Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Stewart-Haas Racing closing down after 2024, Bell wins in Charlotte, Larson’s double spoiled & more!

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

On Episode 29 of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” NASCAR Legend Kevin Harvick sits down with co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith to provide an exclusive recap of the Coca-Cola 600. Get ready for an in-depth analysis of the weekend’s standout moments, including Christopher Bell’s triumphant victory at the Coca-Cola 600 after rain delays at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The trio also delves into Kyle Larson’s ambitious attempt at "The Double," aiming to conquer both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600. Unfortunately, storms in Indianapolis delayed the start, resulting in an 18th-place finish for Larson. Despite his rushed journey to Charlotte, rain prevented him from running a single lap in the NASCAR race. Next, they discuss Stewart-Haas Racing's announcement that it will close its NASCAR operation at the end of the 2024 season. The trio also discuss the $75,000 fine that Ricky Stenhouse Jr. received from NASCAR following his altercation with Kyle Busch. To wrap up the show, they highlight the crucial moments of the race and provide a preview of the upcoming Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway. Don’t miss this action-packed episode, brimming with expert analysis and all the thrilling moments you crave from the world of NASCAR! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's going to be a war for the people. The good people. The good people, it's going to be a war between all the top teams and a contest to see who can get the best people that are within SHR. There are a lot of good people within SHR. And people are hard to come by. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR and Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. She's Caitlin Vinci, and he's Mama Smith.

Yes, live fast. Mr. Live fast today. Live fast, Gloria Day. A little 704. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, this is a local shirt. Local shirt.

Not the ice cream place. No, it's Glory Days. Glory Days. What is that? They're apparel. They do hats and shirts and shorts and all types of stuff. You should go check them out. Over in South End.

Do I have to drive there? Yeah, you can Uber. Can they deliver it on? They can deliver it on. They can deliver it out. Send it back. Yeah, but you need to go and experience the whole shop. You know?

Yeah. There you go. Cool. All right. Brand new episode on Tap. We appreciate everyone who's been following along. Make sure you go to YouTube. Give us a five-star review.

Leave a word that Kevin might say on the air that we will not miss. We will make sure we hear it. No. Oh, come on. I mean, you can explain this? Yeah, I mean, so closers. I don't know if you guys heard the word this week.

Which one? We had two this week. Two. We had precipice and we had flabbergasted. And Kevin snuck them by everyone. But let's hear about it. Everyone. By everyone.

Hey, Ty Gibbs. Kevin and Clint up in the booth. You got a copy? Yep, sounds like trouble. Well, this, this. This is trouble, buddy, and you are trouble. You did a great job in qualifying. You got that first pit stall.

You've been right on the precipice of getting that first win. So how are you going to make that happen tonight? Yeah, I think it's going to be make sure I don't make any mistake. Stay after the whole night, the long race. So I really, I don't know what to say. I feel really bad because I went up to Kevin when he first got here. I was like, you didn't say the words this week because we all missed it. And I was at the tracks.

I missed the beginning of the broadcast on TV, which was when the Ty Gibbs one happened. Sorry, my friend. Let's be honest. Caitlin doesn't give us much grief. And she's a little timid sometimes to just jump right in there and kind of just punch you in the gut. Today she came in and tried to punch me in the gut.

It didn't work. Totally bitter in the ass. That's what happened today. So we were discussing why I didn't use my word and I'm looking at them both. I'm like, did you guys not watch the race? I did it right off the bat with Ty Gibbs. So that's the problem.

In the car interview. We were on Pitt Road. We were part of the festivities, getting run over by Secret Service. and the dawn. The dawn. So the best part about the word this week, I had to, I had to,

we had this debate in the production meeting about precipice and how the right context to use it. And it can be used in two different ways. You can be on the brink of greatness or on the edge of falling off a cliff or disaster, or however you want to put it. And so we said, all right, I'm going to use it in the in-car.

And I'm going to use it on Ty gives because now Ty and myself have this, every time I get on the radio to say, hey, Ty, we're getting ready to come to you. I got a copy. And it's like, oh, great, I got to do this again. And so he's being sarcastic. I know Tyb pretty well. And he's become, every time I turn the radio on to his channel and have to do the interview, every time I do it, it's more fun because he gets to be more interactive with it. And this week, he was totally bantering back and forth. So he does his bantering

before we actually do the filmed. A piece of it. So he just, he just completely destroys himself right off the bat. And so anyway, I gave him some grief and talked about everything. But I used the word right off the right off the bat in the initial sentence of the in-car interview. Well, my bad. I hope you guys heard it. I didn't. But I'm proud of you. Only two more chances. Only two more races that we get to hear. I have a happy pod. Make sure you get those in. Fun words. Keep DM and out. Yeah.

Well, it was a good weekend though. And you mentioned it. All of the patriotism and the display of support for our service men and women. It's always. always such an incredible weekend. There's a lot of secret service we're there, and I heard you guys had an interaction with them as well. Well, my friend and I in the booth decided that... Was your friend? Yeah. Clint Boyer. Okay. Yeah. So we decided that we were going to go out and introduce ourselves to the president and shake his hand, well, during a commercial, because he was on the roof and we were in the booth. So he said, what the heck? Clint's influence is pretty heavy, but I agreed and I said, well, you go first.

So I said him first. And Clint goes, Clint goes bebop it out of the booth, down the steps and just starts to go towards the, towards Trump. And, I mean, there's secret service everywhere and they all but threw him off the roof. I bet.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, explain. Hey, I'm just, I'm over here and this. We just came over to say hi. And luckily. Yeah, they don't care who he is. Who's this? Who's this guy? I happen to follow Clinton.

And somebody said, oh, no, he's in a booth with Clint. So Clint was kind of the fall guy. There you go going over to shake Trump's hand. But we went over and shook his hand and he was super nice. And Childress was explaining. Richard Childers was explaining everything that was going on to him. And he had a headset on and totally into watching the race. But I had no idea that he used to come and sit on the pit box with Richard when Earnhardt was racing because he's a race fan.

