The Dale Jr. Download - Reacting to Hocevar Penalty & Berry Announcement, and How Often Does The Fastest Car Win?

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Carla Gebhart is joined by The Teardown’s Jeff Gluck on this week’s DJD Reloaded. We react to the Carson Hocevar penalty and how it could affect his long-term career prospects in the NASCAR Cup Series. With Josh Berry’s move to the Wood Brothers announced, where’s a possible landing spot for Rodney Childers? Plus, “The Professor” from Dirty Mo Dough, Russell Weinrich, calls in to dissect the data on whether the most dominant car actually finds its way to Victory Lane. Numbers never lie and they may surprise you. And finally, we hear from the winner of this year’s Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

While some are trying to decide if Christopher Bell or Denny Hamlin had the better car over the weekend, the one thing that's not up for debate is that the dominant car did not win in Nashville. But how often is that the case in a NASCAR race where the best car doesn't end up in Victory Lane? The numbers behind it might actually surprise you. And we got a couple of rookies making headlines this week. We're going to get to the news surrounding Josh Berry and Carson Hosevar this week. And we all know that Tyler Reddick was the driver that won the Denny Hamlin Bracket challenge. But who actually won with their bracket? We've got the winner calling

in to DJD Reloaded Today. Plus, I've got the teardowns Jeff Glock joining me today alongside Dirty Moe Does, the professor. They're both here to help me break it all down. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Welcome into another episode of DJD. Reloaded. If NASCAR wants to penalize, I would prefer they do it in the moment because that's when it stinks. Somebody sweep the first two stages 71 times and only 26 times they went on to win. Wow, that's great. Welcome inside another episode of DJD Reloaded. I am your host, Carla Gepphard.

And for the very first time ever on DJD Reloaded, we have the athletics and the tear downs. Jeff Gluck joining us. So, Jeff, I want to go ahead and bring you in right now. We've had Jordan Bianchi on the show several times. So we said it was time to bring Jeff and give him his flowers today. So I hope you feel honored right now. You know, it's sort of like with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson, how Larson's always finishing on the wrong end of Denny.

Denny always gets the advantage. Jordan's always getting the DJD reloaded invites. I'm always being shut out. So like Larson, I wasn't going to take it anymore this week. I'm like, no, I'm going on. Forget you, Jordan. So here I am. Yeah, I just hooked him into the corner.

and is he in Chicago right now already? No, he's still in Charlotte, but yeah, I guess he probably could have come on. That's what makes it even sweeter for me. Yeah, we have you calling in right now, obviously. And we're going to be talking a little bit about the breaking news from the rookies this week. Two guys that were, you know, of all the rookies, we're in kind of the running for rookie of the year right now. And so I guess we'll start with Carson Hosevar.

That was the latest news that broke yesterday that now. NASCAR did find him $50,000, docked him 25 points. I know really on all of Dirty Mo Media podcast this week, there are a lot of people calling for NASCAR to do something to step in since they didn't do that in the race. Do you think they got it right this week? Do I think they got it right as sort of a mixed question because I think they had to penalize and they had to do something. And $50,000, 25 points, that's about consistent and about right.

if they were going to penalize somebody retroactively and not in the race. But I still don't really understand why they didn't do it in the race itself. Because Friday night in the truck race, they give Lane Riggs a penalty for reckless driving, which you really don't hardly see at all. And, you know, they held him two laps. And he didn't right rear hook anybody. I mean, he, you know, he was sort of playing bumper tag with Stefan Parsons,

but they had been going back and forth a few laps before that. and I don't really think, I mean, the Lane Riggs thing didn't seem particularly egregious, especially compared to what they typically penalize. Then you have Hosevar, I mean, under caution spinning somebody out,

which I think everybody saw in the moment. I mean, they were immediately all over it. It was, you know, Harrison Burton was stopped on the backstretch as part of that caution. TV replayed it. We saw all the angles.

and it was like, well, are they going to penalize him? And then the race just goes back to green and he keeps going. And it was like, well, I don't understand here what's going on. Why isn't he getting the same penalty that Lane Riggs just got? I get it to different race directors and stuff like that. But to me, I would just rather see them do it right then. And then you wouldn't have to worry about, well, you know, the fine money and the points and all that stuff. I think that's what I would prefer in the future.

