Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Ryan Blaney Repeats at Loudon + Jeff Gordon's IROC Sweep

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie & Mamba Smith recap a wild weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Ryan Blaney overcomes pit road adversity to conquer Loudon for the second year in a row, while Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, and Kyle Larson make major noise. Plus, we break down Ross Chastain’s brutal postseason setback, Christopher Bell's close call on pit lane, and Layne Riggs' overtime thriller to seal the Truck Series top seed.Then, the crew reacts to Jeff Gordon's historic sweep at the IROC showcase in Washington, D.C., previews the regular-season finale at Daytona with massive playoff bubble implications on the line, and dives into Mamba's Social Sips! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They're working back through this with Josh in the 21 car, and it looks like it's all in a pretty good spot. Now you're going to screw all that up and start over with a rookie. A lot of times when you see a young driver that gets a lot of attention, had some success, hey, you should do this, hey, you should do that. All these things that go along with all that, and then they forget that they need to drive the freaking race car. We had a Jeff Gordon return to Victory Lane. Did you think you'd ever say that again? California's Kevin Harvick.

Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR, 5. I'm Kevin Harvick, Caitlin Vincy, and Mumbo Smith. That's Kevin's freaking Harvick over there, by the way. That is him. That's right. Don't forget it. Version two of the intro. Oh, my God.

That was hilarious. Version one was epic. It was pretty great. It's epic. I hope someday the fans get to see that. I hope so, too. Hey, you know, how was you guys the weekend? Anything good happened? I had my daughter's ninth birthday party.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So she had a great weekend, which was fun. I have friends in town visiting. One is watching the show live with us today. Okay. So it's good. We went to, I didn't race.

I just played race dad. Race dad. So we went to Anderson, South Carolina for Keelan's first late model stock cars tour race. So I felt like I wanted to throw up about 15 times. Why? But I was just nervous. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the top.

That's the top what you get in late model racing in this country right now. Late model stocks and in the cars tour are pretty high level. But he held his own, did fine. Okay, I was going to ask how you felt he did. Qualified eighth. Top ten were, they were spread out by seven hundredths of a second. And qualified eight, finish eight. Okay.

That's respectable. Run. Fourth of fifth, if everything would have went good. Nobody dominates that series. That's why it's like, like the winds are always spread out. And that you know how good it is. And the finish was, we'll get to later. Oh, we're going to get to that.

Yeah, we'll get to that. The finish was unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were in Loudon. How did it go? How was driver? Intros. It was awesome being back home.

Shout out to everybody in New England. They really want us to bring this show to them live next year. I would love to... Careful what we wish for, because as many requests as we get, we might have a tour. I know. We might have to get a whole of a tour going on. I'm here for it. I'm here for it because it was so great being up there.

I went to Thunder Road in Barry Vermont where I grew up racing. Saw a lot of folks. It was just cool. It was just really fun to be back home. You forget kind of what that's like. you know, you go back to Bakersfield and you see all the people and you like, I remember this person, I remember that person, and they're like, you remember

when you did this, I did that, and it's just really a great to go to your favorite spot to eat? I did, yeah, village pizza in Rio. The pizza hasn't changed one, but it's been the same mine for 50, it tastes exactly the same. When you go back to the old hometown places. I haven't heard of village pizza. Yeah, you wouldn't. It's like only that.

That's the list of places to go. Well, when you make it up there, also, driver intro is this week, or electric It's good to see him back on stage. Yeah, the boys were in the rain. Oh, and there's a rain in? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, me and Jose were cutting it up.

Is it like a show itself? Me and Jose. Me and Jose. Me and Jose. Mumbo and Jose. Yeah, we had a great time. And Jose. It's like a circus.

It's like a circus. We were active because like, dude, the smoke and with the rain and the smoke, the smoke didn't leave because it was wet. So it just like stayed in your face. Couldn't read the monitor. Everybody shake your hand. Huh? Everybody shake her hand? There was 37 drivers, 36 of them did.

Okay. Yeah. Do you want to reveal who didn't? I mean, I think everyone knows who probably didn't. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, well. I've even talked about them this year.

I don't know. We got beef. Welcome in to episode 42, everybody of Kevin Harvig's happy hour. Plenty to discuss as we get closer and closer to the postseason. Obviously, Loudon happened this weekend. And Ryan Blaney and Loudon just seemed to go together. What kind of strength are we seeing out of Ryan right now? a lot. And, you know, I think we expect him to be strong. But this was a really unique race,

starting in the rain, having to deal with all the elements. One point he had a bad pit stop. But ultimately, just Blaney doing blainty things, one on two tires. And the guys behind him chasing him on four tires to make up for his bad pit stop. So overall, just, you know, just had a, he's just, when he gets his car turning in the middle of the corner and it just keeps turning. And it doesn't fall off like everybody else's. And that's really been his strength for a number of years to be able to drive the car so that it turns so well through the center of the corner and it doesn't affect the other two extremities. So it's, you know, it's just Blaney doing Blaney things. And they're peeking at the right time. You look at Ligano winning last week. Blaney went in this week. Ligano winning

at North Wilkesboro. And even when the Penske's struggles, you know, were happening at the beginning of the year and through the, you know, the middle of the season, Blaney, they always figured out a way to get there. And I feel like that makes you better. Yeah. It didn't make their pit crew better, but I feel like it makes them better as a race team and driver and everything else that you do by being able to battle through those moments. And you get even better when your cars cycle back around to be good.