But he was an Earnhardt fan. So he would come sit on the pit box with Richard Childeris and watch races before. you know, anybody even knew who he was. So I thought that was pretty interesting. That is interesting. You know, it was interesting to me.

What's that? The route that they brought him through down pit road. That was. So the cars are backed up, backed up to the outside pit wall. Okay? So they come down and you could walk. It's like two people wide that you could walk.

And they bring them down. And obviously all these, he has all this secret service, everything. They are like, hey, you guys got to back up. There's nowhere to go. I'm like, broskey. It's cramped.

I'm full of people at this point. We are elbows deep here. We can't move anywhere else. And they were aggressively looking through. I can tell you, there's a big difference between a former or running president and a sitting president. Because when George Bush came, I don't remember the year, but it was mid-2000s, whenever that was. They just, they didn't let anybody on pit road. Really?

Really? A couple people from NASCAR, Secret Service, and the president. And it was the greatest pre-race show. I've ever been involved with in my life because there was not one person on pit road. And he came and talked to the drivers and gave the command, I believe, that day. But President Bush, he was a cool one too. When we went to the White House, sorry to interrupt you're good. We went to the White House that year after whoever won the championship, they used to take all 10 of us.

And we went into the Oval Office. And he explained every piece of art where his desk came from, why he chose it. every piece of art, some of it was some from the Smithsonian, different museums, you know, around the country. And, you know, why he picked the carpet and they get to decorate everything themselves. They finally had to tell him because he was so, you know, personable with us that he had to stop. So they had to tell the president that he couldn't talk to us anymore because he was out of time.

He was so into it. We needed to leave. But it was pretty neat because he's just like one of the guys. That is one of the really cool things that the winning cup. team and the championship gets to go to the White House and visit with the president. Oh, wow. Now it's just one only. Would you rather that?

I had fun with the other guys, but it's a lot more, it's a lot more personal when you're with your team. And like when I went with Obama, you know, we were able to, I mean, we hung out like, I mean, he talked to me like we'd known each other for 20 years because we're standing there by ourselves. All the teams were outside. We got to talking about our kids and just everything that was going on. Best story about the Obama trip was Brian France brought his kids, and they were, I don't know, they were probably like six or seven years old. We were in the map room in the White House. And it was a good story.

His kids kept jumping on these chairs. And the Secret Service was like, hey, you need to have your kids stop jumping on the chairs. And they told him like two times. Well, the third time they came back and they said, look, if your kids don't stop jumping on the chairs, we're throwing you out. So he had to really take charge of his kids. at that point, but they were George Washington's chairs. So they weren't even meant to be sat on. They were just sitting there and those kids were jumping on George Washington's chairs in the

map room. There's definitely etiquette when it comes to being in the White House, which you can and can't do. Well, got away with it twice. Yeah, got away with it twice. Maybe Christopher Bell will be the one visiting the White House this year if he's the champion in the Cup series. Got the win on Sunday night.

This was an interesting chain of events here because obviously got the race started normal, then the rain and the weather moved in. Ultimately, NASCAR decided they were not going to be able to finish the race because of humidity and different reasonings that they cited. It was not Fox's decision. Yeah, well, first off, let's get something straight, people. Yep, here we go. We don't decide when they cancel the race. We were sitting up there like the rest of you on social media, with nothing else to do, trying to wonder to ourselves, what in the hell are they doing? Why haven't we canceled the race? When are we going to cancel the race? Are we going to run the race? race. What should we do now? Do we have any dinner? Do we have any dinner? We have nothing to do with canceling the race. NASCAR is in charge. We may have an opinion of how we're going to do things going forward. We ran an hour, almost two-hour rainfall show here in this studio. We sat in the booth and did rainfall. Mike Joy would come. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard that we decided at Fox to cancel the race.

We're along for the ride like everybody else, wondering what the hell is going on. Thank you, Kevin, for clarifying that for anyone who had a question about it. Best case scenario is we were going to start by 2 a.m. So I don't even know, I don't even know where we were going. But it was going to be early in the morning, late at night, however you want to put it. But I can promise you, it was not us because we wound up sitting in a sweet eating ice cream, waiting for things to wonder what was going to happen. Next thing, I know I'm eating my ice cream and they tell us that we're going home.

Well, here's the other thing that everyone always forgets. Like most of the people work in concessions, you know, the police or AMR, what is AMR? Right? Safety team. Safety team. Like, everybody's on, they have a window of what they can work. Yes. Like, the team can fire up and go racing.

This was a lot of rain, too. There's a lot of rain. Yeah. Like, people time out at some point. But we don't have anything to do with it. No. Like NASCAR race control is deciding what to do. You know, we might have to decide.

They will eventually tell us, which is what happened. when we were given our final remarks that the race was over and we were going off the air, they, in the middle of those comments is when they were releasing it. So they had communicated to us what they were going to do. But everything in between there, we didn't, we don't, we're like everybody else. We don't know what's going on. Yeah, Fox can't control the weather as much as people might think. Bob Pockris might be.

We're definitely not canceling races. No. Stop people. Okay. So Christopher Bell got the win, as I mentioned. a good shot in the arm for this team because he even said it post race they've had a rough eight weeks it has been a rough eight weeks and when you look back at those eight weeks i think there was still the the thing that i always would tell people when things were when we would get in a slump like this where you just have bad finishes and pit stops and crashing and things happening when you've got cars fast like his you're okay with it right you know you're going to get out of that slump um if your car's not fast and things aren't going good and people are fighting and whatever's happened in the middle of your team it is tough because you know that you're also looking for speed while you're in that slum.

Those guys weren't looking for speed. And he led 90-some laps, I think actually 90 laps this weekend, and ran up in the front the whole race and had a good solid weekend. Now, if we run the rest of the race, does he win? I don't know. But he was in the front all night. And I think finally for those guys, they had some good fortune, you know, put everything together and kept themselves in the mix all night.

