Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - William Byron Claims Victory at COTA, Austin Weekend Recap, and Kevin’s Stories from Richmond Raceway!

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

On Episode 11 of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” NASCAR Legend Kevin Harvick sits down with co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith to provide an exclusive weekend recap of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Get ready for an in-depth analysis of the race weekend's highlights and key moments! Tune in as they break down William Byron’s dominant win, pivotal race moments, and provide a sneak peek into the upcoming ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway. To wrap up the show, Mamba delves into the thrilling moment when Marco Andretti faces the challenge of a lost rear axle during the NASCAR Truck Series Lone Road Course Race and SVG pulling off an impressive move over Ty Gibbs in the XFinity Race. Additionally, he ignites a compelling conversation surrounding in-season bracket racing.Don't miss out on this exhilarating episode packed with expert analysis and all the thrilling moments you love from the world of NASCAR! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One day we had a Looney Tunes promotion, and it was myself, Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, and I don't remember who else it was, but we were racing golf carts on Pit Road. And I'll never forget it because racing, racing, racing, Jeff Gordon, out the other side of the golf cart. Dude fell out there, out the right side of the golf cart. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick, Kevin Vinci, Mama Smith. We're here to break it all down again for you this week. Somehow they just keep letting this come back.

So apparently everything must be going okay. It must be. Episode 11, can you guys believe that? Is it really? Yeah, that's what this paper says. You're out of fingers. He's like, I'm back to my thumb. Yeah.

You go to the toes. But speaking of toes, your shoes? Yeah, you like them. They are sharp. Yeah, they're crispy this week. Yeah. Well, you know, I told Boyer this this weekend, again, because I've been wearing a different pair of the racetrack, too.

It's now it's just a game. It is a game. Everything's a game. It's just a game. And Clint's shoes look like he's been mowing the yard with him. And now he's backpedaling on what his shoes look like. Those look brand new. They are.

They are. They are. They usually wear them one time before I come here. It's just to make sure they have a little dirt on them. But it's just a game. Just a game. Well, speaking of games. Speaking of games, make sure you continue to follow us on social media on X, Instagram,

Facebook, YouTube, subscribe to us as well. I'll follow Harvick Happy Pod so you can keep up with everything we have going on with the show. And there's a lot of kerfuffling on this show, right? Yeah. There's a lot of, yeah, yeah. Kevin, great job. Thank you. Oh, my gosh.

Seriously. Thanks. I feel like we caught everyone off guard this week. Like, we were using, you know, newer urban words, and we go back. We turned the clocks back and got a nice Ken Squire one in there. So let's roll the tape. Let's hear it. Whoa. Kobayashi and Stenhouse.

We got quite the kerfuffle right there. Quite the what? What did you say? Kerfuffle. That's a Ken Squire turn. That must go back. I don't know, 30, 40 years. Well, that's my word of the week. So there you go. So the best part is Mike Joy in the awkward silence there for a second because like you say, you mixed it up a little bit. And now it's more of an old school word. You're about it now.

Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like when you sent the definition this week, I was going to be way more comfortable with the word. I'd never heard the word kerfuffle. But apparently, King Squire has used that word in many broadcast throughout the year. So good choice. Was that a fan submitted that one?

Yeah, that was a fan submission. So thanks for the submission. Yeah, keep sending them. Keep sending them. Give us the five-star reviews and leaving the comment because we might pick your, or what you might pick. He's in charge of the selections. I am in charge of the selections.

And I felt like really good about that one. And you use it multiple times. Well, we used it multiple times. Yeah, I did, I did use it twice. And I think Clinton and Mike used it a couple times. So it became a fun word to use. And we didn't have many situations to use the word. I was going to say, yeah.

We thought we'd have more. I thought we'd get it out of the way right off the bat and turn one. Yeah, it didn't happen. Didn't happen. Real quick, though, what was Mike's face like? I can hear it in his voice. I can't look at him. I can't look at he or Clinton.

When I'm using the word, I have to look at the screen. I have to block them out because if I look at them, I just have this feeling that it's going to result in hysterical laughter. We won't be able to cover the race correctly. Oh, they did a great job. You said you're like a little stress sometimes picking these words now. He really thinks about like how you're going to deliver it and what is it going to work? It matters. It does matter.

It's a team aspect. And I got to put the ball where it needs to be for him to keep running and score the touchdown. Yeah, every time I, every time on Friday afternoon, early evening, whenever that time. I'm always like, oh, man, what am I in for this week? But people are loving it. And we've had even other drivers giving you some props and compliments. Raja Carruth posted a nice tweet about you being up in the booth saying what a great job you're doing and giving some props. He says Kevin Harvig has been straight up awesome in the booth this year, which I would have to agree with that for sure.

Well, I appreciate that. We're having fun. And everybody's, I mean, the whole Fox team is doing a good job. And I'm fortunate to be able to have just got out of the car, got it straight into the booth. So it's been fun to learn what I'm supposed to be doing in the booth. And Clint, Mike, and everybody on the team has been great to help and help me through that process.

But it's also fun to be able to kind of teach the differences between what's happening with the new car and the old car. So it's been fun. You've been great. You are natural, that's for sure. All right, let's talk about this race, though, that unfolded out there in Austin, Texas. Treetop's thoughts.

What did you think? there wasn't any cautions. I think from practice to qualifying to the race, I thought that it was going to be the 54 and the 20. And then William Byron qualified on the pole and took off. And I'm like, oh, I kept telling Clint, I'm like, he's going to start to fall back. And the Toyotas are going to start to march forward.

And Tyler Redick actually went backwards. And William Byron never missed a beat, man. he was on point, though, from start to finish and put together a perfect race. So I guess that really shouldn't be a surprise. Last year, they kind of fumbled a little bit and got beat there at the end of the race. This year, he did a great job managing his gap, making sure that if they had to go longer into the race, that they had enough fuel. Everybody was tied on fuel at the way that the strategy worked out.