I mean, just officiate it in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. And just for a reference, too, he was 22nd and points. Now I think he's 24th. So it just bumped him down a couple of spots. Certainly that's going to hurt him as far as rookie of the year standings go, but still several races left in the regular season right now.

Interesting, you thought that they should do it inside the race. I think a lot of people thought that. Dale even thought that and said that. the Dell Jr. Download. So let's go ahead before we talk about it even further and listen to kind of how Dale would have liked to have seen it handled earlier. If NASCAR wants to penalize someone who does this, I would prefer they do it in the

moment because that's when it stings. If you're trying to set an example for others to follow, is everyone paying attention on a Wednesday when Hosevar gets a penalty? No. Dad and Jeppadine had that deal back in the 80s, and it spilled over into an experiment. Bush race, Dad goes down into turn three and four and spins Jeff out, Rex, Jeff, and they put Dad on pit road in the penalty box for like five laps. Race was over for Dad. I think that would be the only way you were going to get through to Dale Earnhardt. You weren't going to penalize him

on a Tuesday or Wednesday and really get him to change his ways. If you take five laps off the board from a competitor and somebody that's truly out there trying to do the very best, that sends a message. So Dale said all of that before the penalty was actually handed down by NASCAR yesterday. day. We followed up with Dale, too, and he's kind of said, my opinion really hasn't changed. I don't think that there should have been really this big penalty. Afterhand, if they wanted to handle it, it should have been in the race. I love the story of, you know, kind of how that was handled with Dale, Dale, Sr. Do you think we would ever see NASCAR do anything like that where you're parked for five laps?

I think so, because, I mean, they can do whatever they want, right, in the race if they feel like it. I do think though that maybe unlike Dale Earnhardt, Carson Hosevar probably is not making a lot of money. You know, even if it was early Dale Earnhardt. And, you know, I think $50,000 to Carson Hosefar probably gets his attention, as does, as you mentioned, essentially sort of taken him out of rookie of the year contention. I'm sure he gets a message. And, you know, the thing is, this is sort of a pattern with Hosevar. And that's that's part of the issue, right? Because you see him, you know, he's sort of gone on this like apology tour before.

He's changing his ways. And then stuff will keep happening, right? And I think everybody, like, he's a very, very likable person. He has a great personality. He's entertaining. He brings sort of a freshness. I just did my 12 questions with him on the athletic last week. And it was fantastic.

Like he's a great talker. He's a great character. I don't know if you see, but like when I do the, was it a good race poll each week? Yeah. He didn't reply this week. But every other week he's replied with his personal perspective of, you know, and it's funny.

Like he has a great sense of humor. So like you, you want him to be able to be successful and stay around the cup series for a long time. And I think that actually this pattern of things that he does, this rap sheet that kind of grows, is sort of the one thing that could really hurt that. Like if that's, if it's just an ongoing thing.

he never gets that message, how does that play out five years from now? You know, it's just, it's not going to, if he wants to be liked and, and have a great reputation and have sponsors, I mean,

you just can't keep doing this stuff. So I hope that this gets the message, but other stuff hasn't in the past. So I don't know. But, yeah, I just think, I mean, totally agree with Dale.

I mean, if you see it, do it in the moment, that probably has more of an impact. as you're sitting there for two, three laps on pit road or whatever, watching the other cars go by knowing that you just ruined your race, right? Yeah, all the teams are watching, all the fans are watching, knowing that you kind of made that mistake.

I do think he is self-aware, though, because I was just interviewing him a couple of weeks ago at Spire Motorsports, and he kind of mentioned, like, hey, I know that, like, I've got this reputation and I'm kind of working on it. And, of course, that was before, like, two incidences that have already happened in NASCAR. but you just kind of wonder, I think, where that disconnect is because he is self-aware. But maybe in the heat of the moment, it's just like kind of that uncontrollable thing that he can't, you know, take his foot off the gas. Yeah, and I mean, there's this guy, Basso, and he has some numbers after his name.

