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Joe Gibbs Sues Chris Gabehart + Daytona 500 Recap | Charlie Marlow Show · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  What's up, everybody, Charlie Marlow here talking NASCAR, the
• 0:03
  week that was Daytona, the week that is coming up here, Atlanta.
• 0:08
  We're going to go in reverse order, though.
• 0:10
  The stories that have happened most recently, it's a Friday
• 0:13
  here as I record. You probably saw this yesterday
• 0:16
  blowing up all over social media on Thursday, Joe Gibbs Racing,
• 0:21
  Joe Gibbs suing Chris Gabehart. Chris Gabehart, the former
• 0:26
  competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing up until just this
• 0:30
  past year, really this past winter, they part ways.
• 0:34
  And now we know why. Gabe Hart also was the crew
• 0:37
  chief for Denny Hamlin before becoming competition director at
• 0:41
  Joe Gibbs Racing. But Joe Gibbs alleging that
• 0:46
  Chris Gabe Hart stole or took home or downloaded from his Joe
• 0:52
  Gibbs computers to his personal computers or personal drives,
• 0:58
  proprietary information on setups and all that.
• 1:02
  So I saw what Joe Gibbs was suing for something like $8
• 1:06
  million. Crazy story, but also funny,
• 1:10
  let's be honest, because everybody knows, doesn't matter
• 1:15
  what company you work for. If you go to a different company
• 1:20
  and you learn things and you learn smarter ways of doing
• 1:24
  things, of course you're going to take that information to your
• 1:28
  next place of work, your next occupation, which supposedly for
• 1:34
  Chris Gebhardt was going to be Spire Motorsports, according to
• 1:38
  all these documents. It's just the funny part for me
• 1:42
  is it's the fact that you go through and if you do this
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  digitally and you can be caught because there's a digital
• 1:50
  footprint, obviously you can do a forensic analysis of all the
• 1:54
  devices and all that. That's pretty easy, pretty easy
• 1:57
  to catch. And I put a tweet out there
• 1:59
  earlier where it's like if Chris Gabehart was like Rain Man, you
• 2:03
  wouldn't have to worry about all this if you could just memorize
• 2:06
  all this stuff. And the other thing, like today
• 2:10
  I got the notes here. I wrote them on a piece of paper
• 2:14
  for an insurance document. This is my insurance document.
• 2:18
  And I wrote about 7-8 bullet points on this piece of paper.
• 2:22
  Now look, we're talking about contracts.
• 2:24
  We're talking about pretty high end stuff with setups for cars
• 2:29
  and all that. But don't you also think does
• 2:32
  Chris Gaybhart, do you have to really download all this
• 2:35
  information sheet by sheet on piece of paper, Right.
• 2:40
  What I'm saying is all he had to do was every every night you can
• 2:43
  go home and you could focus on memorizing just a couple things
• 2:48
  and then you write it when you get home.
• 2:51
  Or how about some post IT notes? How about some old school post
• 2:55
  it notes? That's all he had to do.
• 2:56
  Just keep it off your personal computers and all that.
• 3:00
  Don't have it going from the Joe Gibbs computers to the personal
• 3:03
  computers. Again, we'll see how this all
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  plays out. But all you have to do, he could
• 3:07
  have been in his office, whatever.
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  And you take your piece of paper and every night you just write
• 3:13
  down 10 bullet points, whatever it is.
• 3:16
  Like, let's be real, we we all know this happens.
• 3:19
  If you go from one team to another, there's going to be an
• 3:23
  intellectual download basically of what you know and what was
• 3:29
  working and what wasn't working. This has been going on forever
• 3:33
  in every sport, certainly in NASCAR, but just legally you
• 3:40
  can't do it digitally. I mean, there's no way you could
• 3:43
  stop Chris Gabehart if if he had memorized or went home and write
• 3:47
  down, oh, here's our here's our setup for Daytona, Here's our
• 3:51
  setup for Coda, here's our setup for Martinsville.
• 3:55
  And he writes it on a piece of paper at home or maybe even goes
• 3:58
  home and then he puts it into some documents on his own home
• 4:02
  computer. You can't stop that.
• 4:04
  Everybody does that. But when you do it digitally,
• 4:07
  there's a footprint pretty easy to catch.
• 4:10
  So this is unfortunate. I like Chris Gabehart, I have to
• 4:13
  say. The last five years when I've
• 4:14
  been working essentially in NASCAR content, he was my
• 4:18
  favorite crew chief. I thought he was funny.
• 4:20
  I thought he always said interesting things whenever I
• 4:24
  saw an interview with Chris Gabehart.
