Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Denny Hamlin Dominates Chaotic All-Star Race, KFB Sighting & Natalie Decker Part 2 | The Burnout

Transcript

Denny Hamlin Dominates Chaotic All-Star Race, KFB Sighting & Natalie Decker Part 2 | The Burnout · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  What is up everyone? Welcome to the burnout.
• 0:01
  I am Ryan Larkin, with me as always, as Matt Weaver from the
• 0:05
  press room of Dover Motor Speedway, Dover Downs.
• 0:09
  Let's call it what it should be called.
• 0:10
  Still, Matt, I know you have a lot to talk about for this All
• 0:16
  Star Race, so I'm not going to, you know, beat around the Bush.
• 0:19
  Let's get directly into it. Let's get straight to the point
• 0:21
  here. What'd you make of that show?
• 0:23
  What are your thoughts on the format, everything you saw on
• 0:26
  track? And we'll get to what we think
• 0:28
  we should do with All Star RACE later.
• 0:30
  But what do you think of that show?
• 0:31
  Well, you know, by time I got to the end of the race, my, my in
• 0:37
  conclusion was, is that that was a good Dover race.
• 0:42
  You know, you kind of like throw away the inversions and some of
• 0:47
  the crashing and you know that some of the the messiness.
• 0:51
  I mean, we saw a lot of things at a Dover that I think we would
• 0:57
  have loved to have to have had last year, the year before that.
• 1:01
  The problem is, is it was weighed down.
• 1:04
  It was burdened by the expectation of it was supposed
• 1:07
  to be the All Star race and all weekend it never felt like the
• 1:11
  All Star race. The, the race started at 1:00,
• 1:15
  which was awesome. I loved having a Cup race start
• 1:17
  at 1:00. We're doing a podcast at 8:40
• 1:20
  because I had time to write and it's still before our usual
• 1:24
  record time. These are all good things.
• 1:27
  The cars could pass. I thought the the, the
• 1:30
  application of the resin was really, really good.
• 1:33
  The racing product was really, really good, but at the end of
• 1:37
  the day, it never felt like the All Star race.
• 1:40
  And I think that's going to be the the biggest take away.
• 1:44
  I mean, we can talk about, you know, Denny's legacy, adding
• 1:47
  another All Star race in the fact that he doesn't really feel
• 1:51
  like this one even counts. That's interesting to me, the
• 1:54
  racing product. But I think the story is is that
• 1:58
  we had an All Star race that people are absolutely not going
• 2:01
  to remember was an All Star race 5-6 years from now.
• 2:07
  Yeah, I, I have a lot of issues with the format.
• 2:12
  I have a lot of issues with kind of what the first half of that
• 2:14
  event was. And I also have an issue with it
• 2:16
  being a four hour event. Like from green flag to checker
• 2:19
  flag was 4 hours, which I think it's just too long.
• 2:24
  You know, a lot of things you said are, are positives.
• 2:27
  Like there's a lot of positives that you can look at if you want
• 2:31
  to have a, a glass half full conversation, right?
• 2:33
  I think the racing was the best it's been in the last five years
• 2:36
  of Dover. I think that's undeniable.
• 2:40
  I love the 1:00 start time. I also did not know it was the
• 2:43
  1:00 start time until 12:50. So again, and, and I think the
• 2:48
  reason why it doesn't feel like the All Star race and the reason
• 2:51
  I didn't know it was the 1:00 start time is promotion.
• 2:54
  We do not have a sport or ATV provider that promotes it
• 2:57
  properly to let us know, hey, this is a big damn deal.
• 3:01
  Hey, we're doing this at 1:00. Hey, this is what's happening.
• 3:04
  The only thing I saw on the broadcast that made it feel like
• 3:08
  the All Star race were the words All Star at the top and plain
• 3:12
  white lettering. There was any special graphics,
• 3:15
  there was any special average, like nothing said this was a
• 3:18
  different race than what you see last Sunday or next Sunday.
• 3:21
  And that, that to me is a big problem.
• 3:24
  I love the one O clock start time because it is done sooner.
• 3:26
  But if you don't tell people, and I'm, I'm very much paying
• 3:29
  attention to when races start is literally part of my job.