I was turn eight was dirty. Yeah. What was up with that? Yeah, everybody. Well, they repacked all the, they repacked the dirt before the race where the trench was dug in the day before through turn eight. And it was all back out on the racetrack before it was all said and done. So it was a, that was a treacherous corner. And then we saw just, we saw just a great race by William Byron.

And I think it's, he doesn't get a lot of the credit that he deserves. And I think for, for me, the more I just watch what they do from last year to this. year, you just see that consistency on super speedways, on road courses, on short tracks, mile and a halfs. They're just in the mix. And, you know, he's just a consistent contender. And I think that's just the way it's going to be from here forward. Yeah, I mean, I had to wear the... I was going to say, you got the... It's a nice...

It's very fitting. William Byron is the first driver since Jeff Gordon to win multiple races over the last three years. He's the first one over the last three years to win. two races. Really? Yeah. Last guy to do that. Yeah, yeah.

So 24, 23, 22, William Byron was the first to win multiple races. And Jeff Gordon was the last one to do that. That's a good nugget you got there. He's a true broadcast. Thank you, Larry Mack. Yeah. So, you know, we got some way of buying gear out here.

You know, we got to give him his props. But like, I think what William did was super impressive. I mean, he's been kind of on this upward trend over the, the last two years. And it hasn't stopped. It hasn't slowed down. They had like a little bit of a hiccup over the last couple weeks. But you can't win them all.

I told him behind the stage. I'm like, how's it going? He's like, man, we just got to get this thing back on track. I said, brother, you can't win them all. Like, I know when you get to winning like six, then you feel like you should have won eight because you can think of the ones that you didn't win. But just go back to doing your thing. And he did that.

He put it on the poll. I said, do it. I said, this one's for Max. He's like, I know Max is happy. Max Pappas. been working with William on his road course stuff. So it's pretty impressive. Let's not let that go too far.

You talk about Max Pappas. And I met William, and he was probably 15 years old with Max Pappas. And he said, hey, this is William. Here's what we're doing. Here's our plan. Here's where we're going. Here's what we're going to do next. They've always had a plan.

William and Max and William's father, they've always worked very well together. And when I went to the go-kart track, just for instance, this last week, I got there Wednesday to pick up Keelan, and here comes William walking out of the go-cart track. And that's not abnormal. Williams at the cart track a lot. But they have a system that works well for William with the coaching and the style and that circle of life that William has with his family and how they operate. It just, it works.

And it's a well-oiled machine. And William Byron's work ethic sticks out, glaringly sticks out compared to a lot of his competitors and the things that he does and how hard he works. Because in my opinion, Williams, he's a gifted person, but I don't know that he was, even if he was a gifted race car driver with natural ability, he didn't recognize it until he was much later into his teams than most. So for him to catch up and be where he is today is a lot of work and requires a lot of time and effort to make up those gaps that he had from on-track

experience and the things that he was doing and from when he started racing in his mid-team. So I think that that is an important note to note that whether it's William, his father, or Max, and their whole system, they've made up a lot of ground in a short amount of time. He's very much been a student of the sport for sure. I know you have some interesting numbers, a comparison between William Byron and his teammate at Hendrick, Kyle Larson. What stands out to you the most about these numbers and tell the story? So it's really interesting to look at the sense.

78 races in the next-gen car that William Byron and Kyle Arson have run together. Okay. So right off the bat, everybody I think thinks, hey, Kyle Arson is head over heels better than his teammates. He's won more races. He's got more top tens. He's, I guess, not even close, right? Wrong. Oh, no.

Wrong. So they have the same amount of starts. They have the same amount of polls over those 78 races. William Byron has won 10 races. and Kyle Larson has won eight. Seconds, you know, they're close. Top fives, they're close. Top fives, they're close.

D&Fs. This is where the debate really started for me is Kyle Larson has 16 DNFs and William Byron has nine. Lead lap finishes. William Byron has 63. Kyle Larson has 56. So the thing that I just wanted to point out,

they're both great, but they're both very different. Kyle Larson, naturally gifted, will win in anything fast. William Byron works hard, fast, and can win in anything in stock car racing for sure at the highest level. But there's also that piece of the puzzle in races that are four, five, six hundred miles long that requires you to finish. And I think that's still some of Kyle Larson's weaknesses.

He makes those mistakes in some of those races, racing too hard, spinning himself out, running into the wall, whatever it may be. And he costs himself more opportunities to win. And I think William has been the opposite. He's capitalized on some of those situations where the Kyle Larson incident comes in or something happens and he's a fifth place car and winds up having a good pitstop or putting himself in position to win by keeping himself in the mix and running all those laps and not having as many DNFs.

And so in NASCAR racing, it's not all about being fast. I guess that's my biggest point here because they're both great. They're just different. Yeah, they're different. And I think that's been Kyle Larson since Kyle Larson started racing stock cars. Like, he's been fast and he's going to put you in a situation to win a lot of races. He also might lose a lot of races because he's going so hard. We talked about it off set here.

I was like, it's kind of like Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson is super talent and badass. But if you tell him to stop running the football, it's going to take away an element of him. And if you tell Larson, hey, I want you to stop running so many dirt races or these other things, it's going to take some of his edge away. You just got to keep feeding that because he is a dog. Yeah, it's really hard to be. And I think the other interesting part is we're talking about Hendricks' top two drivers.

