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Rick Mast Talks Kansas & All Things NASCAR! · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Rick Mass show.
0:03
I am Charlie Marlowe, That is the great Rick Mass.
0:06
We're both wearing glasses on this beautiful Monday morning.
0:09
Rick, how are you doing, Sir? Doing well, doing well, Charlie,
0:12
just Monday morning, trying to get everything lined up for the
0:17
week and figure out what I got to do to survive, man.
0:19
Got to figure out what I got to do to survive.
0:21
Just like these remaining guys in the championship for the
0:24
Chase. There you go, let's start right
0:27
there. The watermelon man, a non
0:29
playoff driver winning at Kansas.
0:32
What'd you think of the race? Yeah, it was a good race.
0:34
I mean, they what I liked was a fan reaction after, you know,
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you get on social media or you listen to you can listen to
0:42
SiriusXM a lot with those guys. And then you learn a lot of
0:45
stuff with those guys. You learn what the fans are
0:47
thinking and then get on social media and really very good fan
0:52
reaction to this race. You know, there's a lot better
0:54
than last week, although last week we had trouble with people,
0:58
people not not liking it, although I liked it, but it's a
1:02
cool race. I mean, we had a lot of
1:03
storylines again, lot of stuff going on.
1:06
I mean, you know, the the one thing that stood out was well, a
1:11
lot of things stood out, but I like the bar, right?
1:15
Had that little shot, that little glimpse.
1:17
And I'll tell you, Charlie, when one of the things you look for
1:23
when you, if you're a driver and you're trying to make it cup or
1:26
trying to get up to cup, right? And maybe you're not in the best
1:29
of equipment or, or whatever. But you'll, if you, if you've
1:33
got a shot at doing this, you'll, you'll, you'll show a
1:36
glimpse sometime of running real well.
1:39
In other words, like Hosavar, he runs, if he runs 25th or 30th or
1:43
20th, well, at some point during the season, it's some segment
1:47
during some race, they'll hit on something and the car will be
1:50
pretty good and that driver will shine.
1:52
He'll lead, he'll be up front. And that's what gives you an
1:56
indication of, OK, this guy can get this done in our sport,
2:01
right? I've seen this happen many times
2:03
and and that's what it reminded me of yesterday with Host War,
2:06
although he's had other moments like that when you get a driver
2:11
that could do that. And and I mean, I look back at
2:14
different guys. Ernie Irvin, the great Ernie
2:17
Irvin years ago, his deal was at Bristol, right?
2:20
He was with DK Orch's car. Not the best team.
2:24
He got out there and he shined, man.
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My deal was Daytona of 89, you know, maybe not the best funded
2:29
deal, but I got out there and shined.
2:31
And then other guys did the same thing coming through.
2:34
And then you had guys that that would never, for whatever
2:38
reasons, would never have that not opportunity.
2:42
But they never would shine. They never would.
2:44
They never would show a glimpse of what they could do and, and
2:47
ultimately they they wouldn't make it in a sport.
2:49
But that was one of those shine moments for host Savar
2:53
yesterday. I got off with a tangent man,
2:55
but I just just think it out loud.
2:58
No, I like it so. And then look at Ross Chastain.
3:01
So here's a guy who's who's not in the playoffs and you have his
3:05
teammate at track house, Daniel Suarez into the round of of 12
3:09
has a chance to to crack the top eight.
3:12
I think he's 10th right now. I think it also speaks to how
3:16
hard it is not just to win a race in NASCAR, but to win a
3:21
race to make the playoffs. I mean, look at a couple weeks
3:24
back, a guy like Busher who probably should have been in and
3:27
then he wins a race as a non playoff driver.
3:30
And Ross Chastain is somebody who I think we've maybe
3:34
forgotten about a little bit. He he was kind of the talk of
3:37
NASCAR in 2022, basically him and Denny Hamlin going at it.
3:43
And I remember at Gateway here, Worldwide Technology Raceway,
3:46
Hamlin said. You know, I'm going to I'm going
3:47
to get him back when it's meaningful.
3:49
And Chastain was the story in 2022.
3:52
He finished second in the championship, and here he is a
3:55
couple years later. I mean, definitely had a chance
3:57
to make the playoffs, but didn't and wins a race here at Kansas.
4:01
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, Chastain is is he's he's one of
4:06
those guys that we talked about a couple weeks ago, Charlie,
4:09
that needs to be in our chase. I mean, he, he's the people love
4:14
Chastain a lot. He's got his name and his image
4:18
and who he is. He generates a lot of interest.
4:20
If if not, you wouldn't had Anheuser Busch sponsoring that
4:23
team this year, right? I mean, that was a big deal for
4:26
Vanheuser Busch to go over to that team and and and and
4:29
Chastain and, you know, and it was a sad and not a sad thing,
4:32
but a little bit, little bit hard that he won yesterday.
4:36
And Bush light wasn't on the car, right?
4:39
It was the IT was Kubota, I guess the other sponsor for a
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for a limited thing. But but yeah, he he's he's one
4:47
of those guys that just you know, he just he drives a lot of
4:50
interest. He drives, he picks everybody's
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interest. He, you know, and I guess it
4:55
comes from the the early deal of wrecking everybody and wrecking
4:58
all the time and always been in fights with people.
5:00
And then the deal at Martinsville so solidified it
5:03
when he went wide open to get in the Chase last year, right?
5:06
And he's just one of those guys you kind of like you kind of
5:09
pull for the fans, kind of like kind of pull for what he pulled
5:12
the ring. He's one of those drivers, man.
5:14
When he pulled the reins back and still was remain
5:18
competitive, then, you know, that just made him a mainstay in
5:22
our sport. So many guys causing problems
5:25
and you, you get on them and they reckon people and they have
5:28
to stop wrecking people. And when they do, they lose
5:30
their competitive edge. Chastain didn't do that.
5:33
He's one of the guys that kept it going.
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So yeah, he, he he's a mainstay in our sport, that's for sure.
5:38
Sorry about that. I hit my I hit my my night
5:40
stand, man. Is everybody still there?
5:42
Yeah. Where are we at?
5:43
Oh good. We can hear you.
5:45
We. Can see you OK because you
5:47
brought this up. I think this is very
5:48
interesting. You brought up the the Bush
5:50
light, Kubota, and the fact that you didn't have Bush light on
5:55
the car for the victory. And I think this is very
5:58
interesting. It's topical.
6:00
It's something we've talked about a lot over the last couple
6:03
years. But if you saw the article last
6:05
week from Adam Stern where he wrote that FedEx was going to
6:10
even further reduce their sponsorship of Denny Hamlin and
6:14
maybe reduce it all together. Now that was that was the
6:17
article. I think it was last Wednesday,
6:19
Thursday, whenever it was Friday.