I can't remember. It's like Basso 4-8-8 or 24 something. I always mix it up. But he posts a lot of in-car cameras on X. and he posted a clip yesterday of like a couple minutes sort of leading up until this incident where Hosevar is like bumping Todd Gilland and sort of like I think they're I think contesting a position on the previous caution or something and Hosevar is like slowly driving Gilland into the wall and just sort of rubbing him into the wall for seemingly

no reason and gilland uh eventually after he sees uh harrison burton gets spun gillan just comes on the radio and goes i hate that kid i i hate that kid or whatever and it's like you know what do you don't want you just have this reputation where the whole field is just like oh this guy again you know you just it's just not it's not conducive to having a great long successful career so this is just the kind of stuff you got to clean up and look he's young and you know hopefully he gets that control. And again, he is very likable. So I think this could be easily moved on from and easily forgotten if he just didn't do this stuff anymore. But as long as it keeps popping up, then you add this clip to this highlight reel or low light reel that he has. And it's like,

oh, here we go again. Yeah. Especially as a media member too. I mean, there's, to have kind of that likable personality, I mean, that's definitely a driver that we want to continue to cover and continue to to interview, which is not something that we can always say about all of the drivers out there. But another rookie that's making headlines right now as of today on Wednesday is Josh Barry and Wood Brothers Racing kind of sent out an email yesterday that they were going to have a driver announcement. Obviously, you know, that's happened. And Josh Barry is going to be moving into the 21.

So I think this really doesn't come as a huge surprise of all the drivers that were kind of out there that would possibly move into the. that C, but what are your overall thoughts about this? And what are you hearing about Rodney Childers right now? Well, first of all, I think it's great timing for Josh Barry, because if you think about it, honestly, earlier in the season, I think Hosevar was leading the rookie of the year stuff for a bit. Josh Barry hadn't really found his footing. And it was sort of like, I don't know, is Josh Barry really that great? Like, is he that good? He came in with a lot of hype. You know, he's a rookie, but can he do it?

We haven't really seen much yet. He has four top ten finishes this year, and they've now come in the last seven races. So he's completely picked it up, and it's right at the right time, right? Because that started happening right before Stuart Haas announced that they were going to be closing at the end of the year. Barry was going to be out of a ride. And, you know, he's suddenly proven, okay, he can run. He can contend for wins. If you give him a good car, he's going to be up there.

He's figuring this stuff out. And sometimes you don't see rookies figured out their entire rookie season, where they have good performances at all. It takes maybe like a year and a half or so where you start to see people's results. I remember Brad Kozlowski was very much that way. But, yeah, I mean, I think this is great timing, you know, for him. And really, you have to remember, too, like,

that 21 car, as much as people just sort of dismiss it, right? because it's like, well, it just hasn't really done much. I mean, it's basically the fourth Penske car, and Penske's won the last two championships. So, you know, that car can run well. I mean, yeah, it certainly doesn't sound like Rodney Childress is going to be going there. So you wonder, okay, well, that partnership's not going to continue.

Ronnie Childress is a great crew chief. What happens there? But I just think in general, being in the Penske fold in the Penske umbrella, that's got to be a very good thing. I mean, he's going to be, essentially he's going to be in the competition meetings and have teammates with, you know,

two cup champions, a Daytona 500 winner. So, you know, I feel like the recipe is there, regardless of who the crew chief is, the recipe is there for him to have a lot of success. And to get the Wood Brothers, their long-awaited 100th win at some point. Yeah, 99 wins right now.

is a team that historically means a lot to NASCAR, right? You go back to their early days and you think of like David Pearson and Neil Bonnet and all the wins with that team. You've kind of already touched on this a little bit, but I do think it's an interesting question. Like how good should we feel about Josh Berry going in this 21 car? Because when you look at the last handful of drivers, I mean, you've got Paul Menard, Matt de Benedetto. And, you know, before that, it was it was Ryan Blaney, which was probably like the last. successful stint where we've seen a driver, you know, move up after he was in the 21 car. Do we think that Josh Berry is going to be able to change that narrative?

And what are the chances of that happening, especially if Rodney Childers isn't with him? You know, I think the thing about Josh Barry is, I believe he's like 33 years old, which is obviously pretty darn old for a cup series rookie. But he's got a lot, when you don't start your cup career until that late in age, that to me indicates that you've got a lot of life experience and that you've, I mean, especially we all know the Josh Barry story, right?

Like it didn't seem for a long time until he got some breaks with JRM that he was ever really going to be at the national level. And he gets, you know, a couple chances in Xfinity and it looks like it's, it's going to be good and gets that full time ride and performs with it, enough to get to cup. And,

you know, now he gets the four card to replace Harvick. and then it's going away, but like, that's all experience and maturity and understanding the grind and riding the highs and lows. And I think that's really what you need for a Cup Series driver, especially at a team that's not going to be necessarily running up front all the time. You know, there's going to be peaks and valleys of performance. And the other thing is he's a family man and the Wood brothers are a family run team.