Yeah. Ryan said that Team Penske is on a heck of a tear right now. And this is the time to be on the momentum train for sure. Yeah. The timing of it, they haven't figured out for the last five, six weeks. This time of the year, every year. it's Team Penske time. And it just really helps them get into what is now the chase, momentum.

And even if we think that, okay, mile and a halfs, ah, they might not be there. But if they have some momentum to get there, that might get them through to the races. Talk out of top 10. Right. You just stay there. You're weak spots, right? You just stay hanging around. And we talk about it week after week, they let Joey Logano hang around way too long.

Yeah. And now he's up in the mix, you know. Yeah. You know, look, I mean, I'm all in on the Blaney thing. For sure. Yeah, I'm going to call him real quick. I'm just kidding. I'm going to look at the points.

I got to look at the points because I don't know where Ligano fell to. I think he held serve. Let's see. So Lugano's still ninth. So he's, I mean, he's within striking distance of seventh. Yeah. So, you know, that's going to be the only thing that, in my mind, puts Ligano in a hole when you start talking about the mediocrisy.

at some of the races that they could have. Yeah. We don't really know where they stand at this point with, with the performance on the mile and a half because of how good their short track stuff has been. We've gone to Indy. He was good at Indy. They were both good at Indy. So, you know, those Penske cars, let me rephrase that.

The two and the 22 are back. Yeah. They're in contention to race for this championship. And I think if there's anybody that can break through outside of that top six window that, you know, we keep talking about. It would be someone like Joey the guy. When I talked to Joey, he felt like that they found something at Chicago and that it would carry over.

And then they felt really good after Indy. So I'm really interested to see what happens when we get back to a mile and a half. But, man, you talk about Ryan Blaney. I made a tweet after the rate. I said, he might be the best driver in the field right now. I think he is the best. I only said might be for, you know, got to leave some opinion for some people. Well, they got to, you know, like I have there on.

Yeah, at least something on the table. But if you trade him for any other driver and have them switch vehicles, he's getting probably more wins in that driver's car than they have. And whoever switches into his car, probably getting less right now. I would agree with you that Blaney's pretty good, but I don't know about the switch. No? I think the switch, in theory, I think he could get in anybody's car and do it. But I think that the details that come up with the chemistry of a long-time-related.

and somebody that you hit it off with, get more out of it than just being talented. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? It's the people underestimate the chemistry of a race team and the crew chief and the engineer and the mechanics and the pick crew. And they just, you know, they've been with it for a while now

and being able to have the same team and the same things that go with it. I mean, you look back at some of the, you know, the key switches through the years that you're like, oh, that's going to be a great fit. And it's just kind of, you know, it's just, they have a great relationship. I think that eventually he could get there

with the right pairing in somebody else's car. Man, the chemistry that they've built because of the longevity of the relationships has, that matters. He picked Jonathan too. He picked Jonathan. A lot of continuity on that team from when they have won championship, obviously, together.

So I'm starting with all the positives from the weekend and I want to go to Josh Barry for a minute because he's had a really good stretch of races, his top five performance for him over the weekend. Well, you look at me like that. I just, I just, I just, welcome back, 21. But so how important have these runs been for him as of late? Yeah, well, I mean, it really shows that he's capable of winning and running competitively

in a cup car. And that's why he got the opportunity at the four car. I mean, that's really what everyone talked about when I was leaving Stuart Haas was we think that this guy can get in there and get it done. Yeah. And we saw that when he filled in for Chase Elliott. We saw it, you know, at the beginning of the of the 21 car situation. And, you know, it's just, I mean, like I say, and I've said this before, I love the Wood Brothers, but it's the consistent cycle of this car.

It's, you know, you're looking for, you change the driver and you get everything back together and you've already fired the other driver and you get it together for the driver that you fired at the end of the year and then he's out, right? Yeah. Same thing happened to Harrison, Harrison Burton. And, you know, we've seen this cycle before. Blaney was really the only one that I remember in a long time that's been consistently good in this car. Yeah. So I don't know. It seems to have taken on the same cycle as the Penske cars as far as back to running good and the timing of it. But Josh raced hard too, right? He was aggressive on the radio too. He was super aggressive with everything. And, you know, ultimately has been super competitive the last few weeks. So it shows the capability that Josh Barry has. I don't know what is, is out. there to really capitalize on from all those good runs, but it's good. Let me ask you this.

Do you think that that is a car Penske uses to experiment with primarily in the beginning of the year, potentially? Look, I think that based upon what I know, I mean, the cars are all prepared in the same shop and do all the same things, and it's supposed to be the same. But it just doesn't appear to be the same at moments throughout the year. So it's just, it's a very interesting dynamic as to the way that that car. runs compared to, you know, the other cars. Everyone else, yeah.

What did you see out of Josh Barry, though? Well, yeah, I mean, you know, wrapping that part up, from what I've been told inside the Penske, you know, camp, the cars are, the place are right next to each other. Like, everyone gets set up together. So the parts are interchangeable. They're 21, too, like all this stuff is being together. So for it not to work or to be so far off, it's weird. But then you look at it now and everyone's running at the same, you know, running with all,

eight cylinders together right now. So when it's good, it's really good. But when it's not good, we saw how bad it can be. Yeah. So, you know, but you got to love it for Josh. You know, he's always had high level people championing him, whether it be Dale Jr., Rodney Childers, or our guy Kevin over here. Like, everybody, I think Josh is a racer's racer,

and he's one of the guys that the short track guys look up to. And like, man, he's one of the guys that made it. So I have an opportunity to make it, whether it be from the Cars Tour or being the National Series champion, whatever it may be. He's just won a lot at that level. And the crazy part is now, you know, they're working back through this with Josh and the 21 car and it looks like it's all in a pretty good spot. Now you're going to screw all that up and start over with a rookie. With a rookie and like the team, like the team, like, what are you doing crew chief wise? Are you keeping the crew chief? It seems like that team just moves so frequently.

