The Dale Jr. Download - The Real Reason For Less Practice with Elton Sawyer

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Carla Gebhart and Andrew Kurland are joined by NASCAR's SVP of Competition, Elton Sawyer, to pull back the curtain on practice time at NASCAR’s highest levels. The hot topic started several weeks ago with comments from Brad Keselowski. It caught new momentum this week after Jimmie Johnson wrecked at Texas. Is less practice a good thing or a bad thing for today’s racing product? What do drivers like? Owners? Fans? Dale Jr. went on a self-admitted tangent this week on the Download saying we eliminated practice during the pandemic but never properly put it back despite everyone wanting it. But no sooner did he say it, Chase Elliott made a compelling argument as to why it’s fine the way it is. Who’s right? What’s the real story about practice? Is it a cost burden and, if so, for who? We’re searching for answers and going straight to the source – NASCAR. 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.

The great Alan Iverson once said, we're talking about practice. And yeah, that's exactly what we're doing today on DJD Reloaded. And I'll tell you why we're talking about practice. It's because everybody is talking about practice. Del Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, even Denny Hamlin had thoughts about the topic earlier this season. So we're going to revisit all of their opinions on the topic. But what happened to practice? Like, where did it go and is it ever going to come back? That's really only a question. that NASCAR can answer for us today, which is why we have Senior Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, joining the show. He's going to peel back the curtain a little bit on that conversation for us, and hopefully tell us something we don't know when we're talking about practice.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Welcome into another episode of DJD, Reloaded. In 2019, if you said, hey, man, we're going to do away with practice. they would have all told you you were crazy and then it's never going to happen ever it has to be financially viable for the teams to do it time for another episode of DJD reloaded here in the Bojangles studio I'm your host Carla Gebhardt also have a co-host with me here today Andrew Curlin going to help me talk a little bit more practice about practice that's right and you know last week we talked a little bit about short tracks

or a lot about short tracks but then DJD reloaded we went a different direction this week everybody was talking about practice. And now we feel like there's even more questions that really need to be answered surrounding this topic. So before we even get started, I think we need to kind of, you know, talk a little bit about what practice was like pre-COVID. Yeah. And again, anytime you get a Dale Jr., old man complaining alert, it's worth talking about, you know, this week, it was practice. And, you know, we'll get into what practice is now. But practice before COVID, It was three 50-minute sessions. You qualified during the weekend.

It was really a weekend experience. There was a lot of on-track time for these cup cars and cup teams to make adjustments and really learn the track. Yeah, so a lot of on-track time for drivers. That is not the case anymore. Only, what, 20 minutes of practice now? Mostly, if that at all, when they visit these tracks on the weekend. But the reason that it all went away, there was a reason for that. And Dell Jr. talked about it earlier this week.

In 2019, when we were practicing two to three, four hours per series per weekend, if you said to any owner, anybody in the industry, anybody in a suit, anybody up in the tower, NASCAR, if you said it to anyone, a fan, drivers, hey man, we're going to do away with practice. They would all told you you were crazy and it was never going to happen, ever. And then, you know, we go through the pandemic and it forced us into these situations. I think that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, like, like Dale said, there was never really this idea of, oh, my gosh, are we really going to do it with practice? And then pandemic comes and like, we have to run, we have to fit in a full season with all the time we lost waiting for racing to come back.

And there was that opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. And no other sport could come back as early as NASCAR could. they made those adjustments to give fans something to watch during the pandemic. But if you think about other sports, NFL, NBA, you can't get rid of practice. I don't think any professional athlete would normally say that, but that was not necessarily the case. And now that they've made the changes, I think a lot of people, even drivers, including they don't necessarily know if they want to go back. You're talking about the drivers.

We were having this debate, and Chase Elliott called in, and we got to hear his opinion on the show. I think we have enough practice. I certainly can understand their perspective on guys either running a part-time schedule or people that are running maybe full-time in Xfinity like Shane is and then running a few cup races here and there. But when I look at the whole argument as a whole, I look at short tracks across the country and there's dirt track races that happen every Friday and Saturday night that they get literally five laps of hot laps.

and then they run the race. So, okay, we're supposed to be professionals, you know, and we're supposed to be at the top of our class. Why should we get an hour and a half when people that are trying to come up through the ranks only get five laps before their race? Yeah, hey, I like it. You're convincing me to change my opinion.