6:21
But then I watched Denny Hamlin's media availability and
6:24
he was asked about it and it did seem like FedEx was going to
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stay on in some capacity at least for for 2025 based on
6:32
Denny Hamlins comments. But let's say they reduce the
6:35
number of races as the primary sponsor, whatever.
6:38
I mean, don't you think to me as a casual, as coming into this
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sport, as a casual NASCAR fan, I know we've discussed this, but I
6:46
mean that's that's big. The fact that race in race out,
6:50
you can't really tell who the car is right by the paint
6:54
scheme. And I think that's what made
6:56
your guys era iconic. Go seventies, 80s, nineties,
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2000. You just knew the cars.
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And I do think that's something NASCAR needs to figure out from
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a marketing standpoint, the colors, the color schemes.
7:08
It really helps if you can have that that primary sponsor for
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most of the races. There's no doubt, doubt.
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I mean, and I found myself, you know, I found myself Charlie
7:18
watching the races and trying to pick out the driver.
7:20
I'm trying to figure out who the hell that is running 7th to just
7:23
make 2 passes, right. And got into 5th and, and, and
7:27
you know, you, you're watching the camera.
7:29
If you're, if you're, if you're there at the racetrack, you're
7:31
watching it. But if you're, if you're on TV,
7:33
you're watching whatever the camera's showing you.
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So you've got to see what they're, they're showing you,
7:37
but or you've got to watch what they're showing you.
7:39
So you'll see a group of cars and you're like, all right, And
7:44
I'm looking at the screen trying to figure out who that car is in
7:47
7th. I just saw this particular car
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make some kind of move and it interested.
7:52
It made me interested. And I look and I'm trying to
7:55
figure out the number and I'm trying to figure out who it is.
7:57
And I'm looking back down and I'm like trying to follow the
8:00
car and I have no idea who the hell I'm looking at, right?
8:02
Because each week it changes. And it wasn't, it didn't used to
8:07
be that way. I mean, Charlie, when you look
8:10
at the race, you would see the black 3, all right?
8:12
You see that black two, You see that black and gold #1 and you
8:17
knew, you knew who it was. I mean, because it, the paint
8:20
scheme stayed the same all year. And it, it just made it
8:24
interesting or made it neat to be able to follow him.
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And I'm telling you, I'm, as you know, I'm a student of the
8:29
sport, Charlie, and I can't figure it out.
8:31
You know, I'm sitting here watching the race and I'm trying
8:34
to follow a driver and I can't. He gets lost in the maze of
8:37
colors that that are never the same each week.
8:41
You don't know who's who'd what's what.
8:43
But, you know, I don't know what they do about that.
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I mean, NASCAR, you know, I don't know how they would
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dictate here's a color scheme. You got to have this color
8:51
scheme start this color scheme in Daytona and you got to keep
8:54
it all year. You know, I don't know whether
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they they can do something like that or they can't do that.
8:58
And then the price of what it cost to to run these cars for a
9:01
season, right? And you're trying to keep one
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sponsor. It's hard to do that now because
9:06
of the price is so much more. So, yeah, I don't know.
9:09
I don't know what you do about that.
9:10
But but it is a hit. It does take away from, it does
9:14
take away from what we've got or what we're doing, what we're
9:18
trying to do. There's no doubt about that.
9:20
And it's just, I don't know, it just makes it tougher.
9:23
It makes it a lot tougher. I don't know what we do to fix
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it though. And Kyle Busch, he seems to have
9:30
been, what do you want to call it, Snake bit luck, bad
9:33
outcomes, whatever it is. And we're all kind of prisoner
9:35
of the moment. I can't remember at least over
9:38
the last 3-4 years when I'm really paying attention, a
9:41
driver who seemingly has been, has been in it at the end of.
9:46
I mean, off the top of my head, it's got to be five to seven
9:49
races this year where you thought Kyle Busch had a really
9:52
good chance to win. I mean, we're talking at the
9:55
end, last 10 laps, last five laps, whatever it is, and he
9:59
can't get a win. I guess the the good part is
10:01
he's running well, right? Second-half of the season, he's
10:05
running well, but man, that dude can't buy a win.
10:07
No, he can't. And it's, it's and everybody,
10:09
you know what you know, but here's a, here's a neat part of
10:11
that, right? Everybody when, when, when Bush
10:15
went to Childress, right? All of a sudden he, he became,
10:19
he gained a lot of fans because he was, he was the most hated in
10:22
their sport for years, right? And he went to Childress and
10:26
people felt like that he got hosed that Gibbs or he maybe
10:29
wasn't taken care of properly. So he won a sympathy, sympathy
10:33
vote for fans. He he he gained a lot of fans
10:37
from a sympathy side, right. And then he gained a lot of fans
10:40
because he's going to Childers and he's going to Chevrolet and
10:43
away from Toyota. That gained him fans when now
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what's happening dude is he's gaining the remaining the
10:51
remaining fans in our sport are now turning towards Kyle Busch
10:55
because he he's a 20 year veteran.
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He's our chance. He's a champ multi champion and
11:02
he can't buy win right. He's he's now he's getting more
11:05
of the sympathy vote. I mean, what remaining sympathy
11:08
vote was still out there. He's got it now because he, he,
11:12
he's just having a hell of a time.
11:14
And, and we talked about it, Charlie, or I'll talk about the
11:17
ebbs and flows of racing and the ups and downs and what happens.
11:20
And you know, this is, this is one of those deals.
11:24
It's just like a, you go through a period of gas mileage races or
11:28
you go through a period of right front tires blowing, right.
11:32
You just go through periods of things.
11:34
Right now we're going through a period of, or Kyle Bush is going
11:36
through a period of he can't buy a woman.
11:38
He just can't buy a wind. And that's just the it's to me,
11:42
it's just a a period that happens in our sport that he
11:47
happens to be in right now. He's in a deal where I can't
11:50
win. I don't give a damn what I do.
11:52
I can lap the field. I'd be the fastest guard, do
11:54
whatever I want to do. I cannot win this race or I
11:57
can't win the race and it's gaining him tons and tons of
12:02
popularity. I don't know if he realized it
12:04
realized he probably does, but I don't know if everybody realize
12:07
it. But I'm telling you right now,
12:08
Charlie's gaining tons and tons of popularity over what's going
12:11
on right now, even though he's not winning.
12:13
But it's good to see the car running fast.
12:16
All right, That's that's a good deal.
12:17
They've they've kind of turned it on and they've got it going
12:20
on. So, you know, like I told you, I
12:22
told you this year, what, two months ago, what surprised me
12:26
one bit for Kyle Busch to win a race rate before the the Chase
12:29
deal and get in the Chase and win the championship, just the
12:32
way the thing works. But you know that's not going to
12:34
happen. And I'll tell you what, Yeah,
12:38
Carl, Carl Edwards shows up again.