And you got to wonder like, what is it trying to be and what do they want? What do they want to be? What are they trying to achieve? Yeah, that's true. So Christopher Bell, he has become a model of consistency, finished in the top five and seven of the last eight races. Now, he did have an incident on Pit Lane. We're going to take a look at that. But do you feel like he is one of the top contenders for a title of where it stands right now?

I feel like he is, but I feel like I don't feel like they're happy. I feel like he's super frustrated with the results of not being in Victory Lane. And I think that that's wearing on him. I don't think that they're letting it affect the consistency piece of it. they have consistent speed of what they need to do on a weekly basis. But you can't make mistakes like this, right? Blake Houston, poor guy. When you're changing, when you're changing, I'll get it out of it.

When you're changing two tires, you have to know to let the jack man get or the tire change or get back across the front of the car. So these are just, these are just little mistakes that you can't make if you're going to win a championship. And, you know, we saw this out of bell and we saw Tyler Reddick spin. leading the race and and so you know blaney's slow pit stop that put them behind in the middle of the race those moments as we get into these last 10 weeks are big and there's going to be people that don't make those mistakes but in blaney's case they were able to overcome that in bell's case

they were able to overcome that and you know there's going to be some of those moments where you have that lapse in judgment that you're not going to you're not going to come out the other side good so those those mistakes will be amplified as we go into the last 10 races Christopher Bell took Onus, obviously, for that mistake there, taking the blame on himself after the race. But what have you seen out of that team as of late? I mean, I think I've picked him to win a race like seven times. And he finished second, I think six of those times.

So you were as frustrated as you think. I am right there with him. I am on, you know, Christopher Bell and the 20 group, that's my championship pick too. So I just, I feel like they're still in the mix. Well in the mix. They have all the speed to get it done. the things that are off, I think, are fixable, and they can clean them up.

I don't think they've been fixed yet, but they have the ability to fix all the things and go to Victory Lane. He could easily be sitting here with four wins. You know what I mean? So you're not worried about speed. That's not what it is. It's just like busting the door down and getting that win and getting the monkey off your back because these guys are, these are winners, perennial winners.

It feels like the speed between everybody's closer. Remember when we talked about this earlier this year? We were like, you know, are they going to keep it the gap? Or when you're out so far, is someone else going to start to chomp away? Well, the Hendrick cars, they looked a little, a couple of them looked a little better, Kyle Larson. William Byron had some speedy, qualified good, you know, so, and now the Penske cars are up there. RFKs, you know, they're in a mix here and there sometimes. Ryan Priest, good for him over the weekend.

Ryan Priest. For Ryan Priest. Yeah, it was a great. It was a great finish. Yeah. And he puts a lot of pressure on himself to run well up there in front of his home crowd. But still got 31 points to make up on the driver points.

Yeah, where are we at on the, so it's 25, so he should be six out on the owner points because it was a driver only penalty. Man, if it comes down to those 25 points on the driver penalty, that's going to be a kick in the nuts. He's six out. He sits out on the driver one. So like here's a thing on the owner's one. If they make it on the driver one, it will be inside of that for the, for the, for

that's a heartbreaking deal there. It's like, sure. Yeah. Tough. That is tough. But good for Ryan Priest to have a nice showing in front of his. And really it is good for the 60 car to have a good showing. But, I mean, really the only realistic way that he gets in is if SVG has a disaster at Daytona early.

And he go out and be right at the top of the standings, you know, for the stages and for the win. So I feel like. 31 points. I feel like it's very interesting. Now that I think Ross, now that Ross is pretty much as out. You look at it like I think Trackhouse puts all their efforts into making sure that they're pushing the 97 and keeping him where he needs to be

and at the same time, RFK is going to be doing the same thing for the 60, right? So that battle between just those two teams inside of the whole thing is going to be really fun to watch. One thing that's been interesting to watch is the kind of downfall of Tyler Redick. You know, obviously we talked so much at the beginning of the year about this team and the momentum and all the wins and it has just gone the total other direction.

And he has a spin, contact with Denny Hamlin early on. I mean, what do you make at this team right now? Yeah. Well, I think that, look, these are the types of mistakes that Tyler Reddick can't make. And we've seen so many of these mistakes that he's made throughout the year. And at the beginning of the year, he got away with him on the wild, crazy moves, on the restarts and taking chances. And, you know, he's just got to find a middle ground to be able to get right on the edge and not wrecked.

Right. Where's the balance between that? Because in that situation, I mean, you know it's, when you're leading race, right? Like just. No one's going hard either. Yeah, get your rhythm correct because everybody's just out there on ice. And, you know, it just seems like he stepped over the line.

Even with Larson, like we talk about Larson sometimes making those mistakes and he'll just crash or, you know, do something like that. But Redick does a lot more than Larson does, especially lately. And the difference, too, in the beginning of the year, they'd have situations happen, but they could overcome them. Now they're not really. Yeah, well, it was the execution that they were really relying on, right? I mean, all year we've talked about, they were not really dominant speed. They have fast cars, top five cars, but they're not like by and far pulling away from the field when they got those five wins.

