeah, as he mentioned, I mean, we're different people and hang out with different crowds. And, yeah, just different. I think that was two very respectful conversations being had amongst those two guys.

In my opinion, I mean, they're not there to be friends. No, and look, they're different people. Yeah. And there's a rivalry there that we all enjoy watching when it happens. And they're able to race against each other because they're both extremely talented. in extremely good equipment, and we want to see them go head to head, whether it's in a cup car or a sprint car or a midget, whatever it is, I want to see them race because they're two of the best that are doing it currently.

So it's really unique when you get these dynamics of two guys that have raced each other since they were kids. And they follow themselves, their career follows themselves all the way through the ranks in the same divisions, and they have to continually beat each other. And they're both right. It has made them better. And they know that they're not the same people. They don't like to do the same things.

They aren't friends. But I believe that there's a lot of respect there for one another. It's just they don't like losing to the other one. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have someone in your career you felt made you better on track? You know, I think that Kyle Busch made me better. You know, we competed head to head with the truck series team.

teams and with everything that we had on that side. And then that would carry over into Saturday into the O'Reilly cars when I was still driving him and he was still driving him for our separate teams. And that usually carried over to Sunday. And sometimes on those weekends, by the time we got to Sunday, we had probably run into each other a few times at some point because of the competitiveness between the two of us and our organizations for so many years. So, but you go through phases with that as far.

as far as who that is. But Kyle was pretty consistent for me throughout the years as we competed for a long time. And like Kevin said, we all have enjoyed watching these rivalries over the year. What do you think about Bell and Larson's statements? I think, I think

in the great United States we have this weird thing of people when I say I'm not, we're not friends, people think it's a dig. Or like a negative, super negative. Yeah. Acquaint is it like if I don't know you like that. We don't hang out. So that doesn't mean we're friends where we hang around each other.

We're in the same industry. We do a lot of things around each other. That doesn't mean we have to be friends. And I love that because I think, you know, we have a lot of people that are high competitors with each other that are really good friends. And after a win or after a loss, it's just a different vibe. But like those guys respect each other. And iron sharpens iron.

And these two are some of the best that do it. And like Kevin said, they don't want to lose to each other. Like losing to someone that came up the exact same way right behind you is it, it bothers you. you on a different level, I think. And you can see that. Kyle was like, I'm going to let Christopher go because I think he's going to say. It's a very long pause. And you've got to be willing to run over somebody if you have to. Oh, yeah. And so, you know, having those relationships that are that are close throughout the years. And, you know, it's, look, you're there to race for your team and do the best that you can

for your team and worry about the consequences later. And that becomes much more difficult when you have close personal relationships with somebody on the race. track. So, I mean, Tony and I were always good friends off the racetrack, but I just, I don't ever remember anybody else that was like, hey, we're going to go consistently hang out with and had a lot in common with to be able to do that. So it's, you know, it's tough because you've got to be, sometimes you got to run your friends over. Yeah. And I always say these guys, the way they race, like the, the slide jobs that they throw and stuff, like it'll it'll frustrate you with how they race.

So it's a lot easier for them. You know what's crazy is that's just normal now? Yeah. Like when you go and you watch all these younger kids race, like the slide jobs and just doing that crazy stuff, like that's just how that's just how they're off the race. Right? Like it's and that's what happens when you have half a generation that has race like,

not race like that and half a generation is race like that. I mean, think about your legend car stuff. All these guys are for the most part race legend cars. So when they're playing bumper cars in the Gen 7 cars, It's like no big deal because that's how you race legend cars. And so I think a lot of that has changed. The culture has changed in how aggressive that you have to be in order to make some of those passes and moves happen.

We're talking about drivers potentially making each other better. And I got to imagine that happens in the team Penske stable. We touched on Ryan Blaney. But what about Joey Lagano? Currently 44 points out. We know he's a good super speedway racer. Is he within striking distance? What do you say for 22?