12:40
You know, he lives there in Columbia, so I was wondering if
12:43
we'd ever see him at the Saint Louis race.
12:46
But he's there. He's driving the pace car in
12:48
Kansas, surely looks like he could drive.
12:51
I mean, hell, he looks like he could play cornerback in the NFL
12:53
right now. And he's talking about how he's
12:56
falling in love with NASCAR again.
12:58
So, you know, I don't know if it'll be Cup, but Carl Edwards,
13:02
the last 2-3 years, he's going in the Hall of Fame.
13:04
So you'll have all that going on.
13:06
I think we're going to see him in a race car maybe next year.
13:09
Maybe it's Xfinity, maybe it's A1A1 off Dale Earnhardt junior
13:13
type thing, but we're seeing cousin Carl more and more at the
13:16
tracks which is good. Yeah, I mean that, you know, if,
13:19
if, if it's good for NASCAR, then I'm all for it, right?
13:23
As I've told you before, Charlie, my trouble, my problem
13:26
with Carl is, is he, he came into our sport pretty quick.
13:29
He phenomenal driver, did his deal, won his races, made his
13:33
fortune and left the sport not to be heard from again.
13:36
So, you know, when it got into the Hall of Fame, then that was
13:39
up to me. That was it wasn't justified to
13:42
me. I've gone along with every
13:43
single member that's went into the Hall of Fame.
13:45
That's the one that I didn't agree with.
13:47
And I don't have any personal vendetta.
13:48
I guess Carl Edwards, I'm just like, you know, we never heard
13:51
you that you never did anything for the sport.
13:53
You came in there sport, you won the races.
13:55
You left her sport not to be heard from again, not to do
13:58
anything to help her sport or the driver sport other than the
14:01
moment that you were in our sport.
14:03
And then you get into the Hall of Fame and, and, and you know
14:07
all that. So I, I never, I never went
14:09
along with his, his inclusion in that deal for that reason.
14:13
But that's me, OK. And now he comes back and he's
14:17
in love with falling in love with NASCAR kid.
14:19
I think it's great, man. I think it's great if it, if he
14:22
does that and comes back, if he races some more or just becomes
14:25
an ambassador just around our sport.
14:27
Because listen, man, cousin Carl, he had a hell of a lot of
14:30
fans, man, when he left the sport, you know what I mean?
14:33
He he he had a lot. He had a big fan base and his
14:37
name and himself and he was important their sport.
14:39
I think when he left and that's another reason I had, I felt
14:43
I'll towards that right. He just left with all that being
14:47
out there. But if he wants to come back and
14:50
wants to be a part of it, then I I think it's great.
14:52
I think, I think I think it could all be just good if he
14:55
does that. Hopefully he does.
14:56
Hopefully he does. Hopefully it's falling in love
14:58
with sport again. I don't know.
14:59
We'll see. All right, let's talk about the
15:01
playoff standings right now as they stand.
15:05
So William Byron is your leader. You got Ryan Blaney, Christopher
15:08
Bell, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Joey
15:13
Logano. That's the top 8 as of right
15:15
now. Now we know it won't, it won't
15:17
end like this, but if it did, you got all four Hendrick
15:21
drivers would advance to the round of eight.
15:25
But I think the more I'm just kind of looking at the 16, the
15:28
12 down to the 8. I feel like when you when you
15:32
get it down to the 8, that's where you're really seeing some
15:36
elite drivers falling off. Look at right now.
15:39
If if if Kansas was the cut off, your regular season champ Tyler
15:44
Reddick would not have made it. And you know, Alex Bowman,
15:48
right? I mean, he's had his struggle.
15:49
So so maybe you can see a Bowman fall off and a Reddick get in
15:52
there. But once you get it down to 8, I
15:55
mean, there's a lot of big time drivers that are going to get
15:58
left out. Yeah, it it, it gets tighter and
16:04
tighter, right. That's that's, that's basically
16:06
what you're saying, Charlie. It's just it's tighter and
16:08
tighter and and really, you know, you're getting I get
16:11
you're getting down to the elite, the elite gas.
16:14
I mean, who we got chasey out. What is HE4 out?
16:17
I think right now, you know, just sneaky back there and he
16:21
could he could very easily win this thing.
16:24
You know, it's just I don't know, man, you watch this stuff
16:28
and you're constantly watching the ticker on TV and you're
16:32
watching where they're at and and and and you're like, man, we
16:35
get a couple more races. It's going to be like last week.
16:38
We're going to be sitting there just staring at this trying to
16:41
figure out who's going to do what.
16:42
And you know, I don't man. For me personally, I just, I
16:47
don't know. I just, I have trouble trying to
16:51
figure out how this thing is going to end up.
16:54
It's like my dad told me one time years, or I heard him
16:56
telling somebody 40 years ago, the worst thing you could do is
17:00
bet on a race of the worst sport in this world to bet on is a
17:03
race. You do not, you do not bet on
17:05
races because you don't know of all the things that could go
17:10
wrong, right? So with that being said, if
17:12
you're not going to bet on the race, how can you predict?
17:15
How can you predict who's going to do what, who's going to who's
17:18
going to make it into the Chase? Charlie, I'm rambling here.
17:21
I'm rambling bad, but I just have trouble.
17:25
I just have trouble with these predictions.
17:27
I've never been good at these predictions 'cause I'm just, I
17:29
guess it goes back to the philosophy of you can't bet on
17:32
races, so how are you going to predict races, right?
17:34
So I don't know, but go ahead. Go ahead, man.
17:37
Well, no, no, no, I love it. I find it kind of interesting
17:40
though, when you look at the standings right now.
17:43
So look at look at the top three.
17:45
I think it's fair to say when you have guys so like William
17:48
Byron, it seems like every year comes out of the gate strong,
17:52
has a little slump in the summer and comes right back.
17:54
And here he is the the points leader right now.
17:57
You have Ryan Blaney, you have Christopher Bell.
18:00
They're the top three right now. I would kind of put them all in
18:03
the in the same bucket as as really, really good, but also
18:07
consistent drivers where if you look at the next two, you know,
18:13
and to me, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, more fan favorites.
18:16
But I think part of that, I think there's there's clearly
18:18
more risk reward with those guys.
18:20
I mean, surely Kyle Larson, that dude sends it right?
18:24
He wins a ton of races, but he takes risks and maybe have a few
18:28
more wrecks. Denny Hamlin, you know, winning
18:30
more races, He's had some bad luck.
18:32
But I just, I find it interesting when you look at the
18:34
top three that, and I say this with love, you kind of have
18:38
those, those boring but super consistent, really good guys
18:42
right now and Byron Blaney and Bell at the top.
18:45
You, you're exactly right. You're exactly right.
18:47
And they, those guys, yeah, I mean, you're exactly right.