Del's just quick. I mean, we spent 15 minutes on the topic, and then Chase says that one thing, he's like, oh, you changed my mind. He went back a little bit more as we continue to talk about it, But yeah, it was funny how quickly he changed his mind. It was an interesting topic, though, too, I think,

or interesting point of view from Chase Elliott's point of view, is the fact that, you know, I think a lot of drivers, maybe they don't want to be on track just because it's a lot of, like, being at the track, right, and being there for a little bit longer. But he's saying it should be more challenging for us because we are at the top of the sport. And I think that makes a lot of sense and something that I haven't really thought about before. I want to talk about a guy, since you're talking about the drivers,

a guy who's in an interesting situation, he's going to need some practice, but it's not in a NASCAR race car. It's in an IndyCar vehicle with Kyle Larson. He's racing the double this year. He came on Speed Street this past week to talk all about his Indy 500 experience, including all the practice you get on the IndyCar side. Do you need as much on NASCAR? Let's hear what Kyle said.

The best year I had in NASCAR, we just showed up and raced. Okay, all right, never right. Truth really like 20 minutes is more than I'm used to in a dirt race. you know, we'll get three to five laps. So, I don't know. I mean, I think road course, like, places I struggle, I'd like to have more practice, and then places I feel like we have an advantage with our setups and stuff, I would like no practice.

So just, I guess, selfish. But I don't know. I kind of like the way things are. And two, I think Andy's going to feel really weird to me, like that first week of just all. day laps and practice and stuff. A ton. Larson's being selfish. Well, I think most drivers are going to do.

I want to do what's best for me. What's convenient for me? I think a lot of drivers probably feel that way too. But from Chase Elliott's point of view, I kind of heard that he wants that challenge. I think he wants to set that bar high for himself. For Kyle Larson, I almost felt like he was saying, you know, I'd do better when I think less about it, right?

Which means less practice, probably less time on track and just going out there and running laps and getting in the race and making your adjustments there. In a weird way, it almost makes it more of a team sport without practice because then you're really relying on your crew, your team to give you something good to unload with. Yeah, absolutely. And we've heard from drivers, but we know there's other opinions out there. Drivers and owners, we have two of those in our sport, at least in the Cup series, Brad Kislauski, right, for RFK racing and Denny Hamlin of 2311.

and they both had varying opinions about this. Brad Kislauski was actually quoted earlier this season saying, you know, I don't really think it's ever a good idea for our sport to move, spending away from things for spectators to really enjoy at the tracker, for media to be able to cover this event. But Denny Hamlin for 2311, he had a completely different take for that when he heard what Brad had to say. It bugs me a little bit that Brad's like, oh, we just need to have more practice. It's not going to cost us anymore.

Well, that's not true. That sounds like someone has never had to make a cash call before with his race team. I know for a fact, Joe Gibbs Racing saves significant money when we cut practice. 2311 would be more than happy to go back to full practice and qualifying if we just got our damn expenses covered, but we were not. It all falls on us. It's an interesting point there. You wonder about if they bring it back, where's the money going to come from?

We talked about some charters last week, and maybe would that make a difference if that's kind of thrown in there as far as the budget's concerned? Sounds like we've got a good debate going. We've got perspectives from all different sides. And, you know, I'm curious to see what Elton Sawyer has to say. Yeah, and they're all talking about good or bad. You mentioned Elton Sawyer. That's really going to be the voice of authority as far as this topic is concerned about why practice went away and is it going to come back. We're going to hear from Elton Sawyer.

coming up. We mentioned that voice of authority as far as when we're talking about practice in the NASCAR Cup series. Where did it go? Is it coming back? Should it come back? Let's go ahead and bring in the senior vice president of competition, a guy who can really speak to all of this for us. Give us some clarifying answers. Elton Sawyer joining us now. Elton, thanks so much for joining us. And I don't necessarily know exactly how I want to tackle this topic right now. But let's just start going back to 2020, right? When you had the option to take practice away, what were those conversations like back then? Well, Carla, I would say if you take backing up to COVID, obviously we had to do a lot of things different than what we've done in the past. And for all the things that came out

of COVID that were really, really bad for our country, for our industry, we had to make some decisions. We were the first national sports entity to get back to racing, but we were. We were the first national sports entity to get back to racing, but we had to do that in a safe way. Part of that was to make sure that we could get our field set. We're so used for 75 plus years used to having practice and we're used to having qualifying and multiple practices, and that just wasn't going to be an option as we moved into post-COVID. So working closely with the industry, the teams, the broadcast partners, the tracks, we came up with the model that we had then. which was basically show up and race.

