Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Ricky Stenhouse wins thrilling race at Talladega, biggest wreck in Cup history, 23XI lawsuit, and more!

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

On episode 63 of ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,’ Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith react to a thrilling Playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway! Kevin and crew break down Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s win and the biggest wreck in modern NASCAR history. Then, they discuss lawsuit from 23XI Racing & Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR over the Charter deal. Finally, they wrap up the show with Mamba’s Social Sips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whatever it was, the dunk hit the rim and the balls in half court, because listen here, bud, we had nothing to do talking about your pit crew or anything like that. We were talking about your comments and being mentally focused. I love you, man. I love the way you drive the race car. I don't like the things that you said after the race, and that's my job. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Box. I'm Kevin Harvick.

She's Caitlin Bensie, and he's Mamba Smith, and I'm just sitting here waiting to get towed. No, he's Dippy Doo. Oh, Dippy Doo. Yeah. Don't ask. We got to tell why. No, I don't know why. We don't.

I don't know why. We're to text friends last night. And all of a sudden, Kevin goes, hey, make sure you get Dippy Doo's map printed out. And I'm like, what does that even mean? I think he just wanted to give you a little, you know, grief that you make me printed every week, right? I think the best part of the whole thing is the fact that he sent me this gift. and all of a sudden, I sent him one back of myself taking a bow. And the conversation was over and you disappeared until this morning.

I was asleep. I went to bed. How can you even respond? Was that a mic drop? Or? That was definitely a mic drop. I didn't. I was asleep.

I didn't know you did that. But when I saw it this morning, you got to be freaking kidding. When I saw it this morning, I was very mad that you won, you know, have your own. You were asleep and he was up and I was up after you? Yeah. Guys, I worked all day. I had to fly back to make sure I was here and prepped and ready for the show.

Okay. Take a nap. It takes a lot to be this pretty. Was Talladega Rough on you? Yeah. Taladega Boulevard is always a little bit. How was it? What did you see?

I went to the rodeo. They had a rodeo. Yeah, they keep having a rodeo, which is really cool. I saw Jake Owen. Jake Owen was there. He had his vintage 2001 Kevin Harvick shirt on. Did he? Yeah.

Oh, that's awesome. That's a good time. It was hot. It was hot as hell in Alabama this week. You'll have that. You're on Pitt Road? I did. Yeah, Friday with the truck race.

It was great. Yeah, it went well. Good. Everyone is happy. High fives all around. High fives all around. How was your weekend? My weekend was great.

I went to a wedding. Oh. Yeah. When's the last time you've done that? Went to a Warnaday wedding. Mm. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. You probably have had to RSP no to most weddings, right? In the last how many years? I was talking about this with Delana. I don't think I've been to a wedding since I went to mine. That's wild. That is wild.

You go to Dales? No. No. It's New Year's. I didn't. Well, there you go. Because you can't. You're gone.

every weekend. On New Year's Eve, you can... There's, I mean, there's very few things that I can think of and people that I can think of that I would actually go sit at a wedding. But this was one of those moments. Oh, nice. You're going to come to mind? Are you going to get married?

I mean, if I got to marry myself... Do you have a girlfriend? No, no, no. If I got to marry myself just to get Kevin Harvick to the wedding, I'll do that. It doesn't work like that. Well, first thing you got to do is find a girlfriend. Yeah, we need to find him a lady. Yeah.

You haven't mentioned Ryan in a while. I guess that's not going well. I was off it for a while. Okay. Yeah, I put it on pause for like two months. Well, we're going to put this conversation on pause because I need to get to the start of the show. Welcome into episode 63 of Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour. Make sure you closers continue to subscribe on YouTube wherever you get your podcast.

Leave us five stars and a review. So today, of course, we're recapping Talladega. Preview the Charlotte Roval. Mamba has some great tips. Good ones today. We'll touch on the lawsuit that everyone's been talking about. There is an abundance of. topics today.

There she goes. Big words. He's like, abundance. Abundance. I even can spell it. But let's start with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. I know you just interviewed him. And the most impressive thing to me was the fence climb.

Yes. Well, you got to remember, I mean, he was on American Ninja Warriors. I did not know that. He's a workout beast. He's obviously used to climbing things because he climbed. He scaled that fence like it was nothing. He just went right up the fence and scaled it. But what a day, you know, for that,

team and Ricky, his fourth win on a Super Speedway. He's won the Daytona 500. He's won at Talladega a couple times and Daytona a couple times. But when you go to these Super Speedway races, he just has a knack for putting himself in the front of the pack. And I think as you look towards the end right here, you see those three Chevys up towards the front and one Ford. And it really was very interesting to weigh that that whole last pit cycle kind of cycled out with the Chevys and the Ford's all together. And they basically, it was a very interesting. It was the Chevy versus Ford's there at the end until everything got messed up with the wreck. But what a great day for JTG and everything that they have going on until the end of the year.

And then the change with the team ownership and everything changing on their side. But when a team of this size wins a race, it really puts them in a position to do things that they normally don't do. So it's been an up and down year for Ricky. But Victory Lane is definitely fixes all things. That's right. He seemed in great spirits in his interview with Kevin. Also, I think it's interesting. We now have had three non-playoff guys when in the playoffs.

Yeah. I'm not sure we've ever had that many. I don't know. I don't think so. I need Bob to check on that. There's been a lot of disruptors, as we call them. A lot of disruptors. No, it's a great thing, though.

And that's what this system provides. It gives you something else to race for. Everyone else still is something that they're fighting for. And it also gives you hope for the next season. Like even guys like Kyle Bush with the speed that they, I was talking to Randall Barnett and their group like, Yeah, it didn't work out for them at Kansas, but they're starting to have speed, and you can look forward to that for next year, and we can build something off of that.

But shout out to Ricky. Like, he needed that group. I love it when that group wins because they're so small, and they've been like that forever. And it's always like the David versus Goliath situation, and Brad Doherty is still over there. And I just love everything they do. He gave a massive shout out to the folks up in the Asheville area and how much the help that they're going to be doing with them. And he, so Ricky is also. a big Ole Miss fan.