18:51
And and like what? The one thing I noticed
18:54
yesterday when I was looking at it one time, I'm like Bill
18:56
Francis happy. Bill Francis Junior is happy,
18:58
right? On the racetrack, there were two
18:59
Toyos, 2 Chevrolets and a Ford. And then I look at the points
19:02
deal, right? There's the the Ford Chevrolet.
19:05
They're all the Toya. They're all mixed up real
19:07
equally. And I remember thinking Bill
19:08
Francis Junior is happy with what he's seeing right now,
19:11
right. But you know, you take somebody
19:14
like how about the five car man one lap into the race or
19:16
whatever it was and the right rear goes flat and knocks him,
19:19
you know, knocks him from contention all day.
19:21
If that hadn't happened, I'm afraid you've got a different
19:24
race yesterday, you know, and and and and the points that he
19:27
went from what 30 some points to 16 and you know, cushion.
19:30
So all that all that's different.
19:33
But you're right about that. You got consistent guys.
19:36
You got the five car that's going to go balls to the wall.
19:39
And then it comes down again, Charlie.
19:40
It comes down to the last rate. You get down to the four, then
19:44
you get down to the last race of the season.
19:45
And we're going to talk about this when we get to Phoenix.
19:48
And it's like, you know, to me, the part right now, getting to
19:53
the final four, getting to Phoenix, to me, this the most
19:55
excited. To me, this is more exciting
19:58
than the Phoenix race because the Phoenix race is one race.
20:01
Anything can happen in one race. But to get Phoenix fighting for
20:05
the championship, you're you're in the final four and who those
20:08
four are, that's that's the exciting part to me.
20:11
See how this goes. So what do you think of the of
20:15
the playoff schedule? This round is kind of the
20:18
opposite of the last round. Similar tracks, but the opposite
20:23
scheduling of them. So you had Kansas, you have the
20:26
the superspeedway, who the hell knows what's going to happen
20:28
with Talladega, and then you have the Rowville.
20:31
Do you like the way that you have different tracks and
20:33
basically you kind of have to strategize different ways for
20:36
these rounds? Yeah, it, I guess it's NASCAR's
20:39
way of trying to just really, really, really mix it up.
20:42
Because when you throw Talladega in it, right, When you throw
20:47
Talladega in this mix, I mean, everybody knows who knows what's
20:51
going to go on at Talladega. If you if you're going to put a
20:53
Kansas, which is a good, really good race.
20:56
By the way, yesterday again, we talked about that you throw a
20:59
Kansas, you throw a Charlotte or a Texas, these races that are
21:03
common. And then that you kind of you
21:05
kind of know what's going to happen sort of.
21:08
But you throw Talladega in the in the points mix, man, you
21:13
don't know. I don't know what's going to
21:15
happen. I mean, nobody knows.
21:16
Everybody throws says it's a wild card race and it is because
21:19
anybody can win it. Anybody could lose it.
21:21
You can get tore up, you can't you know, I really think NASCAR
21:24
put Talladega and they're just to just to mix this thing up a
21:28
little bit. All right, That's what I really
21:29
think. I think that was the the deal
21:31
that I think that's the reason they did that All right, to just
21:34
kind of just to try to mix it up.
21:36
And then the Roble, you know, sort of falls into that category
21:40
a little bit, but it does put a premium on it puts a premium on
21:44
man, as you, as you point out, we got to strategize it still.
21:48
You know how we going to run this race to that Talladega,
21:50
What are we going to do? We going to lay back, you know,
21:52
we're going to try to avoid the big one, which nine times out of
21:55
10 that doesn't work, right? You see guys doing that.
21:59
And by the way, Darrell and Harry, the 1st I ever saw doing
22:02
that, we were Talladega one time and race going on.
22:05
And I look up and man, and going by Harry on one side, I'm going
22:08
by Darryl and the other and I'm like, damn, what's wrong, right?
22:11
It's like it pulled over and and something broke on the car.
22:15
Well, they went around and rode at the back of their biggest
22:17
part of the day. And that's the first time I ever
22:19
saw that happen. And then and then they would do
22:22
it a lot. Harry didn't quit doing it,
22:24
their son. But then Daryl kept doing it and
22:26
I never died. I guess it worked sometime.
22:29
I don't ever remember that working.
22:30
But anyhow, back to the story. So it Talladega, you strategize
22:34
as a team and as a as a driver and how we're going to run this
22:37
race today to score the most points.
22:39
You want to score those segment points, you know, but I don't
22:44
know. It's just a whole different deal
22:45
there. You got to figure out how you
22:46
going to do it. Then you go to the robo and
22:48
that's just you know, that's just a road course.
22:50
Who's going to do good SPG right, He'll be there in
22:52
somebody's car driving and probably out front running and
22:55
you've got to figure out, you know, on pit strategy.
22:58
How do we run this road course and that that's a big deal with
23:00
Rd. courses. Is is pit strategy more so than
23:03
another race tracks would go ahead.
23:04
So yeah, they, they throw some stuff in there to mix you up,
23:09
you know, to, to end this thing again.
23:11
But that's what it's about, man. It's entertaining.
23:15
Yes, Sir, it is. Speaking of entertainment, story
23:17
time, Rick, Mass story time. You got anything?
23:20
We got Talladega coming up. I know we we did some Talladega
23:23
stories a few months back for the first race, but what you
23:27
got? Yeah, I don't really have any
23:29
stories, Manny. You know, when I first started
23:31
out, Charlie, they would be godly guys would guys would help
23:37
you, right. And I had starting out was with
23:40
Travis Carter and, and we, I mean, we went to Talladega the
23:45
first time you hear everybody would talk all these stories
23:49
about Talladega, right? The Indian barrel burial
23:52
grounds. And it goes, it goes in those
23:54
days to not having engineering and not understanding a lot of
24:00
times what's going on with your race car.
24:01
You go to Talladega, these guys go to Talladega.
24:04
And it was more pronounced there than probably any racetrack.
24:08
You would unload the car and you would be fast as hell and have
24:13
no have no understanding why, not really sure why.
24:16
And you go back the next race with the exact same race car.
24:21
Maybe you come back and put a cover over.
24:23
I've heard guys doing this, put a cover over it and nobody
24:25
touched, not even touched the car.
24:27
Go back to race and you know Kenny make the field guys would
24:31
get killed, right? They would guys would get hurt
24:35
and maimed there and you guys would cover up the car on
24:40
Saturday as a fast race car. They get up on Sunday, wonder
24:44
what start the race and the car wouldn't get out of its own way.
24:47
They would make changes to the car.
24:48
Nothing ever made sense. Just a lot of things about
24:51
Talladega in those just things would happen And and and and and
24:57
the guys couldn't answer. The guys couldn't answer why my
25:00
car did this, why the car did that right.
25:03
And So what you, what do you do you back up auras or you, you
25:06
come up with perceptions and all of a sudden, you know what?