• 4:26
  So we'll see what happens with this lawsuit.
• 4:28
  I hope he's back in the sport, though, because I think the
• 4:31
  sport is better with Chris Gabehart in it.
• 4:35
  And I saw his contract, whatever he was making, something like a
• 4:37
  million with an escalator up to 1.1 or whatever it is, bunch of
• 4:41
  bonuses. It might have been 1.51.6
• 4:43
  million with all the bonuses for wins and all that.
• 4:46
  Either way, big story. But just a just Rain Man it,
• 4:50
  post it notes. That's all you got to do people.
• 4:52
  All you got to do is just write it on your back of your
• 4:54
  insurance statement. That's what I do.
• 4:57
  OK, so that was the first story working backwards TV ratings.
• 5:03
  What was it, 7.5 million or something for the Daytona 500.
• 5:06
  Congratulations to NASCAR. I saw that was up something like
• 5:10
  11% from last year. Give NASCAR credit.
• 5:14
  The pomp and circumstance, the pageantry was always great with
• 5:18
  the Daytona 500 weather, again, give NASCAR credit, they moved
• 5:23
  the race up an hour and they dodged all that weather, which
• 5:26
  came pretty pretty soon after the end of the race in victory
• 5:29
  lanes. So I'm excited for NASCAR.
• 5:32
  I've been very critical of NASCAR, but I think NASCAR has
• 5:35
  deserved most of the criticism, especially the last year or so.
• 5:38
  But I want NASCAR to win. I want NASCAR to succeed.
• 5:42
  So I'm very happy that the Daytona 500 ratings were good.
• 5:47
  I hope they can build on that. You had a great finish.
• 5:50
  You had a great finish at the end.
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  Also, I saw the truck ratings were really good.
• 5:55
  One of the best truck races ever from ATV standpoint.
• 5:59
  You got Tony Stewart, obviously you got Travis Pastrana, Cletus
• 6:03
  McFarlane, whatever he's got now on YouTube, 4.5 or 5 million
• 6:09
  subscribers. He's got a huge following, huge
• 6:11
  following on Instagram, huge following on Facebook.
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  Cletus is a is a phenomenon. So obviously he brought
• 6:18
  eyeballs. Tony Stewart Truck Series is is
• 6:21
  good racing also. OK, so there's also this this
• 6:26
  argument, this debate that's being had in the media.
• 6:30
  It regards Cletus, it regards, you know, separately.
• 6:34
  I'm not trying to put Cletus and Natalie Decker in the same boat,
• 6:38
  but there was this debate about how drivers get approved.
• 6:43
  And then also with with Natalie Decker, I just feel like it was
• 6:46
  almost like that movie Mean Mean Girls, even though I didn't
• 6:48
  really watch that. But I feel like just everybody
• 6:50
  ganged up on her after she had luck.
• 6:53
  She had a really bad week. Let's be real, I just feel like
• 6:56
  everybody was just, everybody was just ganging up on her like
• 6:59
  this, this mob mentality. So hey, and hey, I have a
• 7:03
  daughter that's eight. I just kind of felt for her.
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  And I'm not even getting into the on track stuff.
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  I, I do think that's a very fair debate about the approval
• 7:12
  process for a Natalie Decker for a Cletus McFarland Cletus
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  obviously running ARCA the last several years.
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  He's on the the last several years, meaning last year, this
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  year on the superspeedways, Daytona, Talladega.
• 7:27
  I think Cletus is great for the sport.
• 7:30
  I think I'm going to go down with Kenny Wallace April 10th to
• 7:34
  that race in Bradenton, the Freedom 500.
• 7:36
  I believe I'm going to go with Kenny Wallace.
• 7:39
  So I think Cletus can only help NASCAR.
• 7:42
  I know Dale Junior put this out there.
• 7:44
  Is it a fair debate if if Cletus needed more seat time before he
• 7:48
  runs the truck race? I think that's absolutely a fair
• 7:51
  debate to have. And I agree with Dale Junior in
• 7:54
  this sense of of NASCAR. Look, Cletus is always going to
• 7:57
  get the eyeballs. And so NASCAR is doing all the
• 8:00
  marketing stuff with Cletus, but also like, let's let's get all
• 8:05
  the time on the track to make sure that he's good to go for a
• 8:09
  Truck Series race. And we don't have these these
• 8:12
  same debates afterwards. And look, there's a lot of more
• 8:15
  experienced drivers that can just wipe out at a truck race at
• 8:20
  Daytona. And luckily, when he wrecks, he
• 8:23
  wrecks away from the field into the wall and doesn't wreck into
• 8:27
  the field and could potentially hurt himself.