And now that the execution part has kind of, when we say execution, it's not just like on pit road. It's not just like Tyler It's the whole mistakes across the whole thing Or like things breaking Like that that's part of that And they've had some weird things break So they just got to kind of buckle down You know on the other side for the 2311 team

You know, Bubba had some good speed He felt like I talked to him this weekend He felt like they've been fast And their execution has been poor So it's the same thing It feels like on both sides They just got to kind of clean up their stuff If they want to make a run

Yeah and look I mean the only way It's you're not flipping a switch Like so if it's been a train wreck It's gonna be hard to just turn it on When you get to race one of the chase Because everybody's gonna be turning it on 16 guys in the chase

They're all gonna be rare in to go That's why I was talking to some of the 77 guys They were kind of giving me shit for saying that I didn't think that they would win again I'm like well here's a thing guys like I just think it's hard To win in the chase In totality Everyone's at their peak

That everyone's giving you you their best and you got one win like as a driver I think it's just there's a lot of different things you got to be locked in and there's a lot of things that go with that they've made you got I said you guys have overachieved I feel like this year and done a great job but winning in the chase is a whole other animal yeah they're not going to win again I mean like I said they're their only chance of winning is talladega and Daytona in the chase oh in the chase yeah but I mean it's like this week and the guy spun out three times right once on the pace lap twice in a race running into a few people And big incident was, you know, it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's not been ideal by any means over the last several moments.

This is on the Pace Lapse Laps. Slick off four, boys. You said you thought he did on, Slick off four. I mean, I mean, I don't know. He really guessed up. What did the Pace car driver's thing at that point? Yeah. Yeah.

Not, not great. Like, it has been several weeks in a row of issues from engine troubles to just 30th or worse. they were 19th, obviously, over the weekend. But do you think he's distracted with some of the other things going on in life? Look, here's how it goes. A lot of times when you see a young driver that gets a lot of attention, had some success, wins a race, everybody's like, hey, you should do this. Hey, you should do that.

Got a TikTok girlfriend. All these things that go along with all that. And then they forget that they need to drive the freaking race car. And, you know, it's like the deal right here with Zillich, you know, kind of zigging and zagging doing whatever he would. trying to do instead of just racing and you got to quit worrying about all the other stuff. The guy can drive the crap out of the race car. And all the other stuff is really cool leaning in to the sponsors and the fans and all these

things. But no one cares. No one cares if your car is not fast. It does not matter if you don't have the results. They will forget about you in weeks. And that to me is over the last few weeks, they have, you know, they've kind of forgotten about what they need to be focused on. And that's the way it looks on the racetrack.

So things I didn't. I don't mean to be a jerk, but sometimes I can be. Things I didn't think I'd hear Kevin say is TikTok girlfriend. TikTok, I mean, the balance. That's what she is, right? She's a TikToker? I mean, she does TikTok. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't think they're dating. I mean, allegedly they're just friends. They're together on the grid every week. Yeah, I mean, there's a giant PR stunt. You know, it doesn't mean anything. Well, yeah, I know y'all aren't dating. We're clear on that.

And to be honest, we need to lock down. If you're Carson Hosebar, you need to turn all the rest of that stuff off. Turn your social media off. Turn all the rest of the nonsense off. Don't worry about what you say in an interview. It all seems so calculated. Well, Kevin, you were talking about the TikTok girlfriend, and she recently posted a video that gained quite a bit of traction on TikTok.

She basically did a makeup routine and compared every step of her routine to an element in racing. Take a listen. Today I'm going to explain NASCAR in a language we all know, makeup terms. Get ready with me for the NASCAR race while I explain NASCAR. There are so many new girl fans, and every time I meet the girls on the track, they all ask how it all works. Primer. The driver is like the makeup artist. The car is just the brush.

A really talented artist or driver can make a cheap brush or car work. A bad artist can waste the nicest brush in the world. Foundation. Foundation is the setup. If your foundation starts separating, nothing on top. Oh, okay. It's the same thing with NASCAR. The team doesn't accept the car well enough.

The driver is struggling on the car all day. Pretty entertaining. She was very creative with this. I'll give her that. I'm sure she's an ice girl. She made a lot of interesting comparisons. I don't get it. Kevin's ISO during this and he's just shaking.

So I learned a lot in this video. What'd you learn? I learned about... I learned nothing. I learned about what the ladies in our makeup room or what they're trying to do to make my face look good. So I really appreciate that breakdown. But... They don't have to do much work on you.

You hear that? It's a generational thing. Like, am I getting old just because when stuff like... I mean, like I say, I'm sure she's a super nice girl and she's got a lot of followers. And it's a thing. But it's not for you. I mean, Kevin's old school. It's not for me.

Okay, that makes me feel better. Yeah. It's for the girlies. Okay. Okay. Did you, I mean, what did you think? I mean, I thought it was very creative. I'll give her that.

Okay. I can see they're trying to obviously reach much younger women right now with this kind of content. And the hopes that it will, you know, get more of female fan base. Listen, I'm going to tell you. Or young girls, I guess. Who's? Her followers? Her followers.

I'm going to tell you what. It's helping because if you saw the ladies that come out to NASCAR Sundays, you think so? Let me tell you. Let me tell you. What I saw in turn one in Anderson, in Anderson, South Carolina this weekend was What did you see? Over the top.