25:10
I don't know why he got killed. I don't know why this car did
25:13
this, but this is an Indian burial ground.
25:17
And the Indian spirits are casting their spells out here on
25:20
everybody because they don't like this racetrack being here.
25:23
And we're just going to like make life miserable for
25:25
everybody that comes here. And it was a, it was an era.
25:29
I, it was the end of that era when I came in the era of
25:32
thinking, kind of thinking like that, that, that mine thought
25:36
processes were kind of ending. But I was able to hear some of
25:39
that stuff banned and, and, and be involved in some of that list
25:42
of some, some of that stuff. And, and you're like, damn, you
25:46
know what, what the crap's just all about.
25:47
But it was, it was interesting and people truly, people truly
25:53
would believe this stuff. I mean, you, you would take a, a
25:56
women crew chief that knew what he was doing and something would
26:00
not work or it would work back or support the way he knew it
26:04
should. And it, it wasn't the, and he
26:07
and these guys had to have a reason, Charlie.
26:09
They had to have come up with the reason why this happened.
26:12
And you know, it was a Talladega.
26:14
It was because of the Indian barrel grills.
26:16
It would be somebody gave you a $50.00 bill or somebody give you
26:21
a green ink pen that wrote on something, right?
26:25
Somebody just walked under a ladder.
26:27
I mean that that's what would happen.
26:28
They would come up with an answer to why these things
26:31
happen. And when they come up with an
26:32
answer, right? Why did my car do this?
26:35
Well, Billy Bob just came in here with a green marker and
26:38
mark the tires. Well, there's your answer not to
26:41
be thought of again, right? The the real reason was
26:44
engineering. I mean, something you did
26:46
something mechanically, something caused something to
26:48
happen. But the in those days you didn't
26:51
have any way of knowing, you know what, what what that meant,
26:54
right? But now we do because of
26:56
everything that goes on. But so then you had you had to
26:58
have an answer and the answer was always some kind of
27:01
tomfoolery. But it was it was an interesting
27:04
error, Charlie, to watch that and this and that stuff.
27:06
I mean, I'm talking guys that were very good, winning Hall of
27:09
Fame guys, right? And they would come up this
27:11
stuff, but it was pretty crafty. Does that make sense?
27:15
Yeah, I like to. You said Billy Bob.
27:17
Back then there probably was what there's probably a Billy
27:19
Bob on every crew. And now they're all dudes from
27:23
MIT and and Purdue engineering degrees.
27:26
Exactly, exactly. And I tell folks all the time.
27:29
I used to tell them, gosh, the late 90s, I have young guys
27:32
coming up me wanting to get the sport right and, and, and I
27:35
could see right then what was happening.
27:36
I knew what was happening and I tell them, man, go get your 4
27:38
year degree. Go get your 40 year degree and
27:40
then for for a period of time in the gosh, maybe 2010 before the
27:45
years and after years, I mean, these guys were getting so many
27:48
resumes. I mean, it was my understanding
27:50
a lot of these teams, they wouldn't even look at hiring a
27:52
floor sweeper unless you had a four or A2 year degree in after
27:56
school, right? Or a 40 year degree.
27:58
It kind of went that way. And then it it kind of reverted
28:00
back. I think that I think those days
28:02
are gone looking at that stuff. But but yeah.
28:10
I love it. All right, I think I know the
28:12
answer to this. What is ticking off pissing off
28:17
Rick Mast these days are on this Monday.
28:20
Well, Charlie, I'll tell you something.
28:22
In 1985, dude, me and my wife, we got wiped out.
28:26
Hurricane Juan. The remnants of Hurricane Juan
28:28
came through Rockbridge Bass, Virginia with the, the, the,
28:32
the, the remnant, the offspin. It's a long story of anyhow,
28:36
Hurricane Juan calls it. Anyhow, we ended up with like 8
28:39
feet of water in our house and we live on a river and it's a
28:42
fast flowing river. It took every window to pretty
28:45
much every window and door out of our house, right?
28:48
Trophies, everything we had in the house.
28:49
Lost all this stuff while the house didn't ever didn't wash
28:54
away. I don't know.
28:55
It was an A-frame house had a stone chimney on one end, bunch
28:58
of Grove of trees on the upper side that really protected it.
29:01
When it was all said done. We, we were fortunate, unlike
29:04
some of the folks. It's, it's going through this
29:06
deal now in Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee.
29:10
We're fortunate that that night that it happened, we were able
29:13
to stay with Michael, you know, then the next four or five
29:16
nights we're able to stay with my mom and dad at their place.
29:18
And, you know, the government came in and basically said, hi,
29:24
oh, this is a mess. Talk to you later, right?
29:28
We got a 4% loan from the SBA through the government to build
29:32
back the Red Cross. Gave us some stuff like brooms
29:35
and $100 food voucher and all that.
29:38
Problem is it got people that lived close to me, older folks
29:41
that lost their homes, right? I mean, just wiped away, lost
29:44
everything, just retired. Just had, I know one couple just
29:48
had retired and just paid the last payment on the House gone.
29:52
What what the, what, you know, what help did they receive?
29:56
Nothing, nothing, right? Two months later, there's a big
30:01
or two or three months later, Charlie, where there's a,
30:03
there's a, there's a major hurricane or major earthquake in
30:07
Mexico City, United States government.
30:10
We, we gave him a check for $35 million, right?
30:13
We didn't, we didn't loan him $35 million.
30:16
We just say, hey guys, here's here's 35,000,000 help help your
30:19
city, right? And that was my first awakening
30:23
to something that's flawed in our government because we're
30:27
looking around because we were lucky, sure.
30:29
And I were young, we could rebuild and we did, right?
30:32
But no, the other older folks, they were screwed.
30:34
So now here we are 40 years later, whatever.
30:38
And we're we're watching this catastrophe go on in Southwest
30:43
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.
30:47
And we know when it's all said and done, what's going to
30:49
happen. It's going to be just like my
30:51
deal, OK? We're not going to, we're not
30:56
going to rebuild these people's lives.
30:58
Let's put it that way. It's not going to happen.
31:01
But here's what's got me pissed off, Charlie.
31:05
I'm, I'm watching because they're in the mountains and the
31:07
communication has been so bad. I've been following this real
31:09
close since the beginning. And you know, there's a
31:13
fundamental, a fundamental problem in our country, right?
31:16
One of, well, one of the, one of the just one of the fundamental
31:24
problems in our country is we need to have a disaster force,
31:29
right? When we have these disasters in
31:32
this country, this, this thing needs to mobilize.
31:35
It needs to mobilize within hours and it needs to head to
31:38
the scene, right? We've got people down even as
31:41
we're speaking right now on a Monday, dude, we got people
31:45
still stranded right now stranded.
31:48
And what have we got? We've got Greg Biffle, right?