• 8:30
  Other drivers, ruin a bunch of equipment and all that.
• 8:33
  But again, I think that's a, that's a fair debate to have
• 8:36
  about how much seat time a Cletus McFarlane needs as he,
• 8:41
  he's just starting his journey of, of climbing the ladder in
• 8:44
  NASCAR. And I, I saw him say he wants to
• 8:46
  run the Daytona 501 day, which would be awesome.
• 8:49
  And that's probably what I mean realistically, if he were to do
• 8:52
  that, is that five years away? So nothing wrong with climbing
• 8:56
  the ladder just kind of piece by piece from ARCA to Trucks to an
• 9:00
  Xfinity. And, and maybe that is the case
• 9:02
  five years ago or so with the Daytona 500.
• 9:06
  That would be pretty cool. I'm a huge Cletus fan also, just
• 9:09
  as somebody who's a a full time content creator now or in this,
• 9:12
  in this business with YouTube. And I think I think I'm either
• 9:17
  co-owner produce. I mean, there's there's 10 plus
• 9:21
  channels. We've monetized 6 of them.
• 9:24
  It'll be 7 here pretty soon. But I have all the respect in
• 9:27
  the in the world for his game. When I say game, I mean that in
• 9:30
  a good way. Like he's got game in terms of
• 9:32
  just YouTube and I mean he's got his own streaming and he's got
• 9:36
  live events. He's just killing it.
• 9:37
  So I have a lot of respect for Cletus in that regard for sure.
• 9:42
  OK, we're going backwards folks. I'm trying to hit on everything.
• 9:46
  So Daytona 500, let's just go. I didn't really break it down.
• 9:52
  I talked about it with the with the Mark Martin Archive podcast.
• 9:55
  We record on Mondays, but that shows mostly about Mark and
• 9:59
  Matt. So I don't really give my
• 10:02
  detailed opinions. First of all, you got the fact
• 10:08
  that it was a a great finish, OK, Even if you didn't like the
• 10:12
  finish, even if you don't like all the wrecks and the sparks
• 10:15
  flying, as Mark Martin would say, it was a very compelling
• 10:19
  finish. And I think NASCAR really needed
• 10:22
  that compelling finish, especially with the way it was
• 10:26
  earlier in the race, mostly stage 3 with the fuel saving of
• 10:33
  the Toyotas, just setting up a parade route of three boom,
• 10:36
  boom, boom and blocking the rest of the field.
• 10:39
  But clearly the whole field was fuel saving.
• 10:42
  And so I'll I'll even go before because I want to cover all the
• 10:45
  Daytona 500. I mean, again, the pageantry is
• 10:48
  always awesome. You got John Gruden, you got Kid
• 10:50
  Rock there. First stage I thought was OK,
• 10:54
  you know, pretty good super Speedway racing.
• 10:56
  You had you had the rack with Justin Allgeier and and Denny
• 11:00
  Hamlin as you're kind of getting into the third stage.
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  It was just super boring, super boring.
• 11:08
  I'm a very optimistic person, but also my background is is in
• 11:13
  the media. And if you want to say I'm being
• 11:17
  overly negative, I just look at it like this.
• 11:19
  And I was talking with Matt Martin the other day about this.
• 11:22
  If I run NASCAR, if I own NASCAR after the Daytona 500, because
• 11:27
  you're always trying to improve. My thought is, OK, first of all,
• 11:33
  dodge the rain. Great compelling finish.
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  Even if everybody didn't love it, it was compelling.
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  But also we got bailed out with that great finish because that
• 11:42
  third stage was a huge talking point.
• 11:45
  And it's not just with people being negative.
• 11:48
  If I run NASCAR, that's the first thing we say.
• 11:50
  We got to find a way to clean this up.
• 11:52
  We got to figure this out. I know people are saying it's
• 11:54
  too expensive. Can you do do away with the
• 11:58
  stages? Would that really help?
• 12:00
  Probably not. Could you have a non competitive
• 12:02
  pit stop? Denny Hamlin saying let us test
• 12:06
  at a clash there, Let the teams figure it out.
• 12:09
  I made this analogy to baseball. I know NASCAR fans, you get mad
• 12:13
  at me when I make stick and ball analogies.
• 12:16
  But my point was this. For years baseball had gotten
• 12:20
  boring because the games were too long.