Yeah. I mean, these are, and it's not, one of them is not Chase Elliott. What do you make of that? because we were talking, like you said, offset a little bit about Chase Elliott. And it's been just, it doesn't seem like he's been the same since he came back from that injury necessarily. Or do you think it's more of this car? Well, we interviewed Chase Elliott this weekend on the pre-race. And Chase has been very open about where he thinks he is with this particular car

and the things that come with driving this car differently. And we went to COTA this weekend. And it's back at a road course where we expect Chase Elliott, have come to expect Chase Elliott, to be in the first. front and dominate, but listening to Chase talk about his own situation in the pre-race, the one thing that he talked about was the difference in the braking. And for me, that was a very hard situation to overcome as well, because in the old car, you had to manage the car, you had to manage the situation. As the tires were out, the brakes would get hot and things would start to change. Wheel hop would start to be an issue in the back of the old car.

So there was a technique, which was also what made it hard for the Kobayashi's and SVGs and those types of people to come over. And that's why you never saw a road course ringer win a race because of the unique style that it took to drive a NASCAR Cup Series car or an Xfinity car or a truck. And as you'll see later, what an open wheel guy does to a rear housing. So it is, you know, I think that that technique is much different now with the transaxil in the back, no truck arms anymore. And there is no wheel hop anymore. You can slide the rear tires under braking, but it's a much more aggressive style of braking. And as we saw this weekend, every single lap, it's an aggressive style braking. The cars, you have to drive them way into the corner. You have to use more brake pressure and the style of braking that you and how you let off the brake.

is much different than it used to be. The way that the rack and pinion feels and turns compared to the steering box. None of that is how Chase Elliott was brought up. And Caitlin, you mentioned this before we started the show. You look at a kid like William Byron, he's what, got five years of cup experience, maybe four years before this car?

It was one-one, one, two on his way up. Yeah. It wasn't like he raced a whole lot. It was one year next. So you just don't have as much history of having to relearn how to drive the next-gen car. And we heard Tyler Redick talk about it in his interview last week on this show. You know, it was a great time for him to reset with the next-gen car coming in because it was so different.

He could adjust his style to that car, but he was doing the exact same thing that everybody else had to do to adjust to the new car and learn the new car. So I think it's different. I think, you know, there's just a lot of things that come with. this car that you have to do differently. And, you know, I think there's a, there's a high level of work and commitment that comes to being around this car in the shop, in the

simulator. And I think William Byron is a great example of being able to outwork your competition. Yeah, he's one of the hardest working guys in the garage. And he's like in the sim, whether it's at the Chevy joint or just at his own house.

Like, he's just constantly working on it. And I think it's interesting. Chase said that, because I was talking to Kyle Busch behind the stage. And I'm like, you have intermittent speed, I feel like. Yeah, same scenario. Yeah, same deal. I'm like, one run, you're going to the front. And then he's like, yep.

And then the next run, we're junk. He's like, what I was great, what made me great and made me who I was in the old car, I can't do all those things here. Yeah. He's like, it's a challenge. And I think these guys are accepting the challenge and they're going to figure it out because they're great. But it's interesting to see who has.

But you got to reset your clock. Your circle of life has to be different with this car. I'm telling you, it takes more time and more work and more effort to be good at this because the increments in how you do things, they're smaller. It's harder to find speed. And I think for a Kyle Bush, for Chase Elliott, you have to figure out how to spend more time doing what you're doing to find and figure out the details of the race car. because Kyle, for example, and I was the same way. So it's not, with the old car, you didn't have to do anything, right? You could go to the simulator and in five minutes you could say, yep, we need to do this,

this and this, or we can go to the racetrack, we get done with the first run, brakes don't feel right, you know, this is wrong, that's wrong. We need to work on the ride. Not the case for Kyle Bush anymore because of everything that has changed. And Kyle Busch was always the one that could do and tell you everything that was wrong with that car in one run. That was it. And once he was done with that and we switched to the next gen car, all those things that he was talking about are irrelevant. Yeah, they're all new, that's all new lingo and all new conversation. Is this irrelevant at all? Also, so much less

practice time that you guys used to have? Is that playing to this at all? Because I remember when Kyle Bush was first talking about this new car, he's like, and we don't practice like we used to. There's just less time. Yeah, well, that's what, that's Kyle's strength, you know, is being able to, you know, diagnose the car and be able to work things out by just telling you what was wrong. You didn't have to go and sit with the engineers and the crew chief and say, hey, you know, this is doing that. You think it's, you think it's arrow? Do you think it's suspension?

Do you think it's the springs, the shocks? What is it? And that box is smaller. So, you know, to get all those details right takes a lot of time. So I think it's, you know, it's going to be an interesting to see who switches it up and and who really figures it out because it's a Martin Truex has been right in the middle of it. But, you know, I think his team has also helped bridge that gap and trying to figure some of those things out too because the cars are fast. And, you know, I think it's different when you're in Kyle's situation where you're trying to help figure out how to make the cars better too when you don't really know exactly what pushes the button on this car.

So we're talking about Kyle Bush, incident between him and Christopher Bell in this race. What did you think about what you saw here? I think you could probably, I mean, I'm going to, I'll let you see it here. You know, I think Bell had committed to fill in that hole. And Kyle, with that late move, I don't know the spotter conversation. But Bell had definitely decided that he was going to fill the hole. And Kyle probably looked in the mirror and didn't think that that was going to happen. But you can see right there what was going to happen.

and Christopher was at a point of no return right there. So I look at that as just one of those racing deals perfectly. I think Kyle's frustrated with the way that they've run and having a decent day right there. He still wound up having a decent day. But I think in general, Kyle is just frustrated with the way that the start of the year is gone. And I think you're starting to see more of those situations boil over.

And Christopher actually genuinely looked scared there. I thought when he got him off. I came up to him. He was like, whoa. Christopher's never, like, got into it with anybody. And they were teammates, and Kyle gave him a shot at KBN. He kind of came through that Toyota. Like, you got to go through Kyle's program.