We're able to capitalize on a moment when they canceled the race. I felt bad for him afterwards because every time they would talk about something from Victory Lane, we were still in the booth. They hadn't sent us home early. Yeah, I thought you were already back at your house probably. Nope, I hadn't gone home. Still at the booth.

The crowd was not, not pleased. They were booing the crap out of him in Victory Lane. I felt bad for him because he didn't really do anything wrong. No, that's a bit surprising. Yeah, I think they were probably just mad that the racing was... Yeah. They were mad. Yeah.

That was one of the best crowds. I've seen at Shrard. Maybe it was, I was out in the parking lot with folks. They were having a great time. You looked up from the infield and just like the sea of people and everyone is having fun. The infield was fun. But to your point, like Christopher led, you know, race high 90 laps. At least someone didn't steal.

I like it when, I don't really love it when someone steals one on when it comes to weather. You know, like you can kind of, sometimes you see someone jump from like 15th because of weather. they do like a two tire, don't stop. Right. And like, it's kind of cool, but it's also good when the, when the person that's leading a lot of the race, dominating the race, finished out in front when the weather comes in. Yeah, to Kevin's point, he had led a lot of laps, so he was very much in the mix. Now, the other biggest story, I would say from the weekend was Kyle Larson.

We've been talking about this a lot over the weeks, running the double with the Indie 500 and the Coca-Cola 600. Respectable finish. Obviously, I had a speeding penalty, which took away his chances. probably with a top five. But this was fun to watch. He made it back to Charlotte in time, but not quite because then the weather arrived.

And it was just a bad... You know, I saw on social media, you know, his post of the reaction of everything that he said. And I just feel bad for Kyle because it doesn't sound like he had any fun. Because I think he took the burden upon himself to go out and perform and do all the things, which he's going to naturally do that. And I know he had that burden. But it just seems like he was.

was much more vocal about the pressure that was on himself and things that he was feeling than he usually is. And, but, you know, I think for, for me, Kyle Arson is Kyle Arson, man. You just go do the things that you're doing and, and you can't control the rain. You're going to make some mistakes here and there. It's nobody around you is going to think any different. You already did. You're already doing things that are just out of this world, spectacular, jumping in an Indy car, never wrecked it, ran in the front of the pack, you know, had an opportunity to show his talents, just doing what he did showing up. And then, you know, he was going to come back to Charlotte and have a chance to finish that race out. Obviously, it rained and he wasn't able to start the race.

Justin Allgaard did a great job. Yes, he did. I think he was running 13th. Yeah. And, you know, he figured out the car and Cliff kept talking to him. and, you know, they kept getting better and better and better. But, you know, they had a fast car. It was an unfortunate circumstance for Kyle all around, though,

just with everything, everything, all the effort and time that they put into it. But I hope he does it again so he can actually, actually do everything. I'm sure that he will. I mean, talking with people at Hendrick Motorsports yesterday that actually did the double with him, they were like pretty much worst case scenario. What could have gone wrong went wrong. And apparently the rain has followed him because you updated us. Now he's in Iowa and it's raining.

For the test. Poor guy. And it's just a lot like Christopher Bell, right? You know, he goes through those eight weeks where nothing seems to go right, crashes, pit stop, whatever. He's making mistakes. Whatever those things are, nothing's going your way. And when you get in those slumps, you just feel like the world's against you. And, you know, are you doing something wrong?

And then all of a sudden one day you wake up and things go your way and you win a race. And it seems like it all never happened. But how much cross-pollination do you think there was? in terms of the attention that Kyle Larson brought both to the Indy 500, bringing a lot of NASCAR fans went out to watch him and then vice versa of how his performance over there helped NASCAR. I think Kyle doing both the dirt fans, I think are the big ones that show up to watch Kyle Larson do other things. That's his real fan base. And I think they got a lot, like IndyCar got a lot of those fans that don't normally probably watch IndyCar as well as obviously the NASCAR fans. So it was great, and I keep hearing murmurs that more guys want to do the double.

I know Kyle Bush was actively talking about doing it. You know, I find it in Ryan Blaney. I find it interesting. And I don't think, and Kevin, you tell me what you think about this. I don't think that this would go very well if an IndyCar driver try to do the double from their side to our side versus our guys going from our side to theirs. I would agree. And I think the Kyle Larson effect is very much.

In a, it's, it's in effect. I think when you look at the car souvenir sales, I read that, that he was, he was the top seller. I'm sure he was, you know, the top seller at the NASCAR race, or if not right there, right there at the top. But when you look at the TV ratings from All Star Race, when you look at the TV ratings for the Indy 500, you see the effect that Kyle Arson has on people and viewership. and because of the things that he was doing. And I hope that's what, I hope Kyle realizes the impact that he has on people. I know he's down on himself for making the mistake

and, you know, all the things that happened with the weather. But gosh, you know, it's just, whether he missed the race in Charlotte or not, it's just such a feat to be able to do the things that he did at the level that he's doing them at. But to your question, I don't think an IndyCar guy comes over here

and does what Kyle Larson does from an Indy car to a stock car. I think that Scott McLaughlin should be the first guy in a stock car on a road course for Roger Penske. I don't know why they're holding him back. It doesn't make any sense to me, especially when they get towards the end of the year or take those breaks. Because I want our guys, I want Kyle Larson going to IndyCar to race. I want Kyle Larson to show up at the 24 hours of Daytona. I want Scott McLaughlin to come over here and race a stock car.

I want those guys to go back and forth and all know each other because that's really what made racing great was when Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt and all the stock car guys would all interact with each other. They all showed up at the Indy 500. They show up at the Coke 600. They show up at the 24 hours of Daytona. And that's what I want to see. I want to see the Indy car guys. I want to see the NASCAR guys. The high level guys, I'm just saying, the highest level of guys on each. side, race each other's cars on occasion, not all the time. And I want to see him at the 24 hours of Daytona. I want to see him at LaMalle. I want to see all those things happen because I think it makes racing better. And that's what I think this situation did. Did you ever have any interest yourself in doing some of those other marquee events? Not really. I was always such a stock car guy. And I think in today's world with the new car, it opens the door a lot for guys outside of the stock car world to come in and have a better chance to be competitive. like with SVG, I think for him to come over and do what he did.