What did you see? What did you mean? It was truckloads full of college students, just having the freaking time of their life. I mean, that's how I started out as a fan. Screaming. Collaring. I mean, just over the top. That's funny.

Look, man, we're back. We're back up. You know? TARPS off. Well, that's why it's good for this young lady to have these types of videos. Yeah. Right. It's not for me. No.

No, it's not for you, grab. You're not the target audience, maybe. It's okay. I'm definitely not the audience. You're supposed to be confused about that. Okay. But we still like to get your take on it. So I just like, I just want to see his face, honestly.

Now, if I had somebody on there telling me that the NASCAR garage was like a garage, I would understand it. But when you're trying to compare it to makeup, I'm a little lost. I'm a little lost. It's okay. A for effort there. Yeah. No, he doesn't look good wearing it.

Let's move back to actual racing. He doesn't look good wearing it. He doesn't look good wearing makeup. Yeah. Let's see here. Who else had a rough day? Ross Chastain, you mentioned him. He's going to have to have a lot go right.

Yeah, he's done, I would say. After a drive train issue, relegates him to a poor finish 66 below the line. And that's a, that's a, Ross will tell you the exact same thing. Team will tell you the exact same thing. That's a surprise. I really thought a top 16 for that driver and team was possible. Very, very realistic.

And so that's a big letdown for Ross Chastain, not to be in the chase. And they've just, they've just been off all year and really haven't showed any signs of even the signs that SVG has had. on the ovals he's outrun the one car on the ovals many of the times and and obviously on the road courses has outrun him so really really shocking that the one car has been as bad as it has all year yeah last couple years really yeah it's got to be a pretty big disappointment across the board for track house with that one yeah i think everyone over there is frustrated with for the for how most of the season is gone for you know really two-thirds of the team i think SVG is done a good job.

That group has done good to put themselves in position for a shot at the chase. But for the one in the ADA, I think it's just been a lot of miss and not understanding why so much. And then even when you do get it going right, it's something else breaks or someone else's mess. And it's just been one of those years for that whole organization. So really tough because I think the people over there are smart. And I think they have good hardworking people. And you just, you know, it's just one of those years for them. It's been a tough year too for his teammate in Connor Zillage.

Riley Herps ends up having an incident on track, and we're going to play the in-car audio for Connor Zilich's team to hear the direction that they were giving him during this incident. Take a listen. That's tough. It is tough. And his assessment of that situation was right, right? Like, what are you doing?

That is very clear from the spotter, low, low, low, low, low. And just drive straight into the wreck. And so it's, I mean, it's a tough scenario, but this is cup racing. You know, it's going to be very exposed and it's going to be very difficult to handle. And your confidence continues to take a hit, but it has been a miserable year for the 88 and Conner Zillich and everything that they've done. And that's been one of the biggest parts of the issue, right, are crashes, crashes when you shouldn't crash, spinning out and crashing when you shouldn't crash, running into things. when you shouldn't run into them. And those are really just basic things.

Like those aren't learning how to drive the car. Those are just lapse in judgment. And I love the kid. Right? I think the kid is one of the most talented kids out there. But I mean, that right there is just a complete lapse in judgment and drove straight into the wreck. You can hear the defeat in his voice for sure.

Yeah, it's very interesting when he gets in on Saturday. And he got in the truck race. He ran in the 71 truck for Spire, let a bunch of laps. was really dominating to come down pit road to have a bad pitch stop can't make it back through

but like from the driver's side he did a really great job right and then Sunday comes around you got some momentum built up starts the race starts on the wet it's kind of a good thing for him

because right decent yeah it started good and then like it backed up to probably where they've been running all year which is fine but then that it's just like god and I

to your point I love Conor Zilich great kid outside a great driver. I think he's going to be great here. It's just been one of those years. We got to, we got to end the last 11 races with a goal with something.

We got, whatever that goal is that we need to set, we need to hit that goal so we can go into the offseason, feeling good about it. Because that right there, I mean, when that spotter started calling that wreck, he was in the breaking zone. Mm-hmm.

That is super simple situation, right? Like, go low, go. go low, go low. They're wrecking. Go low. I mean, even the spotter's like, I'm going to say go low until you just hit the guy, I guess. Yeah. But tough situation. Tough situation. We do know, obviously, he'll be going to the 48 next year. Glad to see he already has a best. A year after. Yeah. Already got that vest rocking in the Hendrik Motorsport photos. Good time. The best is iconic. The best. Can't go wrong without that. William Byron, he was running the top five when he ended up losing a wheel, left front, 68 to go. These, Once again, these are the mistakes you don't want to happen. You can't have the wheels fall off, that's for sure. But the interesting part is that wheel was on there for a long time. Yeah, they took two tires, so it was on there for two stops. And, you know, they,

Byron mentioned something under the caution that it didn't feel right, warming the tires up under caution. And obviously, it wasn't. And that's, it's just been that kind of year for the 24. They've been off on speed. And when they do run good, they have something like this happen. And it doesn't work out for them. But this one,

right here. We're going to lose the tire changer. You're going to miss your tire changer for the first week of the playoffs at Darlington. So has more repercussions to it than just crashing out. That's crazy. Because it's not like it was

the last pit stop. You know what I mean? It's one, like typically, all right, wheel comes off. He just came down pit road, changed that tire. You didn't get it snug on there, whatever. That thing had been on there for two stops. And now, like, I don't know how that happens. Like, I don't know. I'd love to maybe Bozy, I can talk to Bozzy and find out what happened there.