• 12:23
  You had pitchers taking forever in between pitches and you had
• 12:27
  these defensive shifts that was making it very hard to create
• 12:33
  offense. You had relievers coming in to
• 12:35
  face one batter, especially left-handed relievers.
• 12:38
  The teams were doing all this to get a competitive edge.
• 12:41
  I understand why the teams were doing all these things, but
• 12:44
  guess what? It was making the sport more
• 12:46
  boring. So this is where when people
• 12:49
  blame NASCAR for fuel saving, we need to remember it's the teams
• 12:54
  doing this. The teams are the ones trying to
• 12:57
  get the advantage, getting the advantage.
• 12:59
  But here's where the responsibility does fall on
• 13:02
  NASCAR. When the teams are doing things,
• 13:05
  and I'm not even saying exploiting Gray areas, but when
• 13:08
  they're trying to get every second of speed and time, it's
• 13:12
  it's the sanctioning body's job to clean it up and make it the
• 13:16
  best competition and the best entertainment.
• 13:19
  And I don't say the best entertainment in the sense of
• 13:21
  just re rack and just wreck. That's not what I'm saying.
• 13:26
  To me, entertainment is passing. You need to see green flag
• 13:29
  passing and that's what we really lacked, especially in
• 13:34
  that third stage. This is where I made the analogy
• 13:37
  to baseball. Green flag passing is offense.
• 13:40
  Every sport is trying to improve offense.
• 13:43
  Football has made rules where it's easier to score.
• 13:46
  You may not like it. It makes the games more
• 13:49
  exciting. Fuel saving is defense.
• 13:53
  Look, I don't, I don't mind a defensive struggle every once in
• 13:56
  a while, but to me, the difference with the Next Gen.
• 13:59
  car, especially intermediates, when you watch some of these
• 14:02
  tracks where they're passing, it's so much more entertaining.
• 14:05
  A Charlotte, a Kansas, A Michigan running multiple
• 14:10
  grooves. It's just a different sport.
• 14:12
  And that's where it looks like a different sport.
• 14:14
  That's where I'm telling you with like what, 20-30 to go when
• 14:19
  they stopped fuel saving during that Daytona 500 at the end, it
• 14:23
  was incredible. It was incredible what the
• 14:25
  racing looked like the second they stopped fuel saving and
• 14:29
  they went to really running and trying to win the Daytona 500.
• 14:33
  And that's what we need. We need the racing to look more
• 14:36
  like that throughout the race. I know it's not an easy fix, but
• 14:40
  again, if you watch the intermediates, it's just a
• 14:43
  different ball game. We need the Daytona 500,
• 14:47
  NASCAR's crown jewel event, to be better racing from lap zero
• 14:53
  to lap 200, not just the last 30 laps.
• 14:56
  Not pretty good early. Then take a break for a long
• 14:58
  time and then you have the crash at the end.
• 15:00
  And by the way, so at the end, I mean, I don't love the fact that
• 15:06
  it's become so much about luck with the Daytona 500.
• 15:10
  I don't know if you can, I don't know what exactly you can do.
• 15:13
  I think, I think the Chase, the Chase helps this across the
• 15:19
  board with races because it's not winning your get in and then
• 15:21
  you get in the playoffs. But I think I think they're
• 15:25
  always going to crash to try to win the Daytona 500.
• 15:28
  But I, I would like, I'm always more of a fan of of Fair racing.
• 15:33
  More times than not, I would like the the best team, best
• 15:37
  car, best strategy, best driver win.
• 15:40
  It sure as hell seems like in recent years, the Daytona 500 is
• 15:44
  a lot more about luck again, something we need to fix.
• 15:49
  And you got a year now. Well, you have another Daytona
• 15:51
  race, but but we're talking about the 500.
• 15:54
  When you have all eyes in the Motorsports world, racing world,
• 15:57
  sports world watching that event, it just needs to be as as
• 16:02
  good and clean racing as possible.
• 16:05
  And just you watch that you go, Dang, this is cool, man, this is
• 16:07
  awesome. Look at those cars just passing
• 16:10
  each other, flying by each other.
• 16:11
  It can't be a A3 Toyota parade route with everybody fuel
• 16:17
  saving. That's boring AF as the kids
• 16:20
  say. I forgot to write this one down,
• 16:22
  but we got to talk about the just stupid fake controversy of
• 16:27
  the Michael Jordan with the Tyler Reddick's kid.
• 16:30
  We just live. I was on the radio the other day
• 16:33
  in Saint Louis saying that the Epstein files it's poison the
• 16:37
  brains of people. And in saying that we all know
• 16:40
  Jeffrey Epstein is horrible person.