And I had a couple of buddies I met in Talladega in the spring race. They came to the fall race. And they just got done. They beat South Carolina. So Jared Irvin and Zach Johnson, they came down. And I was like 30 laps to go. I had left the racetrack. I said, hey, if the 47 wins, get your ass to victory lane.

And so they got in there. I got a picture with him. So it was pretty cool. That is very cool. Good for Ricky Stenhouse. And first win for him as a dad. I thought that was sweet. the shout out to his wife.

I love to see that emotion. I do too. It changes everything about your life. And one day you'll find out. But I think being able to, when you just, you have emotions that you never have been through before. And I think when it hit him that they weren't there, that was like, oh, he's like a miss. Yeah. It's that miss.

But, you know, when I look at, when I look at Stenhouse and I look at their year, it's been really, and down. He had the controversy with Kyle Bush at the All-Star race, which was wild. And now they get to Victory Lane, change in ownership. And I think as you take this win later in the year, last year they won the Daytona 500 at the beginning of the year, kind of rode that wave all the way to the playoffs. And then, you know, hadn't really had a chance to put themselves in a position to win this year. And then to go back to Victory Lane with, what, five, six races to go. Yeah. It really will give that. team a lot of momentum, whether it's sponsors or him personally or going after people or whatever

that is, it shows that they can do it. Always nice to see the smaller teams get a victory as well. So I want to break down this race in more detail. And starting with stage one, how aggressive the drivers were racing at the end of the stage. Kyle Larson even making the comment that that was just way more intense than stage one should be. But that's what this playoff system has created, right? Yeah. Well, it's what we talked about last week on the show. You have to get stage points in order to cover yourself. for the end of that race. And when you look at those stage points,

I mean, you look at Willie B, he's back. Those guys. He's moved in. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think he's locked himself in. A lot of that had to do with the stage points. And Austin Cendrick, you know, they did a good job of putting themselves in a position to be up front.

So you have to be able to race for those stage points. And even if it's just one, you saw all the guys really being aggressive there towards the end of stage one. And that's where you gain those points because you know at some point you're probably going to wreck. This one was no different than the rest of them.

They started in stage two and they finished it off at the end. This is like the third race for the 12 in these playoffs where they were out earlier. Something happened and you watch in the points and they were like minus 25 at some point. But he got good stage points.

And he got those stage points. He's 25 up now. Yeah. And without those, he's not sitting here. He looks, where is he at? 25 up, you said. So he's in a good stage. spot going to the Roval. The Roval was definitely one like if you're, I don't know, I guess probably

Tyler Redick or Chase Elliott, like that's a very dangerous place to be with how the stages work and trying to get points. And then at some point do you have to flip because you're not going to get enough points? You have to go for the win. Like having to do all that mid-race, that's a lot to try to figure out. So you reference Ryan Blaney, which brings me to the conclusion of stage two. We saw an incident between him and Alex Bowman, Alex Bowman giving him a push, which Ryan that it wasn't much of a push, more like driving through me. So what did you see from that? Well, it was in the worst spot possible coming out of the trival. As you go through that trial, there's bumps and the way that the car loads up. And when somebody's behind you, the back of the car is

just light. And, you know, they're coming to the checkered flag of the stage right there thinking exactly what we're talking about. And I got to get the most stage points that I can. And I think Alex just hit him harder than, you know, the car could take. And I don't think that, you know, there was anything malicious there. I think he was just trying to put himself in a position to get ahead of any car that he could get himself ahead of. And the way that it caught that 12 a little bit off center, the Chevroletes do not push as well as the Ford's do with the shape of their nose.

Yeah, they got that point. And they have to be a little more cautious. And I think at that point, it's just push, push. And that's the type of speedway racing that we have. The only way you get anywhere is to push. And we see this every time we go to the super speedways, you push harder to go further. And at some point it spits somebody out.

And this time it was Ryan Blading. According like effect happening. We saw Ross Jess staying there, or winter last week, and now this is the outcome for him a week later. Yeah, he was running good too. I mean, that wreck could have been a lot worse because it was at the front of the pack.

So there could have been a lot more implications to it than what they were. but to Kevin's point, like that part of the track is just, like, you can push you there if you're already engaged. It's different when you're coming on a run and you hit somebody like that. But if you're engaged, it's probably a little bit easier to kind of get through there. But when you're catching someone multiple miles an hour faster than them, and Ryan was in the sucker hole because the eight had pulled out. So he was kind of falling back really quickly and the 48 was going on the run. So that was just a really, a really bad situation for everybody.

It was definitely more pushed than you should have there. Yeah. And I think the hard part to explain from TV, the cars are so much more on edge right there than it looks like on TV. Like, it just looks like they're just rolling through there. On a Sunday cruise going to the Tri-Oval. But when you go through the Triovil, I mean, there's so many things happening with the car and the air and everything moving around right there. And they just hadn't finished that corner yet. And usually at Daytona and Talladega,

Daytona is almost a little bit easier because you go through the banking in the travel and it kind of flattens out. And you know when it flattens out, okay, I can go back to pushing again. This one at Talladega, the trival kind of rolls. But there are just those weird, mistimely bumps that happened right there. And it was just too much of a push for that time of the tribal. We know these races are notorious for what we call the big one. Well, we had the biggest one in history, 28 cup cars, all time most.

in the Cup series history. So let's break this one down because this took out and impacted so many playoff drivers and it began with Austin Cendrick. What did you see here? Well, it began with Austin Cendrick, but it happened about four rows back. And the thing that I saw watching

the race, Austin Cendrick had his right side tires on the bottom hash mark, okay? And the cars behind him were almost left side on the on the hash marks. So when they were four or five deep second, you know, the second, third, fourth, fifth place car started pushing. It really started with about the fifth car in line, six car in line right there. You'll see Chase Briscoe get into the back back bumper there and then that car gets into the 22 and the 22 gets into the six. But the six

is trying to come down the racetrack to get square on the back of the two car. The two car hasn't moved. Right. Two car never moved. And Brad realizes that when he starts getting that push and he starts to ease his way down. You can't just jerk the car, but you see him kind of come across the bumper of the two car like he's going to the left. And the reason he was trying to do that is he knew he was being pushed so hard and he actually posted his SMT data off the throttle, hitting the brake. But when you're getting pushed by three or four cars behind you, you're in less control than you ever are because of, and in the speed of your car, you're in less control of because of the pushes that you're getting from behind. So Brad

knew he was in trouble that he wasn't aligned correctly. and with all the momentum and speed and the way that he hit that car coming to the left of Austin Cendrick just shot Austin to the right and caused a huge melee. But that's really the nature of this super speedway package. You see the first half of the race four wide. Look spectacular. Yes.