But that getting loose and then the lug nut falling off like that, that's high-level bad luck. Very strange. Unfortunate events for William Byron. He's currently 12 in the standings with one to go. We had a Jeff Gordon return to Victory Lane over the weekend. Did you think you'd ever say that again? What about this, though? Pretty cool there up in D.C. for Jeff Gordon.

Pretty awesome. Yeah, Jeff, they basically had two heat races in the I-Rock exhibition. race on the streets of Washington, D.C. before the Indycar race. And Jeff won them both. So he was on the wheel beat Kurt Bush and Castor Nevis there at the end of the race and looked like everybody was having a great time. And what a spectacular event. No kidding. As you watch some of the highlights from the IROC race, you can see behind it. You can see the Capitol. You can see all the historical landmarks as you get to certain views. But Jeff Gordon got it done. I'm going to tell you what, whenever Kurt drives those, I do think that he's driving it pretty hard because I've seen him have it hung out around 10-10.

He owns that car. Yeah, that's his car. That's his car. So, and, like, Jeff had to borrow his from Mr. H. So it's a little different situation. So if you're being Kurt in the IROG deal, you're probably getting after it pretty good. That's right. Good for Jeff Gordon, though.

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Hard to believe. Final one before the chase begins. What are we in for this weekend? What do you think? A lot of different agendas. A lot of different agendas. You got guys that are right on the fringe, a couple guys. I guess you could lump it to three or four guys that have a shot to either fall in or fall out or get in.

So, you know, I think you got those guys racing. And then you've still got some movement throughout the point standings, as we talked about Joey Lugano earlier, being able to make up a couple spots. So with the way that the points are now, you want to get everything that you can every single week. You can't just go down there and say, I'm just going to go down there and throw caution to the wind. Because especially if you're one of those top 20 guys, you've got to be able to take all the points that you can get and try to win stages and win the race. and ultimately outside of those top 20 guys, the guys that have been eliminated and kind of had a bad year

and looking for something to race for. It's also a place where you can turn your season around to be able to grab a win because we saw Harrison Burton, you know, win at Daytona. We've seen so many upset wins at this racetrack and it wouldn't surprise me if we see it again. How do you think a guy like SVG

handles the pressure of this situation and what looms ahead for him and that team going through this. Specifically, SVG, I don't think he cares. Yeah. No. I don't think he,

I don't think pressure, I don't think pressure. Isn't his vocabulary. Yeah, it doesn't affect him at all. Because he, he's just a lockdown, solid individual and the way he approaches racing,

he relies on his skill and his preparation and his craft. And he's going to a place that he probably has a lot of confidence that. I think he legitimately enjoys the super speedways. And so I think he, I think pressure is not going to be the thing that rattles him out of the top 16. What will get him is getting caught up in someone else's stuff or just, you know, getting out right beat because the forwards typically do the best job at lining up and working together. And, you know, they're kind of, they got extra help.

Like the Pensie Ford's are definitely going to be at least mindful of trying to get one more forward into the top 16. Who do you think is feeling it the most, though, just the gravity of the situation headed to the weekend? Oh, that's a good question. I think that both of those guys are going to, they're going to have some pressure on them, SVG and Ryan Priest. I think they're the two guys that that fill the most pressure.

I think that, you know, when you look at third and fourth and the points and, you know, Ty Gibbs and, you know, you got Reddick back there. You've got those guys that are tight in the points up at the top that want to get all that they can to get those seats. But the most pressure is going to go to SVG and Ryan Priest, just knowing that there's, Their season basically sits on one finish.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I mean, for SVG, for the trackhouse group, as a group, I think the way they operate as a group, maybe there's pressure to make sure they get one car in, like as a organization. And then for RFK, you know, they want to get another one.

They want to have a second car. Chris Bush is already locked. He's pretty much locked or locked in right now. He's done a good job all year. So they want to talk about being quiet. Bro, how is he in there? Like, I've forgotten that he raced. He's been so quiet.

And then you just said that. that he was going to be, you know, he's got himself locked into the, in that chase. And I'm like, God, I forgot he was even out there. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't do anything wrong. Yeah. Quietly going about business. Yeah. And how's the dynamic for this race totally different than when we're there in February

for the 500? That's a great question because I thought it was the best super speedway race we had last year. It was. The fuel didn't really come into play and they just race their ass off. A hammer down. And I hope it's that way again. You typically, the handling is a little bit worse. but this one with the new rules package.

Your guess is as good as mine. They won't know to the racing either because there ain't no practice with it. No. So they're going to qualify and that doesn't tell you anything. I'd be a complete train wreck. Yeah. Is this probably the most blind that they've been going into an event? I don't even, yeah.

You have no idea what to expect. What's right? What's wrong? and it's the last race of the regular season. So I don't know. I think they should have had some practice in fairness to everybody just to be able to fill it out. So we don't. What happens if we wipe out half the field in the early on?

Yeah. We will hope that doesn't happen. Yeah. I mean, everybody could. It could. Like, you just, you don't know if you're, what you're shooting for. You don't know if travels are right. You don't know anything.

It's a tough situation. If you had just had a little bit of practice, even if you only gave them 30 minutes of practice just to get every. right. I think from a safety side of things, it would have been better. Because right now, if one car makes a mistake that starts up in the front, you have a big opportunity to wipe out half the field. Let me ask you something about the, since we're coming up to the, you know, regular season

finale, we're not doing a regular season champion anymore. Oh, geez. You know? They are? No, we're not. They just gave them, like, no, there's no trophy presentation. There's no, this number one seed. so Denny's number one seed.