He, you know, he has to get used to a lot of things in the Xfinity car because of the way that the car yaws out and skews out in a way that it moves around. The cup car doesn't do that anymore. So it feels more like a sports car than what it used to. And you don't have to, we could always beat all the sports car, indie car guys because the car always felt so strange with the way that you had to drive it to go fast on an oval. And the way it would wheel hop with the, for the four-speed transmission and the rear end and everything that we used to run in the car.

It was pretty much a specialized situation to be competitive. Okay. Well, the... Did you have something you wanted to add, Tyler? Yeah, I was just going to say, I'm not saying it's Kevin's fault that everything's my fault. That the rain happened, but I did ask you... Kevin or Fox. Yeah, I did ask you if the All-Star rain counted towards our counter, and it didn't,

but then you brought it over to the 600 anyway. So now... We raced. Yeah, but it's been affected. It was affected Sunday. He really wants that dinner at stake. Now it's five races. I'm just saying, you said it wasn't going to happen anymore,

and it just happened back to back weeks. Just saying, whatever. Mom was here to keep you on top of that. Okay, so. Larson was a big story. Also, one of the interesting stories during the race was between Chris Buster and Denny Hamlin, this whole pit road debacle thing.

It was awesome. And it produced some great radio exchanges as well between Chris Gay-Part and Denny Hamelin. But can you explain? more about this because some people seem a little confused, like how this issue kept reoccurring. Well, the pit stalls are short in Charlotte. So Denny Hamlin was running in front of Chris Busher, and Chris Busher was running in front of John Hunter Neimancheck. And the way that those cars are lined up on pit road, Denny Hamlin comes in first, and his tire changers are at his

right front tire. Well, Chris Busher has to go around that. So he pulls in at this angle. Denny Hamlin's in his pit box straight. And so John Hunter Nemechek would come around Chris Bisher at even more of an angle because he had to go around his rear tire changer and his front changer. And he would wind up at more of an angle than Chris Bisher. So really the key to the situation, I mean, Denny Hamlin backed his stall up a little bit, but they really needed to back him up more, which I think they finally did. But these cars are very difficult to turn in and out of the pit stalls because they just don't turn very well like the old cars. so it's hard to get in there, cut it to the left,

and then cut it back to the right and get straighter. That's why you see these cars so angled in the pit box, because when they're going slow, they don't turn very good. And so anyway, they were running in the extreme worst order they could possibly run. And Chris Busher wound up in front of Denny Hamlin.

Chris wound up running pretty well, but he wound up in front of Denny Hamlin because he wrecked in practice, blew a tire, blew a left for a tire, took his car back to the shop. Well, he was the very last guy to pick a pit stall, and that was the stall.

what he was left with in front of Denny Hamill. Worst case scenario. Worst case scenario. So they were going at it on the radio. And finally, one point Chris Gavehart told Denny Hamlin, he said, buddy, if I say anything else, we're going to have a fight. Yeah, there's going to be a situation. Because I have pushed it that far.

So I don't know what else to tell you. I was disappointed, though, because with the weather delay, they actually had a chance to get out and talk in person. Like, this would never normally happen. So RFK posted a video of Busher and Denny all kind of talking. with their crew chiefs on pit road to sort this out. Maybe they would have had a game plan that we could have seen in action if we'd gone back racing, but we didn't have that luxury.

There was only one option, though, right? The only option was for Hamlin to back up further. It was only affecting him, really. Yeah, because the cars are, I mean, it affected all of them. Yeah. But, I mean, Busher and Hamlin had to back up pretty much every time that they got into their pit stall. So I think it's interesting because Denny had this happen to him.

It was Kansas. Austin Hill was in front of him and they had a mix up. Austin obviously was running further back than Denny. He comes in late and kind of blocks Denny. And so he was a similar situation. I don't know why it came to happen to him in the last couple weeks.

It kept us entertained. It did. I liked hearing Chris Gay Park get fired up. That never happened. He was so fired up. Yeah. Love that. Love the passion.

Let's see here. The other story I had written down was Ryan Blaney with the early exit. But he was running in the top 10 for most of the race prior to this happening. What did you see here out of this whole situation? Well, they left the wheel loose. It looks like to me. And then it saw the wheel in half and the wheel fell off.

And he banged in the wall. And so this is the aftermath of what you're seeing here. But Blaney, I mean, they were going to be in the top 10, I felt like, pretty solid. Played a good strategy there and wound up getting the track position that they needed. But ultimately, in the end, didn't play out for him all night and wound up with a bad finish. A lot of pit crews making mistakes, though. I think that's just where we live now.

I think, you know, trying to get those mid to high eight-second pit stops, right? If you don't try to make those pit stops, somebody else is going to. And we see a lot more mistakes week in and week out because of how fast the pit stops are and they're on the edge of disaster every freaking time that they pit. And so we see those mistakes and everybody knows. knows that they have to get everything that they can, whether it's changing the tires in the pit stall, rolling the tire, whatever that is, you have to be right on the edge of disaster. And, you know, we hear the drivers talk about airing to the side when they're racing or driving of being too

aggressive. And I think that's where the pit crews are as well, because they have to make these fast pit stops and their margin of air is slim. Everyone's pushing it. The teams are pushing it. The pit crew, they're pushing it. Drivers are. on track. Speaking of a move that was wild, off a turn for William Byron puts a three wide between Ty Gibbs and

Tyler Gipps and Tyler Redick. Kisses the grass. Kisses the grass. Oh no. Which, all four. Oh, it's all four? All four. Watch this. Off the wall. They hit, they bang in each other and he just, all four. So that I don't think, unless you drive cars

on the speed, like when you touch the grass like that, it is not, it, you It had to buzz the tires, don't you think? Oh, yeah, yeah. Had to do. But he just kept going, like, nothing happened. And those boys, I mean, it was a good video for Monster. Yeah, the monster car and the beast car.

