Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Tyler Reddick storms to win at Michigan, and Kevin Harvick compares Kyle Larson to Max Verstappen!

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

In Episode 49 of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick joins co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith for a deep dive into the latest NASCAR action, including a thrilling post-Michigan race analysis. The trio kicks off with a spotlight on Tyler Reddick’s remarkable victory at the Michigan race weekend! They also look ahead to the upcoming Daytona race, and discuss which drivers need to make a move with only 2 races left in the regular season. They also discuss the exciting news that the preseason NASCAR Clash will be held at the historic Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 2, after 3 years at the LA Coliseum. The trio also discusses Kyle Larson’s recent public challenge to Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen. Don’t miss out on expert insights and all the NASCAR excitement you crave! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If Kyle Larson went to be Max for Stappin's, to drive Max for Stappen's car, it wouldn't be but one or two days, and he would be damn close to being as fast as Max for Stappen. But there is no way that Max for Stappen comes up over here and does that in a stock car. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour presented by NASCAR Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick, back in studio. Ooh, yeah. Benzie. Good to have you back.

Mama with the good skin. Well, I don't like Zoom ones. It was very strange. I was sitting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week, not Jackson Hole, Montana. Montana, right? I mean, thought it was in Montana. I just thought you were in Montana. I didn't know the town.

Geographically challenged that one. It's okay. What are you wearing today? Mark Martin, look, Mark's the significance of that. There's a story to it. We got to give Mark his flowers. So, I know you probably don't know who Gucci Main is. I'm sure he does not.

He's a rapper and he's Mark Martin's favorite rapper. and Mark had an interview with the Rubbins Racing guys over on Barstool and was talking about how he loves Gucci Main. And Gucci Main clipped it and put him on the beginning of his new album. Really? And the first song, the first part of the first song, is Mark Martin's interview. Pretty cool.

And being the goat. That's probably a first time of the drivers had that happen. Mark loves it. Mark said he tweeted. He said, I may not have never won a NASCAR championship, but by golly, I'm on Gucci Main's album. I bet you didn't know this. I was actually in a country music video.

Which one? I was in one of Jake Owens. Oh, that's cool. I got to spray champagne in the back of a pickup truck. Oh, okay. Well, you're tight with him. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Are you saying Mark and Gucci aren't tight? No. No. They didn't know each other. You guys are like actually friends. Oh, yeah. That's true. Yeah.

Which is cool. Which is cool. Yeah. It's sick. Well, have you been in a music video? No. I have not either. I mean.

Or just the losers are here. Well, calm down. It's the sheen. It's the sheen. Yeah, for the audio audience, they don't know, but I have the best skin apparently in the studio, and Kevin heard comes up maybe third or fourth. You're saying it's better than mine?

I didn't say that. You said I agree with me. But yeah, but I didn't say it was the best of everybody. That is pretty cocky right. You just basically declared that she had nicer skin than Kate. I didn't say that. She said I had the nice skin. It came across that way, though.

We all do. Okay, everyone has great skin here. We're so back. Now, here we are. It wouldn't be a happy hour without insults flying right out of the gate. That's why they didn't happen last week. He couldn't hear me. Yeah, I know.

It was. It was weird to like, get that echo in his head. Not get made fun of. Oh, is this like intently look? I'm like, I can't tell. Did you say? I said, Kayla, what do he say? There was a little.

It's fine. We're moving on. We're here. Closers, continue to subscribe on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. Also, rate the show five stars. Leave a review. So we got plenty to talk about from Michigan. The race just ended a bit.

We're filming this the same day, of course, as the rain-delayed race occurred out there in the Irish Hills. We still are going to recap some of the Richmond fallout as well. Previewed Daytona this weekend, and Mamba has a very big single sip today. Controversial. Controversy. In the motorsports industry. All right. I'm excited.

Let's start with Michigan, guys. Tyler Reddick got the win. The seventh career win, second this season. We've documented on here over the course of the season. A lot of close calls for him. A lot of disappointments he's had getting close to a win. Now he finally crossed that threshold. Got another one.

I got out of the truck today. I took Keelan to the race shop to work and I got out. We were watching the beginning of today's portion of the race. And I got out and he said, who's going to win? I said, Tyler Reddick. Did you? Yeah, I did. Because I just felt like those Toyotas at the beginning of that race were,

they were so good on the long runs. Martin Truex, I mean, he was super good in the high groove. They were the only guys that could really make that high groove, higher groove work up on the race track. And it seemed like the longer that they, run. We've talked about them having more downforce throughout the whole year. And it felt like they had more grip as those runs went on. And, you know, with Larson leading that race early and having his problems and spinning out and wiping out a bunch of the players in the playoffs.

But I just felt like the, I felt like those 2311 Toyotas were going to be in the mix. Obviously, all the Joe Gibbs Toyota showed up in the mix as well. Yeah. What did you think about Tyler Reddick and the team's performance? Because we're getting close to the postseason, it's nice that they'll have momentum as they enter it. Probably maybe as the regular season title holders. Yeah, I would, if I was Tyler read it, because MJ was, Michael Jordan was in the house yesterday. The day before, yeah. So if I was Tyler, I would ask Michael to come to more races because it seems like that might be the same sauce.

Because he won when he was in the house of Talladega. It's huge for Tyler. Like, he's at a good year, a really good year. I mean, he's been leading the regular season points. I think he's like 10 up or something right now on Chase Elliott? He's 15. 15 now. So he's starting to, you know, edge that out a little bit, which is huge going into the playoffs.

And it's confidence. That's the thing because we've talked about a bunch on, on, look at his burnout. We've talked about a bunch on this show. Like, when he comes home second or doesn't finish it out, he's just so dejected. He is. So that part is huge. And I feel like his frustration that we've seen now, Tyler, this year is the fact that this year could have been spectacular. Yeah.

This could have been one of those on the book spectacular years. years because of the way that they've ran. And he's had those seconds and the seconds and the seconds and the seconds pile up. And I think it could still be spectacular. I think they still have the speed to go out and do the things they need to do to win the championship. But they got to find a little bit more consistency in between the great and the bad, you know, to be able to make it through those championships. But they've got the speed.

As a whole company, 2311, is even though Bob, we got caught up with that Larson incident, But it was in the top 10. Like, he had speed all weekend. Yes, he did. As a company, they're doing really well and everything they needed. And I think we expected that speed out of those two cars at Michigan with the way that Bubba has run there in the past. To see that speed out of those two cars, to me, wasn't a surprise.