I really thought Lagano was in a position. to win the race, and they had a bad pit stop. The one thing that makes me nervous about, I mean, I know that Ryan Blaney's team was technically top whatever pit crew for the chase so far. But I think you saw who they really were this weekend. Yeah, I was going to say, it didn't look like you yesterday. Lugano had the same issue. I just, I think that their mistakes come at the wrong times on pit road.

I think both of those cars were capable of winning and both of them had pit stops go bad at the wrong time. Now we've seen that with other teams, but we don't really see that out of 20. We don't really see that out of the 19. We've seen it out of the 11. So I think that you can look at, I mean, you don't see that out of Larson's guys.

So it kind of got a 50-50 split on the pit crew situation. And I still don't believe the Penskegee pit crews are as good as Larson's and Gibbs. Yeah, they've definitely gotten better from where they were, without a doubt. But we're in a situation to where both of them had an issue. And luckily, their cars were strong enough and their drivers were who they are. But it just turned it into an average day. Yeah, you ended up, you went from lead.

I mean, they were dominating the race. They were pretty much controlling the race. And then, you know, one thing happened. And now we're back behind. And that's all it takes. And so you can't. definitely cannot have that happen. For where they're at, they can't have that happen again.

Like, unfortunately, but this is what happens when we're racing for a championship. You've got to be flawless. And for the next three weeks, they've got to be flawless, you know. It's going to happen again. Yeah. We've seen Pit Road. It's just, it's been, it's been too, it's been too consistent for it not to happen again. So a lot happening, obviously, in the Cup Series side of things.

What about the Crosman Truck Series? What would you think of this race event? race? I'm just kidding. I didn't even know they race because I turned it off after I turned it off after the green flag wave. Oh, that's a practice. Yeah, this is, this is, oh, they covered all this. Yeah, so they covered all this. I was, I watched the whole thing and I watched you practice with your flag waving. And then you go to throw the green flag here and there is no waving. No. Watch your, watch this technique. This is what he told me to do. This is like, I feel like that's like the little wave like the little beauty clean way.

So there was 30 mile per hour wind gusts out there in Phoenix. It was pretty aggressive. The guy in the flag stands it was in a ponytail said that he had struggled on practice and qualifying. He's like just do it normal. You don't want to risk dropping it, which is the last thing you want to do. You should have risked it. I knew

that if you had dropped that flag and then he would be critical of my performance. That would have been so much fun. Did you know it? I knew he would have to give me a hard time about playing. When I saw, I didn't know happening. So when I saw it, I didn't know it was happening either. Why didn't you tell us? Yeah. I don't know. I just figured, what am I to do? It just flipped her mind.

It just wasn't. Hey guys, guess what I get to do? Yeah, but we could have like heckled you or something. I kind of didn't for that reason. She knew it was going to know during the show last week. I actually did not. I found out right after the show, which by the way, thanks to our friends at Poet who helped make that happen. It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Right. So it would have been better if you dropped it. I mean, remember when Michael Walter dropped it? Can we pull that back up? So that let's grade. Yeah. Let's break this down a little bit.

Yeah. Because I really feel like, so is that practice? Yeah, that's practice. That doesn't count. That was real. But I like the effort in practice. Yeah. You had the little up down wave.

Yeah. Then you had the. He told me to do it the way that I did. Did he make you double, double, fletched the thing? You had to use both hands. I mean, sometimes you got to use both hands, you know?

Okay. So now you've got one hand, but you had a, with two hands, I do. No, I did. You just didn't get the roll. You got to get the roll. I like the little wiggle. Figure eight. The little wiggle. So I'm going to give it a solid look. Seven. Seven. Seven five.