We set the lineups based on points and metrics. We turned the cars loose or trucks loose and we went racing. Believe me, for a competitor that's been around a sport for many years, have been a driver. Never in my wildest dreams that I think we could have done that or even that I think that was even possible from a driver's perspective. But we learned a lot. We learned we could do that.

And then once we were able to get back to full racing, if you will, and get fans in the stands, as we took a deeper dive into what the qualifying, what the practice model looked like, again, there were so many things that we learned. Efficiencies, it wasn't all about the cost, which was a huge part of it for all of us, not just the garage area or the TV partners or our track partners. collectively, you know, all the stakeholders weighed in on what we needed. And we arrived at the format that we have today. And I would say if you look at the data as well as the I test, you know, our product on the racetrack is as good as it's ever been. At Atlanta a few weeks ago, zero, I would say zero practice. We had our 20-minute practice for the cup guys. And we had a three-wide finish at the start finish line.

which I don't know that another 40 or 50 minutes of practice was going to add to that. Maybe we'd have had five wide. I don't know. I don't think so. And then just past weekend at Texas in the Xfinity series, very comparable finish with that series. And also, drivers with a lot less experience. So I think the debate is there, obviously. But I also think that, again, the data and the eye test gives us a really good point.

that what we're doing is not wrong. You mentioned kind of the reason why you haven't maybe brought it back because of the numbers that you're given or the opinions out there. Is there ever conversations right now to lengthen practice at all, to make it different for different tracks? Are there ongoing conversations about that? Oh, absolutely. And I think we've proven that just a couple weeks ago at Coda,

we had partial repaved with the facility. We had an arrow change with the diffuser. And just to make sure the teams had the opportunity to get familiar with both of those changes, we added a 50-minute practice for Cup. So it's not that we have just totally tabled this and we're not going to discuss it because I think it's as NASCAR has proven over 75 plus years that when topics like this come up, we get all of our stakeholders together. Again, our TV partners, our tracks, our teams, and we all weigh in because everyone has a different view on this.

And if it's better, if it's going to increase the value of our product that we put on the racetrack and our fan experience, then I'm sure that we would, you know, take a much deeper dive into making this happen. But as I hit on earlier, that doesn't seem to be the case right now. And I can see it from different driver's perspectives. You know, if you're a part-time driver that doesn't run cup every week with us, then obviously you're going to want more practice. I think there's guys that race with us every week. If you're a younger guy and you're used to this format, you're probably okay with what we have.

If you're a driver that has, like myself, has had a few birthdays behind you, you may want to look at more practice. So I think there's a, it's a good. dialogue. It's a good topic for discussion. But again, and I can't reiterate this enough, I think what we're doing today is working just by the eye test and the data that with the amount of passes and the type of racing that we're seeing on the racetrack. Elton, Dale talked about on the podcast this week about one of the benefits of these longer practice sessions, having more practice was teams were able to make wholesale changes and try something out and have.

a session to compare it to. What can teams adjust right now during practice? What's what's the what's what are the parameters to that? Yeah that's a great question Andrew just to be perfectly honest. I leave those those decisions up to Brad Moran and the series directors. It's a minimal list. It's not a wholesale change. There's no scale set up on pit road. There's no spring changes or something like that. So if you look at platform adjustments and and wedge adjustments and things of that nature, something very similar to what you would be able to do in a normal pit stop is allowed. So the other part of this, and this is not one that carries a significant amount of weight, but it does have to be part of the discussion. Once we, as NASCAR, we inspect the vehicles and we give them back to the race teams to go and do their 20-minute session.

We've got officials around the cars on pit road. We've got a good eye on what's going on. Once we totally give them back to the teams, they can come in and out of the garage, they can make wholesale changes. We're going to go through another process, which is another inspection. And that's going to extend the day. Now, I know our fans, that's probably not something they're all that concerned about, but when you talk about the industry stakeholders and your tracks and your broadcast partners

into people and the resources needed to go through that process, it's something that you have to weigh in as well. But again, if this is going to increase the value of our race and profit, I think this is really the bottom line, then we're going to take a deep dive into it and make that happen. You mentioned like there's a bunch of different, you know, variables that you guys looked at, not only just cost being the reason to shorten practice. and from what we had. We've got a clip from Dale on the download that I'm curious to hear your thoughts on.