• 3:32
  And I didn't know. And so I just feel like they're,
• 3:34
  they're just, they're going through the motion sometimes
• 3:37
  And, and that bothers me. But I, I think there are
• 3:39
  positives. Do you want to talk about your
• 3:42
  thoughts on the All Star format and, and what we saw in the
• 3:45
  first half? Because this is the first time
• 3:48
  we've ever had the All Star drivers mixed in with the Open
• 3:51
  drivers as one full race. But it's very convoluted.
• 3:57
  I guess we don't have to get too deep in the weeds, but at the
• 3:59
  end of the day, half of our All Stars were wrecked out before
• 4:02
  the race even started. And that to me is the biggest
• 4:06
  flop here is that if you're promoting an All Star race and
• 4:08
  your guys aren't in the race, what's the point?
• 4:12
  Yeah. So like I think it's really
• 4:14
  important to kind of let's reset.
• 4:17
  Why was the format the way that it was?
• 4:21
  I don't think anyone has an illusion that the All Star race
• 4:26
  was going to find a permanent home at Dover.
• 4:29
  The decision was made that, you know, we're going to turn North
• 4:33
  Wilkesboro into a, you know, points race.
• 4:36
  Well, then what? Do you do with the All Star
• 4:37
  race? Well, you know, you can't do it
• 4:40
  at Sonoma. I mean, Vegas now that doesn't
• 4:43
  make sense either. Nashville, not really.
• 4:45
  So like, let's just do it at Dover, right?
• 4:48
  And so at that point then you don't want to take away a full
• 4:55
  Cup Series race from people who regularly go to Dover, who who
• 5:00
  support Dover. You still want to have something
• 5:04
  that resembles the Open. You still want to have something
• 5:08
  that resembles heat races. And so the conclusion was as
• 5:12
  well, we'll make the first half of the All Star race, the open
• 5:17
  and heat races combined in one. We're going to do the
• 5:21
  inversions, to set the field and to do eliminations.
• 5:25
  And that way if you're a Chase Elliott fan, you get, you know,
• 5:28
  350 laps of watching Chase Elliott race.
• 5:33
  You get 350 laps of watching Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson.
• 5:37
  On paper. What, what the paper did not
• 5:41
  foresee is what happens while trying to qualify for the main
• 5:46
  event if you get crashed out. And that's unfortunate and I
• 5:53
  guess you could say it's a flaw of the format, but it's also
• 5:58
  just part of, I don't know, it's racing to a certain degree.
• 6:04
  I still maintain I wish we would have gone full Milk Bowl.
• 6:08
  That's the thing I said all all week and all year, ever since
• 6:12
  this format was announced, I wish they would do.
• 6:15
  The problem is, and I would love for people in the comments
• 6:18
  section to to tell me is that if you're not familiar with the
• 6:21
  Milk Bowl, the the race gets, it's 150 laps.
• 6:27
  After lap 50, everyone's inverted.
• 6:29
  After lap 100, everyone's inverted again.
• 6:32
  And the final 50 laps, the winner is not the driver who
• 6:36
  crosses the finish line first. The winner is the driver who has
• 6:41
  the best average finish across all three segments.
• 6:45
  And it it makes every single pass matter.
• 6:49
  The problem is you're trying to convince fans on TV that the the
• 6:53
  leader of the race is actually running 5th and he's battling
• 6:59
  the guy who's actually running 7th.
• 7:01
  And that's probably something I would not trust Fox Sports to
• 7:06
  do. It's not something that I think
• 7:08
  NASCAR fans would readily embrace.
• 7:11
  But here's the larger issue. And I kind of tackled this on
• 7:16
  Friday in the story that I wrote.
• 7:19
  If you think about the All Star race going back-to-back, went
• 7:22
  back when it was the Winston. That was the one race a year
• 7:25
  where it's a, it's a night race on an intermediate.
• 7:29
  It's the one race a year where double file restarts.
• 7:32
  It's the one race a year where we have overtime finish.
• 7:36
  It's the one race a year where there's overtime finishes.
• 7:39
  It's the one race a year where we have a wacky 450 horsepower
• 7:44
  rules package and every single one of those things eventually
• 7:49
  made its way into the weekly dynamic of the sport.