Yeah. And so there's a respect level that's different, right? Because Kyle's made so many guys so good. Right. Christopher's one of them. And Christopher's never got into it with anyone. It's kind of like Larson, too. Like, Larson's never really got into it with anyone except one time with Bubba.

But, like, his face is like, man. Uncle Kyle is real. He didn't know what to do. And, like, Kyle, he's like, he puts his finger up two and then three. And, like, we don't have the audio on that. But it looks like he's like, it feels like something like where it's like, you hit me once, hit me twice somewhere else. And now you wrecked me and, you know, so.

And I always find these as interesting scenarios because you always wonder, like I wonder now, it makes me think about how is Christopher Bell going to react because he also spun Kyle Larson out too. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we had the Ross Chastain stuff over the last couple years and you look at those scenarios. And when you got to a certain point, I felt like it affected the way that he drove and the things that, the decisions that he made. And sometimes a guy like Kyle, that's why he's going to do that, right? Because he's like, well, I need to get this situated and tell my piece or mix this up or whatever. You never know what somebody's thinking.

But you always wonder how it affects somebody in those types of situations and what happens going forward when they're racing around Kyle Bush or Kyle Larson just do they push it like they did like he did on this particular day? Or does he have to second, you know, think about that twice and not stuff it in there like he should? Yeah. I think with Kyle Bush specifically, like because of what you just said with their season not being super stellar, The more that it stays mid to not that great, the more that Kyle Bush is going to do this.

He already has a problem with how everyone races each other anyway. Oh, yeah. And now he's like, okay, we're having a decent day and I get run over. Now I'm going to go down here and say something to you. I think more of the old rowdy is going to kind of start showing back up with where they're at. Because he's frustrated. Because he's mad. Yeah.

We'll have to see how that story continues to unfold between Christopher and Kyle. I want to let you talk about Ty Gibbs again. Well, because... Honestly, we're going to keep talking about him because he's done so well. It really is impressive. But I heard you talking, I think it was in qualifying or something.

You're like, I'm not surprised, though, that he's running this well on the road course. No. He's been a great road course racer since the first time that we've seen him on the racetrack. And when you listen to the things that he's done in the past with the Trans Amcar and all the K&N races or Arca races,

whatever they call it, now. I can still call it Winston West. Yeah, yeah, you're way behind. Don't worry about it. Date myself, yes, those are cigarettes. So it's, it doesn't surprise me. I think their cars are really good on the road courses.

He's put a lot of time into trying to be good at the road courses. And he should have been on the, he was right up being on the pole. He actually had to lift way before the start finish line because he got way too wide coming to the temporary start finish line. And it's super rough out there. And I think he knew that. And he didn't want to destroy his car or have anything happen. And he actually lifted way before the start finish line and still only missed by just a little bit.

But I honestly thought that he was the car to beat when we got done with practice. And William Byron just didn't want to have anything to do with that conversation. Because he showed from the drop of the green flag that I'm the car to beat. Yes, he did. Still, still a solid day for Christopher Bell, a solid day for Ty Gibbs. And, you know, Denny Hamlin was, he got a stage point. He was, he was there. And Martin Truex wrecked on the first lap, first corner with Coriote and somebody else.

That wreck, so they're three wide coming off for turn one. And like, obviously, Morton is there. But like, what are we doing on turn one? one lap one. Well, I think a lot of that just happened because they all went wide. Corey was way wide. Martin just was like, hey, I'm in a safe spot. I'm just going to drive straight right here. And Corey had abruptly turned the car from going through the grass. Yeah. Because that asphalt is wide, but it gets really narrow. Real quick. Real quick. And it was either go through the grass or pull it back onto the racetrack. And he just yanked it back on the racetrack and slammed into Martin. And

Martin slammed into Bubba. So it was just one of those unfortunate, untimely things. You're going to give it to Bubba, though, because they came all the way back. They ended up 15th, and he's not, if you ask him, he's not a road course guy. If I do not mention Austin Green from the X-Friety race, he had a top 10.

That's David Green. Oh, good. Yeah, that's David Green's kid. And David was, David was in his official uniform. He's like, well, I think everything's good. He kept getting on the box. Like, how's he doing it? You know what I mean?

Like, tell me your dad. dad without telling me your dad. Yeah. That is so cool. That's awesome. You referenced Corey Lejoy just a moment ago. We saw him very winded after the race, had to go to the infield care center. Can you describe what it's like racing at that track and why it's so physically taxing? Yes, it is very physically taxing because it's, last year was the same way, just a super long last run. So you run, you know, half the race under Green and you shift 24, 25 times a lap. you know, your 11, 1, 1, 1,200 pounds of brake pressure going into turn 1, turn 10, turn 11, or I guess it would have been turn 11, turn 12, 19, 20. And there's a lot of bumps.

It's a very bumpy racetrack. So it's just you're getting the crap beat out of you all day, jumping over the curbs. And, you know, Corey the Joy happened to be right outside of our broadcast booth. We were looking right over it. And he got out of the car and kind of fumbled around for a minute and went over to the other of the car and laid down. Hosephar was, you know, same thing beside his car. Bubba was gassed. Saw Blaney come walking out. I mean, all of them just looked completely smashed. And that's how I felt after this race last year, completely smashed. And it's

just a, it's just a taxing day. Yeah. I couldn't do it. There's no doubt about that. There's a lot of it. You're just going on there. Yeah. Yeah. So one question that was posed, are track limit rules good or bad? I'm curious what you think on this one. I just, I talked to SVG a little bit about this this weekend, and he's like, mate, hadn't been anywhere in the whole world where I could race off the track more than I could race on the track. And I think, you know, from a purist road racing standard, I just, I believe that we need to race on the track. I think that Coda would actually race better if we had track limits. NASCAR's point is, hey, we're not, we're not to the point of being able to officiate it yet. they need to hurry up.