I personally really liked that part. I did too. I think this is one of the things like when we changed so much, like I think that was something that just kind of got thrown in there. Like, oh, we won't do it anymore. But I thought it brought something to the team

that did the best throughout the year. Totally. Like that was... Absolutely. I felt like that was a good thing to have. I wish we would bring that back. I would agree with that. Yeah.

I didn't even know that that was happening. So thanks for filling me in. You're welcome. Well, yeah. I had a crew chief asked me two weekends ago. How many more things Kevin Harvick's going to be able to change in this sport? People are noticing. Bring back that regular season championship.

Oh, and give them practice in Daytona. Yeah. All right. We already got testing coming up soon. There's a lot of good reasons to watch the race this weekend, Saturday night race under the lights in Daytona Beach, Florida. So what you got there, buddy? Time for Mamba to take over the microphone and bring us his latest and greatest sips.

It's Mumbos Mumble time. Ladies and gentlemen, my friends and family from New England, especially, welcome to your favorite part of the show, Mamba's social sips. And I'm going to start off real quick like this. NASCAR Sundays is been great all year. We are taking over the NASCAR Hall of Fame Friday night. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. So Friday night, O'Reilly Series race. We're going to be down in there. We're going to have the theater open. So the Hall of Fame does it. a lot throughout the year. And so we decided to come together and work together on this one. So I'm excited about that.

Let me ask you this. And I hate to be the guy that's just a jerk. No, you don't. No, he doesn't. Like NASCAR Sundays was kind of created to like drink beer and have fun, right? Yeah. So can you do that in the... Oh, yeah.

NASCAR Hall of Fame? Yeah. We got a bar, really? Yeah, we got a bar, full bar, beer wine and liquor. Okay, well, you need to do. I'm glad I asked that question because you needed to expand because it sounded a little bit more dull than what you can do. Well, it's, I mean, it's going to be a difference that we're in the NASCAR O'Am

so you get to see some cool stuff. But free event, free event. Free? Yeah. So free beer? No, no, no. Free to enter. So it's not free.

No, it's a free event. Free to enter. Okay, so you get in, but you got to buy all your. It's like, you don't have to pay a cover, basically. You got to buy a cover. Who's the, like, who's the bartender? I don't know. I hope they're good.

The NASCAR famous hand on that. Is it just, is it just like certified NASCAR sponsorship beer? Like, can you only get Bushlight? No, I know Bushlight is there, though. Okay. Yeah. And do we have, like, can you only use their hard alcohol? Can we mix drinks?

What's the extent of this bar? Because this is the most important part about NASCAR Sunday. You're right. You're right. It's beer, wine, and liquor, you know? It's the whole deal. I had no idea that you could drink beer in there. Yes, I'm so excited.

It's going to be so cool. So we got DJ coming out. A lot of fun things. So make sure if you're around town, Friday night, that's called for him. And then Saturday night, Daytona finale at Hopin. It's also a little singles party. Now I'm confused. Friday night and Sunday.

I thought we were talking about Saturday. No, it's Friday night. Friday night at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Saturday at Hoppin. I got it. Yeah. So now we're. Because it's really O'Reilly.

We have flushed out some facts here to get everybody. Only needed it for you. Did you hear anything about Friday? I did. But he said O'Reilly. I don't ever agree with him. Anyway, let's get into it. All right.

Social Sips. This weekend, I was talking to Gregson. He's like, man, are you going to the game to this weekend? I'm like, what game? The Patriots are playing while we were up there? And he told me what's going. I'm like, that'll be cool. I didn't know he was going to be fieldside.

Check this out. He's hanging out with Drake freaking May. Hey, what's up, hey, what's up? Good. Hey, I'm from Charlotte, man. So, hey, I'm from Charlotte, man. I'm like, Bill. I mean, Kevin, that's, you know.

That's cool. AFC champion Drake May right there from North Carolina. That's, you know. That's pretty cool. Where were they playing? Foxborough. Oh, really? Yeah.

That's a home game for the past. Yeah. That's always fun to go during the preseason games. You get to do more stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. A little more laid back. Yeah.

The Red Sox were playing too. Red Sox won all weekend. The Pats won that game and we were in New Hampshire. It was great. They shouldn't even keep score in preseason football. Someone has to win. How many plays did he play? He didn't play it all.

Okay. He didn't play it all. Exactly. Something that happened also over the weekend. Kevin talked about a little bit, the Carst Tour. Now, Car Store usually has some wild finishes. This one might be the tops. Epic.

Yep. What do you think? Well, it is definitely one of the better finishes, but the lead, the 22 car there leading. You can see the spark starting to come out from underneath the car. The right front tire starts to go flat. And then Connor Jones and Lofton there start to, Connor Jones unfortunately chose the outside and gave Lofton the opportunity to get in there and get in the back bumper and got them both up the racetrack and wound up three wide coming to the checkered flag.

That's awesome. For the driver of the 22 to not wreck with the right front, banging the ground like that. I mean, at that point, you got two laps to go. You got to do what you got to do to try to figure it out. Steering wheel or the trophy. Luckily, it was not the steering wheel. That's right. Glad he brought it home in one piece.

Awesome. Finish, though. Anderson, South Carolina, that's where that was. Love that track. That series delivers good events. All the time. Good racing. Some other good racing on the dirt tracks. We had USAC was racing. They had their big Silver Crown race. It's like a hundred lap race. Kaylee Bryson was wheeling.