And Tyler Reddick also dedicating the win to the late Scott Bloomquist, who was his mentor. And I know everyone is very familiar with him. We're, of course, thinking of his family. It's a little more of emotional win for Tyler Redick as well. Well, Tyler has a dirt racing background, and obviously Scott Blumquist had a lot of, you know, deep roots in the dirt racing side of the world and meant a lot to the late model community and dirt racing in general. And I think he was just, he was just that outlaw that kind of didn't fit the mold of, I'm going to follow the rules. He was going to do things his own way. I got to meet Scott, you know, a few times throughout the years.

And I think, you know, I think everybody in the racing community in the United States really respects the fact and the things that Scott did and understands the loss that comes with not having him around at the racetracks as we go forward. So, you know, we hate to see things like that happen because he was such a huge part of dirt late model racing. For sure, he was a generational guy, right? He was going from the old way we used to race into kind of where we are now. and he never lost a party. No. He was always good for one of those. And I don't know.

He's just an exciting character. He's an exciting guy and a legend. And everyone's going to miss him. And it just kind of, you know, I think Kyle Petty said it. And talking about Dale Earnhardt, he said that cowboys aren't supposed to die. And Dale was one of the last cowboys.

And the same kind of goes with Scott Blumquist. He's a cowboy. And they aren't supposed to die. So it sucks. Yeah, we continue to think about his family, of course. So Tyler Reddick, a big story leaving Michigan. So too was the flip that we saw from Corey LaJoy. This happened around lap 139. Pretty unusual because it's not like a major event premeditated this. You see him here

battling with Noah Gregson. What did you think when you saw this? Well, the lap before, I was actually watching a race and the lap before they kind of got, Noah kind of moved up the racetrack and blocked him. And I think Corey was trying to get side draft and actually ran into the left rear fender and got himself out of shape and the way that he spun out kind of got that car sideways. And I was really shocked how easily it just flipped over on its own. And I think that that is going to be a high concern. I heard Jeff Burton say this on a broadcast, a high concern for all the drivers, all the technical guys, all the teams for as easy as that car turned over. There's just no reason that those race cars should turn over like that when they're all by themselves. We've seen

that happened several times when somebody's pushing on the left side door and helps them kind of get lifted off. But man, that car just lifted off all on its own. It was quick. It was quick. And the crazy thing is that was two this weekend at Michigan because Ryan Segan, the Exfini race also flipped over down the back stretch too. But with Corrie's, it was like he made that move to the inside and it's like it almost dumped on the left and he kind of like shimmied back. Well, he hit that, he hit the left rear quarter panel. He just ran into the left of your quarter panel. Gregson, and he kind of jerked it off, and then it did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it kicked it so fast.

Yeah. And they were talking about on the broadcast that there was such a big headwind going down into three. So I would be interested to see if they think that all that wind played a part because it was doing something different than. Yeah, I don't think that that, I don't think that you mean from the tip over. Yeah, from the tip over part. I don't think so. I just think that we've seen these cars flip over a couple times, right? And we saw priests do it last year at Daytona. We've seen a few of these cars flip over. And it seems like when they get to a just these weird instances where they get, and I'd have to go back and look to see if the wheels were cranked to the right. Yeah, where it's moving.

Like that Willwell was wide open and helped it get off the ground. But we've seen that happen a couple times. But these cars are really finicky as far as, you know, there we see it again. And the wheels look pretty straight right there. So, you know, these cars are really finicky, whether it be a situation like this where they just have these moments where you're like, whoa, why did that happen? And I think there's still some things about the car that we don't really understand. When you go back and you look at yesterday's portion of the race where Denny Hamlin spun out, you know, right behind Bubba Wallace, when you go through that wake and you know you're going to get tight and you get into that wake of air behind the car and you put that wheel into it and you go past that car, then that right front fender starts to catch. And you've got all that wheel into it.

And that's why those cars spin out a lot like that because of the fact that you go through that wake with nothing, nothing. nothing. And then finally the air gets back on the front of the car and you've got the wheels crank to the left. And it's just, you know, you feel like you're going to slam into the wall. And then all of a sudden the last second that it catches, you're behind in the steering. But ultimately, that kind of took Denny Hamlin out of this race with when you go back and look at that in slow motion, you can see the hood bowing up. You can see the fender and the splitter. And all the things that we do to this car to get the underbody within hundreds of thousands of an inch and every portion of that underneath the diffuser in the back, the fenders, the splitter,

you know, they're all put at that optimum position. And then when you go through the dirt like that, and that infield at Michigan was pretty rough. I was wet too. So I would, I would suggest that they go back and maybe smooth that out a little bit. What goes through your mind as a driver in those situations? Because that's a pretty like violent, just kind of shocking incident we saw there. I mean, I guess maybe you're not really thinking about much, just waiting for it to end. Yeah, well, the first thing I will say is this car, I think you expect it more than you would have in the old car, just because this car is so edgy. Like, you know that you're going to have some spinouts. You know that you're going to have those potential moments like Corey has. You know, the wrecks are going to hurt worse. You're going to have moments like Danny Hamlin has. And these guys getting out of these cars, they're not really surprised anymore because it's part of the next-gen car.

It's, you know, there's still a lot of problems with this car that need to be resolved. But I can tell you that NASCAR will not like the fact that that Corey, the Joy car flipped over like that. And, you know, we've heard that they took that car immediately back to the R&D Center to try to try to come up with something. That's how we got to the roof flaps, right? We're cars flipping over like this and they came up with a solution to try to help them get on the ground. But when you see that car take off, the roof flaps are already deployed. So there's something about the angle that that that car is. car was and the speed that that car was going.

And you got to remember, these cars are 15, 20 mile an hour slower than the old cars used to be at Michigan. So the speed, NASCAR has reduced the speed with these cars. So definitely need to figure out what's going on with that particular angle and what lifted that car off like that. Yeah, definitely was a couple of factors together. So like I said, I'll be interested to find out what they kind of figure out with it so we can, you know, keep these cars on their back.

Because the other thing was later in the race, I think it was in the overtime, Ross Chastain spun out, and he was all the way backwards. Now, he was not carrying as much speed because he was kind of tank slapping, but he got all the way backwards and the roof flaps came out and put it right back on the ground. So I feel like the angle definitely had a major component to the whole thing. And we know NASCAR will be looking at that closely, trying to dissect what actually went down. You mentioned Ross Chastain, which kind of leads me to my next point about the playoff picture. Playoff picture definitely is getting pretty interesting here with two regular season races left before the postseason. Ross is now one point above, Bubba Wallace, one point below. What do you make of the cut line right now?