But bottom line is they're saving gas. Some guys are, some guys aren't. They're moving all around the racetrack, able to go forward and some guys going backwards in order to put themselves in a position to have a great pit stop. in order for the time to be less because you have to put less fuel in. But when they get going full speed, the most you're going to go is too wide for the most part, unless you're coming to the start finish line and you get these crazy runs with somebody fanning out.

But too wide is typically at full speed. That's all they're going to go. And I think the reason that you're seeing the biggest wreck ever is because of the fact that you have to push so freaking hard to make any ground. And we've talked about this on this show before. The pushes aren't worth what you're getting out of it. But the only way you're going to go forward is to keep pushing. And as the race gets closer and closer to the end, you just keep pushing until somebody wrecks. And that's what the guy that's four rows back or five rows back is thinking, he's like, well, I got to push the hell out of the guy in front of me.

So he can push the hell out of the guy in front of him. So maybe we can gain a half a car length on the leader. And I can push this line forward. And at that point, everybody's just being aggressive. And the style of race that this creates is you can't get out of the pack. So the whole pack's together. And you have to push. And eventually it just, it spit the leader out.

And here we are. Biggest wreck in history. Really interesting analysis on that. What did you see as you're watching this unfold? Well, I was listening. It sounded like, I think it was awesome. The run that they got that led to that wreck was a later one than they had been having. prior. So as you're making all these laps, you're trying to figure out how to put yourself in the

best situation to make sure your run is good getting to the start finish line. Because the run to the checker starts on the backstretch, usually. And he said that it was a later one and they weren't lined up like they were prior laps. And, you know, that's kind of what happens. Like, but to Kevin's point, everyone's trying to get all they can get and you can't stop. Yeah. And, you know, this four car is a freight train, and you've been hitting each other the whole time anyway. So, you know, it's kind of what it does. When you're the fourth or fifth guy in line, you don't care. You're trying to make up all the positions that you can't.

You can't let it. You can't let out. Or not lifting at this point. And it's just like, like we say all the time, you have to err on the side of being too aggressive. And in this style of racing, you have to be so aggressive that you take a chance of shoving the guy harder than you've ever shoved him. And, you know, just the way that the spacing and you see the alignment, right there where Brad realizes at the last second.

Yeah. But it's, he knew they were in trouble as he started to come across the racetrack. It flipped the whole playoffs. It flipped this whole round. Flip it. Because if they would have finished right where they were, the points were dramatically different. And the 11 was in a completely different situation because he was riding out back. Yeah.

So this brought him right up to the top 10. Okay. You know, watching a broadcast, I never really knew where the 11 was. They never talked about him. But he was so far behind that he wasn't even in that pack. because he got into that stage two wrecked, and it knocked the hood up and knocked the splitter loose. And he wound up getting extremely lucky.

He scored no stage points. Wasn't anywhere to be found because of the damage to his car. But he comes out 30 points to the good. And these are the types of moments, guys. I know we've been talking about Denny, but these are the types of moments that it's like, oh, maybe luck is on my side. Are you back? Maybe. I have some luck after all.

Maybe I have a little bit of look right here. And I'm going to make it through the round that I shouldn't have made it through because we didn't do anything good at Talladega. We didn't do anything good at Kansas. We didn't do anything. You know what I mean? It's like, are you back cheerleading? Are you back on the? No.

I think it's, I think that it's, look at William Byron coming into this round. I thought, man, these guys are not on a roll. They might not even make it out of this round. Now he's locked in. They've come into this round. And now they've got that momentum. You've got to have the momentum and everything rolling for you at the right. time. And when you look at luck, you've got to have some good luck. And Talladega, there was a lot

bad luck. There's a lot of bad luck. You look at Blaney, lucky, right? His bad luck, what he thought was bad luck at the end of stage two wound up being some pretty damn good luck because the whole field crashed. And he wound up on the right side of that. But Denny Hamlin, same thing, because he was, I think, 17 points out when Austin Cendrick was leading that race. And so now you look at those bottom four guys and you've got Legano. He was at the front. Suarez, I'm not sure what he was doing at the beginning of the race. They got themselves in trouble.

Had to start at the back. Had to start at the back. Put themselves behind the eight ball right off the bat and then just tried to pull up in line and got himself wrecked. Chase Briscoe, I mean, he ran in the front all day. He did what he needed to do. He's got to throw caution in to win. And that's kind of the position that that whole team is.