You guys in the booth freaked out in that moment. There was a lot of excitement. I mean, he never even thought about it. Didn't think about lifting. And that is synthetic turf now. One of our sponsors of Fields Inc. They put that ball filled in. Gosh, I don't even know how many years ago was now.

And yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, from a driver's perspective, I think that, I think that synthetic turf is great because you could get away with stuff like that and it doesn't rip the front of your car off. Some of the worst wrecks I've ever had are from going through the grass when the splitter grabs in and you're not ready for it. And it is the worst whiplash you've ever had in your life.

Oh, wow. So that grass being too tall, even though it looks great, turf, that turf should be everywhere. Yeah, I think so. That's what caught Chris Busher, what was it like last year or two years ago? Yeah, he rolled over. rolled over because it caught the grass. So big moment for William Byron.

Also, a good weekend for Josh Barry. And I would like to give him a formal shout out once again for his excellent performance on pit road at the driver's only broadcast. Did you know that he came up with that? Really? You did, didn't you? Oh, I thought. You came up. I thought Josh, I thought Josh Barry did something.

I thought Josh Barry did something. I was like, really what? I'm saying, didn't you come up with Drivers Only broadcast? Yeah, we did come up with Drivers Only broadcast? Yeah, it's pretty cool. I don't remember exactly how that. conversation started. I thought she was telling me something else. Drivers only, yeah, that started because we

were just talking at a Fox dinner one night about going into the booth. And they were like, well, let's do it. This is like seven years ago, though, because I think that was our seventh one. Seven or eight. That's pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, that was like my free training ground to learn how the booth works. So that worked out pretty good. It turned into my next job profession. I think one of the funniest ones was Holsavar.

No. Because, like, so Carson does a good job, like, being pretty entertaining when he ever, they give him a mic. But he's interviewing Kyle Bush about the, the, him and Ricky, going after it. And he's like, obviously, you can tell Carson didn't want to ask him. He's like, hey, man, I know you know this job. I know you know the deal. I got to ask you, anything more on you and Ricky? Kyle's like, I'm ready to go today.

He's like, okay, see you later. Like, he did not. I'm really certain it was just an Allgaier that he was interviewing. but it looked like they were on, it looked like he was, I mean, he had to be two feet tall at least. I didn't realize he was that tall. He's Michael, Michael Walter Pite. Yeah. Oh, really?

Yeah. That's why we did so many features with the two of them because like they just matched. They're eye to eye. Not many people Michael is eye to eye with. But anyway, back to the racing side for Josh Barry. Just once again, like really performing very well consistently. Yeah, and I spoke to Rodney's sum and I think they're just hitting their stride, right? They've finally figured out and calm down.

I think for Josh, there was a lot of pressure getting in the car, getting going, trying to go out and live up to the things that he thought he wanted to do in the race car. But it's just you've got to get into a rhythm. You've got to get in and be comfortable with the car and get used to the things that you need. Crew Chief driver relationship is a, I mean, that's a learning process of what a driver likes. How does the crew chief understand the reactions that come with the driver? a tone of his voice and all those different things. And I think they're finally settling in on what Josh likes and able to communicate that back and forth.

But Rodney loves Josh Barry. I mean, he thinks the world of Josh. I've seen him drive our late models. And, you know, he hasn't even run 30 cup races yet. So we talked about this last week. And I think that there's a lot of room, you know, for him to grow and get better. And I think he could be a winner. And I think it's, you know,

they got to do what they can this year before the bottom falls out at SHR. Yes. You're talking about that. I think it's interesting. If you're an owner or a partner or anyone watching the guys at SHR right now, going through all the turmoil and still finding their way, I think you've got to look at that and be like, okay, that's someone that I might really want to put in my race car.

I want to partner with because even through all of it, because they're all young guys, they don't know what's coming next and might not be great for everybody. but if they're able to take this all in stride and be good at their job on Sundays, you've got to look at that, put them in your race car. Well, you brought me to it, the Stewart House Racing News,

and we are filming now at 2.30 in the day. So this official announcement or whatever's going to come out of the events at Stewart House Racing has not fully come to fruition yet. So we don't have all of the parameters of what's happening over there. But obviously, Kevin...

I know a guy. ...is very connected to this organization and has a pretty good understanding of what's occurring. You know, I think, and this has been well publicized as far as, you know, some of the things that the reporters have talked about. You know, it seems like all the charters. It seems like three of the charters are going to get sold. I think that the fourth charter is kind of up in the air as to what happens with that fourth charter.

It sounds like the Xfinity team could stick around on one side. But it sounds like front row motorsports is going to wind up with one, 2311. track house, those are all the rumors, right? Like you say, we're 2.30 in the afternoon speculating on what we think we know. But, you know, I think it's just, it's unbelievable to me, really, that we went from forever to forward to for sale in six months. And it's just, I don't even know how you could possibly imagine sitting here today and thinking six months later that Stewart Hoss Racing is going to announce that they're basically.