• 7:53
  And So what happens is, is even moving forward, we could, we
• 7:57
  could take the race back to Charlotte next year.
• 7:59
  We could have three races at Charlotte.
• 8:01
  We could have 7 races at Charlotte.
• 8:03
  I don't know how many levers there are left to pull to make
• 8:08
  the All Star race feel like a, for lack of a better term, a
• 8:12
  gimmick race. We we have run out of gimmicks
• 8:15
  and NASCAR wanted to do the run what you brung style race and
• 8:22
  team said that's too expensive. We don't want to do that.
• 8:25
  Even for this race at Dover, NASCAR wanted to bring an
• 8:28
  experimental, very aggressive splitter package and the teams
• 8:36
  were OK with that. The teams wanted to do that.
• 8:38
  But then there was a manufacturing issue and there
• 8:41
  was not a lot of conviction that the the the splitter
• 8:44
  manufacturer could have built 36 of them identical.
• 8:49
  So I just, I don't know what else there is left to do to make
• 8:53
  this race, regardless of where you put it, feel unique and
• 8:58
  special and different from what we do every race because we have
• 9:02
  now turned every single race into an All Star race.
• 9:06
  I mean, it's wacky and I'm, I'm just pitfalling now.
• 9:09
  I still maintain that the All Star race should be literally
• 9:14
  all three divisions, every single driver that made the
• 9:17
  Chase running a multi class race and call it literally the All
• 9:22
  Stars race. But the problem with that is
• 9:26
  then you have the O'reilly's car finishing ahead of the Cup car
• 9:31
  or or a Cup cars arrow blocking the O'Reilly car.
• 9:34
  And I kind of want to see what that looks like.
• 9:38
  But I don't know that NASCAR and fans want to live with what that
• 9:42
  tells us about the Cup car too. But I'm at a loss.
• 9:45
  I don't I literally, I don't know what to do, what lever to
• 9:48
  pull to make this race, regardless of where you hold it,
• 9:51
  feel special. Unless, and this is my last
• 9:54
  point and I know this idea is out there, what is now the Clash
• 10:00
  becomes the All Star race. You take it down to Bowman Gray
• 10:04
  in the summer and that would be a wonderful environment, a great
• 10:07
  show. But then I mean, do you then
• 10:10
  take Daytona to the Clash? I mean, I just, I don't know.
• 10:13
  I'm I'm at a loss for what this race should be because
• 10:17
  everything this race used to be is now what we do literally
• 10:20
  every single week. Right.
• 10:22
  Yeah, I was watching that and I was watching them wad up cars in
• 10:25
  the first segment there. And you know, that is a product
• 10:30
  of the format, right, that, you know, if you're not in the top
• 10:33
  26 after that first segment, your day is done regardless of
• 10:37
  whether you're locked in or not. If you're Chase Elliott and you
• 10:40
  don't get that top 26, then you're going to run the second
• 10:43
  segment, you know, in 26 and you're going to start the final
• 10:45
  segment in 20. You know, you were always going
• 10:47
  to start at the back. You had to get to that inversion
• 10:49
  point, right? And that creates the chaos,
• 10:51
  like, but what good is the chaos?
• 10:54
  And, and like it, it felt very gimmicky to me in the beginning
• 10:58
  of the race. Once we got to the final stage
• 11:00
  and we were having an actual race, I was like, this is good.
• 11:02
  And that goes back to your initial point of it was good for
• 11:04
  a Dover race. I feel like unless we keep it
• 11:08
  simple, like the keep it simple stupid thing makes a lot of
• 11:11
  sense here. For me.
• 11:12
  It's like just pick one track. Charlotte, North Wilkesboro I
• 11:16
  thought was fine, a short track special or something format
• 11:19
  super simple race, super short. Make it different in that
• 11:23
  aspect. Make it a shootout, not a four
• 11:25
  hour event And and just but maybe there's just no point of
• 11:30
  this race at all period anymore. Should we just have a 37 points
• 11:34
  race? You know, maybe this is
• 11:36
  something where we have long, you know, outgrown and All Star
• 11:40
  format. I know there's a lot of people
• 11:42
  that don't pay attention to it, don't like it, don't think it
• 11:44
  matters. Mike Joy tried his best to say
• 11:46
  it's got the biggest prize of any All Star race, but no one
• 11:49
  gives a damn About $1,000,000 in 2026.