And they know it and they've said it. But, you know, I think that that ride is over. And I think even Chase Elliott, I think he was at one point right at zero. He was a few points out. So that last wreck changed everything. And Tyler Redick was in the same boat. So it flipped everything upside down. So that big incident that we just looked at with numerous looks

has started a pretty big dialogue about the damage vehicle. policy in these teams, how they were having to manage that and getting, trying, waiting for pushes back to the garage and all the different things that come with this. I know you have a lot of information about this. Yeah. So share your thoughts. Well, I have a lot of information, but I don't think I need to go too far because it was a complete shit show. Okay. That's what that's exactly what we were covering there was there. Very eloquently put, I like that. We go back to Watkins Glen and we we let's remember Ryan Blaney talking about you know being able to have his car towed back so that they could at least look at it and the team make the determination at this

point just tow all the damn cars back put them in their pit stalls and if you got to tow them again fine it might have taken less time than then trying to see if somebody could get going if somebody's air jacks would work or this guy's in the grass and now then we go to kansas josh berry scrubs the wall spins out needs four tires we don't even we tow him to the campground we're not even going to tow him back. So then, now we're at Talladego. Well, shit, we've wrecked enough cars that if we don't pull all 28 or 25 or how many cars are sitting in the infield, hell, I don't even know if we can have a race. So, you know what? Let's tow this one back. Let's tow that one back. Let's leave this one here. Like, whose decision is it? And now we're going to, now we're going to tow completely destroyed

race cars. And we're going to, and we're going to tow some back that are really wrecked. Nine, 14, we're going to tow those cars back to the pit stall. Well, when you start thinking about this, let's just say those cars didn't get going again. They missed the DVP clock. So now they've crossed these loops and things differently than the cars that were in this wreck. So now we're affecting points from all different kinds

because you decided to tow this one, not that one. This one went that way and that one went this way. All the sudden, now we're under yellow, but the cars aren't moving. cars are going back to the pit stall. Just by the decisions that NASCAR made, we could completely screw up the whole point system in the way that this all worked out

because of who they decided the tow and who they didn't decide to tow. So now we've got to mess on our hands with the whole DBP thing and who gets towed back and who does. Just tow them all back to the pit stall, please. Just tow them back to the pit stall. Let the team determine who's going to do what

because you're affecting the outcome of the race and the things that are happening. And now all the drivers are, they're not putting their window net down. They're not getting out of their car. They're sitting there doing burnouts. And it's not consistent. We're consistently inconsistent. So now we're going to air completely the other way because we have so many cars that are wrecked that we might not be able to have a whole race.

If we told them like Kansas, we got 28 cars. I mean, there's not one of them that didn't have more damage than what Josh Barry had at Kansas. Not one of them. Every one of them had more damage than Josh Barry. but we're going to tow them back. I just, if that's what you're going to do, you should at least tell the teams before the race what you're going to do and how you're going to err to the complete other side of this

because of the fact that, you know, of what you did the weeks before. So terrible, terrible situation. It's handled terribly by NASCAR as well. It's not, it wasn't a good, it wasn't a good situation. There's a parking lot down there. And then to decide, to your point, how do you decide who's getting towed, who's getting pushed, of them, when we know when the tires are flat, they can't really get there, whether you're

getting, whether you're under your own power or not. And from the conversations I've had, because I asked about it after Kansas, because I was like, well, we're probably going to talk about this and we didn't. But now it's going to be a big talk. And it sounds like changes are definitely going to come. And I know that Elton had a conversation post-race too about it. It sounds like changes are definitely going to come with the DVP. I think. But why do we have to be reactive instead of being proactive? I think we could get rid of it. We've been three years.

We can't drive the cars back to the garage because the tires are flat. Yeah. And we put these jacks on the back. They look like stink bugs. Do you know why that we can't have interliners? I do not. I would assume it has something to do with the low profile tire. And you can't get the inner liner in there.

But man, we just, it looked, I mean, this was like, this looked like one of the worst legend car races I've ever been to. You know how when you go to a legend race, they just throw the red flag and start towing cars off because they only have one tow truck. That's the thing. And that was kind of the thing is like, I think, I felt like if, if we had kept it red flagged at that situation, because you have so many out there. If you kept it red flagged, no one can work on their stuff until they get, until it's back onto yellow. Get them all towed back. Right. Yellow flag comes out. And so here's the, here's how complicated this gets, though, because if you don't tow them all back, but if you do tow them all back, you better tow them back in the

right order. Right. Because, yeah, you got to buy who's in front. Because there's going to be some of them that go and some of them that don't go. So they need to be scored how they wrecked. Right. Not how they got towed. Right. So it becomes extremely complicated when you start looking at how you tow them, who goes, who doesn't go, who meets minimum speed, who has the opportunity to meet minimum speed, who fails the DVP clock and can't get going off a pit road. And every point matters. So the teams have a, they have a legit gripe in this, in, you know, this situation of how the wreck is handled.

It can't just be haphazardly handled like they did this one. Because it looked like a complete shit show. This is not like, it's terrible. I feel like no officiating group wants to be that involved. You don't want your decision. But you are the officiating group. But you are so involved with it, like with how it is right now. It's, you got like, it's bad.

It's bad. You got no plan. You have no. You got a reaction from how you handled Kansas. And now you've got a reaction, the whole opposite. opposite way. Yeah. And instead of just saying, hey, here's how we're going to do it, this is what we think

we need to do before we get to Talladega. Nope, guess what? We're going to get just holes poked in this whole scenario because we're going to wreck 28 cars. We're going to wreck 28 cars. And then we're going to have some stuck in the grass. We're going to have some broken toe links. We're going to have seven or eight drivers sitting in their car. And all of a sudden, we're going to be like, hey, this guy won't get out of his car.

He says his car needs to be fine. All right, well, now we're going to hook the, we're going to hook the 14 car up on the tow truck. We're going to tow him back, and we're going to put him in his pitstone. He's going to keep going. What a mess. Tough. Tough. It's not tough.

It just needs some structure is what it needs. It needs a complete overhaul. Now seeing this a story, Walkins, Glenn, Kansas, and Talladega. And Elton Sawyer did say there will likely be a change coming, so we will continue to follow that. But we still have five weeks left. So how are we going to do it? Okay. We got to know how we're going to do it because one point could decide this thing when we get done with Martinsville.

So you're saying make a decision now. Well, you've got to. You've got to decide how you're going to handle this for the end of the year because what they did right there, what they did right there with the way that everything was handled affects the points one way or the other of how that pile gets on dismantle. There's always a car team that is one point, two point, three points in or out. And if it comes down to how you get towed. That'd be a hard pill to swallow. That's tough. Yeah.

And it can't come down to a decision from an official on the back straightaway. They don't know enough about the cars. No, to determine whether or not it's done. Those guys don't know enough about the cars to determine who gets towed and who doesn't. And I can't believe that we're sitting here talking about this, but they can't make that decision. The team needs to make that decision. They got to figure out something, okay, even if they got to figure out how, in what order we're going to tow the cars back, okay? If you got to throw the red flag to get that right, I'd rather that. I'd rather that.