Folding. folding. You know, I think that a lot of that, really when I went there in 2014, it was a brand new team. We had a lot of enthusiasm from the ownership group to build this team up into what turned into being a championship winning team, won a lot of races. But I had a great group of people. And I think the people around that four car over the last 10 years are really what held that company together. I think that company was held together by the success. of the four car, Rodney Childers and that group of people. I think, you know, once that, once that backbone of all that kind of went away, I think, you know, it started poking some

holes in just the, you know, what happens at the, at the top side of the upper management and everything that goes with running a race team, you know, top to bottom. And it's a full-time job. It's a 24-7 job, and I'm not, it's not a knock on owners. Gene and Tony were great to me, but they're kind of hands-off owners and have people in place to do their jobs. And I think in today's day and age, you have to have people that are involved with the authority to do what they need to do with the people and the things inside of the company to make it run properly. And, you know, it's, it's tough to see. I mean, you put a, there's a lot of people who put a lot of time and effort into that organization. And the organization did a lot for me personally. But I truly believe that with,

you know, while we were, while we were exiting and looking back on it and saying, okay, what would you do to Stuart Haas Racing? I, you know, I think that it wouldn't have been a hard fix because you have a lot of people. It's just structure, organization, and management that could have pushed it forward to make it right. You were obviously hugely instrumental in the success of the race organization. You were a part of it as well. What are some of the positive memories and things like that that will stay with you because I don't want to completely make the drag this down. But, I mean, what do you say? That place for a time was the cool guys garage.

It was like, it was so much fun being there, the people there, and we grew. I mean, when I was there, we were a three-car team, and then Kevin got there and we expanded. And then, you know, we got the F-1 team and we expanded up some more. So I was able to see a lot of that. The coolest thing about SHR was a lot of those people were there from the Haas racing days. So a lot of those people never won until Tony got there. And then Tony got there and it changed the culture. And then we went through another culture change.

When Kevin got there, we won a lot again. And I think we were always like us against everyone else. Like we were getting engines, chassis, and a lot of things from Hendrick. But we always felt like, yeah, we're better than them. Yeah. And we always felt like we'd go toe to toe. That was just how our mentality was. We didn't care about anything outside of those walls.

And we did that. I think the F1 team had a little bit to do with it because I honestly believe that Gene's more interested in the F1 team than he is the NASCAR team. And I think, you know, a lot of that NASCAR interest depending on, you know, Tony and his side, making sure that the performance of the cars was where it needed to be. And I think over the last couple years when the performance of the cars wasn't what it was, I just don't believe that Gene was having as much fun watching his car struggle. and I think that's why he initiated that partnership with Tony Stewart to get his cars running better because he wanted to have more fun. And it's more fun when you run good, right? Because when Haw started, they didn't run good.

And they brought Tony Stewart over and it fixed the culture and it fixed the performance. And we, you know, won championships and won races and did all the things that we needed to do. But when that went away and there was no road to making that better for Gene to be attached to something that was winning anymore, I think he, I think he, if he's going to lose, think he'd rather go to the F1 race and lose than he would at the NASCAR race. So what does this mean moving forward? How do you keep everyone motivated for the season at hand? And also now you're going to have a lot of really viable options on the table in the future, whether it's drivers, crew chiefs, road crew mechanics, pick crew. This is going to be interesting

to see how the remainder of this season goes. Well, it's going to be a war for the people, the good people. The good people, it's going to be a war between all the top teams and a contest to see who can get the best people that are within SHR. There are a lot of people. There are a lot of good people within SHR. And people are hard to come by. Good engineers, good crew chiefs, good management. All those things exist at SHR. And every team in the garage wants them because they want a proven commodity that they don't have to develop, that they can bring into their organization and make an immediate impact. There's a lot of those people that are within SHR still. I think a lot of people are just going to say, screw it. You know, you guys bailed out on me.

if I have a contract, sue me. And I think they're going to go start looking for jobs. And I think the ones who don't have contracts are going to go start looking for jobs. I think the people who have years left on their contract is saying, hey, you might work on this fourth team that might be left or not left. We don't really know that at this point at 240 in the afternoon. But or stay and work on the Xfinity team that they may or may not have. But, I mean, who's going to want to do that, right?

I mean, you're at the point where you've basically folded everything that you have and you want to keep these little pieces because most likely just can't get rid of them all or you want to keep them for whatever reason. I don't know. But who's going to want to work in that environment? You obviously don't want to be there. And I think for the good people, I think they're going to go on down the road. Yeah. It's a tough situation for the remainder of the year. Yeah, it's tough.

The good people, there's a lot of light models out there that could use some good hands. working on them. But the good people are going to find places to go. Easy. They always do. There's at least three graduates from Stuart Haas that are Cup crew chiefs right now. One

being Cliff Daniels, who is a champion. He was at Stuart Haas with us. There's a lot of people. So people leave there and go off and have a successful career. So that's not going to be a question. Where everything ends up, like Kevin was saying, that's going to be it. And I remember when MW I was

shutting down. And I remember the people there and asking them like, how's it going? Like how you, they're like, I mean, it sucks, but like, we're just enjoying it. Like, we're, we love each other as a group and we're just riding this thing out together. And most of us know where we're going next and some of you don't. And everyone just kind of figures it out. But that's the way you want it to work out. That's the way you want to work out. You want it to work out so that everybody says, hey, let's just stick together. We all have a job. We're going to go do this next. But for the people who are like not included in that little click. And if you don't have the people outside of that click to do all the other things within the organization, like drive the truck or take the show cars or run the

sponsorship department or whatever that may be, it becomes hard. Like that little click sometimes doesn't realize all the things that it takes around them to make everything go because it takes everything to make those cars go around the racetrack. But it's going to be an uphill battle for SHR after this announcement. And for the drivers in particular, you know, we were just talking about Josh Barry. He's probably known about this for a little while that something like this could be happening. Perhaps these drivers now are even feeling like they're racing for a new job. I mean, there's going to be a lot of team owners watching them with a closer eye knowing that they could be free agent at the end of the year.

Well, they've definitely all had pretty good performance, you know, for the circumstances that they had to be. I mean, they're 100% aware of the circumstances that they're living. We've heard them talk about it. We've heard the drivers talk about the uncertainty, and they just need to go do their job. And they've all been doing their job for the most part here and there. Josh Barry's done great the last few weeks. We've seen Noah do a great job from the beginning of the year.

Chase Briscoe's been up and down. Ryan Priest has been up and down. So it's a tough environment to work in. And I think for the drivers, it's going to be an interesting silly season for the drivers because of the fact that all this stuff is breaking loose so early. You've got some guys in the Xfinity series that are probably ready to move up. So there's going to be a couple people that get moved out. You look at Michael McDowell and he looks pretty smart, doesn't it?