Is it? You look like it's going to hurt you right there. You're like, okay. I thought it was. I'm telling you, when I got up there, it felt like I was about to get blown off the freaking thing. What was it like when all the trucks drove by you? It was a lot. I just really didn't want to drop it. That's why I was more conservative with it. Sorry, I let you down. I mean, it was a fancy little wave. Bad waving of the flag We've seen a lot worse There's been a lot worse waves

Yeah Yeah You know one of one What are you gonna grade it? I gave it 7.75 Like an F Oh we're not gonna go ABCD Oh no

I forgot you do letters Yeah I don't know like a B No he wants to give me like a D I'm sure I think a B's okay Yeah Like a B not a B minus

It's because she practiced Yeah And I had to climb up there With that pack on And everything It's not easy getting up that ladder It was very high It's very high

Mm-hmm Okay. Doing stuff with the pack on is very hard, guys. It is. You know that. Well, you don't really have to go past. He doesn't know.

It is a little challenging to maneuver around. Yeah. Oh, you had tennis shoes on. So it was okay to climb up. Yeah. It's just a straight ladder. It's not on an incline.

It is straight up and down. Yeah. Yeah. Good times. And anyway, Caden Honeycutt won. Yes. Not our highlight,

but he was definitely the winner of the race. Yes, he was. They did a good job, though. And I think that, you know, the thing about the Honeycutt truck in the first stage, he was not the dominant truck. And they were able to Scott Zipadelli and Caden were able to communicate and get the details worked out on the truck to be able to make that truck better for stage two and stage three. And then, you know, just became the winning truck. So definitely put a little pressure on lane rigs to have to go out to Talladega and make something happen. I mean, the pressure's on everybody at Talladega.

Yeah. And the pressure is high because a lot of times you just aren't in control of somebody else's problem that becomes your problem. And that's the frustrating part about Talladega is you can get caught up in a mess leading a race, running last in the middle. It don't matter. So if they're close when they get to Martin's row, it's going to be a slug fast. That'll be very interesting. Because they're two really good short track racers, two good teams on the short tracks. It's going to be.

But it's, it's, it's all. also in, I mean, it's in such a critical phase. Yeah. All of it, both of them, all three series really are. Talladega is in a in a spot that is just absolutely perfect because you got two races left at Martinsville and Homestead. And Talladega could flip it upside down, could give somebody the advantage. Could give somebody the advantage that sucks at Homestead. I don't know.

You don't know. One thing I've learned at the chase so far is you don't know what the plot is bringing next. plot twist all the time. Plot twist all the time. Yeah. Well, we might as well move on to Talladega then because that is, as he stated, where we're headed next. Preview what we have in place here.

The reduced rear spoiler. Yes. What do you think about this? Will that change the stability of the cars? What do you think? We haven't had a ton of success with spoiler size on the top of this Gen 7 car being bigger, smaller. Hasn't really moved the needle that much.

but this I mean it's a little spoiler there's a little spoiler but the down force is we just haven't seen a lot with the with the with the spoiler yeah

but it is going to take drag out of the car and that is going to make it go faster down the straightaway and what that does to the pushes and the side drafts and all those things that go with that are yet to be seen and that's the that's the most intriguing

part of this whole Talladega thing is the rules package no practice nobody knows you're going to be learning on the fly as you go through this race and hopefully you didn't screw it up. Leaving the shop on what all the heights and everything needed to be set at. But the drivers are going to be learning as they go through this process

as to what's effective, more effective, less effective than what they had before. Yeah. It's going to be fun because I'm sure they're going to start out a little on the conservative side and then we'll get through two stages. And then you got what you got. Yeah, but you can't just throw those two stages away. You can't, but if you, it's going to be tough. That's the thing.