If we have to throw a red flag for a eight-car pile up at Phoenix or at Martinsville to get it sorted out, let's throw a red flag. And let's tow them back in the correct order to get them to their pit stall and then go back to yellow. Because one of those mistakes could cost somebody a championship or at least a shot at one. For sure. For sure. Well, that was Talladega. Now we are moving on to the Charlotte Roval. It is the final. track in this round, so it is the elimination race. And there will be some big changes happening in terms of the reconfiguration to the race track, which will make this very interesting. I'll kind of walk through some of them. They extended the straightway coming out of turn five, created a new

turn six, which will send the field towards a sharper hairpin in turn seven. If you're watching along with us, we have a map here to kind of lay out some of the changes. How do you think this will improve the race? Well, it's going to make it different. And I think that's usually what improve situation. I'm not going to say it's better or worse in the track because honestly, I don't think it really matters, right? If it's the best track or the worst track, it's different. And I think these guys having to figure something out on the fly, they get a little more practice this week. But having to figure it out on a fly is going to, there's going to be something unexpected that comes out of this. And from what I've seen from

the simulator, it looks like when you go over that hill in six, it's a pretty big hill. And it's a very odd corner. And then it's going to be a parking lot coming into seven as far as how you have to stop. You're going to have to slow way down to get in there. So it should create a good dive bomb passing zone. But it also, you have to get off of that corner. If you mess up the entry to that corner, getting off of turn seven is it was already a necessity to get down through NASCAR 1 and 2 and down the back straightaway. So it could create some good passing over there. They've changed the last, the last corner, too. The last chicane.

They brought that curb out to make that corner a little bit sharper. But it's going to be tough. And there's going to be, there's going to be, you know, some people that hit on this and are able to get their cars right from the simulator or their setup decision or whatever that is or figure out the driving technique through practice. I think it leans towards the road race guys, AJ Almondinger, SVG, Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott. those types of guys. But if you miss something in the back of the car

with your springs or your shocks and don't get over that hill correctly, could create a long day. Yeah, I mean, that part of the track because it goes onto the fastest part of the racetrack. So if you can't get pointed and back to throttle with forward drive to get back onto the NASCAR oval part of the racetrack all day,

you're going to get your lunch eight. And so that knoll that you were talking about with the bump, I saw a video of Jeff Burton doing a ride-along, and like, you can't see. Like, when you start coming over that thing, you're looking like into the grandstands. Yeah. So it's like a kind of a little bit of a right-hander too. So you'll get over that thing. And if someone's parked, if they're turned around right there, that's going to be big trouble.

So then the last corner that Kevin was just talking about, it's going to make it faster because it was kind of sweepy before. And you kind of had to slow down a lot. Now they can kind of hit one curve. the other one and kind of like zip through there. So it'll be interesting. It'll be different. AJ and SBG are probably, they're probably licking their chops a little bit because every time, every time you adjust something road course-wise,

those guys have the most experience and they can adapt the fastest. When this idea first came to build the Charlotte Road course, there were some raised eyebrows, I would say, for if this was going to work out. Did you enjoy this event and racing the roval? What did you think when you competed in it? Yeah, I didn't really enjoyed it at first, but we wound up becoming pretty good at.

at it and wound up with some good finishes there. And it's got this, it's just, it's like you just talked about, though, with the road race guys. They're able to figure out that flow and where you need to be and the things you need to do. And for me, it just, it was a new course. So you had to figure out which curbs you could hit, where you needed to be on the racetrack. I had a, I had a Joey Hand helped us for, for several years on the road race side. And him being able to drive there, helped us figure out the nuances of the racetrack a lot faster. All these teams have have somebody who will help them get through all this. You look at Trackhouse, they've obviously got SVG and in college.

They got Connor. I mean, damn, you teach how to get through there too. Well, he's going to be, I mean, Connor's, you know, he's going to be good at this, at this road racing stuff. But still, there's a lot of characteristics of the Charlotte Roval, you know, that don't really get run, except for when you come to the cup race because of the way that they do the curbing. The NASCAR races are run on a little shorter. They don't run that whole section there in the infield. And it's just different. But, you know, obviously the road race guys are going to do well.

And they're going to figure some of those things out quickly. But there's also a lot of things that you've got to do to your car that the roble requires to be different because of how rough it is in a way that you have to hit the curbs. Yeah. This was the race that knocked Larson out of the championship, I think in 22. And he did it to himself. So, like, if you're not paying attention, if you lapse of focus, you can really get yourself in trouble.

Yeah, I mean, turn one, it's so easy to go into that corner and lock up the front brakes. And just drive straight into the wall because once I did it, and once you lock that tire up, you can't stop the car. It's just like a magnet.

We've seen several people do that, including myself, into turn one. So the restarts and just, the way that the Roval can reach out and bite you, it'll reach out and bite you in a big way. And I think you just don't want to, the playoff guys, you know, I know we talk about that gap. I don't think that it changes much,

but those playoff guys that are inside the points, they don't want to make a mistake, but it's still easy to do. And you don't have to do much. And I think if you do it early, it's like you're talking with Larson. It can reach out and bite you and put you in for a long. He starts into turn one, KV.

They are, everyone starts fanning out and you get someone on your inside and he walks it up, but he don't care because you're there. And then you're not getting to somebody else. I guess it's a very difficult place. It's a home race for the industry. Is that beneficial for the teams because they're not rushing to get everything ready and loaded out and driving across the country? Does that help them this week? You know, I feel the truck driver is the hardest job. Those guys are kidding.

Trying to connect the dots logistically is extremely. extremely difficult. Probably the hardest thing to do in our sport is to meet the logistical challenges from the team standpoint to navigate your cars and make sure they're fixed and the truck driver's here and making sure that everything's prepared and but also just getting to the race. So being able to have that relief and be able to sleep in your own bed and do all the things close to home is definitely nice. I know that they will all be excited about it. Is you just rolling with open trailers for this one? that would be awesome.