He's like, he looks like a genius. He got his stuff done. He's set. And so they obviously know what they're doing. But, you know, if I'm an owner or a team manager or whatever, Chase Briscoe, does the Mahindra Tractor's sponsorship go with you? Like now you've got to look at all what also you've been in the table. It's not just about you being a great driver and a winning driver.

Like, how much finances do you have to help support this program? Well, think about this. When I retired last year, Mobile 1 went to Toyota. There's a few races left at SHR. But the majority of their program went to Toyota. Hunt Brothers Pizza went to Penske. Sunny D's been, you know, everywhere else. It's on the 47, too.

Bush Light went to Ross Chastain. Ford has just said, you know, I think that was another key factor in this whole thing. Ford's saying that, you know, they're not going to do another deal with Stuart Haas racing and went to front row so you don't have any of the manufacture money. I mean, you're talking piles of money that have been redistributed from just the four car. Now you're going to do it again. It's a tough circumstances for a lot of people. We'll continue to follow that story as we know more information.

The other story we've been following that has progressed since the last time we all met here on the pod. was Ricky Sinhouse Jr. who was slap with a $75,000 fine for the incident between him and Kyle Bush. I know you have spoken publicly on this already up in the booth with Clint and Mike. But what do you think about this? Because it's an interesting dichotomy with this. Yeah, that's a big word. But can you spell that for us real quick? Yeah, spell that for you. You know what it means. I can spell it. No, I think it's, I'm of the opinion that NASCAR has to live on both sides of the fence here.

I'm of the opinion that, you know, as rough and tumble and edgy as NASCAR acts and wants to be in certain departments, you have to be the exact opposite in the other departments. So you have corporate America that you have to keep happy on one side with the $75,000 fine. We're not going to tolerate that. And on the other side, it's like, hey, this is awesome. We're going to promote it. It's the greatest thing that happened to the sport. And it was a great moment for, you know, our sport. And it's no different than the NBA.

It's no different than the NFL. They're going to promote it. They're going to fine it. And that's the way that you run professional sports organizations, whether you like it or not. There you have it. What do you think about it? Hell, yeah, brother. I mean, that's just how it is.

It's entertainment. And I know, like, some of the guys are mad that he's getting fine, got fined $75,000. Then we're going to promote it. Well, here's the thing. If we don't show what happens all of it, then we're not going to be able to show you, which means your star power is going to go down because we don't have as many people or whatever eyeballs on it.

That was going to be one of the moments of the year in sports, is that clip. And it was all over everything. And I think the last time we had something like that was when Ross Chastain did the Hail Melon. It was all over everything. So, yeah, and then we made a rule for that.

We didn't find them, but we made a rule that you can't do it, right? So, like, things that happen. Every other sport, if you get in a fight, you get fined, they make a 30, They made a 30 for 30 on Malice at the Palace. What was that? Malice at the palace, which was the big fight between the Detroit Pistons, and I think it was the Pacers, like back in the 90s.

And, like, they've made story after story about that. Guys got suspended, but they made a lot of money off of it anyway. Yeah, and look, I had a fund every year. We'd save $50,000 because on those years, when it wasn't going bad, you had to, I would cause chaos intentionally. Would you pay the fines yourself? Okay. Is that how it typically works?

I paid them all. And we would set aside money because if you needed to do something like that, you just did it and you paid the fine. It was part of the show. And it was part of keeping yourself relevant. Just so everyone knows, Big Country is selling T-shirts.

They say, get off my truck. I bought one Big Country. I love you, big guy. I was talking to, yo, I was talking to Kelly, Mike Kelly and then before Ricky got in, I said, hey, next time you guys, Next time you guys want to go off and do that, you might want to bring more people. Kelly's like, yeah, we need to wait, maybe earlier in the week before the big guys show up.

You know what I mean? It's funny. Yes. What a week it's been for big country. He's been front and center. Lots of attention on him. Stenhouse still needs to get rid of those shorts. No, the shorts need to, he needs to put them for auction like Bob said.

I would definitely sell them. I would not wear them publicly anymore. You wouldn't wear them anyway. Kevin's still fixated on the shorts. The chubbies. Shorts are terrible. They're good shorts. All right.

Speaking of short, it's time for Mamba's social. Sips. Ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, Yeah. You're up. We didn't even talk about Gateway,

but we're going there next. We'll talk about our picks. We'll bring it back around. Yeah. Okay. For your sips. Welcome to your favorite

segment of the It's debatable. Happy Harvey podcast. Debatable. This week, we are going to go watch some Xfinity racing with Austin Hill and Cole Custer.

Let's break down kind of what happens here a little bit. They are racing hard on a restart. And this is after the road in the wall. So basically, Cole doors, they door each other, cuts the right front of the 21. Austin Hill goes into turn one and record. Cole has a thumb out the window right now.

So Cole's getting turned after they all hit the wall. And he's just one hand driving it. Thanks, buddy. Some out the window. I've never seen anyone do that. I thought it was pretty impressive. It is. I was watching the race during this moment.

And I don't really know maybe something else happened earlier in a race, but something just absolutely triggered because I didn't feel like that was really all Cole's doing when all this happened right there. I mean, they were racing, but it didn't feel like it was, it was to the magnitude that Austin Hill had kind of thrown a fit to. So he just basically downshift it, floored it, and drove him, drove him off the racetrack. So I would, I would venture to say there'll be some sort of reaction to that because it's just a, it's just a, I would call that a malicious act. A malicious act. Is that, that's a word? Is that too harsh? No, I mean, it was, it was, it was,

thought of. He knew what he's. Remeditated. Yeah. So here's the thing is like, so he cuts the tire. They just kind of, I didn't think that was a big deal. Well, then when he went down and they wrecked, Cole's now mad. He don't know why he's getting wrecked, right?