31:51
We got the Hendrick, Rick Hendricks.
31:53
We got Greg Biffle this helicopter.
31:55
We've got Hendricks helicopter. We got Gibbs helicopter.
31:57
Now we're starting to get, we're starting to get some military
32:00
helicopters. We got all these private private
32:03
individuals and companies that are doing all this sending, you
32:07
know, sending their their at their expense, doing all this to
32:11
try to rescue these poor people that are trapped can't get out.
32:15
They got people dead. They got people man, you, you,
32:18
you read some of the stuff and and and and it concerns me,
32:21
Charlie, because I try to call some of my buddies down there
32:23
right can't get through to anyone.
32:25
Finally, finally talked to a lady last night.
32:27
I know and you know, she's telling me how devastating it
32:31
was and how bad it was and what's we know that reading some
32:34
of this stuff. But dude, I what Charlie, what
32:38
is what is our government's role?
32:40
What is our first role responsibility?
32:43
Serve and protect or protect and serve is am I right about this
32:47
or about I am right about that right?
32:50
Protect and serve right. Why in the hell do we give $6
32:56
billion right now? I want the guy from Ukraine
33:00
comes in last week, he walks away with another 6 billion,
33:03
right? And we can't fire up a friggin
33:05
military helicopter to go to the mountains of North Carolina and
33:09
rescue people. It's a fundamental flaw, right?
33:13
I'm not going to sit here and bash Biden, Harris or whoever.
33:17
I mean, he'll Bush was or whoever who was in for Katrina
33:20
hit whoever it was right that. Was George W Bush.
33:23
George W Bush, I mean, you know, and he caught, he caught hell
33:26
for that deal. But I mean, you know, we, we see
33:30
this is, this is what, this is the thing that pisses so many
33:34
normal people off in our country, right?
33:37
Every time you look around, the government's not serving and
33:40
protecting you, but we're serving and detecting everything
33:42
overseas. And we got people sitting here
33:44
laying on a rooftop or up in a damn tree somewhere, you know,
33:48
just begging hope that somebody comes and brings drops and some
33:50
water out of a helicopter, right?
33:53
And the military or national federal government's nowhere to
33:56
be seen, but we're sending 1,000,000 millions of dollars
33:59
overseas to stuff. This is what I really think.
34:03
Stuff like that is what that's one little small part that's
34:07
made Trump's, Donald Trump's so popular, right?
34:09
Stuff like that. Just anti, you know, trying to
34:12
do anti, anti, anti whatever's been going on.
34:15
I don't know. I think I think that's one
34:17
little part of it. But man, you know, it's a
34:21
fundamental problem. It's a governmental fundamental
34:24
problem, I think. And I think you could be fixed,
34:27
Charlie, You can, you can like the mountains.
34:31
I mean the, the beach rescues, everything's going on in the
34:33
Gulf. You know, we're so used to that
34:35
the, the people that live there to purchase management so that
34:38
they're, they're so used to dealing with that.
34:39
They know what they're doing. You know, we get up the
34:41
mountains, we got a whole different scale thing, a
34:44
different thing that's going on. You've got, again, you got the
34:46
department where's management, which does a great job.
34:48
You've got all the local things. You got all these local things
34:50
doing great jobs, right? If it wasn't for them, we'd
34:54
really be in trouble. But you could take a staff
34:58
Sergeant and be in charge of 30 helicopters.
35:01
I mean, you don't have this have to have this grand plan and
35:04
grand scheme. I mean, you know, a military
35:07
dude can hop in his damn helicopter and fly down there
35:10
and put a staff Sergeant in charge of 30 helicopters.
35:13
Coordinate in and out and in and out and in and out.
35:16
Why, why? You know, why don't we have
35:18
this? Why?
35:19
What, what, what's the big deal? There's no big deal.
35:21
We could damn sure afford it. But I don't know, it's just
35:25
something I think needs to happen and we'll see what goes
35:28
on. I think another part of this
35:30
too, I mean, so you have FEMA obviously with the disaster
35:33
relief and and like everything this, this gets politicized, of
35:37
course. I think whether it's obviously
35:40
Kamala now or Trump. I do think when the disaster
35:43
first hits that it's more of a distraction if those people are
35:47
on site now, now down the road, couple days, week later, yet you
35:51
go there, you help out. And, and that also, I think
35:54
being the figurehead, you know, it, it raises people's spirits
35:58
and all that. But right when it happens, like
36:00
I don't think necessarily Kamala or Trump need to be there and,
36:04
and FEMA's in there doing whatever they can do.
36:07
I'll say this, this is something that going back to, to Maui,
36:13
what we've seen in Florida and California, the insurance
36:16
industry has been just ravaged by this.
36:20
I remember looking at my my insurance policies for some
36:23
rental properties and I've had to deal with FEMA for flood
36:26
insurance on, on condos that are second story, second story near
36:32
essentially a Creek where you're thinking, OK, there's a Creek
36:35
there. I get it if if maybe you're on
36:36
the 1st floor, but you have to get FEMA flood insurance if you
36:40
have a bank loan for these second story condos, which is
36:43
odd to all that. I'm going on a tangent now too,
36:46
but these insurance policies, I live in St.
36:48
Louis, MO, and last year when I looked at my little statement
36:52
there and it said your insurance has gone up whatever, 18%,
36:55
twenty, 7%. And they cited the reasons.
36:58
And one of them was obviously increased cost for labor,
37:02
contracting supplies and all that.
37:04
But they put right there the disaster relief that they're
37:07
basically having to pay out. And here, here's where it's
37:10
changed for me. There's always been obviously
37:13
earthquakes and mud slides in California.
37:15
There's always been hurricanes in, in Florida too, but I can't
37:19
remember until last year or so where major insurance providers
37:22
started saying, we're going to pull out of Florida and
37:25
California. And I don't care what anybody
37:27
says, if you're, if you're safe, you think you're safe in the
37:31
middle of the country, your, your policies are going up too,
37:34
because it's the same companies that are covering all these,
37:37
right? And they're losing their ass.
37:39
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, we were just talking
37:42
yesterday, showing that my wife and I talking about insurance
37:44
costs, right. Something was going on, one of
37:46
our policies. You're looking at it and you get
37:47
mad. You're like, golly, oh man, I
37:50
keep we can't afford this. How in the world does everybody
37:52
keep affording this insurance and and golly to live on the
37:57
beach and have a house and pay insurance.
37:58
And you're exactly right. It doesn't matter what we're
38:00
doing in our country. We ended up paying, we ended up
38:02
no matter what the deal is, we end up paying for, you know, the
38:06
the other things that's going on.
38:08
I mean, man, you we don't live at the beach.
38:10
We, you know, it's not our, it's not our fault that our house got
38:13
washed away or swallowed up, but we're going to pay for it,
38:15
right? And that's, you know, that's,
38:17
that's, that's the way it is. I mean, it's just the way it is.