We need to officiate every corner on a road course like it needs to be officiated. And I think that track limits will make every road course a better racetrack, even like at Sonoma, when you go from turn four and you blow over the curb and over into seven, you know, if you officiated that corner and had those guys not blow over the curb,

it's actually going to be a better race because more guys are going to get tight or get loose or go over the curb or whatever that might be. And, you know, the way that's, that's officiated in most every other series is, hey, if you blow the track limits on the third time, you get a penalty, you get two warnings. So it's a tough scenario because NASCAR isn't in a position to really officiate it correctly. And I think that taking all the curbs out at CODA probably seemed like a good idea.

The turtles create problems because if you hit them with the underbody of the car, it just tears the underbody of the car up. So there has to be something to deter the drivers. delicately, just enough to keep them from going too far over the curves. But it'd be way easier if we just officiate it. And then the turn eight situation and the jumping of the cars goes away. There's just a lot of things that it would solve if we could just officiate it correctly. I like what you just said about you get a couple warnings. Yeah.

I like that because this situation is where, like, it happened to AJ in the Xfinity race. He was coming through the S's. And like, they're racing hard. And then you, like, kind of get offline. And there's no bringing it back. like enough to not get the penalty. And that obviously it ruined his debt. Like that was at the end of the race,

ruins your day. So if there's like something in between where it's like, okay, you know, you did it. But if you're egregious with it, then it should just be a penalty. Yeah. I don't like making the officials have to officiate so much, but this situation.

Yeah, and NASCAR actually had a system this week to help them officiate the S's with cameras, much like they do the pit boxes. They just didn't have enough to do the whole racetrack. But we need to, you get to that point pretty quick and officiate it and have these road courses, have that runoff there to keep the dirt and everything off the racetrack, not have cars racing out there.

So, I mean, Coda is a racetrack that you can put different height than different styles of curbs in every corner. The track's actually designed for that. And the first year we went there, we had big orange turtles in the middle of the corner. But when we went to the next-gen car, people just felt like, you know, that those curves were too dangerous for the bottom of the car with the full, floor pan. So, you know, I think we, we need small deterrent curbs, not the big turtles like we had

the first year, but it creates less dirt and eight. You don't jump it in nine. You're not jumping it in any of the other corners and you're not going off the racetrack. And like off of turn one at Cota, off of, I guess, turn nine at Cota, super rough. I think they fixed the exit of nine, but in the past has been super rough. So you really don't want to be out there, but you have to go out there because it makes time, but it's brutal on your body in the car.

Everyone's getting better to it, road course racing. This isn't like back in the day where everyone was like, I'm going to take this week off. Like, everyone's like, pretty good at it now. You better be.

We have a lot of them now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the tires, it needs more fall off, right? The speed was just, there wasn't enough falloff

to be able to force the guys into pitting. So we're a couple of years. We're a couple of years. I guess this is actually the third year at Cota with this car. Time to get the tire under control and make that thing wear out a little more. Road course is done for now. Now we're going off to Richmond Raceway this weekend.

Short track, more curfuffles probably happening. More curfuffles. I am sure that. You were a four-time winner there. Your first one came in 2006. Yeah. What good memories you got of that place? Well, it's, when I was at RCR, there was,

We never went to an Xfinity race there and didn't expect to win. We ran our first race at KHA there in a truck series. 2001, we lost to Jack Sprag by about six inches. If I wouldn't have been in so much trouble, I had a stuffed his ass. I was in so much trouble at that point, I wasn't going to breathe on it. We actually, that funny story, Todd Barrier and all the guys, they decided that we decided that we were going to go truck racing. So we went and bought a chassis. We built that truck in Ed Berrier's garage at his house.

Awesome. That is awesome. After work in three weeks. And we took it in Delana's dad's trailer, his late model trailer. We took two late model trailers and this one truck that we had. We were putting the decals on at the racetrack. Nothing fit the templates, of course. And Wayne Otten was the inspector at the time.

And he was finally, I think he was like, I don't even know what else to tell you to do to this thing. Just put it on a racetrack. but that was actually where we had our first outing in the truck series. But it was always a racetrack where we expected to go and win while we were at RCR. We kind of struggled, honestly, at SHR more than I thought we would. Rodney did not like Richland. Really? Why? He was just one of the track that he hated the most.

And so when I got to, when I got there, you know, he had worked so much on all the racetracks that I did bat on. I was like, all right, buddy. I've not been to Richmond too many times where I didn't expect to have a chance to run well. We've got to figure this out. So we wind up getting some good finishes and actually ran really well in the next-gen car there.

He won there. He won there. He won there. He won my last career race there in 22. So great times at Richmond and just a racetrack that is very technical. War out. You're going to see a lot of green flag runs,

probably green flag pit stops, But yeah, that was a good place for me. We just saw some video view winning. Are those the same glasses? You have the same glasses on? No, that was the only, that's the pair that was saved. The Chase Elliott thing? Yeah.

That's the same pair of glasses that almost had a near, they had a near-death experience at Bristol. What do you like about Richmond? It's the first place I ever saw a cup race because I'm from Virginia, obviously. I love going there. I always remember the rock and roll 400 with the Looney Tune cars. Man, like, as a kid, that's like, that like spoke right to my soul. Like, I picked, I loved Bugs Bunny, but I didn't like Jeff Gordon.

And he was, Bugs Bunny was on Jeff's car. Yeah. I had a real cobblower man. No. No, I was a Tony Stewart guy. Okay. And Tony had like, I think he had like Yoscenta me Sam or Taz on it. I always had Taz on my car.