I know that an executive could sit down with me and say, here it is, right here are numbers. We are saving money. But I know what he's not telling me is that if I turned practice on, if it was a switch, and I turned it back on, he'd find a way to find that damn money to go practice

and he would save money somewhere else. I'm an owner in a series. I complain about costs. I know costs suck. I know it's expensive. If things got tighter, we would find a way to make it work. Curious, like, what's your reaction to what Dale said there? Oh, great point.

I mean, he wears and has worn all the different hats, right? He's been a driver. He's now a very successful car. He's also worked on the media side with his broadcasts. And what we're doing here was with Dirty Mode Media. So what I would say to that is he's 100% right. That's our DNA, has been for years. If there's a dollar laying there, the teams are going to figure out a way to spend it.

Totally agree with that. But my counter to that would be, are we 100% sure that when we go down this path? Because it will increase costs. It will do that. They're going to find the money somewhere. I totally agree. But will it increase the value by adding that content? And I think that's the fundamental question that we would ask, you know, all of our stakeholders,

from the teams, obviously, again, tracks and broadcasts, will it increase the value of our product? And if it does, then we're going to figure out a way to make it happen. As we did, when we were shut down because of COVID, we figured out a way to get back racing. We sat down as a collective group, worked through all of that. Here's how we have to do this to get back to racing. And, you know, I commend this industry. I've been fortunate to be around it for a very long time. when tough times hit us, we figure out a way to move forward. So that's a real compliment to this industry. You mentioned that TV partners are a part of that conversation.

Do they ever ask for more practice? That's a great question. I would say not maybe as much as we hear from certain drivers. And I think it goes back to the debate of whether you're a young driver and you haven't been around the sport maybe the last 10 years. and you're more accustomed to the type of formats we have today. But our broadcast partners, they weigh in on that. And if it was something that they strongly felt that we needed,

then they would, obviously they would come at us a little harder on that initiative. But I will say they were heavily involved in the format that we have today. And the reason it's broke up into two 20-minute sessions is, from a TV perspective, it gives the 20 or so drivers, 18 drivers, that are not in that first session opportunity to talk with TV, you know, what they're anticipating, what they're looking for, what they think their car is going to do. And then on the flip side, it's the drivers after that

that have already run the 20-minute session, they can give us more additional content on their perspective of what the track's doing or what their individual cars are doing. So, again, I think it's a great topic. and we're not closed mind to this is from the NASCAR perspective, but I think it does take, you know,

it's going to take all of us to sit at the table. And again, if this is going to move the needle and increase the value of our brand on the track, there's no doubt in my mind that we would definitely move forward. We've had some of the greatest racing

that I think we've had in a long time in our sport. Super Speedway, mile and a half, as we hit on earlier, it's been great. Yeah, some work to be done. on short tracks and road courses, but I'm not sure that's all a byproduct of not practicing. And sometimes I think it's fair to say that when we have more practice, the teams get their

cars dialed in. That's great. But they just run nose to tail. So there's a debate whether practice is more beneficial or not. You mentioned that these conversations are ongoing. And I'm sure fans would be excited to hear that because I think you do hear a lot of times, at least from the fan perspective, that they're missing the on-track content. What are the conversations around that and kind of where does that fan experience rank on the totem pole of priorities for NASCAR? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. When it comes to fans, they're going, they have a strong, strong voice. Without fans, we don't have a sport. So if our fans speak up and they're looking for that, then it's up to us, again, as a stakeholders, to try to figure out what that,

what that looks like. But again, I think it's fair to say that what we have on the racetrack today is really, really good. That's not to say that we can't make it better, but the fans, they weigh in heavily on those decisions or their input is heavily, you know, obviously on the table as we go through those conversations. Absolutely. Well, Elton, we appreciate your time. and thanks so much for giving us a little bit more insight to practice, the decision making by NASCAR. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.

You as well. Thank you. It's a super interesting conversation. I'm just kind of curious. What were some of your takeaways? Because there was kind of a lot to unpack there and a lot of moving parts, which I think is important for everybody to kind of understand. And I think a lot of people do understand that there's a lot of voices in the room when it comes to this decision. But still, that's a lot.

I think what he said, there are a few things that were interesting to me. The first one being that if the racing product is affected by it, it's on the table, right, to make changes. But he brings up a good point. Like, we've had a pretty good start to the season. The racing product, I mean, outside of the short tracks and some of the road courses, we've had a lot of stuff to talk about and a lot of good things to talk about, is that enough of a reason to keep things the way they are? I don't know, but we always get in this debate of like NASCAR sometimes people complain,

like, oh, they're changing things just to change it. You know, if it ain't broke, why are we trying to fix it? I think maybe this is one of those situations. Elton kind of convinced me there that maybe we don't need any more practice in what we need. But the conversation is still ongoing. But it is. It is an important topic. I think drivers, I think fans and teams are going to continue talking about it and try to move the needle in that way.