And it's it's been multiple generations. now, you know, third generation of running that team with John Wood taking the helm. So I think he will fit right in in that mentality, the blue collar approach, right? Like, you know, those all are good ingredients to me. And if they give him the cars and what he needs, I do think that it can be a successful pairing and that he can get them back to running how they feel like they should be running. Yeah, hopefully he has enough arsenal in his arsenal of experience. to kind of move that narrative for the 21 car.

It would be great to see him not only, you know, do well in that, but be able to move up from that 21 car in the future as well. Well, that kind of concludes the most recent NASCAR news that we've covered already today. But we've got to get to the winner of the Denny Hamlin Brackett Challenge. The fan that beat all of us out of there, he's going to be calling in. Plus, we're going to be answering the question of how often does the dominant car win? That's next. So there was a debate on actions detrimental earlier this week.

If Marty with an eye was a man or a woman, well, we actually know who won the Denny Hamillan Brackett Challenge. And we have a name, a full name to back it up. It is Matt Barakian. And Matt, you're joining us right now. Winner of the Bracket Challenge this summer. Congratulations, first off. And I have to know, did you know that you won right away? And were you keeping up with your bracket through all five weeks of this thing?

No, honestly, I kept up with it after the first week, and I saw my three red marks and kind of wrote it off, and then I was listening to Actions Detrimental last Monday, and when they mentioned Elliott and Reddick being the last two, I logged in and was like, I couldn't believe that I was in, I think, third place at the time. And then, of course, so then I was watching at the end of the Nashville race, like, really hoping that Tyler was going to pull it off for me. I cannot believe. like I looked at your bracket and as they said on actions instrumental, you only had five

incorrect. You missed three the first week and then only missed two the entire rest of the time. That's crazy. But one thing that jumped out of me that I need you to explain, you had Noah Gregson beating Ryan Blaney at Gateway. And then you had Gregson beating William Byron at Sonoma. Those seem like the one, the couple picks you had that were like, well, he's taking the chance here. Are you like a Noah fan or why did you go that direction? honestly the first one was more just because I think the two weeks leading up to the first race at gateway there, Blaney had crashed and it just seems like he just has terrible luck when and so in the vibes with Noah had been seemed to been going good leading up to it.

So I think that's why I picked that one. So the Byron over, or picking him over Byron, I don't know if I could explain that one. That's just kind of a lot thing, I guess. So how did you approach this? I mean, were you looking at the tracks? Like, were you doing research? Did it take you five minutes to fill out this bracket? Did you do it rather quickly or did you put a lot of thought into it?

No, so I actually, I'm in a survivor pool where each week you have to pick a driver with a better finish. And it leads up to like having to pick top tens. You can only pick a driver once. And with that one, I had done all my research, had printed out all the results from next gen races and really tried to plan it out. and it went really poorly for me. So this one, I just kind of went with my gut on a lot of them. So your final four was Denny, Chase, Ross, Reddick. Denny was the one that didn't make it,

even though he was the number one seed. Are you a fan of any of those drivers, or was that all just logical? Like, were you betting with your heart at all? No, I'm a Kyle Busch fan, so, I mean, things have been going kind of poorly for me this year. So I do like I've been listening to Denny's podcast and I've become more of a fan of him the more people dislike him. But I don't know.

From the beginning, I did just have a feeling that Tyler Redick was going to pull it off. It just seemed like the right pick. I don't know other than that. Yeah, I wanted to ask you one more question about your picks because I was terrible with these. I had Truex to win the whole thing. He was out in round one after he lost Dylan. But even if he had moved on, you would have gotten this matchup right. You had BUSher over Truex at Sonoma.

Truex was probably going to win that, and then he ran out of fuel, but he wasn't eligible anyway. But were you just looking at Busher? Hey, he's good at road courses, so I'm going to take a chance here that he's going to beat Truex at Sonoma. Do you remember what was going through your head on that one? Yeah, I think it was a combination of that. And then the same thing is, like I said, with Blaney, Truex, just this year, there always seems to get that bad luck thing.

So I knew to win something like this, you kind of have to pick the upsets. So I guess that probably played a factor as well. It's kind of like the basketball situation where there's always going to be upsets. It's just whether you can manage to land on it or not. Do you consider yourself a bracketologist? Like, did you fill out the Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge last year as well? And do you do the NCAA tournament? I don't think I did the Denny Hamlin bracket last year.