I had the Taz, yeah. What? Do you know how that happened? Like, do you know how that worked? Yeah. How'd it work? Well, it was a Chevrolet promotion. So Chevrolet in action.

So they had to deal with Looney Tunes for a while. And then it switched to the bands, rock and roll. Yeah, yeah. After Looney Tunes went away. So, yeah, we always had a Tasmanian devil car when I first started. It was awesome. Like, everyone, if you ask any kid from the 90s, they remember that. And they'll either have one die cast.

Yeah. Like the first win that we had at KHA in the truck, they actually moved the Looney Tunes program to Phoenix. So, yeah, I had the, I had all the Looney Tunes characters on the truck. But you were always Tasmanian Devil. On the cup car. The shoe fit perfect. Yeah. They picked that one purposely for you.

It was an absolute perfect fit. They definitely did some of that. Like, you can see, like they did some of that like on Perp. It was like a character. I remember, I remember one day we had a, we had a Looney Tunes promotion and we were, it was myself, Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, and I don't remember who else it was, but we were racing golf carts on Pit Road. And we probably have the footage of this somewhere here at Fox, but we were racing golf cards, and I'll never forget it because racing, racing, race, and racing, Jeff Gordon,

out the other side of the golf cart. Dude fell out there, out the right side of the golf cart. So that was pretty funny. That is funny. And we were looking at some other funny clips. SWAT. Maybe you won't find them too funny. I think it's funny. A particular incident with Ricky Rudd? They're all funny at this point.

Yeah. It's funny when it happened. Well, it was somewhat funny. So we, on the... I just passed Rudd. And at that particular point, I had made up like 400 and some points on Matt Kinzeth.

He had like a 600 point lead in the points championship that year. And I had made up a bunch of points in the previous week. And I go in there and Rudd just dumped me. And I felt like it was on purpose because we were in a position to keep making up points that night. And that pretty much ended the championship chase that night. So I was pissed.

Got in trouble for running into his car. Got in trouble for stomping on his roof and his hood. And got in trouble for saying GD. Got in trouble in the trailer. I think it cost me like $150,000 or Richard made me be. pay all the fines. That's the night that Mike Helton told us that we were responsible for the bench clearing brawl. Yeah. And, you know, that was as mad. That was as mad as I've ever seen Mike. But the Wood Brothers had fun with it. The hood is actually in the Wood Brothers Museum. They had

everybody sign it. That's cool. And they kept the hood off the car. But you see me climbing on the top of that car. And the reason that Ricky Rudd, one reason that Ricky Rudd is so mad after that. There might have been a Hans throne, but I know for sure there was a, I know for sure there was a tire gauge that probably hit Ricky Rudd in the mouth. I'm not sure who threw that, but I know that he was mad because he had been, he'd been hitting the mouth. And that was my car chief, Kirk Almquist, that he was always the one to, to keep me from, to keep me from completely doing something too stupid. We got, that was dumb. But the part that you didn't see, the part that you didn't see right there was big Mike. He actually

was in there as well, but he actually trained the whole damn car. I jumped on the, off the roof onto the hood. And that's why the Wood Brothers kept the hood because their car didn't really have any damage until after the race. It needed a roof, a hood, side.

In the video, there's one of your crew guys, you pull up and you like hit him and he's like, what the? It's so funny. It was so funny. See, that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. And I may have mentioned it on this show before, but that's Richard Childress, man.

People don't realize how wild and crazy Richard Childress is. I mean, he loves to have shit stirred up. Really? Oh, yeah. Richard Childress. Richard, yeah, he's going to punch you in the mouth. And he, at the racetrack, is as intense a dude as you're ever going to meet

at the racetrack. He is a guy that is going to ask you to hold his watch so he can punch you in the mouth. And it is like that with everything. And he expects you to have that fire and enthusiasm about caring about winning or losing. And it is a, it is an eye for an eye. If somebody runs you over, he expects you to run them back over ASAP. And he is going to encourage it. And if they don't like it, they're going to fight. And he was, he was like, I don't care what you do. You go, you go do what you got to do and we'll take care of it.

I think he always had your back. And everybody on that team had that same mentality. I think it was at Bristol with Tyler Redick and Chase Briscoe. When they're, Tyler was about to, he was in the lead or something. Brisco ends up wrecking him or spinning him out at the end of the race and Cowbush wins the race. And Reddick goes down to talk to Briscoe. And Briscoe looked like he was getting ready to get an earful like Christopher Bell. Right. And he didn't.

Tyler didn't. Tyler just like, hey man. Yes. But you could see the crew guys. That was the beginning of the end. Yeah. You could see the crew guys, the RCR crew guys behind him like. And we were ready to fight.

And, like, they were ready to go. And Tyler isn't that guy. No. So that makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah. And, you know, I look at a guy like Austin Hill, right? I mean, you saw what he is that guy. He is that guy.

He is that guy. He was fired up. Which is last week. Those are the guys, those are the guys that Richard Childress is really going to lean into and say, that's my guy. Yeah. Because that is Richard. Richard is competitive, fiery, and he is from a, he's an old school,

hardcore racer. And that's how they, when you, when you took food off their, table. He was going to take food off your table. That is very funny. You were probably perfect fit for him then. Oh, we had fun. I loved it. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. All right. So, Richmond, let's do some early predictions or who we think is going to be the guy, the team. Who are we watching, you guys? I think that it's a good opportunity for Austin Dillon. Yes, I had him down to. I think it's a good opportunity for Brad Kuzlowski, Kyle Bush, to just have a weekend. Let's just have a decent weekend.