Look at her view. Couldn't see. Can't see. anything. I guess the track was dry. Day race there, I guess it gets pretty dry. And that's her view from the cockpit. She says, I could not see where the wall was. I can't see anything in that. That's pretty wild.

Kevin wouldn't be able to see anything with those glasses on. He'd be the same for me. I can't imagine going that fast, though, and not see it. Like, that seems a little much time. Well, sometimes, like, when that stuff happens, you just start looking at you find other things. to reference yourself off of like the inside guardrail

or just another car. Sometimes if you've got the wrong car and it drives into the wall, you drive into the wall with it. Okay. Well, it couldn't be me. And then also one of our Fox brothers, one of our teammates, Jamie McMurray, his son Carter,

got a dub. He swept the weekend at Hickory and the limited late model this weekend. Awesome. Carter and some good equipment and getting some dubs. Nice. Good to see that. Yeah.

I know Jamie and him work real hard on that deal. Yeah. He's super involved with him. Yeah. Yeah. We have this whole crop. This whole little cropper kids. Generation two and threes.

Maybe four is in there somewhere, too. It's pretty great. So that's your social Sips for this week. Well, well. Kevin's favorite part of the show. Great job, dude. Love it. Solid.

Solid stuff. Mumbos, mumbles. It's time now for our last call. It should be a candy. Yeah. Oh, guys. Mumbos, mumbles. Last call, happy ending, whatever you want to call it.

It's time to grade the hour now. Did you call it a happy ending? Was that on purpose? It's a happy hour. It's a happy ending. All right. I love it. Okay.

That'll be a meme. Anyway, it's time to grade the burn. Are those still a thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring the burnout. For Ryan Blaney. What did you think of this one, sir? I will say it started off.

He just did a Polish victory lab, so I didn't know he's going to do this. Yeah. I mean, for a guy that used to not do burnouts to evolve into doing burnouts, he's gotten a lot better at it. Does a pretty good job doing perfect donuts right here. So I, this is one of my favorite type of burnout because if you can lock whatever the left or the right and just, oh, I think that's impressive.

Yeah. They were excited about it too. I love the crowd reaction. The crowd was definitely into it. But I'm going to give it like a B. A B for Blaney. Yeah. I want to let you guys know I went back this week and listened to our episode one of this season.

And we have changed how we grade. It was numbers. It's all over the map. Yeah. But we got off the numbers because we decided that we needed to make it so that it was ABC system at some point. I don't remember what I said that. I'm like we as him. If we need to change the rules again, we'll change the rules again and we'll make shit up.

So that's kind of how we do. That's what we do. But he got to be. B for Ryan Blaney. B for Blaney. I feel like I got an A this weekend because I picked the highest finisher of the group. You got an A. Well, I'm still only at 96 to Kevin's 119.

Mamba is at a cool 74 right now. You got an A and Mamba laid an egg. I just want to, I don't, I need to talk to Bresco because I'm not sure how he was fighting for the lead at the beginning of that run. It doesn't matter. And ended up a lap down. It doesn't matter. You finished 26th. Yeah.

You come in here looking for reasons as to why you do like crap. every week. Yeah, I am. I'll get it. And now you're getting your ass handed to you by Caitlin too.

You know what though? Thanks. He thinks I'm stupid probably. I'm going to pull a Tony Stewart though and I'm going to we're going to get into the chase and I'm going to walk him down. I'm going to walk it around.

Hammer down. What is our plan again for the chase? The whole thing resets? Yeah, well you guys you guys leader gets 50. No, that's a bit much. Second gets 50. No.

And third gets zero, right? I think points leader probably should get like 25. Yeah. You should probably get like 10 and I'll start at zero. No. Yeah. Yeah. I'll spot you a little bit.

Poor little mumby. I ain't scared. I'm gonna run them right down. Oh, I'm gonna run them down. Sometimes I just want to like, like patch her head. Like little mumbo. Like a weird?

Like I'm a kid. Like a little kid. You're like a little buddy over there. A little buddy. My little buddy. Caitlin, get us out of here. I'm trying. Okay, your next opportunity to redeem yourself is this weekend.

You can make a pick for Daytona. No, I'll let you guys go first. I'm going to go first. I'm going to take Austin Cindrick. Okay. I like that. I was going with Chase Briscoe this weekend. It's kind of, I mean, it's not a bad-growing situation.

Austin Cedricz-Rex-Wan A Daytona 500. And who did you pick? I picked Briscoe. You did? I'm a blow your mind. Oh, boy. What you got? Give me Riley Herps.

Whoa, all righty. Give me Riley Herps. The way he ran, he usually runs Super Spooders really well. He's one of the best teammates to have behind you going to the finish. And he came pretty close with the Daytona 500. What do you think of that? Give me Riley Herps. I think they're all bold picks.

Yeah. You think yours is a bold pick? This is a bold race. Yeah. He's a Daytona 500 champion. That doesn't mean anything. Okay. He's on Talladega, too.

We're talking about right now. Okay. All right. Right now he's been pretty good. He's been solid. That's why going to those super speedways, you know that they're going to be good. He's usually in the mix.

So solid pick. All right. Well, we'll have to see how these three choices fair come Saturday night. That does it for us, guys. That's it. We did another show. Yeah.

Make sure you subscribe on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. Follow us at Harvick Happy Pod for Kevin, Mamba, myself. That does it for us. We'll see you all after Daytona.