But it is interesting just thinking about a practice and really the new fans that NASCAR has kind of brought in, right? They don't know any different, you know, pre-2020, pre-COVID. They don't know that. But I do think, you know, on track content is going to be important, even especially for those new fans that are showing up at the racetrack. Give them more to watch. I think that a lot of times that's what fans want. I don't know if it, does that mean more practice? I don't know.

That might mean just something else for fans to do while they're there. I agree with you. The weekend experience, I feel like, was strongest before COVID. I mean, you got to go to a racetrack on Friday. You got to see Cup practice, Xfinity practice, a truck race, right? And you go on Saturday. Same thing. There was more time to see the stars of the Cup series on the track.

And that's definitely something we've been missing with this new. format of limited track time with less practice. Yeah, we've heard from drivers. We've heard from NASCAR. And now I think it's time to hear from the fans. You want to do that? I think so. Yes, coming up after this. We're hearing from you, the fans, Dale calls. Hashtag don't hold me to it. And much more right after this. So a lot of opinions out there, but what do fans actually think about this? We kind of mentioned what we thought they thought about it. But let's actually hear from them on this week's Dale calls. We asked, what do you miss most about practice and those longer weekends of racing?

What I miss the most about long race weekends are when I was a fan and I would go to these races, it was a whole event for the weekend. So you got to watch practice on Friday, Expanity on Saturday, more practices on Saturday, and then the race on Sunday, you made a whole weekend of the event. I miss those things. And I wish NASCAR would bring it back. He brings up a good point. And it's kind of what we touched on right before the break is like it was a weekend event.

Even I remember a handful of years being at home said back when it was the championship race. And you would look at the scoring pylons and watching those championship four drivers. Oh, this guy's good in practice. This guy's not. It was a storyline to follow. And I think we're missing that. Yeah, I think a lot of media members feel that way to extra content. I know Bob Pocker's kind of wrote an article about practice and mentioned that, hey, I like practice because, yeah, it does give me those storylines ahead of the race to kind of talk about.

The other thing, too, is that this is also different from other sports as well because you go to an NBA game, two hours, NFL game, three to four hours. They're trying to be, you know, not more like other sports, but, you know, it's not just a one event type thing that NASCAR fans are used to. They are used to more of that festival type broadening the weekend because there are three races over the weekend. Yeah, what I miss the most about long race weekends is just having more driver appearances like autograph sessions. That's what the experience should be about is going there and enjoying a race weekend, but also enjoying the time of maybe I have that extra pit pass to go get an autograph from a driver. So that's definitely something that I miss and I wish to Nasker or bring back more of for me. I think this is the biggest complaint probably

is that they want to see more of the drivers which practice offered that right you could see them in the garages walking to their cars you know that up close and personal experience that NASCAR offers but NASCAR has kind of added some of these autographed experiences

this season but I still think fans want more and not only that drivers are just not there at the track physically there for as much time since we've limited practice As a NASCAR fan traveling down to the races for all these years from Canada, we do Martinsville and Bristol. It's about a 14-hour drive. Track activity and track time is king.

After such a long drive, it's nice to get to the track right and early the next day and soak up all the practice time, get to see all the drivers, who's fastest, who's doing what? Wish it would all come back. Interesting. Yeah, the consensus, I think. And again, these are from fans talking about our at-track experience. And from their opinion, it seems to have gone down with less ability to see our superstars on the racetrack. Yeah, I think you think of your NASCAR fan, the ones that have supported you throughout the years. You think that they are driving to these tracks, right?

They're spending the weekend with their family at the track. And once they get there, like the tickets, we've mentioned that too, the tickets are also can be pretty expensive for these events too. so they kind of want to get the bang for their buck in that sense. But we also asked you on Twitter or X on hashtag, don't hold me to it, do you want to see more practice? Do you want to see less of it or should it stay the same for drivers? So let's go ahead and see what fans on Twitter had to say. I was reading through some of these earlier this week.