• 11:52
  I just feel like the way we brand it, the way we promote it,
• 11:55
  the way we race it, the way it, it just doesn't matter and
• 11:58
  there's no continuity to it, especially when you've moved it
• 12:00
  to 5 tracks in seven years. So I just either find a place
• 12:04
  and stick to it and let it be that event or just eliminate it
• 12:08
  and just run a 37 points race. It is kind of where I'm at.
• 12:12
  No, I'm. With you, I'm with you just
• 12:15
  because I don't know. I'm, I'm with you about the race
• 12:22
  37. I think big picture, there are
• 12:25
  so many places we want to go and there's so many markets we want
• 12:29
  to go to. And I think right now having two
• 12:32
  exhibition races are kind of hampering our ability to do some
• 12:39
  really cool things. The only one other thing I would
• 12:41
  add, because it's a thing that I just keep going back to, is this
• 12:46
  was an idea that me, Chris Capehart and Frankie Kimmel came
• 12:53
  up with. It might have been the first
• 12:57
  race at the LA Coliseum. We were kind of talking about it
• 13:01
  and our idea that day was that we need something kind of like
• 13:07
  the Major League Baseball Field of Dreams games.
• 13:10
  And I don't know if you guys know what that is, but it's, or
• 13:14
  it's kind of like the the game they had in Birmingham a couple
• 13:17
  of years ago in the old park. Anyway, anyway, it's it's it's
• 13:22
  it's this Major League game between regular season, Major
• 13:27
  League game held in this really rural, unique or archaic
• 13:32
  environment that pays tribute to the roots of the sport.
• 13:37
  And what I would personally want the All Star race to be is let's
• 13:42
  take it to Hickory Motor Speedway.
• 13:44
  And I know you can only fit in 5000 people, but it's made for
• 13:49
  TV. It's ATV show right as part of
• 13:53
  this. And by the way, I think This is
• 13:55
  why it's a really good idea. Let's say we're going to go to
• 13:58
  Hickory. You then give Hickory in advance
• 14:01
  here, sure your share of the TV money, you get 138th of our TV
• 14:06
  package and you take whatever that number is and you can now
• 14:11
  modernize Hickory Motor Speedway.
• 14:14
  And you have to, to use it for whatever NASCAR says we have to
• 14:19
  do, whether it's, I don't know that Hickory needs SAFER
• 14:22
  barriers, but whatever the infrastructure is that they need
• 14:27
  do that. And it's 1 and done and you're
• 14:31
  out. And now you've got a modernized
• 14:33
  Hickory for short track racers, up and coming racers to use for
• 14:38
  the next 30-40 years. Even.
• 14:40
  You've now given Hickory a lifeline just because Cup went
• 14:45
  there one year. So where do you go next?
• 14:47
  You go to Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, you go to Tim Bryant
• 14:51
  and you say one year in advance here.
• 14:53
  Sure, million, 2 million, whatever the number is of
• 14:58
  upgrade money. And this is what we need for you
• 15:00
  to have a Cup race, spend it. And then you go to New Smyrna or
• 15:06
  you go to South Boston, which is already in the family anyway
• 15:09
  because it's owned by the Maddie Oles that own Pocono.
• 15:12
  You go to Berlin Raceway, you go to pick whatever short track.
• 15:19
  Rightly, I'm trying to pay respect to all of my favorite
• 15:22
  short tracks, Anderson Speedway in Indiana, you know the the
• 15:28
  track via roots on and and Stafford, Stafford Motor
• 15:31
  Speedway, Kevin Harvick's Kern County.
• 15:35
  And if you do this over the course of the next 10 years, you
• 15:40
  get this field of dream style NASCAR event that pays tribute
• 15:45
  to your roots. But you also have now taken 10
• 15:49
  race tracks and you've modernized them to give back to
• 15:52
  the future of the sport. And so it serves multiple
• 15:56
  purposes. I think that is the one thing
• 15:58
  that I would want to do with the All Star Race.
• 16:01
  That way it would not require some sort of gimmicky format.
• 16:06
  The format is just a good old fashioned short.