Because time is running out. It is the most stressful thing that you can ever go through. Sitting on that cut line like that, and we kind of lived through that the last couple years of my career before we were able to get locked in and be able to move on into the play. playoffs, it's stressful. And these guys today, I mean, Ross Chastain, Chris Busher, Martin Truex, I guess Ty Gibbs was really the only one that didn't have any issues. Kyle Bush didn't have any issues, but I don't even look at him as being on the bubble. I feel like, yeah, 93 below. And which we'll get into that in a minute. But, you know, I think that those guys on the bubble, it's stressful because every point counts. I think you were right. I think it's 10 points from

Tyler Reddick to Chase Elliott in the regular season points. And we saw the end of that race where the nine car of Chase Elliott got loose, got up into the 12 car. He lost seven spots. So now he goes from three points to 10 points behind. Just like that. And just like that. So every single point matters.

And I think sitting on that bubble, we saw the Chastain group make a decision at the end of stage two to stay out, got him nine points. They're really happy that they did that right now with the way that this race ended for them. What is that like, you know, for a team, too, is basically weighing the points game versus going all out for a win. I got to imagine it's a little tricky to manage. Well, if you're in position to win, and we used to have this conversation a lot throughout the years when you were in these types of scenarios. And even if you have won, you still have that regular season points battle that is happening. So there's different points battle that you have to look after.

But I think you have to keep points in mind. These guys will all tell you, I heard Chris Busher say it 100 times today. weekend. You know, we're just out here. We're trying to win. We're trying to do this. That is a bunch of shit. You are not out there. You know exactly. If you don't, it's your own fault that you don't know who you're racing. You need to know exactly who you're racing. You need to know how many points ahead they are, how many points behind you are. You need to know, if you're in position to go out and score stage points, how many stage points you can score, you need to know every freaking thing that's going on. So I don't like hearing all that BS because there is, you need to know that's an easy excuse to try to get out of an interview, but that's the most nonsense answer that I've ever heard in my life. You know all the scenarios. And if you don't, you're not paying attention. Did you ever, did you ever use that tactic to get out of an interview or no? I mean, I tried to do. I would just decline in. I would just not do it at all. Kevin, you were kind of notorious for just like no to the media.

Yeah. We saw Will Power do that. That was about to be that. Dylan Welch, my boy, Dylan, way to take that one on the chest. But then he got a good interview out of it. That was crazy. And if you go back and you watch the, and we're talking about Will Power

from the Indy car race, he basically tells him to go, no, F himself. He did. No, he didn't basically. He definitely said that. And so, and then he realized it was Dylan, and he's like, oh.

Yeah. And then he granted him a good interview. But Will's a fiery guy. He is. He has that epic meme. Takes one and no one. Yeah. I got a funny story.

So we're driving home from Florence this weekend. Delaina's been under the weather. So it's myself, Keelan, and Piper. We're driving home. And she's texting us because we ran out of the racetrack, trying to beat the race before it started so that we could get an early start home. And she texts something about what the F happened at the end. Well, I hit the audio play and says, what the F happened at the end?

And Piper's like, hey, does that? mean? And she said the word. She said the word. I'm like, yep, that's what it means. Don't say that anymore. That's what it means. Don't do it again. Only mom can use that word. That's right. That's pretty funny. Yeah, well, you got to watch it around kids. They repeat everything. Everything. When you, when you were doing more of your at-track pit road reporting, did you ever have like a willpower moment like that? No, not really. Honestly, they were always, drivers were always pretty nice to me. That's good. It's good. Yeah.

respect for that. How about you? Have you had that moment yet? Not yet, but I'm sure it's coming. Yeah. They give me these funny looks and I know what the look means. Like, they're just not happy about whatever just happened. I'm like, ah. Hey, you just got to do it. I think it takes some finesse, right? Like, they're just managing those situations and also not asking a dumb question in a moment where they're already agitated. Yeah, that's the worst part. Just don't ask a dumb question. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you had plenty of those in your career, right? If I wrecked, just ask me why I wrecked. Yeah. Just ask what happened. Just lay it up. Yeah. Yeah. When in doubt, what happened?

Yeah. You tell me and I'll just back back out. That's right. Okay. I want to talk about the Kyle's for a minute. And I'll start with Kyle Bush, who he's got to be relatively happy overall with how that race went. They showed signs of speed, good calls by his crew chief, Randall Burnett. I know they didn't get the win.

But he seemed pretty chipper in his post-race interview, at least. Just some positives. I just want to know what happened. How did we get here? How in the world did they take two weeks off and these cars start running like they're running. Because those cars, those cars, I mean, at Richmond, Austin Dillon's, I mean, he had the best car. And we go to Michigan, Kyle Bush leads a bunch of laps and runs up front, fires off today. It's like a light switch. Like a light switch. And, you know, runs up front. But,

man, they have done what they needed to do over the two-week break to put their cars in a better position. So it's been, it's a different ballgame. 93 below the line still. But I mean, hey, Kyle could win at Daytona. He's got the speed, though. Yeah. He's got the speed. All of a sudden, they've showed up with speed. Either one of them could win a Daytona, but now it's looking like you might better win at Darlington, which is kind of the more important piece because Daytona's open. So, you know, essentially we all feel like almost anyone can win that race. But Darlington is really where it's going to matter. Kevin, look, vacation helps a lot of people, you know, look at, look what it did for your tan. You got a nice tan on.

it really brings you to life sometimes. Well, vacation does do great for a lot of things. Yeah. So, yeah, it's definitely good to have some time away. Some time away. That's right. You reflect your thoughts. There you go. Exactly.

Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts on Kyle Busch or are you done on that? Oh, oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Sorry. I just, I think Kyle is, he was happy after, if you saw him after Richmond, too, went right away when Austin won. Like, he's stuck his head in there. He was celebrating.

I don't know. I think he's not, I think he's in a good headspace. I think he's just frustrated overall with where they're at. But like, it's not like he's Eeyore walking around the garage. Like, he's in a generally good space. So, I mean, I think he's ready to go get him. And in the end, as bad as they've had their moments this year with everything that has happened. Yeah.