And a lot of vocal opinions out there. We've got Andrew. Jonah says, absolutely, we need more practice. Maybe not two hour opens and a happy hour. but there is a need if Jimmy Dale and Richard needed practice. So does Chase, Brad, Joey, and Dennis. Content creation alone would be a boost to the sport. Yeah, absolutely.

And David is saying the way they do it now was meant to level the playing field. It's the same for everyone. I know there are some, you know, debates on that right now. Does it really level the playing field or does it give the good teams the advantage to make their cars even better? You know, that's one thing we have to look at. And Ethan, this is his solution. One hour practice on Friday, half hour practice on Saturday, qualifying right after 20-minute warm-up on Sunday morning. Interesting, some Sunday morning track time.

He's got the whole schedule laid out for us. That's nice. Yeah. I think, again, a lot of this, at least that last point there, was having the cup cars there, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. and I just, me personally, I don't know if I ever see us going back in the direction of having more teams and more crews and drivers have spent one more night on a hotel and one extra day at the track when you can really hammer it all in on Saturday. Yeah, I know there was another comment on X2 that said less or none, like no practice because this creates the comers and goers and more storylines, maybe not ahead of the race, but maybe during the race. And this is always a conversation when we get around the Daytona 500 to to start the season, right? I think that's the only time where drivers are like, you know, we probably could use a little more practice to prepare for the biggest race of the season.

That's, you know, not necessarily the case anymore. But I do wonder, you know, as conversations continue, will they change the rules based on the track that they're at? Or, yeah, a driver experience, will they offer it just so drivers can have the option, right? Some drivers might not even want the option. Yeah, where do you stand? I'm curious after hearing all the debates, every opinion. More cost efficiency, probably. So I wouldn't mind seeing a slight increase to practice. I don't think it has to be a whole lot more just because that is going to cost teams a lot. And it sounds like NASCAR a lot, too, to kind of financially plan for that.

But I think, yeah, increasing it just a little bit more or making that on-track content king going into the race, weekend because fans, they do matter and you have to give them what they're asking for. Yeah, certainly more storylines to follow, I think. I don't know. For me, I go back and forth. I am definitely against zero practice. We need something because we can't be rolling the cars out and we realize that, oh, X person has mechanical failure on the warm-up lap because we didn't have time to check it during a practice session. Is this enough right now what we have? I don't know. We need some more tire test. Yes, I think so.

Maybe that's the direction we need to go, is the tire testing. Really focus in on that good year rubber. That's what Reddick said he needed. It's all just more tire testing. All right, should we get to the white flag? Let's do it. All right. Well, we have so much content just pumping out of dirty moe media.

And, of course, a lot of it has already been released earlier this week. We had the teardown. We had actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin, DBC, and a great Dell Jr. download interview this week. Oh, my gosh. It blew me. Marlon Yoder, his life story up to this point could literally be a movie. We were all looking at each other, us in the studio.

While Dale was interviewing Marlin just with complete awe and shock. I mean, if you haven't listened to his story, it's absolutely worth it. You can't stop listening. You can't stop listening. I think it was the longest guest interview we've had this year. Wow. And it was for good reason. That's right.

You heard Kyle Larson earlier on this show. that's because he was on Speed Street earlier this week. So be sure to take a listen to those guys. We got Dirty Mo Doe. And Andrew, you have some big news this weekend? Yes. Fan-controlled racing is back at Talladega. I'll be on the live stream during the Xfinity race.

And Mason Massey is in the car this weekend. The fans picked the driver, right? You can vote on who's in the car. And just like Phoenix, just like last year, the fans are going to be able to control what kind of adjustments do we make? What lane do we pick? Even as much as pre-race setup that the Kerchief is, you know,

setting during practice, right? You know, we won't be practicing this weekend at Talladega, but it's going to be an awesome time. It's going to be super interesting. Last time, the fan control car is out for a little bit of redemption. It got crashed out early in Phoenix last time we did this. So Talladega, it's a wild card. You could very likely see that car in Victory Lane.

Who knows? So that sounds really cool. But where can fans find this? Like how do you watch this? Yes. So you can play along with the fan-controlled racing app. During the race, you'll be presented different options, right? And you can vote which, you know, outside lane, inside lane.

Do we take two tires, four tires? And you will hear even on our live stream, which will be streaming on a bunch of different platforms, I think, including mine. You'll hear the crew chief of laying that information. Hey, the fans told us take two tires this time. So it's going to be interesting. Follow along. Make sure you download that app. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Be sure to tune in to that as well. And that's going to do it for us on DJD Relo. We'll see you back here next Thursday. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.