38:20
And you know, I can absorb that more than I can absorb not
38:24
paying the insurance, right, or not paying for, for a loss.
38:27
You know, we get on to we can get on to some of that Charlie,
38:30
but golly, insurance and taxes, man, insurance and taxes.
38:34
How in the world we get going down this road on the Rick Mass
38:37
show, God Almighty, I don't know.
38:42
I just, I just filed 2 claims for rental properties and got
38:47
literal 0 back. And the other thing is once you
38:51
file the claim these, and I only know this because I just went
38:54
through this, they kind of keep that claim for five years.
38:58
It's almost like you get a traffic ticket, right?
39:00
Let's say you get a traffic ticket and then it stays on
39:03
your, your whatever your resume, your license for a certain
39:06
amount of years, then it falls off.
39:08
Then you might get cheaper, cheaper insurance.
39:12
Well, they, they keep that on your insurance and you
39:14
essentially can't leave because as long as that claim is, is
39:18
filed to other insurance companies, you look like you're
39:21
uninsurable. It's almost like if, even if
39:23
they pay you out 300 bucks, OK, it's like we paid you the 300
39:27
bucks. Now you have to stay with us for
39:30
another five years until it falls off to move.
39:32
I don't even when I, when I, when I learned of this just in
39:35
the last year or so, I'm like, how is that legal?
39:38
Right? How is that legal?
39:39
I feel like if I fought that we could get that taken care of.
39:42
Maybe so. It's legally, yeah.
39:45
Who knows. Morally, No, come on, man.
39:47
Morally, it's wrong. Here's a good one for you,
39:49
Charlie. And go back to my flood in 1985,
39:52
the flood that wiped us out, basically we for some reason
39:58
that year, that summer, that spread that year, I checked on
40:01
flood insurance. I don't know why.
40:03
I just did. I checked on flood insurance.
40:04
I said, well, we live beside a river, but I've lived on this
40:07
river my whole life. I know you know it's not.
40:09
It'll never flood this house, right?
40:12
Couldn't get flood insurance. Couldn't get it.
40:14
Finally we checked. I could have get it.
40:17
Lloyd's of London would would have written it.
40:19
I remember my insurance guy said well we can get Lloyd's of
40:22
London will will write a policy and hell it the premium is more
40:26
than what my house is worth, right?
40:28
So we get flooded. When it's all said and done.
40:34
The SBA comes in Small Business Administration through the
40:37
government says we'll give you a 4% loan to build your house
40:41
back, which is what we did. We borrowed money at 4%
40:44
interest, which is a great, great frigging deal.
40:47
Yeah, Big deal, government. Thank you so damn much.
40:49
Right. But at least we're able to get
40:50
the money. And.
40:53
But in order to get the loan, I had to have, guess what?
40:58
Flood insurance. I had to have flood insurance to
41:02
get the loan. Well, guess what?
41:05
The government wrote a flood insurance policy for me.
41:07
All right. Are you with me?
41:11
But they want the you can't go to and buy a flood insurance
41:16
policy beforehand. You have to have been flooded in
41:21
order to qualify for flood insurance at that time for this
41:26
policy to buy and only hit the bat because of the SBA loan.
41:32
Charlie, you can't make this stuff up, dude.
41:34
I mean, how screwed up is that? I mean, honestly, how screwed up
41:38
is that? You know, and that's what paid
41:40
me off so much about so many of the older folks around me that
41:43
that lost everything, right? And talk about losing things,
41:46
man. We lost.
41:47
It took everything in my house out.
41:48
It took, I mean everything. We only went out the door,
41:51
right? And trophies, a lot about
41:53
trophies, race trophies that ahead all gone down the river,
41:57
man. We had saved up for like 2 years
41:59
for all. Hey, I cut the sound off.
42:03
Wait a minute. I cut the sound off on the
42:06
thing. All right, here we go.
42:09
Yeah, yeah, we saved up for like 2 years by swimming pool.
42:13
Bought that pool around above ground pool right Ground pool.
42:17
I went and I assembled a thing myself, put it together myself
42:20
like in September, dude, and we getting that thing every day and
42:23
float around. No Election Day.
42:25
Election Day in 1985, it the flood came through, took my pool
42:29
away, right. It went on down the river.
42:31
And anyhow, some of the trophies, somebody maybe that
42:35
week, sometimes somebody, one of the neighbors downstream come up
42:38
and hand me what was left of one of my trophies.
42:40
Rick, is this yours? I looked at.
42:41
Yeah, one of my trophies, right. And I think we ended up with
42:44
like 3 or maybe 4 trophies over the year, over about a year's
42:48
time, somebody downstream would find it along the old river
42:50
banker out in the field, somebody see like a trophy or
42:53
something. This must be Rick Nass up there.
42:55
So they bring it back to me. But anyhow, that was yeah.
42:59
So, you know, it's just a, it's a screwed up system, dude.
43:01
And, and I don't know why we're still flawed.
43:04
I don't know why in 2024 we're flawed like this.
43:07
It makes no sense. And you know, it's just very,
43:10
very frustrating. But you know what?
43:12
We're still here. We're still happy, we're still
43:13
alive, and things are going good, Charlie.
43:16
Yes, they are. OK, let's let's end on a
43:18
positive note. I think.
43:20
I think this is going to be a positive note, but I'm not sure.
43:23
First of all, slightly more negative.
43:26
I say my Saint Louis Cardinals because I live here.
43:28
So they finished with 83 wins out of the playoffs.
43:32
They might get ready to blow up the whole deal because they have
43:34
a press conference AT2O clock central to announce some some
43:37
major changes, redoing the minor league system.
43:40
So we'll see what happens there. But your Atlanta Braves because
43:43
of all this weather and whatnot. So they got a double header
43:47
against the Mets. And if I'm, if I'm correct, so
43:50
basically, as long as the Braves don't get swept, they're in.
43:55
And if they get swept, the Diamondbacks get in.
43:57
So you have two games against the Mets.
43:59
Are you pretty confident or what?
44:01
No, I'm not confident of the Braves.
44:03
Hell no, I'm not confident. Golly, bum man, with what
44:06
they're doing this year, with all the injuries and whatever's
44:08
going on with these guys. No, all I've got to do is win
44:11
one of these games. Everybody thought they were
44:13
going to win yesterday, right? Sunday's game and it would all
44:15
be over. They wouldn't have to play.
44:17
And that was a big deal. Yeah, Braves going to win.
44:19
Are we going to have to? Are they going to look make them
44:21
play Monday's games with the Mets because they're meaningless
44:24
games other than the one would have been anyhow, When I'm
44:29
sitting here thinking, wait a minute guys, the Braves have to
44:31
win the frigging game first, right?
44:33
Well, they didn't win. They lost.