If your car's not handling well and you're up in there and you're kind of on edge, like it's going to be real dicey on how many. You can get way behind by not. If somebody scores points in the first two stages like they typically do, usually it's the Fords. If they score points in those first two stages and everybody else does not, or you're on the side that didn't score points, that's a tough road to hoe because at that point,

if you all wreck. Yeah. You didn't get no points either. Those are your points. And the Fonsky forwards typically control this race. Typically. A lot of time. It'll be interesting to see if the whole RFK

Penske-pinski dynamic is better. Yeah. You know, are they all going to actually help each other? Are they not going to happen? And where's front row going to land, right? Because they have been in the mix of the Super Speedways almost all year. Zane Smith or Todd Gillen has been up there. Noah Gregson had a good race.

this past weekend. So like are they going to be in the mix and are they going to help the help the manufacturer or are they going to, well, we really need the win for the company. And you can't fault them either way. Yeah. And really, you know, from the Chevy side, I mean, what do they have left? That's, it's a lot easier being them. It's a lot easier being Kyle Arson at this point because they don't have anything left. I mean, Kyle Larson's their, they're only shot to a championship. So, you know, I would imagine that we're going to pile as many cars around that five cars they can to be able to put themselves in a position because I mean the Chevy group does seem like they for the most part coordinate better than what

Ford has lately the if you're like a Toyota or Ford the worst thing at the end of this race that you could have is a bow tie pushing you and you need this this way if you're a Ford I mean why don't you just or a Chevy why don't you you would want I would think you would want to make it a numbers game yeah 100% because if you make it a numbers game the Toyota are in a bad spot. So if you make it a numbers game, it definitely will put you in a better position, at least in the first two stages,

to at least try to control, you know, the stages and the stage points and everything that goes with that. So I would 100% push a numbers game on my team. The Toyota teams are, I mean, they're competing very hard. I mean, it's JGR and 2311, not just all JGR.

So from 2311, we got, you know, we got Bubba, we got Riley, those two guys are really good Super Speedway racers. Like for Tyler, I'm like, I feel pretty good about this. The JGR side, everyone's kind of out for themselves a little bit. So it's a... But they got to work together. Somewhere.

They got to work together. I'd rather lose one or two points than get no points. Yeah, for sure. If you recall in the spring, there was a 26 car pile up that took out a lot of the top contenders and Carson Hosevar won in the spring. Do we think he has a chance to replicate that? I do. Well, just

because he's aggressive, I mean, they're cars have been fast. And I think that, you know, this type of racing rewards that style of risk and aggressiveness to be able to position yourself in the front. But we don't really, we don't really understand the exact style of what the racing is going to be. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's still a lot of questions to be answered with the rules package and what the strategies are from, from the teams and manufacturers. What's that going to be? because you have so many different agendas with everything that's going on. But those will be all the all be conversations about that happened this week,

about what what needs to happen this weekend. But I, I 100% believe that host bar could be in the mix again. The situation you're describing just sounds stressful, right? It is. It is. It's terribly stressful because you just hold it down and you know that you still only have a 50% chance of surviving. Maybe 50%. Yeah.

So I always went there and I'm like, oh, I got a 50%. 50% chance to survive today and might as well be aggressive and hoping that you get stage points and don't wreck early. And if you do wreck early, you can make it home and time to watch the end of the race. Yeah. Yeah, that's ain't that the truth. Before we move on, I do want to make a call out to a couple of guys that were not in the chase too. But Cendrick's been on a heater. He's been on a great run.

Connor Zillich had a great weekend. They qualify. They, they, well, for it. Well, for their standards. For their standards. From where they've been, it's great for them. Practiced well, qualified well. They ran in the top 10 and then they ended up around 20th or whatever.

So it's a good day for them. Corey Freakingheim is going to be, listen, man, 2311 has some things. If they can clean up their own mistakes next season, they have three legitimate title opportunities with all three guys. It's going to be interesting because he's going to become their alpha. How does that change the dynamic in the building? How does that change the dynamic?

of everything that's going on with that team from from bubba and tyler and not being the not being the dog right right and he's going to become the alpha of of that team that will be an interesting dynamic to see that play out next season oh um well prayer's up for all the teams headed to talladega we're hoping for the best for everybody else that's really the best strategy hope hope is a great strategy for talladega it's never a good strategy anywhere else but hope is a great strategy anywhere else but hope is a great 99% of the time. Kevin, Hope and the strategy. Talladega, hope is all you got.