• 16:08
  Track race which? Is something we don't have a a
• 16:11
  ton of. And that's the one thing I think
• 16:13
  we learned with the LA Coliseum and Bowman Gray is say what you
• 16:19
  will about this Cup car on shore tracks, if they're not going
• 16:23
  fast enough to create a lot of, you know, downforce and arrow,
• 16:27
  it's a fine race car. Like we don't have the problems
• 16:31
  at the Coliseum and at Bowman Gray that you have on half
• 16:35
  miles. So let's take them to these bull
• 16:37
  rings like a Hickory and A and a South Boston and A and a Berlin,
• 16:41
  because I don't think we'll have the issues we have in
• 16:43
  Martinsville and New Hampshire or anywhere else too.
• 16:48
  And so there's my one contribution to the the All Star
• 16:52
  Race discourse. No, I like it.
• 16:55
  It's anything to make it feel different, right?
• 16:58
  Anything to give it some sort of its own feeling and environment.
• 17:04
  I do think using that as a way to reinvest in your tracks.
• 17:07
  I mean, obviously the NASCAR weekly series is still a thing.
• 17:10
  So it gives you an opportunity to kind of reinvest in those
• 17:13
  tracks, reinvest in that series to a degree without really
• 17:15
  having to do a whole lot outside of just host an event, right.
• 17:19
  So I I don't mind that at all. Denny Hamlin dominates.
• 17:23
  I don't think this win really does anything for him as a that
• 17:29
  he hasn't already done right. I don't know if this really
• 17:30
  means anything. I think it just reiterates that
• 17:32
  he's the best guy in the sport right now, which we already
• 17:34
  know. I I don't think that's really
• 17:36
  saying anything. Toyotas look like the best cars.
• 17:39
  Again, you know, you know, Briscoe was strong.
• 17:42
  I thought before Reddick, you know, had his issue.
• 17:44
  He was really good. Bubble Wallace at first part of
• 17:46
  the race was really strong. So they have a ton of speed.
• 17:48
  Again, I don't think we learned anything new from this
• 17:51
  particular race. It kind of feels like we're
• 17:53
  going to get to Tuesday and forget all about it.
• 17:55
  Is there anything else you want to touch on from this All Star
• 17:58
  race, from the action on track or anything at all before we
• 18:01
  kind of move it along? Well, on on Denny, there's one
• 18:04
  thing I wanted to say is like, I've yet to post the video
• 18:07
  because NASCAR hasn't uploaded it yet.
• 18:09
  But I asked Denny during the press conference, I said,
• 18:13
  because we know that all you care about right now when it
• 18:17
  comes to NASCAR is winning races.
• 18:19
  It's not the championship, it's not money.
• 18:22
  He's got all that, right? Like he's got the, he's made a
• 18:25
  ton of money. He's kind of dismissed the
• 18:27
  championship as a thing that maybe shouldn't happen because
• 18:30
  of the format. All he cared about was getting
• 18:33
  to 60 and now maybe 65 or 70. And but he cut me off and he
• 18:38
  said, and this one doesn't count.
• 18:40
  It's bullshit. He's like, that's the story of
• 18:43
  my career. He's like, we've got 2 All Star
• 18:46
  wins now. I think 44 shootouts.
• 18:49
  And I even wrote in my story earlier tonight, I said Denny
• 18:54
  Hamlin has 67 Cup series wins and only 61 of them counts.
• 19:01
  And I, I tried to like spin it for him.
• 19:04
  I'm like, yeah, but like for your, your bank account, not
• 19:08
  that $1 million for a guy that makes 14,000,000 a year is that
• 19:12
  big of a deal, But you know it, it doesn't hurt.
• 19:16
  Or even the resume, you know, having 2 All Star race wins,
• 19:21
  quote UN quote. And he's like, I don't care.
• 19:23
  I want points wins, points paying wins.
• 19:26
  It's all I care about. And there was no way that I
• 19:29
  could, despite my best efforts, try to soften that narrative for
• 19:35
  Denny because he didn't want to hear it.
• 19:36
  Like, he's so mad that, you know, he, he got a full Field
• 19:39
  Cup win. And it's not getting him any
• 19:42
  closer to 70. And it's not getting him any
• 19:44
  closer to the championship either.