I think I missed the deadline. And then I fell out a basketball bracket, but not really a bracketologist by any stretch, I'd say. Well, even though you're the one Kyle Busch-related person that has had luck this year, are you wishing that you would save some of that luck for next year when this would have had more of a high-profile spotlight? NASCAR is taking it over. I'm sure, you know, you get the great prize from this, but I don't know. NASCAR might be giving fans like lots of money or so. I have no idea what they're going to do.

But are you wishing you? you would save it until like to talk about you like on TV. Yeah, I wish that definitely would have been cool to do it next year when it's a more, I don't want to say legit, but a more a NASCAR sanction thing where maybe I'd be, maybe I'd be down on pit road or something. Yeah, for sure. Well, it should be a lot of fun. Matt, congratulations again.

And we appreciate you taking some time to call in today. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Well, up next we've got the professor Russell Winrich calling in to give us. us the numbers behind our biggest question of the day talking about the dominant car that does or does not find victory lane that's next so we just had the winner of the denny hamlin and bracket challenge call in which is a good segue to our next guest we have russell winrich on the professor

from dirty mo doe joining jeff gluck and myself right now and before we get started on this dominant car talk russell i got a i got a i got to i got to gloat a little bit because the last time that we had you on the show, I told you that the winner of the Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge, at least my bracket, was that Tyler Reddick was going to win, and he did win. And I remember specifically you telling me that Christopher Bell was probably going to get that win over him in Sonoma. So what do you have to say for yourself? Like, what happened? So that's the first time Bell, Reddick beat Bell, at Sonoma. And Reddick better at his best Sonoma finished by 11 spots.

And he was only, he came up one spot away. So you're telling me I just got lucky. I just got lucky this time. You got lucky by one spot. That's awesome. Okay. I had to make fun of you a little bit for that. Okay.

I was ready for it. Okay. All right. So let's talk a little bit about this, the dominant car that does not end in victory lane. And I think this is a super interesting conversation. Jeff, this is something that you and Jordan Bianchi talked about on the tear down earlier this week and I really just kind of want to dive into this a little bit more, give some

numbers behind it because it does feel a lot of times when you're watching these races that the best car, something happens in the race. They get taken out or strategy plays out and they just don't end up winning. But Russell, that's kind of why we have you here to give us these numbers. But before we get started, Jeff, I just want to know, I know you kind of keep up with your own set of numbers, at least from this season. But you kind of mentioned a percentage. that you maybe thought a dominant card wouldn't win a race? What percentage was that that you kind of would just roughly give it? I mean, to me, I thought it was 50-50-ish. And, you know, so far this season, I'm only been tracking it for this year. But, and a lot of mine is anecdotally,

I don't have the data that the professor has for sure. So I don't want to say that mine is exactly accurate. But through the 21 races, including the exhibitions, I have other cars, in other words, not the fastest car winning 11. The fastest car of the race wins 10. So it's 11 to 10. It's been pretty even gone back and forth. But it's about 50, 50 from what I can tell. But obviously that might, I'm anxious to hear what the professor says, because I don't really know. Yeah, because you were kind of saying that you use an eye test a little bit, but that you also kind of dive into the numbers. But yeah, Russell, go ahead and kind of lay this out for us the best way that you can. So I would agree with Jeff on the 10 number. The only thing that I would do different

is I take out all the drafting or super speedway races because I don't think that's fair to have the fastest car be part of that conversation because what I take into account is I take into account like the average lap speed for the whole race. I take all the laps and average them together and then rank them. And then we do like the number of fastest laps run in the race. How many laps do they lead? Do they lead the most laps? And then their average running position in the race. So like that's that's what goes into my algorithm. And so I have 16 races this year that were not drafting track. Like not drafting track. So it's 10 of the 16 is what I would I would put in there. So that's like 63% this year. And including seven of the last nine, I think the only two that weren't

where Nashville, where I would say Hamlin was the fastest guy, and then Gateway where Bell was the fastest driver. So, but then I went back and looked at like all the next-gen races since the beginning of 2022, because that's basically when I cut off a lot of this stuff. And I would say it's under 50%. I would say there's more like 46% of the races were won by the fastest car. And it was, it's gotten gradually better.