Impossible. Couldn't even functioned to that. They wouldn't know what to do. They'd only have like a 9-16 to 7-8, so that's it. Okay, so this is the elimination race. Who are we most concerned for? Who do we think that's maybe right there on the line that this could swing in the other direction for them?

I'm looking at a guy like Joey Legano, who's 13 below, but do you think he can get above? The hardest part about those, the gap's 13 points. And I think that the hardest part for Joey Legano looking just on the other side of the fence is it's Chase Elliott and Tyler Reddick. Yeah, guys that are good on road courses. Typically in the past, those two guys are going to be pretty good at the road courses. Obviously, Redick has done well.

Chase has been consistent. I mean, Joey has done a good job. Suarez has done a good job. Austin Cindrick, you know, they've all had their moments at the road courses. But if it was, if it wasn't, it's just that whole group, right? Everybody up there is just going to be decent at what they do. So it's going to take somebody making a mistake or somebody just completely missing the setup. And I think really since all the controversy kind of Reddick's kind of been not as explosive as he was before all the controversy with the charters and the lawsuits and everything there.

So he's been quiet. Chase Elliott's been consistent. We expect those two to run well here. We expect them to be good at the road course. So you look much further than that, 25 points to Blaney is going to be, that's going to be tough. And I think that that's going to have to be catastrophic failure in some way, shape, or form from Blaney early in the race.

He and Alex Bowman. So I think you're Tyler Redick and Chase Elliott, I think it most likely ends the way that it sits right here. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you'd have to get, someone would have to come off the truck. and be lightning fast. I think that's the only way

that anyone from below gets in there is if they're just fast and dominate the race and can put themselves in the top three or four there at the end and then you have a shot at it. But the guys that you're racing against they're usually typically pretty good

at these places. And let's look at the top of the pile here, right? Like I picked William Byron to not even make it through. He must to listen to you. He must have motivated him. Whatever it takes, because those guys where they've got the capability to do what they need to do. But, you know, they're 74 points up. So they can go there and try to stack another five on their, on their bonus points.

If I was, if I'm them, I just go off and try to keep someone out, right? Like, you go and, like, you can stack, you can just stack points. Like, go for stage wins because that carries over and go for the big win. And look, Christopher Bell, he's, he's in the same spot. Kyle Larson in the same spot. Those three guys really don't have to do anything. So, you know, they're going to the racetrack to try to win. And I want to go back to Christopher Bell, because this guy gets skipped over all the time in the things that we talk about. Here we are. He's 57. He's going to go to the next round. But you look back at that wreck last week. Did you see him get spit out of the middle of that wreck? Like, he was the only car that came out of the pile of cars straight. All of a sudden, here comes

Bell. Yeah. Made it through. Driving straight out of it after about 10 of them had already wrecked in front of him and he comes straight out of that wreck and winds up, you know, with a big points day. And so, you know, Bell has been good there. I think on these bumpy, rough racetracks where you have to run over the curbs and there's bumps all over the racetrack, usually those Gibbs cars and the Toyotas are pretty good on those style of racetrack. To your point, Bell is always sneaky good in the playoffs because he's made the championship four two years in a row. And we're like, we still just kind of don't really acknowledge of what that team is doing being 57 to the good. Like you said, they probably, they'll definitely make it on.

This has been an easier trip for them this year than it was past years. Past years, they had to win and like win to get in. Like, win in the last race of a round to get in. Like this year, he's like, oh, no, we got points. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing what we got to do. Going in.

So you referenced Tyler Reddick and the lawsuit. So I wanted to spend some time on this a little bit. It was announced last week that 2311 racing and front row motorsports have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against NASCAR and its chairman Jim France. And I know this did catch the industry a little bit by surprise, I would say. And we were trading texts at that time period. What do you think about all this? And were you surprised when you saw it? And do you think the outcome is going to be worth the fight? Well, I'm not sure. And, you know, I don't, I will say that I don't know the in-depth conversations of what they're actually looking for. I think that,

that, you know, I heard Bob's interview with Michael Jordan and, you know, him talking about, you know, just sometimes you just have to go after what you think is right. And it definitely appears like they're going to go after it. And, you know, I think when you look back at this lawsuit that NASCAR's already kind of been through this before with Kentucky Speedway, when Kentucky Speedway sued them probably 20 years ago. so it's not like they don't have some experience at this, but I think this is a much different era. You're up against a much different opponent with Michael Jordan and his team. I know that front row is in there as well, but obviously it's going to be the 2311 team that leads the charge. But it's a huge story.

It is a huge story. And I don't think it's going, it's obviously not going anywhere. I think that the NASCAR response will be interesting to see what happens there. And I think it will also be interesting to see if they're able to sign that charter agreement and be able to compete until this is over with the charter. So there's a lot of pieces that go with this, but it has to be a distraction to the employees, to the drivers.

We talked a little bit earlier about Tyler Reddick not performing as well. I don't think the 23 cars run as well. Denny definitely hasn't run as well. And obviously we see why. This is a massive moment in our sport as to how this turns out. It will be, it'll change the sport one way or another. Like you can't go through something like this and it not change maybe procedures or policies. It's going to change things.

What those things are, have no idea, no idea how that's going to be. It's pretty interesting watching it. you talk about the landscape of the world. Now you look at college with NIL and all that. All the landscapes of other industries and other sports, that's why these things are coming up now. You know what I mean? That's why people are having these conversations

and trying to shake and make things different. I don't know, man. It's going to be, it'll probably be talking about this for 18 months. Yeah, I don't know how long these type of things take, but it's going to be a while. I feel like it's going to be a while. And we're going to get little piece of information for as long as the charter agreement took, like that took forever to get that thing signed in the first place.