Austin felt like Cole doored him. They go down the backstretch. The caution is not out yet to this point. And Austin just keeps his foot in it and wrecks him. Well, he actually gasped back up and drove into it. Right. A lot of people were on social being like he should be suspended

and they're using words that are like, I'm like, oh, this is a bit much. This is racing. Like, I don't think you should be suspended. I did do that one time. Which part? The wrecking sewing like that. Yeah.

I did that one time. I think it was 2005 or so. Or so. Did you get suspended? I don't remember exactly what I did, but Kyle Bush cleared himself. He cleared himself and I don't remember everything that had happened up before that point, but he cleared himself off a turn for it, Dover.

and ran across the front of my nose and crashed just both in the wall and I just downshift it until the cars wouldn't go anymore. I just left my foot on the floor. I drove him as far as I could drive him. We round up around the corner into the middle of turns one and two

against the inside wall. And we got called to the trailer. Several well-documented run-ins are too. You guys are all good now, though. I was sitting up in the lounge and Kyle comes up in the lounge and he is screaming all the way up to come home. He tried to kill.

me. He tried to kill me. So that's the stuff that I'm saying. Like, that's what's being said on Twitter. It's like, you know, vehicle, like, trying to use. I'm like, guys, this is like, he didn't write, first off, he didn't, context matters. He didn't write rear him. When you write rear someone, I think at that point, your, like, gloves are off. Yeah.

Right? I don't know. I just didn't think it was worth that. We just turn into complete idiots when we get inside the car. Well, you're idiots before you get inside the car. Yeah. That too. Secondly, on a more bright, bright note.

Positive note. Yeah, positive note. Chase Elliott wins in the 17 in the Xfinity series. Great strategy. Great strategy. I love seeing the 17 in Victory Lane. Obviously, Ricky Hendrix

paint scheme for when he raced. This burnout, this is really why we brought it up because the burnout was amazing. It was. He did the, I was like a 720 down the front stretch, grabbed another gear, came back across. Kevin's counting. Did he only do two or three?

Three, right? We didn't get one. 60 and 360, 720. That's why I was thinking it might be. Good call. Yeah. Didn't get one on the cup side. So this one definitely.

Either way, we're not going to give it a 10. No. No? It's not the world's best burnout. No, it's not. But we're going to give it a 9.8. I think that was pretty good. Wait, so you saying, he said this one's better than Kazalski's?

Casasquez wasn't good. Luganos was good. No, because, oh, Lugano. So Lugano's the top. So yes. I think Joey has highest marks. I think I think I think Lugano's probably top. So he's just below whatever I rated him. Yeah. So this one specifically like joys was cool because he he like hung the left front and just kept in one spot. I just like the fact that I was close enough to it that it rattled the windows in the booth. Oh. Okay. That's fair. So that was fair. That was good burnout though. It's good burnout.

I enjoyed it. Congratulations. Good job out of you. Chase Elliott. All right. Time now for our last call. And we're going to talk a little bit about Gateway here and give our picks who we've been. leave can get it done. None of us were right last week, unfortunately. No, I think I picked Redick. Yeah. I always forget who I picked. You always pick a Toyota, so just go with that. Okay. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you picked any. I'm going to go off my rocker this week. Oh, what you got? I'm going to go with Kyle Bush. Okay. Wow. Well, he won this race a year ago and let a lot of laps start on the poll. That's a good choice. Yeah. And I think, gosh, I just think something good has to happen for those guys. And I think if it's going to happen, it's got to happen this week, so I'm pulling for him.

Okay. I'm picking the other Kyle, Kyle Larson. I think he will be on a little bit of a redemption tour after the disappointment of the weekend. He's trying to think of who he's going to pick. He hasn't decided yet who he's got. I'm going to. Who drives the 24-48? Who is it?

You know what? I am going to go with Alex Bowman in the 48. Oh. Yeah. I feel like that, one, they need it. But two, I think they've been stringing together. a lot of speed. That's the thing, right?

Like, he's sneaky quiet right now. Yeah. Because you kind of, you would think, well, you haven't heard, you don't hear much about Alex Bowman because they haven't won. Right. And they, but they have been in contention, just not up in the front two or three spots. They've been like four through six. That's right.

But when you look at his finishes, you're like, oh, well, that's pretty good. And it's kind of the same scenario that Chase Elliott was until he won, right? because we were just on Chase Elliott every week about, you know, they aren't doing this, they aren't doing that. And then they win. Alan Gustafson reminds you of his running position throughout all the races and his finishes and his finishes and his average finish. Very much the same situation with 48 right now.

Yeah, they had some good energy on the pit road. I feel like the boys are good. You got a little swag going back. I like it. Yeah. Okay. So there's the picks for Gateway. And you actually have our most recent winner on your Thursday show, right?

I do. Yeah. Christopher Bell is going to be on the show. So I'm looking forward to that because I think Chris Bell gets a, he gets a bad rap. For being like boring or something. They talk about being boring. And he's just overshadowed so much with all the things that he does. And, you know, I'm a Christopher Bell fan.

I think that he's, that he's a great kid. He's fast. He's in contention. He's dug himself out of a hold last two years. And their cars are fast all the time. They've had two months of terrible luck. And now he winds up in victory lane in typical Christopher Bell fashion.

It's in a range short and race. And then it's the he shouldn't have won. He shouldn't, didn't do this. This doesn't matter. And it's like, well, guess what? The guy just won a Coke 600 and he's got a ring. That's right. Twice.

I know. And he just does not get the credit that he deserves. And he's been very vocal that he wants to be the leader. And he wants to step up and do the things that it takes to be the leader. Because let's face it, Denny Hamlin's going to be at some point be out of the mix. and Christopher Bell is going to be at Joe Gibbs Racing for a long time. Yep. Yeah, we look forward to that conversation and we look forward to the race this week.

Make sure you keep following us on social media. Harvick, happy pod for all of the happenings. And we'll see you guys after next week. Yeah.