Kyle's handled it pretty good. Yeah, that's my point. And I think that all of us are waiting for that blow up that we're waiting for Kyle to blow up. that we're waiting for Kyle to blow up. And it hasn't come. I mean, he's done a pretty good job for as bad as things have been between the pit stops, the poor performance of the cars, the crashes, the bad luck. He had an injury.

All the things that has gone on. I mean, he's handled it better than I thought he would have. And that moment has not come. And now they have some speed in their cars, which can be dangerous. For him, for sure. So that's the deal on Kyle Bush. Kyle Larson went around kind of creating an accordion effect with a number of drivers that are in the playoff, you know, Hunt. Chris Buescher was one of them, some damage on the 23 as well. He just basically owned up to it. Like, hate that that happened and basically said it was his mistake. More or less. Yeah. I think when you go and you look at, I mean, that was an aggressive restart by everybody. And they're going down to back straight. And he kind of bounced off and wound up on the bottom and started to work his way up. And while he was working his way up to the middle groove,

he wound up behind a couple cars and just in a weird location as far as air. And with these cars, sometimes when you get in those spots, like that thing is just going to come around on you because of the fact that there's no air on the car, the right front fender gets out into some air, the way that you go around cars. And sometimes if you have to lift out of the throttle, you know, we saw that with Denny Hamlin too, is, you know, you lift out of the throttle with the wheels cranked and just peek outside. And as soon as you lift, that thing just snaps around. there's a lot of things that just happen. And it's just part of, you know, the next-gen car racing.

And Kyle was being super aggressive. And the cars are, they're edgy at Michigan. And when you're running that fast and things happen, they happen quick. I love that description. He was almost the bubble. He was almost the bubble buster. He was almost the bubble burst. He about was. Listen, that's what everyone wanted. They wanted these things to be hard to drive. And it seems like, I mean, even listen to Kevin every week, like, they're hard to, they're hard to freaking drive. especially at a place like Michigan where there's a lot of turbulent air. And like in that specific restart, he had one car right in front of him.

The 12, I think it was, was like a lane in half up. And then Bubba was kind of in that half lane on his right rear quarter panel. There's just not a lot of air getting to the five. And he's trying to cross seams because he said he's trying to work his way up. That's just the recipe for a really hard exit.

And, you know, yeah. Shit happens. Yeah. Well, and it's on the. restarts, these guys all know that they can gain the most spots on the restart. So you have to air to being too aggressive. Yeah. I just, I think if you're not aggressive on these restarts and trying to just protect and maintain, you're just going to get eaten up. And you have to be willing

to take those chances and rec one every once in a while. Overall, did you think this was a good race? Because I feel like it was one of the more entertaining ones. I mean, there's a lot of comers and goers, a lot of different things happening. I felt like it was entertaining. I'm kind of with everybody else. If you don't have lights, let's start at one. Ah, yes. Trying to get these races done, just saying. Just saying. It breaks it up.

And I hate that it was broke up and raced on Monday because it was a good race. You know, I think this was definitely one of the more entertaining Michigan races that we've seen because of all the things that were happening. You know, I think that when we fired back off this morning, the racetrack was super fast. and heard a lot of guys talking about how loose their cars were because of all the rubber on the racetrack and the things that they had done in the previous days working on getting the front of the car to turn. And they fire off today. The track's clean, has more grip. And Michigan is notorious for firing off good.

And then as we saw those runs go, we saw the eight car of Kyle Bush start to back up. We saw those Gibbs cars start to go forward. I heard a lot of guys talking about loose race cars though. Yes, we did. So now the teams have a pretty tight turnaround with the Monday race to get prepared and loaded up to go to Daytona Beach, Florida, which is the next race on the schedule. And it is a very unpredictable place. Are you going out this weekend? You know, I'll be there.

It's industry night tonight. He's going to wear his makeup out. Industry night. I look good. What's industry night? Well, I learned today that there's some sort of industry night in Charlotte. Well, like, on Mondays, like this restaurant. I guess we're not in the industry.

You're Kevin Harvick and I'm Caleb Vincent. NASCAR industry. It's not the NASCAR industry. She's thinking it real personal. Who's drinking without me? What do you mean? This party is going on. No, it's like some of the bars are closed.

So like industry night, like, you know, some other bars are open, different people out. And I look good today. Yeah. He said on, he said on show days, he goes, he's glad that it's industry night because he gets to wear his makeup out. Yeah. Oh. Skin can really glow. Oh, you mean the bar industry?

Yeah. Yeah. I do know about that. I used to be a bartender back in the day. She's winning. She'll get it. You set her out. I'm not slow.

I'm pretty sharp. He set you up. He set you up. But yeah, I'll be out there. Shout to the fans. Yeah, shout out to the fans in Michigan. I saw you at Ocean Deck one year. You guys were awesome.

Remember when you almost broke my nose? Slap the bill of her hat. Oh, you did? Started bleeding. When? Yeah. Many moons ago. He just did it as a joke.

And then it was like, oh. Boom. And then it was like. Oh, yeah. Bad deal. Is it bad deal? Don't wear a hat tonight. No, no, no, these braids, these are too good.

Look, like right now I have this vision of your head just shaved with a one. I don't think. It would look the same. No. It really would. I think it'd look awful. Yeah, I'm not going to do it. Now, you can pay me.

We can talk about... It always has to be money or a free dinner. You can pay me. You can do this. Why? Because if I'm going to do something that's going to take an L, I'm going to get something extra in return for it. Just like we're very close on this weather situation. Oh, yeah.

What are we at now? Twitter, the closes were hollering at me about it, so I appreciate you guys checking in on that. Keep it up with the score. Yeah, keep up with the score. I think we need to get to 11 and is that like 10 right now. Oh, we'll get there. So I think.

There's no way there's... We're good. You'll probably be there this weekend. No, don't see. No, Saturday night. I want them to race Saturday night at Daytona. When was the last time that happened? Last year.

Did we race on... Yeah. There was no delay. No. Are you sure? Yeah, because that's rare. I don't remember that. It was electric.

The energy was amazing. I was, we did driver intros and it was fun. I'm excited for this weekend. Yeah, I am as well. Hope you don't get your shoes dirty. I walked in today and he's got a, he's got a paper towel and he's down there wiping his shoes off. He got to clean him off a little bit. It's trying to look.

Well, you came in with, he came in with brand new ones. I'm like, told you. New shoes every show. Oh, look at you. You didn't match the shirt on purpose? I did. They're great. You do?

I walked out, my wife is looking at me. I'm like, what are you looking at? She's just wardrobe check, of course. Wardrobe check. It's a gray on gray. Okay. Yeah, it looks good. Yeah.