Like in 2022, only 10 of the whole 30 races that we calculated, were won by the fastest caller. We've already had 10 this year. So I think I don't understand, I'm not smart enough to know exactly why that's changing. I don't know if like there were so many more unknowns in the 2022 season, that that's the reason for that. But I think it's interesting that, you know,

we're getting progressively seeing that fastest color win more as we go on. That's really interesting actually, because if you think about it in 2022, that everybody thinks that was like the best, the most exciting thing ever, right? Because probably what you're talking about, the fastest car, the most dominant car, was not winning that often.

You'd have some crazy thing. Somebody's tire would go down late in the race or something, or there'd be some wild thing happen, and it was so unpredictable. We had so many different winners. It is really interesting, though, because part of mine, it's very tough to quantify the fastest, right?

Because you can't just look at laps lead. So I, too, at times for a tiebreaker, we'll look at overall green flag speed, number of fastest laps run. But I also don't have an algorithm that's spitting it out. So I'm more looking at like, I test first, anecdotally first, and then I need those for a tiebreaker. But obviously, I think you're, I'm more of a data person. I just don't know how to do the data. So I would lean on yours. But I'm glad to know at least we both have.

10 in terms of the fastest car winning. I'm sure that the others, the other cars were all super speedway races that I probably added in there. Probably, yeah. Yeah, that would make sense. So Russell, I know you've got this algorithm and you've got all of these different factors that go in the variables. But the best average running position, most laps lead, most the fastest lap slud, if you had to choose, I know you really can't because you're trying to put all of these together to get your results. But if you had to choose one of those to base it off of, which one do you think would be the most important out of that list?

The average lap speed is, I think, the best teller of this. So, you know, that just takes into account everybody's lap. So that takes all the laps in the race and then averages all of them to have who has the best average of that. So you're looking at every lap in the race being able to tell who is the fastest guy. And I think that's the, when you look at all the results, that's the one that's the most telling. And that was Hamlin for Nashville. That's what I look at under green flag speed for the loop data, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I just take all the laps. I get a feed of all the laps and they just take them and do all that myself. I'm not really sure what they do with that. Is this something that you kept up with before the next gen corridor? Yeah, I can go back as pretty much as far, like, into the early 2000s. What's the comparison like from the old model to the next gen model? So like if we go back to 2020, that's where I'll start.

We had 191, but we're the fastest that won. And then 2021, we add like 12. Okay. So I go back two years real quick. Yeah. So I think it's all over the place, really. I don't think it'll be interesting to see you, go back and look at that 2021 season on why there's so few. Is that surprising to you, Jeff?

Well, it is in the sense that you would have thought, you know, like look at the year Larson won the 10 races, right? Which is what he's talking about. like to me that that is a season where um hey you built better cars and you're going to see the results of it and um it's not like people were i'm not saying back it into winds but the circumstances were fluky as much um as the first year of the next gen but at the same time NASCAR always has that sort of element right that's why people i think love NASCAR it's not f1esque where hey max for stappen just showed up today unless something crazy happens, he's going to win, right?

Like you know in NASCAR for years now, I mean, as long as we've been watching it, at least I have. I mean, something, there's going to be a late caution or something, you know, a bad pit stop or somebody's going to get caught up in somebody else's wreck or somebody's engine blows up. There's so many things that can happen and you just never know. And that's what, to me, that's what makes NASCAR great, like the unpredictability of it. who you know i i don't know what's going to happen at the end of this race and you know now you have the

this changes everything caution or the pit strategy is turned upside down um you run people out of fuel whatever it is right like that's what there's enough of those throughout the season that it makes you want to tune in every week because otherwise people would watch the first few laps like the uf1 and be like all right this is done like and to your point jeff like that that's the year larsen won 10 races. He won six of those 12 that the fastest guy won. So yeah, and I'm not saying we necessarily want to see what happened in Nashville happened every week. I think that was definitely an asterisk for the season. But watching it, I mean, I know there were a lot of debates out there of like, oh, was it too, was it too much? You know, was it embarrassing? Honestly, from watching that race

at home, I thought it was kind of exciting because that that's the question that you were asking, all of those restarts. What's going to happen next? Like in, even though, you know, it kind of went over the window for, for television, you flipped over and you wanted to keep watching because you had to see what happened. So again, we don't necessarily want to see that happen all the time, but to your point, Jeff, it's definitely what keeps fans interested on a week-to-week basis. Yeah, and I mean, I think NASCAR would be a very different place if it was the other way around. And like you look at, and I wish I had the number in front of me, but Chris Gabehart keeps track of how many times he believes that Hamlin, he and Hamlin should have won. And the percentage, the amount of times they've actually done it is like way less than 50%.