You're going, right? You said you'll be out there for practicing. Yeah, I'll fly down Saturday, doing an interview for Straight Talk Wireless, and then I'll fly back to Charlotte, and then I'll go to New York City on Sunday to watch the Talladega race. Okay.

He's got a NASCAR Sunday. Come on over to Cordial on Saturday night. We're going to be racing the Southern Super Series race and the Super Late model over there. How do you get, when are you going home? Because I got a flight. Okay, I have a flight to catch. Maybe I'll make it over there.

You could drive over there. I'll drive you home. Oh, my. Well, I get you to my house. Well, you've got to go past mine to get to yours. That's fine. He'd go. Yeah, he's got NASCAR Sundays in New York City.

Yeah. That's cool. That's going to be good. We're out in New York City, our New York group. So actually, Grillos. Look at this. Shout out of Grillos. They're partnering with us.

Did you cut the bottom of that shirt? No. That's right there. I thought you had a belly shirt. No, no, it's not a cop-dop. I thought you're going to walk around with your belly button. I mean, I would. I mean, it's great. What you should do is show up.

You should cut the sleeves off, cut it short. You get your belly drift. Yeah, yeah. Sleeveless. Like a true race fan. Yeah, I need a couple more days in the gym before I'm sure I'm like. Here comes that pickle guy. Here comes the pickle guy.

Yeah. Mr. Pickle, do you? Yeah. Old Mumbo. Old Mumbo the pickle. All right, cool. We look forward to seeing you out there on Nantelada. Yeah.

Doing your thing. I'll be there for the truck race. I will not be waving the green flag much to his disappointment. Is that on Friday or Saturday? Friday. Okay. That's a good question because I actually get confused when it gets a talent.

I never know when they're doing double-headed. Yeah, we start mixing it up. That will be on Friday. Okay, it is time now for the social sips. And I know you have quite a few of those, it looks like, on the docket for us today. Mamba, Mumbo, Mr. Pickle. Mumbos, Merry Minutes. Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to your favorite part of the show, Momba's Social Sips. And like I just said, this weekend, if you're in New York City, come by Burgerology in Midtown. We're going to be throwing down. It's going to be awesome. Mabas and Ascar Sunday is going to be on and popping. They have real meat there? Yeah. Yeah, we've got good burgers there.

Okay. Yeah. I didn't know if they had like beef or if it was like that. No, they're legit. No, no, no. We're in New York. Vegetable, vegan beef. No, I'm sure they do for some people, but that's not what I'm going to be having.

You're going for the meat. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, pots. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to start here with Talladega. Taledega Night celebrating the 20th, the 20th year anniversary. And we have a little promo I hear. Let's run the tape. Tal Dagan Nights will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of this film.

The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. That's kind of wild. 20 years? 20 years. Do you remember making this or coming up with the idea for this? Yeah, we made, you know, this was a reaction to how hard Anchorman was to get made. So we had so many rejections with that script, and we thought we were never going to make it. And at that time, it was the peak, like, popularity.

of NASCAR. Oh, yeah. And I said, we should just pick a topic that everyone loves and just make a movie. Like, we should just do a NASCAR movie. Yeah. And Adam McKaycombe was like, that's not a bad idea.

Did either one of you know about NASCAR? No. Knew nothing. New, I didn't even know cars were involved. Yes, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. You learned. An acronym for something else.

But you did it. So, yeah, we went in and pitched Will Ferrell as a NASCAR driver. And now it is the... It is the NASCAR movie. So it's pretty cool. People just quote it all the time and love it so much.

Yeah. It's kind of crazy. It's gonna be pretty great. That's me. Yeah, I love that. Interesting to hear the backstory and how they came up with it. Like just out of the blue. Out of the blue because one thing,

it's kind of like Top Gun too, right? And Days of Thunder, one thing worked, like, what else is popping off? Let's try this. I thought you were going to show the actual promo that NASCAR was using. Well, I was going to show that next week. Oh, yeah.