So I think this is going to be a while and we'll just have to buckle up and get your popcorn ready. It's very interesting. It's going to be interesting. That you have two teams. It is very interesting because all the other teams have signed it. So I can't wait to hear what the argument is. Their lawyer has obviously been through this with other leagues. I guess the biggest difference.

is this is not a league. You know, this is an entertainment company. So it's just a, there's a lot of different dynamics than there is in football, baseball, basketball, soccer. It's just, there's, it's a much different dynamic than that. The other, the other thing is, is Roger Pansky just, they just decided that they're going to create a charter system in the Indy car. And like, so, I don't know, when you talk about a pillar.

Yes, he doesn't think it's like. Like, that's kind of my point. You know what I mean? Like these pillars of our sport and of motor sports are like, oh, this seems okay. And so much to say that we are going to create another version or our version of it here. So. Well, it's no different than what we're looking at in F1, right? Like, you look at Michael Andredi and his fight to try to break into F1 and all the things that the FIA and F1 have put in front of them as kind of hurdles to be able to put in.

we're no different, right? You know, this is this is the same type of scenario that you, that you see in F1 and somebody, you know, the 2311 front row guys obviously believe one thing and NASCAR believes another thing. And oh, obviously, all the other teams that signed the charter agreement believe what NASCAR gave them was okay. And we've heard Justin Marks and we've heard Richard Childress and we've heard several of these owners just say, you know, we felt good about where we were in order to go forward with our business.

So I'm not a lawyer. Don't really know. It could go in a million different directions, but it will be very interesting to kind of uncover everything and see where it lands in the end. Yeah, Denny Hamlin's saying, you know, he knows it's going to be met with a lot of skepticism, but he's just hoping for positive change.

Do you admire teams challenging the system or do you think that's just a bad idea all right? Well, look, you've got somebody from outside of our sport that wasn't a, you know, a traditional team owner that has been represented in other leagues. Michael Jordan owned an NBA team. And, you know, I think he and Curtis from 2311, you know, I think they believe that it should be different.

You know, I think that the legacy owners that have been here for a long time are just like, ah, you know, this is good enough. We can rock the boat, yeah. We can run our business and we can do the things that we need. You know, it's time to move on. And, you know, I just, I think that. It'll be interesting to have that view of sports league ownership like Michael and his group have had in the NBA and how that structure should be. I've been in some conversations about the way that other sports leagues look and the way that they function.

It's just not the same. It's much different than the structure of all these other leagues. But when you have that outside perspective and you can get that perspective and, you know, maybe there are some things that come out of this that all the team owners win on that make it better and make our sport better. And if not, then, you know, we go forward and it's status quo. One way or another, race cars are going to be on racetracks. Yeah. But I hope that at the end of it, we gain more than we lose. I hope so.

At the end of it. I don't care in the grand scheme, as long as we're able to gain more, whether it's knowledge or understanding or respect for each other's positions, I just hope that we gain more than we lose. That's a good way to say it. So we will continue, of course, to follow that story. All right, it is time now. I've had a lot of serious stuff on the dippy-doo sips. Dippy-doos. I don't know why.

I'm just glad that Tyler, our producer, has not changed it to Dippy-Doo social tips. Thank you, Tyler, for keeping those locked in. I don't know about it yet. No, I know. But it could change for next week. Gippies. Yeah. Okay.

We're not doing that. Tipy Sippies. I love it. We'll get you a sippy cup. I'll bring one of Piper's. Okay. Talking, moving right along here. Welcome to your favorite segment, Mamba's social sips.

And we're going to start right off. We just ended talking about Denny Hammond in 2311. You have, Kevin, you have been Denny's loudest supporter all year. And my man just came off the top rope. And he kind of dunked her. You didn't really like what you had to say. He brought a quote from you for, it was still the chase for the Sprint Cup when you obviously.

I don't even know when that was. It had to be a long time. Yeah. Hey, whatever it was, the dunk hit the rim and the balls in half court because listen here, bud. We had nothing to do talking about your pit crew or anything like that. We were talking about your comments and being mentally focused. I love you, man. I love the way you drive the race car.

I don't like the things that you said after the race. and that's my job. I'm sorry. I don't like the comments about the mental weakness. Had nothing to do with your pit crew. I appreciate the attempt to divert the comment in a different direction. But you said it. I didn't.

There you have it. That was Kevin's opportunity to clarify. You're entitled to your opinion. We love opinions. We post it again. It's great. He's paid to give an opinion. We love a good opinion.

So that was that part. You know what? One of my favorite movies all time is parent trap. It's a classic. I know, Kevin, do you know it? Did you ever watch the contract? I mean, I've heard of it. Okay.

Well, this week, because, you know, I'm the handshake guy at NASCAR. Well, the NFL guys, the football players have great handshakes when they do cool stuff. They reenacted perfectly. Love it. The whole parent trap handshake. And like, I'm surprised they didn't get a flag for this because it takes so long. It took a while. It took a while.

But when I saw this, I'm like, we got it. We got to bring this up. Yeah, it's pretty cute, very creative. You should do that with a driver. Do you have enough time to do that up there on the stage? You know, I was at the wedding this weekend, and I'm listening to some of these songs about, let your left foot forward.

Stomp, your left, jump your right. I can't imagine getting out on the dance floor right here, but let alone try to coordinate something. We could bite that. We have time. I think we could. I'm saying you could do that now with the current guy. I think one of the current guys have enough,

do you think that they could do that? Oh, yeah. Somebody might. Somebody could do it. Who do you think could do it? I would say it's going to, I don't know. It's probably going to be somebody that surprises you that just out of the blue like an Austin syndrome. Like, awesome.

I was about to say Austin syndrome. Actually, that, I could see that. Somebody that might actually work on it to try to get it right. Get it right. Yeah. Maybe we should task you with that. Maybe. To see if you can get someone to do that.