Let's just finish the race. I know Brad, you know, he kind of, with the strategy being flipped earlier in the year, got a decent finish. They didn't run there. But I think this is a place that they, you know, him and Chris Busher can run well. Chris Busher's starting his 300th race this weekend. last guy to win on her 300th race. This guy? Brad Kuzlowski.

Oh, I thought was you. Look at him dropping us today. And I think my pick is going to be Martin Truex. That's mine too. I'm sorry, I went first. It's okay. Great minds think alike. See, but I had four down.

I had four choices down to win. Well, Austin Dillon was written in our stats book as the sleeper because it's actually one of his better short tracks. And like Kevin said, he really needs something to go right. It's just been dismal. Yeah. You guys know already that when I pick somebody, it doesn't go well. I picked Noah this past week.

Oh, yeah, that was great pick. You definitely didn't get the stats report. Didn't go well. So it's not based on how much enthusiasm there is for somebody on Twitter. No, that's not the point. But I got a lot of sports. Y'all supported me when I picked them, so I appreciate that. Honestly, I'm going to go with a Hendrick car.

I'm going to go with the 24. You think? Yeah, I mean, like, He had a chance to win at Richmond last year, I think in the spring. And they wrecked down and turn one and two on a late restart. I think that's when Larson ended up winning. Josh Berry finished, I think, third or fourth that night in the 48 or maybe the second. He finished really well.

So I expect Josh to do well, too, because it's a short track. But, yeah, I'm going with the 24. Momentum is a real thing. Yeah, no. Winning is contagious. It is. And I think the one, the one, the one. wild card in this situation is racing at night. We haven't race this car at night.

So from the daytime to night, Richmond is one of those places that can really flip the field. So we'll have to see what happens with these cars at night because the broadcast doesn't even start until like 7 o'clock. That's right. A little after 7. Night race. So I think having a night race at Richmond still going to be fairly cool. But it was a lot of times you'd go there and practice during the day and it would totally flip who the car to beat was when it came nighttime. Do you remember, do you guys remember when it used to be the spot where every, like, rookie would make their start? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, I had the Xenity series. And they always would run like top 10 there for whatever reason. Like, Johanna Long even ran like top 10 in that 70. Yeah. Like, it was so cool for that. Yeah. So I was looking at the numbers for this. And Joe Gibbs

racing, obviously, our pick is a JGR driver. 18 wins there over the years. What do you think, like, how is that possible? Like, some teams just seem to really get a place and, and make happened for years. I think that, you know, that's started with Tony Stewart. And you say, well, it's just because their cars make a lot of grip. And that's not really what Richmond used to be. It used to be sealer. And now it's worn out. And, you know, you have to have a grippy race car. And I think it fits into a lot of the style of, of their setups and short track and all the, all the things that they do. But when you go back and look at Joe Gibbs racing, whether it's Richmond, Martinsville, Bristol kind of falls into a little different, right? A little

different, but I mean, Denny Hamlin did just win there. So I think that the Gibbs short track stuff has been good for a number of years. And I think you'll see that it's made a lot of the young drivers and veteran drivers on Saturday look really good in their Xfinity cars as well. So Joe Gibbs racing will be, they'll be tough to beat. All right, two votes of confidence for Martin Shrek's Jr. out there at Richmond Raceway. Can't wait to see how it all unfolds. All right, time now for your stuff. What you got there, Momba. Second of the week. Let's go. All right. Kevin kind of talked about it a little bit. Something happened in the truck race that we have never seen before.

We've had loose wheels. We've had rear ends come out. We've never had the rear end come out with the wheels. The rear end housing, the truck arms are still attached to it. The U-bolts are still on it. But the truck arms are broken. That is unbelievable. Yeah.

So I immediately took a screenshot and sent it to Kevin. I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking at. I don't know how this happens because the U-Bolt where the truck arm goes, which the truck arms are still in the truck, the U-bolts are still in it. Yeah, the truck arms are just broke. And that's Marco And Dreddy. And so here's my theory in this. I'm going to guess that that truck was probably wheel-hopped over a hundred times during the race.

And I think that the truck arms probably got to the point of just being fatigued. Yeah. Because the things that Marco has raced, and we talked about this earlier, didn't, don't have wheel hop. And his experience with wheel hop is, well, I don't know what that is, but I'm going to keep driving it into the corner. And I guess that is what it is. Well, he definitely fatigued a new part that I had never seen broke.

And so NASCAR, I believe, took all that back to make sure that the truck arms and everything were illegal. but I have to believe that that was just a case of not really knowing exactly what's going on in this style of car with the wheel hop in the back. And you only want to do that maybe once or twice. I would be willing to bet that there was a lot done every lap. That was just, that's just a guess. I have no idea. I'm glad he did it where he did because we had a fox camera perfectly positioned to get all the angles of it.

So you can really look at it. Another thing that happened is SVG. is an animal. He's a dog. And he pulled a move off that I've never seen before. He did a crossover move on Ty Gibbs right here. Entering turn one,

and he didn't run into him. It was like a perfectly, perfectly time pass, but Ty had was passing him. Yeah. And they come out the other side, and now SVG is right back where he was before. Yeah, and I was in the TV production truck watching a race, and I actually stood up,

and I was like, I couldn't really yell, and say how cool it was and excited I was because I would have affected the broadcast at that particular point. But that was definitely one of the cooler moves and I actually saw Ross Chastain try to do it the next day. How'd that work? Well, I mean, he kind of pulled it off.

I mean, he didn't finish the past, but he pulled it off, same type of deal where you just released the break and cross them over. But I think that's what happens in our series, in our sport. you see somebody do that and it opens up everybody's mind to say, oh, I like that. I want to try that. That's what happened last weekend at Cota with Tyler Redick, right?