We didn't do our usual shoe assessment right off the top of the show, so we had to get that in there somewhere. Okay. What are teams up against when it comes to Daytona because this place is very unpredictable? Yeah. And you have so many different agendas at this race. You've got guys that are going to throw caution to the win to go out and just win that are already locked into the playoffs.

You've got guys that want to throw caution to the win because that's their only chance to get in the playoffs. And at this race, I mean, anything can happen. Anybody can win. Literally, anybody can win. So you just have to, you have to, once again, go down and be aggressive, be a good pusher. You have to get your car so it handles good enough to be pushed.

But it's going to come down to track position and fuel mileage to put yourself in that position. And then you're going to have to hang on from there because it's going to get aggressive. And I don't think there's anybody that is in the field that isn't thinking to be aggressive, aggressive, just to try to put yourself in position to win a point, to win a race, to get more points, whether to put you into playoffs. But I still think we're going to have a surprise.

I don't know where it's coming from. I still think we're going to have a surprise winner. I kind of hope we do. That would be cool. Just to make it, just to make Darlington that's cooler. I think if I'm looking at it, if I'm the 23, I feel the best about it because his Toyota teammates. If you look at who,

most of them are already in. Ty Gibbs is in a real good spot. He has more help. You would think, I don't know this, but you would think that they'd be like, how can we help the 23, get this win?

If we can help him, let's go off and do that. So I think he's in a really good... Well, and we know going into these super speedway races, there's going to be some team, you know, some structure to the manufacturers.

Yeah, for sure. And I think that they're all going to have some sort of plan to go out and try and execute at the first two stages. After that, usually the plan goes out. I was going to say, how often does it just... Yeah, and it gets so screwed up with people that are wrecked or people that are tore up or the strategies get mixed up, but there's going to be some strategy. There's going to be aggressive strategy that comes into play. And we've seen this fuel mileage, slow the pace

down, put yourself in position to try to have the shortest pit stop to get the best track position at the end of these pit stops. So it'll be interesting. I can't. I can't wait. I'm glad I don't have to do it. I was going to say stress levels are different for you this time. My stress level is down. I'm going to be drinking a beer sitting on the couch. There you go. Well, Austin Dillon is one who has won at Daytona in the past. Could potentially replicate that, but he's still in the news, guys,

because they, of course, appealed the penalties that were handed down by NASCAR. So this happened since our last show. The playoff berth was revoked, and he was docked 25 points. Gets to keep the win, but they are appealing this. It'll be heard on Wednesday. Do you think NASCAR made the right decision? with the choice they put forth there. So I think when you go back and you assess this situation,

I still believe that the first hit on Joey Legano, nobody likes the way that that was done. But I think if that was it, I just don't think that there's any penalty. And I don't think we get to the point that we're at to put NASCAR in a position to have to start making these calls if it wasn't for that second move on Denny Hamlin. So, you know, I think right there,

when they go back and they look at the data, you know, apparently he throttles up and gets to the back of the 22 and then the steering angle is excessive with the 11 car. So that's going to be a tough one to win in an appeal. And that's the tough spot of where we are from a driver's standpoint with all the data and everything that goes with this car and everything that you can see. So it's, you know, I think that the appeals are always tough to win. We've seen several of them won, but majority of them lost. And I think in this particular scenario, if we're going to, NASCAR has to get in the middle of officiating these types of instances, or where does it stop? Where does this, where is the line in the sand? And I think they've finally drawn a line in the sand because of all the injuries and things that

we have seen with this car, we see the impact that Denny Hamlin took. We've seen two drivers get suspended for these right rear hooks. And I just don't think that we can take it any further. You can be more aggressive with this car. You can run into people harder. And I think there has to be a little bit of rough driving, officiating, put into NASCAR's playbook. Or they're just going to keep going, right? Like when we went to the clash the first year, everybody didn't really understand how we can push and shove like we did.

By the time we got there the third time, what a mess. Yeah. What a mess. And I had to do the same thing at the road courses because of the indie restarts. You know, it was just, hey, just push the guy in front of you. And if you weren't the guy pushing, you were getting pushed into somebody else. So you have to be able to do that. But I hope they get to the point where they can do this immediately.

If we're going to officiate the end of the races, which they should. And they should also officiate rough driving to a certain degree as they have been to a certain degree. But they should do it pretty quick. We've got the technology. we need to add somebody else up in the, you know, up in the tower for the officiating with race control from a driver's perspective or something like they do in other series. We got to get to the point where we just do it instantly because you have the data to do that. Did you ask somebody about that? I did.

I did. Yeah. I did. I did. Steve Phelps about that. Well, we'll have to see. But NASCAR definitely is sending a message to the competitors that, hey, this is not okay. And this is what is going to happen if you do this. I mean, I think, again, the 22 thing, I think no one loves it, right, necessarily, but it's fine. It's the two things put together that brings the penalty upon it. I really don't like the hooking of the right rear just because I think it's a very vulnerable situation and people get hurt.

Whether it was this car before, like, it's just not good. That being said, I do want to ask you, Kevin, the car length. So, so a lot of people on social have been like, it's not four car lengths. It's not, it was two. How many car lengths back was this? I mean, getting into turn. It was a solid three.

Because is it, now when you say a car length, is it the nose of the first car to the tail of the second car? That's not three. It's not four car length. Like if we can roll. I hope more like two. Okay. So two isn't that, is that really that agree?

just too carly. I'm asking as, you know. Look, like I said earlier, I think you get away with that one if the right rear hook doesn't happen as much as everybody else isn't going to like it. And, you know, it's it's the, it's the position that you're in with this particular point system to have to go out and do things that are outside of your comfort zone. And I truly believe that if the Denny Hamlin situation doesn't happen, I don't think they penalize him for spinning out Joey Lagano. So I don't think we're sitting here having the same conversation today.

I think that instance is over and done with. And we're just waiting for Joey Lagano to wreck Austin Dillon. Yeah. And but that's that's the balance, right? Because if, let's just say the Denny Hamlin thing didn't happen. And he spins Legano out and Lagano says, well, the first, chance that I got you, was at where? Well, let's say it's at Watkins Glen going through the S's and he bounces off the guardrails, gets hit in the door, and we have a concussion on our hands.