So are we looking for somebody to try to reenact this parent trap thing? Or are you going to come up with something? creative. No, I think I think that we should reenact the parent trap. I do too. Especially with you loving the movie. I do love the movie. I used to watch it back to back all the time. Well, I look forward to whoever you try to pull this off with because I want to see the video. All right. Sindrick, it might be you, buddy. Might be coming to the two garage. And I would, if I did not bring this up, Dave Moody would kill me. So at my home track, Thunder Road Speed Bowl in Vermont, Ken Squire's old track actually as well, we have this race called the Milk Bowl. And it

When you win, you get to kiss a cow. And shout out to Marcel Gravel. He used to race go-carts with him. He won the Milk Bowl. And in that view, in that, like, what he's saying right there, he's like, I can't wait. I have a lot of questions. Yeah. I mean, can you just kiss the cow or do you have to?

I mean, do you have to kiss it on its mouth? No, you got to, you got to, you should make love to that cow. You should really make a passionate moment. Moment. I don't know. Where do they get the cow? Is this like the same one? Is it the same cow every year?

I think it comes from the same farm. Okay. Yeah. You know, we have a lot of farms out there. We have as many cows and people out there. Yeah. What a unique tradition. Yeah.

They also do like a mud pie toss. A mud pie toss? Yeah. I mean, nothing like cow shit and flies. Yeah. Meneuer. I'm like, wow. Kevin, what's the, what's the, other than I feel like the lobster is that one's

quite a little. The rattler. The rattler. Yeah, that one's probably. Is that out of your, is that out of your, Is that out of your scope? Like, you wouldn't, if you won the Rattler, would you let them drape the snake or?

I don't know. Not much on snakes. You have to kiss the snake? No. You just have to hold it, right? They just put it, yeah, they put it around you. Yeah. Hey, and NASCAR, we kiss bricks, not cows.

That is true. I mean, I did go, I went to an alligator farm one time as an appearance. And they have this, I don't know, they put on shows there with the alligators and move them around. well, the instructor lady, she's like, oh, come back here. And I'm standing in the middle of this thing. And I've got five or six all around me.

I'm like, what in the hell am I doing here? And this lady's got a stick. And who knows if that could have went terribly wrong. Kevin's starting to feel real unsafe. Yeah. They're different in the swamp. Yeah, they're different. Yeah, you need to take Ward Burton with you next time you do something like that.

No, no. Okay. I don't think so. Well, listen, that's all I got for the Sips, but we do have the burnout. And Ricky Stenhouse's burnout, I thought was pretty cool. He nosed it up. I always appreciate that. A lot of smoke.

He kind of stood out of the car at one point at the same time. It looked a little hard for him to get out there. He was hanging out of the side of the car doing the burnout. I like that. Yeah. One that we've seen before. It was definitely a fairly good burnout. But him scaling the fence was way better.

Yes. I would say it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, creative middle of the road burnout, but the ability to scale that fence like a ninja warrior was way better. Who did it better? Ricky Stenhouse Jr. or Tony Stewart? Oh, buddy. I mean, that's Stenhouse. For sure.

Different physics. And hanging out of the car right there. I mean, Larson did that too. Yeah. Remember when he used to take the steering wheel and hang out of that? And then Reddick has dope both hands out of the side. Yeah. I love all the unique little celebrations.

and people do. I'm surprised you went with Tony on that one. I mean, I went with Ricky over Tony, to be honest. Tony was older when he was doing it. He was like, Ricky just climbed over the top of the fence and down the other side. Okay, fair. And then he climbed back up the fence into the starter stand and climbed back down the other side. Yeah, he did a lot of climbing.

All right. We would have needed an ambulance to come get Tony. He would have been so witness that we would have had to drag him off in the ambulance to get him to victory level. I was trying to help you out, man. I'm sorry. What grade are we giving the entire? celebration then. I think that warrants.

A B. It's probably like a 7-4. Seven-four. I thought the Olympics are over. So now we're in the academic season. Oh, we're back in academic. There you go. The problem is that it's too wide of a range.

It's hard to know who's the best. Yes. At some point, we're going to have to summarize all these things to figure out exactly. Maybe the final show for the year. I just want to remind everybody that this guy does not give credit to the infinity burnouts, but his favorite one of the year is, SVGs. So, like, I just find that a little interesting.

There you go. Hey. Okay. I mean, the show's got my name on it. I can make up my own rules. It is his show. I'm just going to shut up. All right. That was like that bow and emoji I said she left. Mike drop moment. Okay, so that good sips. Thank you, my friend.

Time now for our last call and who we believe will be victorious out there in the Queen City, the Charlotte Roval. Everyone give our picks. What do you say? Well, I think it's going to be tough to go against SVG and Almondinger. But I'm going to go with Christopher Bell. Oh, I love that. I think he's got nothing to lose. That's right. He beat me a couple years ago there with like two laps to go.

I think that the Gibbs cars on rough racetracks like that always seem to have a better handling package. So I'm going with Christopher Bell because I'm tired of everybody's sleeping on him. Okay, there you go. Well, you referenced my pick, which I didn't really want to pick a non-playoff guy, but since we've seen them being a factor so much, I'm going to go with SBG. Okay. Step way outside the box.

I know. Like, here's the thing. Listen. I want to be a winner, damn it. I think Todd Gillwin this week. Yeah, he, I mean, well. Yeah, did you see the big wreck? He was the one getting laughed when that big wreck happened.

So I feel like my picks have just really ruined it for whoever's running. But I think I'm going to go, I got to go with him. AJ freaking almond dinger. There you go. Let's go, baby. AJ Dinger. Is he in it? I like that pick.

He must be in it. You don't even know if he's in the race. If he's in it, AJ Ommender. I haven't seen the thing, but he's in it. God. All right. Very good. Victory lap interview available now with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

And we will have the full interview for your Thursday show. Yeah, Ricky took the time. We figured what the heck. We got him on the victory lap and he had the time to do it. So we just made him the full interview as well. So look forward to, you know, everybody here the whole interview. He's got a pretty interesting background of racing in general and we had fun talking. It's been a good year for the KHA drivers. KHA drivers. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good year for

y'all. Good job out of you guys over there. They like winning. They like winners over there at KHA. Everybody likes winning. That's right. And we like winning here too. So go leave us a five-star review and make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcast. That does it for us on this edition of Happy Hour. We'll see you after Charlotte.