• 16:43
  We need accountability for all that.
• 16:44
  But my point is now you just have these people, they're just
• 16:47
  looking for the worst in every situation.
• 16:50
  So Michael Jordan, you got Tyler Reddick's kid with the water and
• 16:53
  the ice down his back and he's kind of messing with him.
• 16:55
  He's trying to get the ice out and his shirt's wet and all
• 16:57
  that. He's being kind of that funny
• 16:59
  uncle. It's Michael Jordan.
• 17:02
  It's the most famous athlete arguably on the planet on
• 17:06
  network television. Every single person there has a
• 17:08
  camera phone and A and cameras all over him.
• 17:11
  You really think Michael Jordan is going to touch a kid
• 17:14
  inappropriately? He's he's the most photographed
• 17:18
  athlete probably on earth And whoever, Tiger Woods, Ronaldo,
• 17:21
  Messi, I, I don't know, that's not the point.
• 17:23
  But like really people, I mean, this is also a close personal
• 17:27
  friend, Co worker, 2311 racing owner, you know, friends with
• 17:32
  Tyler Reddick and family. I mean, do you really think
• 17:35
  folks, this is where I'm telling you, people's brains have been
• 17:37
  poisoned by this. And I get it.
• 17:39
  Everybody's mad about the Epstein files, me included.
• 17:42
  But everybody needs to take a deep breath.
• 17:44
  Just people accusing people of of awful, awful things.
• 17:48
  And I said this, I understand the video looked weird.
• 17:51
  It did look odd. I get that.
• 17:53
  But take a deep breath, get the explanation.
• 17:56
  Come on, folks. Like, let's let's be better.
• 18:00
  OK, The Jeff Glock poll. I love the fact, by the way,
• 18:03
  that all the podcasts and all the shows always, always look to
• 18:07
  Jeff Glock in his poll. It's that's a, that's a big
• 18:10
  credit to Jeff Glock. But I think it was like 74%,
• 18:12
  whatever it was said it was a good race.
• 18:14
  So, so hey, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a person that's all about
• 18:18
  democracy. Whatever the people say, it's
• 18:20
  all good. Now.
• 18:22
  I do think had it not been a great finish, that number would
• 18:25
  have been much worse. And that's where again, with
• 18:27
  improvement, we need to constantly improve.
• 18:30
  We got to be about the process. If there isn't that compelling
• 18:33
  finish, that might be a 5050 race if the last thing you're
• 18:36
  thinking about is the fuel saving and a boring finish.
• 18:39
  But we say this all the time. Sometimes a boring finish can
• 18:46
  skew people's minds of a really good race.
• 18:49
  Sometimes a great or compelling thrilling finish can skew
• 18:53
  people's minds of a race that overall wasn't as great, wasn't
• 18:58
  as competitive. So there you go.
• 19:01
  I think I've covered it all. I think I've covered it all.
• 19:04
  And you know what? For anybody in Saint Louis, my
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  Called him up Memorial Day Sunday and said hey we need a
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  Been working with them. They've been cutting my lawn for
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  about 5-6 years as well. You got mulch coming up for the
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  You got Saint Louis equipment as well.
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  and of course, Triad Bank. So there you go.
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  Look, YouTube channel, I'm going to put this on social media as
• 20:39
  well, but we're rebranding this this YouTube channel here,
• 20:43
  Charlie Marlowe Media. It's going to be a lot of NASCAR
• 20:45
  stuff and hopefully we're going to try to do this each and every
• 20:49
  week and then put it on Kenny Wallace Media podcast as well.
• 20:53
  But you know what? We have so many shows on the
• 20:55
  Kenny Wallace YouTube channel that we got to break it down to
• 20:57
  separate channels like Mass cast for Rick Mass and Ricky Mass and
• 21:02
  this channel here. We may do the same with Matt
• 21:05
  Weaver. We're we're we're growing.
• 21:07
  We got Mark Martin show, Mark Martin archive.
• 21:09
  That's on the Kenny Wallace channel, but we got a lot of
• 21:11
  stuff going on. So it's very exciting.
• 21:13
  All right, tell you what, drop your comments.
• 21:16
  Let me know what you think. I got to check my notes one more
• 21:19
  time. Again, this is where Chris
• 21:20
  Gabehart should have written down all of the proprietary info
• 21:24
  from Joe Gibbs Racing. I think I hit it all, and if I
• 21:27
  didn't, I'll come back next week and I'll tell you where I forgot
• 21:31
  stuff. All right, peace out.
• 21:33
  See ya.