I got you. Yeah, we're going to... Race is over at that point. Yeah, but it's still funny for me to react to it. We got something cool for next week. Don't worry about it. I got you. I won't be here.

Well, that's fair. That's even better. You can't respond. You can't defend myself. You can't defend yourself. Just remember, it's one side. There was only one hat size. Right, one hat size.

You guys don't know what we're talking about. It's really. Raise Hell and Praise Dale. Now, Greensboro Police, obviously, you know, right down the street from us, they had a tweet that went out and they said, it's not an appropriate response when you were asked why you were speeding. Kevin, you cannot blame Dale Earnhardt for speeding in North Carolina. Well, they made that worse on themselves because there are more NASCAR fans

in Greensboro than anywhere else in the country. And when now when every race fan gets pulled over for speeding, they're going to say, raise hell, praise Dale. So now they've started a trend. One of the best parts about this, though, is clearly somebody did that. I mean, which is why they had to put that edict out there. Okay, this doesn't work. But whoever did it originally, good job by you. Good job by you. That was hilarious.

We talked about Caden Honeycutt. We always talk about celebrations and how you celebrate. Caden had a really cool one. He actually jumped out into it when he got, when he won, took his helmet, which the helmet is not cheap. I'm going to have an actual helmet. Safe flight. Every single win, I went in NASCAR.

I'm going to go up there. I'm going to give it to one of those kids because their parents drove from God knows where to come and watch us race. He gave the flag to that kid and his helmet. I'm guessing that we might have had a PR conversation from the sponsor maybe. Before or after. About chugging beers and stuff in the grandstands. Maybe it wasn't a good look.

Now we're giving out of helmets to kids. Maybe. It just seems like the PR shift is pretty dramatic from where we started with chugging beers in the grad stands. But maybe that has something to do with. you know, not feeling well after so many races as well. Maybe. I mean, like, cool for a kid. Awesome.

Yeah. But dramatic PR shit. It is a, it is a bit of a change from a bit. It's 1980. It's 1993 to, you know, now on nickel. Well, Caden has not had a lot of luck with endurance at the end of the races. And it has been in the InfoCare Center of several times. Yeah.

So maybe he's trying to correct his diet and activities. but it definitely also a dramatic PR switch. We're gonna, we'll party after. But I like it. Yeah, we'll party after. I like it. Do it for the kids, do for the kids. Do you guys remember Folgers coffee?

Oh, yes. Still Folgers coffee. notorious ads. Do you remember Folgers is gone? No, no, but you remember all the ads that they used to have all over the place? Yeah, do you know the little chime that goes with it? Yeah, of course.

What is it? No, I'm not going to do it. We're going to hear it, I think. Yeah. No, I want you to, no. Actually, can you simulate it? Before we hear it, to make sure that it's correct. No, because this is like...

I'm not trying to make you sing the Mr. Rogers song. No, this is like in your brain when you know... The best part of waking up is Fulj is in your cup. Well, you're a singer. Go ahead. I just did it. Yeah, she just did it. Anyway, nobody wants... So nobody wants to sing it.

No. Why don't you sing it? What are you singing? I can't remember it. I just said it. He always has an excuse, everybody. Heatwave, who's a super big supporter of NASCAR racing and everything, motorsports.

They do really cool sunglasses. I've been a part of my. partner of the Cars Tour. Justin, Marco, Graham, their whole group do a great job of supporting what we do. And Justin, the owner, is a big fan. He has a couple classic race cars. He has Tim Richmond's car.

And they put it in a really cool little commercial. Let's see this. Also, that's Squirrel McNutt, if you didn't know. Mornings are brighter. If you want to watch the whole thing, It's all over social media. But yeah, these guys do the best. They do so many good hits like this.