Well, that retaliation went bad. Right. And that's not good. So now there's this balance of, okay, where do we have to step in and stop that? And it's a tough balance. Joey Lagano also in the news, fine $50,000 for coming down pit road pretty quickly. And Austin, Dillon, family and stuff was standing there and they decided, obviously, that they didn't like what he did. He compared it an analogy this weekend to someone breaking into your house, stealing all of your things, and then celebrating outside your house with your things. Yeah. So what do you make of this whole Joe?

Well, I think that, I think that Joey knows that was wrong. I think when you go back and watch the in-car camera footage of Joey going down pit lane, yeah, they motioned him to the inside because they wanted to interview him at the end of the pit road. So he had to go buy all the cars and go to the end of pit road with the top five cars to do his interview because he was one of those cars that was requested because he was a storyline. And that's how this works. Well, the part that I don't like is when he revs the engine up, spins the tires, he's got toe links broken in the back. And yeah, there were too many people on pit road. Those people should not have been on pit road. I agree with all that.

But you can't do that. Look, I've done some dumb things. And, you know, I'm right there in the dumb category. But you can't rev your engine. I mean, there's little kids and wives and girlfriends and people and sponsors and officials. But he went by three or four different officials to get to that group of people. And then, you know, just put on a huge burnout. right there.

So that can't happen. The officials were also kind of jumping. Like a lot of people were like, why was there so many people? Fair. There was in that section of pit road, they were too far. But the officials were also a little jumpy to get out of the way of him coming down. Yeah. Did you see the official coming at him?

Ryan Galada. He was, he was flexed up. Ready to rip him a new one. And then he jumped in that ass. Yes, he did. I was like, my guy. Now, one thing that I do think is a part of this situation that probably hasn't been talked about that much, there's a little bit of, I don't think the 11 nor the 22 feels like they, I don't know if they really respect Austin Dillon and the three. Like, when your little brother beat you at something, there's a little bit of like, are you kidding me?

Like, I just lost to what, like, I think there's a little bit involved with that, that they're a little mad that he was about to win to. that doesn't get talked about very much because, you know, it's different if it's, I think it looks different if it's like a Christopher Bell, someone who wins regularly. When it's someone from that you think sucks, as Joey said in his interview, I think it comes across a little bit differently,

a little extra added motivation to being mad about it. Yeah, and I think the part that gets overlooked in this whole scenario is, why did the caution come out? Right. Well, that was... They had stuck by and through all of that, but the caution was kind of tough. Yeah, and, you know, I think that when the caution comes out, I think it was the 47 and 41.

47 got loose and got into the 41. Could you imagine if it was just a normal week? But the caution did come out for that. And when you go back and look at the restart, I mean, Lugano just, I mean, he just beat him on the restart. Beat him fair, passed him clean. And I think that's also why Ligano was a little bit frustrated. was he felt like he did a really good job, did it fair and square, and then just got run over. So I get it from all, I can see it from everybody's perspective.

Austin Dillon's perspective, I get it. Joey Lagano, I get it. Poor guy Denny Hamlin, though. I mean, I don't know. And he understood the scenario that Austin Dillon was in. So it's a tough scenario, and I'm glad there's some sort of, there's some sort of bottom to the, to the whole thing. as far as lying in the sand because we were we were getting pretty low in the things that you had to stoop down and do we'll get to the bottom of it also wednesday when that appeal is heard and

we will know the outcome and continue to follow that story so a couple other announcements that happened since our last show the clash is moving to bowman gray in 2025 this is pretty cool I think but I mean what do you guys think I said I thought it would be neat to see it yeah pretty neat to which you guys are like maybe what do you think well I just hope we have a heater in a booth. You're going to get the VIP treatment. That's really what I'm open for. There better be a heater in that booth because it could be cold.

And I think that's really the biggest question that I have about this. I think it's, I think the event being at Bowman Gray where they used to race cup cars in the late 50s up into the early 70s and all the history and nostalgia that goes with Bowman Gray Stadium. Those fans are, I would say rabid. I was about to say. I was like, you say it. I would say those fans are revving. So I think it's, you know, as long as it's dry, I think it's going to be a,

I think it's going to be a spectacular event. And I think that being able to go to a racetrack that has such a historic place in our sport, but also such a historic place on our weekly basis from a weekly racing series standpoint, just adds more to the mystique of Bowman Gray. And, you know, I hope, my hope is, that we don't do it again.

And if we do it again, it's in another 10 or 15 years. And I really would love to see us get to the point where we go to places like this and we just show up and we race and we put on a spectacular show and everybody's talking about it until the next time that you show back up there.

I hope we don't overdo it like we did at the Coliseum. I get that we had soft walls and infrastructure and things that we needed to pay for, that we built for that facility. But let's think a little more general now. You know, let's be able to take that stuff that we build, build that same track in a different stadium or arena that we can take all over the world and not just make it for the L.A. Coliseum. And I think that was really the only disappointing thing about the L.A. Coliseum, if we had just done it one year, it would have been spectacular. Yeah.

Everybody would have been talking about it for years to come. Then we did it year two and it was kind of like, that was okay. And then year three, it was like, that sucked. Yeah. Do you feel the same way about the Chicago Street course? Because we've obviously done that twice now. Do you think that spectacle needs to be? But I don't look at the Chicago Street course as such a gimmick.

Okay. Because you're talking. And I think that I shouldn't call it a gimmick. That's a bad word. It's unique. Yeah. The non-points races. Yeah, it's an exhibition race for money.

So it's a different setup. I look at it as maybe you could have some sort of stadium series to where you travel this race around to different stadiums. so that we could get to different cities. Sure. The Chicago Street Race, that's a legit race, right? And it's, you know, it's a, that's a big investment that they made into that particular event. But that event is spectacular. People show up.

They're excited about that. And maybe it was just the fact that we were in Southern California. I don't know, that they didn't show up to the clash. I'm from California. I love California and think we should race there. But, you know, maybe there's just not as many race fans. in L.A. as there are in the Midwest. Yeah.

And I think that has something to do with how the event is viewed is how many people are sitting in the grandstands. And I can guarantee you when we go to Bowman Gray, it's going to be full. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. So everybody that was mad about the clash not being at Bowman Gray the first time. Because I remember when we said we're going to L.A. And everyone's like, why would you do that?