Everybody's gone back and said, okay, well, why is Tyler Reddick so fast at Cota? And they've studied, worked on their car and studied and worked on their car. And that's the same thing they'll do with SVG. They'll look at moves like that and then it'll just broaden everybody's horizon to say, I can do something different in this car when I'm passing. It's not just about, you know, the standard drive-in deep. That was a very, very cool technique. Makes me think of the Ross Jastain move.

How many people wanted to replicate that? After that worked. NASCAR put the end of that. Kevin used to do that when we won the championship, and you could see in the telemetry, the way you would use the brakes, no one else was using the brakes the way. Like he would use the brake like almost all the way through the corner

and then be back in the gap, like just the way you were using your footwork. No one else was doing that. So that's where that reminds me of. That was cool. That was super cool move. SVG, what a move. And last see, but not least, it is bracket time.

It is March Madness in basketball. Best time in college basketball. Tenney Hamlin talked about a bracket last year. And I want to know, do you think we should do it? And how would you like that to a kind of. So you're talking like a breakout bracket like they do in the NBA? Kind of like an in-season tournament. Yeah.

Same situation. I think we should. I think it's a great idea. But one-on-one. I think we could have some sort of bracket system for, I don't know, how many races would that be? We could make it however many races. We could make it, yeah. Yeah.

Well, you'd have to start with 36, 18. Who's going to get the buy week the next week? I guess it'd be four. It depends on your points position, getting into it. That's how you seed them. That's how you seed them. I think it would be a great promotion. I guess it would only be four rounds or?

Can you find us a sponsor? I'm sure I can. We could probably convince somebody around here that we should create this bracket system for next year. We should at least do it. We could at least do it for funsies on Fox, right? We could do it for funsies and just see what it would look like. Yeah, I think it's a, I think it's a, as you would say, funsy thing. Funzies?

Yeah, it's definitely a funzies. You might have to use funzies. Oh, boy. Yeah, you're coming up with good ideas here on this show for NASCAR to be listening to the bracket. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that. Usually they're the dog in me out. Good work out of you, mom.

Okay, so it's about time for last call. And you've got another show, though, of course, this week. Yes. You want to tell us about it? Yes. So we sat down with Denny Hamlin this week, and what a great interview. We played a little bit on the pre-race, just talking about his win last week at Bristol a little bit. But we had almost an hour conversation just about stuff.

And I think this is definitely the most interesting interview that we've, that we've done so far to play on Thursday. We played the, we already played this piece, but he told the story about his first car and it was a Ford Ranger. And he chopped it, lowered it. He wanted to be on whatever low, low truck magazine or whatever magazine it was. Well, he got a little clip into it. And he winds up crashing his thing into the back of the school bus. Oh boy. It was, it's a great conversation. We had a lot of fun. We appreciate Denny doing that and taking the time to do that because it makes for a great Thursday. Yes, it does.

We always look forward to your interviews. You do a great job with them. So I kind of would jump the gun because I got the picks already. So for last call today, just what are you most looking forward to about the weekend in Richmond? I'm doing driver intro. So I'm back. I'm back doing driver intro. Nerd alert.

You got to do the big nerd of the week next week. So, yeah. Let's talk about this. Okay. Oh, boy. Here we go. I have an idea. This is dangerous.

I like it when I have ideas for you. I don't know about this. So it's a special week. weekend and you are doing driver intros. Is there any way that we can get you to wear an Easter bunny suit on the stage? Last week we talked about onesies. I mean, you have a lot of cool apparel, but maybe we could, maybe we could just get you some sort of Easter bunny outfit.

Easter ears? Okay, here's the thing. We need to have our producers clip this. And if this video gets 600 retweets, I'll do it. This video. They're going to clip. We can see Mom Bunny Sue. Okay. So what you're saying is, all we

need to do is get 600 retweets and you're going to dress up as the Easter Bunny. I will do it. You got to buy it. You got to buy the costume. Well, today's Tuesday. Well, Amazon. Yeah, they got stores in Richmond. And you're going to wear the Easter Bunny outfit

on the stage during driver intros. Love it. Whatever you buy, I will. Whatever you buy, I will wear. He said. Deal. All right. 600. I think for it.

My last call, I'm most looking forward to seeing how this plays out. What do you think? So what you're saying is you're looking forward to seeing him in the Easter money. Exactly. I think for me, it's can anybody break up the Hendrick and Gibbs train? Richmond is a place that they've won a ton of races at as a company. And I just, I don't see anybody to do it. The Fords are garbage currently.

God. How else would you explain it? Give me a different word. Hot garbage. Hot garbage. Yeah. It's a variation. This is one of Joey Lugano's.

It's been a great racetrack for Joey, but does he have a race car to actually get up there and do what he needs to do to perform? Same thing with Chris Busher and Brad Kislauski. If they don't show up at the front of the pack this week, I'm highly concerned because everything that they have done to this point has outside of, you know, qualifying has not been good. The last month has been terrible for those cars. And I think if they don't show up this weekend, I'm highly concerned.

Highly concerned. The only one that's been like kind of there, and we've talked about them a couple times is Blaney seems to find a way to finish well. Like he finished second and a stage and finished 12th. But for the level that that team is at and the caliber, the championship caliber, I mean, they're fighting for their life to finish where they do and overachieving, in my opinion. And I just, I'm worried about, I'm worried about the car and what they have to compete against the Toyotas and Chevroletes. Because right now, they haven't shown anything once we left Atlanta. Daytona, they controlled the race but didn't get the finishes. But outside of that, I haven't seen anything.

After they got, after they got busted with a rear end at Richmond, that whole deal wasn't the same. They got busted a few years ago before we switched a car. And then they just haven't had the speed at Richmond kind of. a sense. So hopefully they can turn that around. Can't wait to see how it all goes down. And the Virginia is for lovers state. You know, Virginians, you know. All right. Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube.

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