And Squirrel and Cletus and all those guys are hilarious. The old school commercials on those. I like that. That was a good one. That was good. A lot of effort. I enjoyed that. But it didn't have the chime.

It did at the beginning. It did at the beginning. The lady sang it. You don't even remember it. You don't even know the words. There was more to it. Well, how'd it go? Like that, but a little longer.

Oh, maybe I don't know the second verse. Yeah. Kevin's going to have to tell us the second verse. That is your social sips this week. We ended on some coffee. Oh. That's part of waking up right here with mumbos. Wake up with us.

What is it, Mr. Pickle? No, I'm big pickle and you can get some falters off. It's the mumbo jumbo. The mumbo jumbo's over. You know, I can tell you guys are tired because you're just rambling on today. Mamba's merry moments. Mamba's merry moments is crazy. I like that better as we approach Christmas.

Okay, guys, time now for the last call and to grade the burn-up. hopefully he gets a better grade than I did. First of all, real quick, I've always wondered why no one has done this. I know. I saw him jet off in there and I'm like, whoa. Whoa, where's he going? Why has no one done this before? So he pulls down in here and I'm like, what's going on?

He pulled down into the corral. He went into the Phoenix Oval Corral and his burn house. Which honestly is probably the, it's like being on the skid pad. That's probably the best place to do it, Burner. You do whatever you want. I bet you they'd never thought that they would have to repaint those logos. No. They do it once a year.

Yeah. Now they're like, oh, yeah. Well, he might have started something because now the other series do it too. Yeah, they're going to be upset. So a bunch of wasted space. Yeah, what was down there before? Pit road out further? Pit road, right?

The grass. I remember grass being. I think it was grass. Yeah. I think it was just grass. That's right. Yeah. So.

This is cool. I mean, something different. I mean, it was a little bit different. So we might give it a, you know, a quarter grade bump. so maybe a B plus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just for creativity. Doing something completely different.

We hadn't seen all year. And, and when he got out of this thing, he was jacked up. Yes, he was. Big boy Tyler is different than skinny boy Tyler. He's thick.

And he normally jumps into his team but no one was there yet, so he got to stand and they're like, where is everybody? That or everybody thought that they can't catch him. They're like, I don't know. He's got that dad weight on him now. I don't know.

Got that bow and ball. That's what he looks like. I'm going to tell you what. If you hit Tyler Reddick, I think it might just, it's going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt him. He is solid. Solid. Stout man.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, B plus for you, Tyler. Ready? Good job. Yeah. You passed.

You passed. I'm in the B plus range right now in the point standing. No, she's talking. She would segue in Kevin. Oh, I see. Well, Kevin is the A plus at 74 right now. So he picked Joey Lagano. Picked up three points.

Damn. Pick crew. Mamba is at 30. he picked Ryan Blaney, who finished second. I was Christopher Bell. You want to finish second? Let Mumbo pick you. I'm on a generational run of second.

A generational run of media. No, this is not mediocrisy. It is above mediocrisy, but not by much. I'm not winning. I'm definitely not winning. I mean, Kevin has been winning the entire season. No, he has not. I led for a little while.

Did you win was that? Yeah, when I had back-to-back wins? Cat fished him into not giving me a pick. Just because you weren't here and you didn't put it. You said you're picking. That's not my fault. You won't be here next Monday. Caitlin. Hey.

He wasn't going to remember that. Oh, that's not nice. You want me to make my Martinsville pick now? Yeah. Yo, this would be a walk-off mic moment if he gets this right. Okay. Well, first do Talladega. Okay, let's do Talladega.

Okay. What do you want to do for Talladega, sir? I'm going to stick to my guy from this last weekend, Lagano. Okay. Oh, back to back. I'm going with this teammate. Ryan Blaney. three-time day-a-winner.

Okay. Yeah. You know what? You know what? I got this shirt right here. Whose name is on that? Todd Gill win? Give me Todd Gillian. Looking for a miracle.