We have the same exact thing, Winston-Salem. You better show up. You better be there. Like, if you don't go and support this event, they heard you. They're bringing it right where you want to. So it better be packed out. Like, without it, without, that shouldn't even be a question. But I hope people understand that this event ultimately should be about new markets

and exposing what we do in our sport to other people that have never been exposed to it before. I would love for this thing, to your point, to be international. I would love for us to maybe move it. earlier and then ship stuff over to like Australia because it's summertime there when wintertime like the weather and the regions have so much to do with how where you can race because we still have to fight the elements so like we can't just drop it in Boston you know what I mean like you got so now we're looking at the lower half of the country or you know going to like Brazil which would be cool we have a footprint in Brazil he's on that big Brazil kick I'm on a big Brazil

Since he went there. That's a good time in Brazil. Well, we saw that it was, we reported that they were. We're going to Mexico. Yeah, they, well, yeah. But they were reportedly talking to Brazil. And I think that something like that would be spectacular. Put that same footprint right in the middle of their stadium and off we go.

And you could do, and it doesn't have to be the, you can be a stadium style, but you can also do a street race style and do it, you know, an oval. Why? Why not? No way. Why? Clash. For a left-hand dirt?

Why not? I think we, I think, not a road course. For the clash. I know, I'm not saying not a road course, but you can still make it like an oval style street race. You think? Yeah, why not? A block or two down, bang a left, a block or two down, go around a park, going like a dog. That's what I'm saying.

We'd have to put some banking in. Well, maybe some parks have some good banking in it. Have some whoopty-dee-dee-dee-d-it. I love this brainstorming session, but I'm going to move on if that's cool. To a Haas factory team announcing Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer, moving to their Xfinity program in 2025. You wanted to talk about this. What are your thoughts?

I'm so confused. You're confused. I am so confused. I thought Stuart Haas Racing was shutting down. It's a restructure? It sure seems like a restructure to me and just a restructure of ownership because it's, it's very interesting to me that you would keep two Xfinity teams and not keep your, you know, keep two cup teams. Like you're going to make money or at least. have a chance to make money on your cup teams. There's not very many opportunities to make a,

you know, a great business out of having two Xfinity teams. But, I mean, we went from, we went from shutting Stewart-Hoss racing down to now we're a Hoss factory team. So I'm not sure what's going on, but it sure seems like a breakup, not a not a shutdown. We haven't, it's not a full divorce over there. Yeah. We haven't, we haven't got confirmation yet that the charters have been sold, sold, right? like we're like they were speculating on where they were going but no one's like confirmed confirmed right well we saw the we saw the front row announced that they were expanding right but no one's like come out and said we bought this from them yet yeah well i mean there's no charters well that yeah so like until no confirmed charters right so there's a lot of there's a lot

of things up in the air and like depending on where all that stuff lands like maybe like one maybe there's no charter two if there are in like something things didn't unfold the way they thought. Maybe they end up with another one. Maybe they end up with two cars. Like, no one really, just because they said they were done. And obviously, Gene's like, I'm not done. Tony might be done, but I'm not done.

It sure seems that way. It sure seems like Gene is not done and Tony was done. That's what it appears to the public eye as this was, hey, I'm done, but Gene's not. Yeah, which is fine. Yeah, which is totally fine. I want them to be here. They've been here for a long time. Every time I see Tony Stewart

climbing out of a dragster and doing an interview over there, he's smiling. He's got a big smile. He's having a great time. So I don't think anybody on this earth would fault him for doing the things that he's done because he sure seems happy.

Yeah, shout to Tony. He's also about talking about a kid. Who had Sheldon Creed and Sam Mair on your Hoss factory team? Big Go-Card. Yeah. I think it was interesting the comments out of it on social.

A lot of people are like, oh, that's a backwards, or sideways move. And I'm like, you mean the team that just won the Xfinity championship? You mean the team

that has Riley Herps looking like he might be ready for that next step? Like he's put it in a really good year together. They're running fast. So like, it's not a backward step. They're at least on the same level.

But I don't see them being anywhere as good as they are now. Depends. And on? On who leaves them from that shop? Yeah. Well, I mean, even if they don't have anybody

leave from the Xfinity shop, you're never going to be as good without all the cup resources because you can you can bury so many resources into that into that cup program financially. And I just, I don't see those guys. They might take the first half of the year and be as good. But once that next step of evolution starts to evolve, there's no way they're as good as they are now. And I don't view, you know, I view Cole as a guy that can help you go forward.

Yeah, he can fill some holes that you might. I think he fills a lot of holes on that Xfinity team from an experience standpoint in putting those cars where they need to be and keep them progressing from a performance side. And I just don't see that happening. Those other two guys are going to do, you know, Sam's won some races. Sheldon's not won a race. I just don't see them being able to do what Cole can do from a leadership standpoint with his experience. We'll have to see how this new complexion of the team plays out next season. So I teased it earlier, the fact that you have one big.

sip. The floor is yours, my friend. What do you got? One big sip. Oh, man. I hope my water's, my water hasn't been sitting here for five weeks, has it? I have no idea. That cup hasn't moved. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your favorite part of the program, Mamba's social sips. And it's not Sips. It's just one long sip. Okay. So Kyle Larson wins the Knoxville Nationals for the third time a couple weeks ago. And some one reporter asked him about if he thinks he's better than Max for stopping. Kyle says if he raced in a, if he drove a F1 car, he probably wouldn't beat him. But he said there's no way that Max could come over, go run the Chili Bowl, go run Knoxville National or run any dirt, anything like that, and run with him. He said, when it comes to diversifying the skill set,

the disciplines, I got them and you can quote that. Now, I agree with that personally. I've been saying for a couple of years that Kyle Larson is the best driver in the world. And the folks across the pond seemed like they did not accept to that. They took a exception to that. They took some hard jabs back at Kyle Larson. And so, and that's why I'm going to lay it up to you guys. I think that their lack of respect for the.

other disciplines because it, how hard they were on it, tells me that you guys don't respect like V8 supercars either. You don't respect like the IndyCar folks either. Like, there's a lot of good drivers that have spread across just because you guys are running country to country, another world champs when you do your championship. That doesn't mean the best drivers over there. Well, we've been in this system. I took Keelan over there for, you know, about a year and a half to be in this,

I would call it European development system for their F1 drivers. And those kids know go-karts, F-4, 3, 2, 1. That's their development system. If you don't make it to F-1, then you start to go drive your sports cars or you drive rally or, you know, there's very little direction that comes with doing anything outside of F-1 and carts. carts is your path. And, you know, the thing that I can tell you is everyone over there is not very well educated on NASCAR and what NASCAR actually is.