44:34
So now they've got to they got two days games today.
44:37
They got to win one of them, right, which is a cooler
44:40
situation than what you guys are going through with the cards
44:44
right now. You know, it's just I don't know
44:47
Major League Baseball. It's it's a, it's a, it's a,
44:50
it's a fascinating sport to watch, right?
44:52
And just all the stuff that goes on and when, when a team gets
44:55
down and what, what goes on with management and, and all right,
44:59
we're done. We're done.
45:00
We're going to sell off all our players.
45:02
We're going to rebuild again, right?
45:03
You think that's what's happened with the cards?
45:06
It's a little late for that, but what, what do you think is going
45:08
on here, man? It's a big deal.
45:10
It's a big deal. The Cardinals.
45:12
There was a Really for all baseball fans, especially
45:15
Cardinal fans, there was a really pretty scathing article
45:17
in The Athletic. Katie Wu wrote it.
45:19
She does a great job covering the Cardinals.
45:21
And she had a lot of anonymous sources from within the
45:24
organization that was talking about the problems, which, and
45:27
I've done TV and radio in Saint Louis for like the last 16
45:30
years. So we've kind of known about
45:33
these things. Long story short, the Cardinals,
45:36
basically, they lost their edge in terms of analytics
45:41
development, the minor leagues forever.
45:44
That's what the Cardinals were, were just built on their own
45:47
players, drafting, developing. They never spent a ton of money
45:51
in free agency. And they basically lost that
45:54
edge. Let's say you could even say 8
45:57
to 10 years ago. But The thing is, it didn't show
46:01
itself until the last five years.
46:03
Because even think think about it like this, the Cardinals were
46:06
great from 11 to 15, won a World Series, got to another.
46:10
They're in the NLCSI think four straight years, but they still,
46:14
so they kind of lost their edge right around that time, but they
46:17
were still pretty good for the next 5 years because they had a
46:20
lot of guys in house. You had Yadir Molina, who was
46:23
here for 20 years, and Adam Wainwright was here for 20
46:25
years. But it just took until the last
46:28
couple, 2-3, four years where you started to see the fact that
46:33
these, these guys from AAA, AA that used to always come up and
46:36
help, especially pitching, they're just, there weren't guys
46:39
like that anymore. So the Cardinals had to spend in
46:41
free agency. They're not real good at
46:44
spending in free agency. So that's what happened last
46:46
year the Cardinals were really bad.
46:48
This year they win 83 games, but they don't make the playoffs.
46:52
So I, I think this is the right move to basically start from
46:56
the, you always say top down. This is the opposite.
46:58
You got to start from the bottom up.
47:00
You got to start with the minor league system.
47:02
But the Cardinal fans, I think, are going to be pissed if the
47:05
president of baseball operations, John Mosaic and the
47:08
manager, Alimar Mole, if they're retained, which it seems like
47:11
they're going to be, I think the fans are still going to be
47:13
ticked off. Yeah, with, you know that with
47:17
like the Braves, I mean fans fire snit everything.
47:20
Every 3rd comment on Twitter or X social media is fire snip
47:24
right fire. They can't do it if in Annapolis
47:26
or whatever the guy's name is, he does such a good job.
47:28
It's hard to hard to say that about him.
47:30
But that's just the fans. I mean that's a fan base.
47:32
That's that's what we have And and and you're force it in that
47:35
that the cards fan, the Cardinals fan base is one of
47:38
them, right. That's that's one of those fan
47:41
bases in our in our country, buddy, that everybody you looks
47:46
up to or admires because they're so they're so adamant about
47:50
their cards, right. It's like the Cubs, you know,
47:52
the Braves are, you know, we're fortunate, Charlie, we had our
47:55
teams are like that. I'll tell you what, just be glad
47:58
we're not the White Sox. How about the letter, dude?
48:00
The White Sox letter. Did you see the letter the White
48:02
Sox sent out apologized to the fans, man, God, we're not that
48:06
bad. We're not that bad.
48:08
So everything is good. Everything is good.
48:10
Yeah, that was ugly this year. Oh, so it's funny you mentioned
48:13
the Braves, though. Fire snip.
48:14
And it's like, and I haven't followed the Braves as closely
48:17
as the Cardinals, but you guys dealt with ridiculous amounts of
48:20
injuries and you still might win 90 games, right?
48:24
Maybe you win 89. Hell, maybe you maybe you win 88
48:27
and don't make the playoffs, but still like to finish a year
48:30
where you have a ton of injuries and still win 88 to 90 games.
48:33
That's that's pretty damn good. Like if you win 8889 games, you
48:38
should be in the playoffs most years.
48:39
You know the Cardinals at 83. That's where you put yourself in
48:42
a spot where if you're only winning 83 most years, you're
48:45
not going to make the. Play yeah, but you're right
48:48
there. That's that's that's the point
48:50
where you have we got we're good enough to make it.
48:52
We're good enough to work. If we were to luck up and get
48:54
in, we could make a run, right. That that that number.
48:58
And I always thought 80 was the number, but you know, it's
49:00
always that's always on the low side.
49:02
But but you know, the Brave with the Braves.
49:06
What? Well, honestly, Charlie, what
49:08
kept the Braves in the steel's pitching this year?
49:10
I mean, all the all the injuries they had, they lost pitcher
49:12
Strider, which is one of the main pitchers.
49:14
I was free for a while, you know, but but the other guys,
49:17
they lost, you know, it's more the hitting, the rotation deal
49:20
or the hitting deal and the games, the games that the reason
49:23
they're in, it's because of pitching.
49:24
You know, you know, however far they're going to playoffs is
49:27
going to be because how they hit the ball.
49:29
The pitch is going to be there, right?
49:32
The other team is going to score one to four or five runs and
49:35
it's going to be up to the Braves to outrun them by
49:37
hitting. So we'll see how that goes.
49:39
I'll tell you what world are we on Baseball bandits?
49:41
No, I like racing show. No, it's not.
49:43
Well, hey, this is an American show.
49:45
This is an American show, baby. We had racing, we had disaster
49:49
relief, we had baseball, we covered, we covered almost all
49:53
of it. So I think that's a.
49:53
Good show, Rick. OK, Charlie.
49:56
Love it. All right, thanks everybody for
49:58
watching Comment like subscribe, share the show, share the
50:02
channels, put them in your group text, put them on social media.
50:05
Let's keep this thing rolling and we'll be back.
50:08
We're going to try to do it earlier in the week so we can
50:10
have the the next day basically breakdown of the race and and
50:14
Rick, who knows, next week after Talladega, it could be.
50:17
Absolutely nuts. We'll have a lot to talk about.
50:19
Believe we'll have a lot to talk about after Talladega, yeah?
50:22
For sure. All right, We'll see you, buddy.
50:25
Guys, thank y'all, bye.