We're looking for a Hail Mary. A big pickle win. On Chaser. A big pickle win. Big deal. Big deal. Yeah. Well, I also, I really do think the front row cars on the super speedways I've done very good job.

And, you know, those guys are young. A good win for the end of the year. It would be good for them. Daytona. Zane Smith was in contention. Okay. So are you going to tell us Martinsville now or is that a wait till later? No, you said you'd pick Martinsville right now.

I mean, I could pick Martin'sville right now. I mean, what do you want to do? Pick Martinsville right now. We just want to make sure we have it on record at some point before. You can't change it. He's going to be out of town next weekend, sadly. Okay. Well, I'll take Denny Hamlin.

Oh, okay. That's not who I thought you were going to pick. All right. Thanks for leaving me. You heard it here first. We did allow him. an opportunity to make his pick selection. He will be out of town.

I feel like that's still, I mean, in reality, I feel like that's the only one he can win. Well, you also really have to pick him because you switch to him as your championship pick from William Byron. So I don't think any of us are going to win the championship. Okay. So who do you think is winning, Larson?

Who did you pick? I've been playing. She switched to Blaney. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I mean, I don't know. That's the beauty of it. After Talladega, I'll have a little more insight after Talladega. Yeah. How mad are you going to be if Briscoe in fact wins the championship after you left to jump show?

And I remember I told you that. That would be bad. Yeah, she told him Matt. I jumped shit. What a quitter. Yeah. You quit too. You had originally chose William fire.

Yeah, but my guy quit too. Your guy did. My guy quit. See, there's always, always a caveat to everything. My guy just. Why, we're stupid. Didn't even show up. Your guy kept going.

So my guy can't make me look stupid. Your guy can. Chase definitely had a lull before the chase began. He did that. I went another direction. That's the worst though when you go in a different direction and then your original guy comes back. I still have faith.

Ryan is only 40 out. So he's still. Oh, he's in it. Yeah. This weekend, I mean, he could win and have two good stages and be even. He could easily win the next two races. Because there's, yeah. And Mamba, do you get extra points for sticking by your original?

I like that. I like that. You know what? Yes, I do. I think that's worth the extra 10 to 15. We'll give me an extra point right here. I think it's worth the extra 10. We'll work on that. Thank you, Caitlin, for bringing that to the... Well, I'm just saying now that everyone's made fun of me for switching midway through, you'll have that. Okay. We didn't make fun of you. We just made fun of the fact that the guy that you originally picked. It's doing better than me. The new guy that you did pick. Yeah. Well, you'll have that. I'm just here to get made fun of that. Hey. guys.

All right. Let's go, Caitlin. Wow. Oh, no. Oh my God. I wish we could

make it a checkered flag to the end of the show. This is the one I like. This is, all right. I didn't realize they were even filming me during this time.

It's like a little kid. I knew immediately. I was like, I can't do that. I cannot do the double-a-end. Oh, my. Well, here we go. Just watch it one more time.

Look how happy I look. This is a true race fan. Thank you. you guys so much for making this moment for us. It was great. It was honestly it was a great moment. So I appreciate a poet. Okay, this has been fun-ish, guys. We look forward to this week. Bob Pockris will be here when Kevin is out of town for a hunting trip. Hunting trip. Yeah. Keel and I are going hunting a couple weeks. For a couple weeks. Wait a minute, sir. You're going to be back the following week, right? Yeah. Leaving tomorrow.

Oh, you're leaving tomorrow. Oh, wow. Okay. Must be nice. You know. We're going to hunt. Day and life with Kevin. Oh, okay. So it is a work trip, too. Yeah, yeah. Fairly. Yeah. Good for you, as you should.

We will miss you, though. But Bobby P. will be holding down the fort. Okay. Right, sir? Yeah, yeah. For Kevin, Mamba, myself, that does it for us. We'll see all of you after Talladega.