And I actually had to explain to the guys on the go-kart teams what NASCAR was because their view of it is it's a car you go buy at the dealership. And you go out and you tune it up and fix it up and you go race it at the track. They had no idea that we had the shops and the town. technology and everything that comes with that. So they're poorly educated on what NASCAR is. But the thing that I can tell you that if Kyle Larson went to be Max Verstappen's, to drive Max Verstappen's car, it wouldn't be but one or two days. And he would be damn close to being as fast as Max Verstappen. But there is no way that Max for Stappen comes up over here and does that in a stock car. So I think Max has, you know, he's extremely talented and very, very, very good at what he does for his discipline.

I heard him talk about drivers being specialized in their discipline. Yep. That's not Kyle Larson. Right. Kyle Larson can go out and drive anything. He's very good at his discipline. Right. But he's got multiple disciplines.

And we saw what he did in an Indy car. And I just, I truly believe that Max would do okay. but he's not going to do anything anywhere close to what Kyle Arson does. And I think that Kyle Arson, I really want to see, I wish we could get Zach Brown on this show. Because I have some pressing questions for you, Zach, and how we can get Kyle Larson into this F1 car to get him on the racetrack and testing and in the simulator to see if we can get him up to speed in a couple weeks

because I believe that we could. But, you know, I just think that some of the arrogance that comes from, you know, the international crowd on the media side to just say, you can't do that. Kyle Larson, that's not even a fair comparison. They just don't even know what they're talking about. So here's it.

I got to give credit to Ash Van der Leigh who had an interview with Max that you just kind of talked about. Max is like in each discipline, you know, everyone's specializing good and this that and the other. And that's cool. But the conversation for me is I've seen, I'm not saying Max couldn't come over by driving. other cars, but I've literally seen

Kyle Larson do it at a high level and be great in these different cars. So, with that being said, I also think if you took the top three, not the top three, picked three cup drivers, pick three indie car drivers, pick three F1 guys, three guys from V8

Supercar. I think if you pick three dirt guys, one from late models, one from sprint cars, maybe one from midgets, and you mix them all together and let them drive each other's cars, right? And there's an overall point saying that we grade or whatever. I think it would be shocking to see who would be at the top. I think it would be very interesting. I would go off and say Scott McLaughlin and SVG are going to be higher than people think. I think the F1 guys, because they're so locked into their discipline,

would struggle a lot on the other ones. And I think that's like a little. It's like a little mini motorsports Olympics. Yeah. I like that idea. Well, it's funny you say that. We were talking off-screen, the Olympics. Carting in the Olympics. Because that's, I think that would be a great way to find out because everyone does carting.

And it's easy to train in that. And it's easy to, the carts are pretty similar. Yeah, it may give a nod to the F1 guys and Open World guys a little bit. But Larson does, goes to track house all the time. Larson actually showed up and raced one of the national go-kart races. How did he do? A couple years ago. He's going to need to run a couple more.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, but he was in practicing things, he was fast. He just, you know, the racecraft and everything that came with how aggressive those guys were, I think caught him off guard. But I think he ran like 20th out of, I don't know. It's a national event, so there's a lot of. Yeah. But to your point, though, I think with, if he did that the whole time, he just showed up the week of.

Yeah. Like, it jumped in there. I think it's an interesting conversation because it's hard to get these guys out of their discipline. And we've talked about it on this show. I wish that our guys would be more versatile. I wish the F-1 guys would be more versatile. Let's go do the 24 hours of Daytona like they used to. And all these guys show up.

And we make this a truly international event so that we can start having more of this discussion. I would love to see Max Verstappen show up and drive the 24 hours of Daytona. I'd love to see Kyle Arson do it more. I'd love our guys to go, Tyler Redick and Christopher Bell to go run the 24 hours of Daytona. That's truly the place that they all used to do it. Yep. They all used to come to the 24 hours of Daytona and race. And we need, for this conversation to be more relevant, we need those guys to race.

And that is the place to do it. According to some media, we're hearing a bubble over in America. But in this bubble, we support Kyle Orson. We're proud Kyle Larson in this bubble, okay? Those are uneducated media folks that talk about that bubble because when we went to Europe, they talked about how many more choices we have to race in different divisions with different cars and to train our kids to do different things and be able to do that here in America. There, it's carts.

Right. You got go-carts. A lot of people in our industry wouldn't have this perspective of what, you know, happens over there on the carting F-1 side. So it's interesting to hear that. Yeah, it's very, it's very much pointed towards carts. And all those F1 teams and people are involved in that carding system, the FIA, they're all involved in this system to have all these different steps to go to F1. And it's very calculated.

We just, we, I just see how the other sports like NBA and NFL, they're always talking about who's the greatest, who's the greatest. and I wish Max would have, I respect him for how he did his interview. Like, that's how he wanted to do it. But when Kyle Arson says, I'm him, I'm the guy, I'm like, oh, there's the alpha. That's, I'm going to go, I'm going to go there. Which is very un- Kyle Arson. Very uncalal-Arson.

But I love that he said that. Yeah. As he should. 24 hours a Daytona, let's start it there. Listen, 10 toes down standing on business. We'll have more of a comparison if they would show up in race. There you go. A challenge has been set.

Where you at, dog? Come to our bubble, come play. All right. Time now, guys, for the last call. Who we think is going to win out in Daytona? We've talked about a little bit. You want to make your pick? I do. What you got?

Bubble Wallace. Ooh, I like that. Okay. I just, you know, they ran well enough today at Michigan to be able to put them in themselves in the conversation, but I love where he's at mentally. I just love his space right now and just the things that he's doing and the way that they've come back from the break and performed. and I think Daytona is a good track for him.

I'm going Kyle Busch. I said this a couple weeks ago. It's hard for me to imagine a postseason without Kyle Bush being in it. That just doesn't seem right to me. I hope that maybe they can get a nice little walk-off win there in Daytona. I'm going because I want all the chaos because I don't think that they're going to win their appeal.

Oh, okay. They're going to end up with two wins and get right back in this stuff again. Give me Austin Dillon and the three at Daytona because I want the chaos. Oh, that'd be a moment. A month ago, when I told you guys, you were both complete idiots. Oh, for sure. And now we come back from this break, and I don't disagree with them at all. I think they could both be in the conversation.

Okay, I like it. All right, make sure you check out Kevin's interview. Also this week with NASCAR president, Steve Phelps. We look forward to that conversation. Everyone subscribe to us on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast, and give us a five-star review. And we will see you guys after the chaos of Daytona.