I mean, it's, you know, he has his own metric of what he thinks is a winning car or their opportunity to win. And he says he's realistic about it, but it's minuscule, I think, the percentage. So again, it's a completely different sport, though, if it's, hey, I just built the fastest car. I showed up with the fastest car. I dominated. I won.

game over. Like, I think that is one of the hallmarks of NASCAR. So I think they, I think they should, they should embrace it because I think that's why a lot of people watch. Russell, I want to go back over again, your list of kind of numbers for percentages. We have the best average running position is 47%, which is the highest, which is kind of interesting because, you know, we always hear drivers talk about if you run up front long enough, a win will kind of find you. So that's kind of good data, I guess, since that is the highest to go along with that. Most laps lead, that's at 43%. Fastest laps, 37%, best average speed, 32%.

But then the stage wins and the sweep stages. I know you were kind of crunching some numbers on this. So what do you have for that statistically? Yeah, so in the stage era, we've had somebody sweep the first two stages 71 times and only 26 times they went on to win. and that's only happened once this year. Wow. That's crazy.

Yeah. And you look at it like Truex is as the best at it. He's done it seven times. Only eight drivers have won those 26 races when you look at it. It is fascinating too. And like you're saying that 43% of the time the car that leads the most laps wins the race. And I just think that has to do a lot with this car, right? because you could lead the most laps early, dominate the first couple stages.

It probably explains the stages as well. But if you lose clean air for a second and you're in traffic, that dominant car, I mean, you might never sniff the front again. You might never lead another lap in that race. So I think that's. I think Larson's led the most laps this year or close to the most laps. And 80% of his laps have come in like stage one and two. Interesting.

Yeah. that says a lot because if you win the poll you dominate early the strategy is straightforward right okay we're only doing one pit stop this stage or whatever it is and you don't you're not really challenged unless there's a bunch of cautions that mix things up to have to lose your track position and come back from it so I think you know it's it's so tough to figure out that's you know who is the fastest sometimes because you get this false reading the entire first half of the race sometimes how often and Russell, do you think kind of that eye test that when we're all watching the race lines up with the metrics that you have? Or do you think it just kind of varies?

I think it just varies. It's so hard anymore with like the late caution. The late caution, you know, is the biggest factor in that, in my opinion. And that's why like when you listen to Dirty Mo Doe, it's so tough. I mean, and I feel for people that are really trying to bet on the sport. and consistently have success with it because it's like you could identify the five fastest cars in the race. You know, you're saying, okay, these are who's. And in fact, you could identify somebody that's going to be a great top 10 pick with plus

money or whatever, right? And you have it the whole race. And then the late caution, you basically got it right, but some fluky thing happens and it's all gone. It's just done. And other people are like, well, I told you. See, I had, I picked this guy to win. And like, like, Lugano. Oh, yeah, you're a genius. Great job. He was running 15th the whole race. But you somehow won. Like, I'm sorry, it's hard to give

credit for that. You know what I mean? Yeah. I pay attention to it very, very closely. So yes, I know what you mean. I feel this way. I had him been winning. So. Oh, wow. Right. I mean, you were this close. Austin Cinderick cost me a win. So. I feel this way every week when people ask you, who do you think is going to win the race? You're like, I either stay around the names that I always pick, like a Larson or a Hamlin or Christopher Bell as of late. But you don't ever feel, even when you're picking that, you don't even really feel confident in your choice. And honestly, I know a lot of people that are making bets, Russell, you know, might be waiting for the practice and the qualifying to see how they run. But, I mean, the results show that that really, I mean, you might as well make.

make your bets before that even happens. Yeah, if you can get better odds that way. You know, practice anymore. If we can get 50 minutes of practice, we can tell who the three fastest cars are. It's just, you know, what happens at the end is what kills us again. So it's just tough. Like those cautions come and it just kills the winning strategy, really. I think this is I think I'm going to change from now on when somebody comes up to me to tweet up or something's like hey who's going to win today like you're saying carlo like I think I'm just going to go well I'll tell you who I think's going to be the fastest best car today but I'm winning is a totally different conversation yeah it's just like the championship really right like I can tell you who's the best car of the season but are they going to win the title I don't know they got to get all the way to the final four and then they got to win one race like I how can I tell that but I could tell that but I could tell you but I could

tell you who I think will be the best car of the year. So that will be my go-to from now on. I think I'm going to change. Yeah, completely different conversations. All right. Well, Russell, we appreciate you hopping on and giving us all these numbers super interesting to kind of add to that conversation. Jeff, do you have anything else for him? No, I appreciate you both, you know, validating my somewhat close data and making me opening my eyes to other things I need to look at. So this has this has been very helpful for me. I could have, we could have done lunch or something. This would have been helpful. So to do it here is very, I appreciate it. I'm available. That's awesome. Really appreciate the professor joining us today. It's time now to get to our white flag, Jeff.

And of course, we got to look back at all the podcast that Dirty Mo Media is putting out there. Obviously, you and Jordan Bianchi always put out the tear down. How much fun is it to do that right after the race? I know you talk a little bit about this on that podcast. like it's that initial reaction and sometimes you don't always love that you like maybe some time away from it but i feel like this is it's really important for fans to kind of get that initial reaction from you to because it is an honest opinion yeah it's it can be both scary and fun um for me i like going back like monday and tuesday are my most fun days of the week because i start listening to the other dirty mopods and it's almost like uh you turned in your test of what you

bought yeah And then you're sort of listening to see if you were right. So like if Denny agrees or is like echoing some of the things that Jordan and I talked about or the DBC guys and then Dale comes in. And like if they all line up, you're like, oh, man. Like I think I know what I'm talking about this week. And then sometimes you're like, oh, I'd like to crawl into a hole. I think I got that one wrong.

Like I was out on an island on this one. Nobody agreed with me, which is sort of horrifying. But then you just hope nobody notices. So it is really fun, though. And the fact that Jordan and I disagree a lot, too, I think helps because at least one of us will be right. Usually me, I think. But, you know, I was going to say, well, the perspective from fans, too, you're at least hitting on how most people are feeling after the race. You have the harder part of the job, though.

Like DJD Reloaded, we're at the end of the week. I'm like wrapping up the week. So I just get to react to all of the opinions out there. So I get to turn on my test last, which I very much appreciate. So appreciate y'all taking the forefront of that. Obviously, you mentioned actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin. Door bumper clear. They're always giving the entertaining spin on everything from the weekend.

And then the Dell Jr. download, I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm probably going to do it right after this. But Martin Truex Jr., on with Dell, you and I were talking about how much we're kind of looking forward to listening in on this. What do you think we're going to expect from that episode? I honestly, as soon as we're done with this, I want to listen to it too, because, you know, they've been friends for so long. I'm sure some really cool old stories are going to come out. But then, like, also how to, I'm just fascinated to hear, like, eavesdrop on one of their conversations because Dale's talked about it a bunch of times they go hunting and, like, they don't even, like, speak on a week long.

Because Martin's just such a man, a few words. So I want to hear how they interact and what their relationships like. It's going to be really fun to listen to. Yeah, absolutely. Can't wait to do that. We got Speed Street staying up to date with IndyCar with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. and then Dirty Mode Doe with the professor, obviously, given all the great stats that you need to know. He knows way more than we do about these bets.

So definitely be sure to listen in to that. Jeff, we appreciate you joining us today. Maybe one day we'll get you and Jordan in studio with me. That would be pretty fun. That sounds good. Yeah, we'll do a crossover episode. It would be a lot of fun. Yeah.

Well, I will see you in Chicago this week. And I guess you and Jordan are going to be there, right? Yep. This is a big race. So the big races get double covered. So yes, we will be there in full force. So it should be a lot of fun. Although last year we had to do the podcast from our hotel room

because the Chicago media center is not the most conducive to radio broadcast because it's in an art institute. So it's not like there's places to do it. So you may see, for those who watch us on YouTube, you may see us coming to you from somebody's hotel room randomly. But we'll find out. It'll all be anxious to see how it goes together. Yeah, surely there's lots of places with Wi-Fi for you to hook up, too.

Let's hope. Let's hope. All right. Well, we appreciate it again. That's going to do it for us. Today, we'll see some of you in Chicago this weekend. And if not, we'll see you back here next Thursday on DJD Reloaded. Have a good rest of your week.

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