• 19:47
  But I think 510 years from now, when people look at Denny's
• 19:54
  career stats, it'll say that he won 2 All Star races.
• 19:58
  And I don't think there will be an asterisk.
• 20:00
  I don't think anyone's going to remember.
• 20:01
  Yeah, but it was a Dover like who won the the Bristol All Star
• 20:07
  race? Was that Chase Elliot?
• 20:09
  Yeah. I don't think people are going
• 20:10
  to go, you know, Chase Elliot All Star race winner.
• 20:14
  Yeah, but it was at at Bristol. There's going to say All Star
• 20:18
  race winner. And so I think years from now
• 20:21
  people are going to remember this being more meaningful than
• 20:24
  it is now. I thought it was a.
• 20:27
  Resume padding stat for a guy that already has a very
• 20:32
  tremendous resume. But I understand why in his
• 20:35
  words, Denny says. It's bullshit, I get it.
• 20:39
  Yeah, I mean, I I'll pose this question.
• 20:43
  Is it a resume padding thing? Because does this win matter to
• 20:46
  people? Does Saint All Star race win
• 20:49
  really matter juxtaposed to like a Southern 500 winner Brickyard
• 20:53
  for like when you put a a race win a a powerful race win in the
• 20:58
  sport on a resume, it's forever. They're like Bubba Wallace is a
• 21:01
  Brickyard 400 winner and that is legit.
• 21:04
  Does anyone five years from now look at All Star race winner and
• 21:07
  really give a damn? Like do they really care?
• 21:10
  And and that would be my argument.
• 21:11
  And that kind of goes to the, you know, the whole argument is
• 21:15
  like, does this race even need to exist?
• 21:16
  Because I don't think it matters.
• 21:17
  I don't think anyone's going to look at it.
• 21:19
  But oh, Danny accomplished something.
• 21:20
  I think they'll be like, OK, that's it.
• 21:22
  And to your point, all year they've been talking about guys
• 21:26
  who want to race and all this, and Ryan Priest is still
• 21:28
  winless. And I was like, he won a race, I
• 21:30
  watched him win a race, but it doesn't count for anything.
• 21:34
  And so I think for me, the more and more I think about it, the
• 21:39
  more and more I just want to get rid of it, which is harsh, but I
• 21:43
  don't think it really does. He's right.
• 21:45
  He needs a championship. I I pulled up points as you're
• 21:48
  starting that I pulled up the points.
• 21:49
  I was like, oh, let me see what he closed in.
• 21:50
  Oh, that's right. He didn't.
• 21:52
  It literally doesn't help him in any way.
• 21:53
  So I completely get what he's saying.
• 21:56
  His fans will like it. But yeah, that's about it.
• 21:59
  I do want to touch on two people though. 2 drivers before we get
• 22:02
  out here. B is 1.
• 22:04
  I just, I want a fanboy over them for for fun.
• 22:07
  Austin Dillon, who when tires matter, good God, he finds a way
• 22:11
  to the front. I just think it's so cool to
• 22:13
  watch him. I'm excited for Richmond.
• 22:14
  That's the only time it's going to matter.
• 22:16
  But I I thought it was really cool.
• 22:17
  But the other guy, I think you know who I'm.
• 22:19
  Going Why? Why?
• 22:20
  Why is it going to matter again? BC has a good setup.
• 22:24
  Yeah, I wonder where that setup came from.
• 22:28
  Connor Zillich. So Connor Zilich.
• 22:30
  Man Austin Dillon, if he was in a JGR car, man he might, he
• 22:34
  might have a championship by now.
• 22:36
  I believe it, I do. No, let's not.
• 22:38
  Let's not get beat up too much. Connor Zilich when he was
• 22:41
  running 4th, 5th closed in on the leaders, made passes on all
• 22:46
  those guys and looked like he's a real contender.
• 22:49
  Had the pit Rd. penalty, went to the back and still drove back up
• 22:52
  to 5th. By far is best cut performance.
• 22:56
  That's not even, you know, arguable, but it showed his
• 23:00
  competitiveness with those front runners and he looked like if he
• 23:04
  didn't have that penalty, he could potentially challenge for
• 23:06
  the win. Any thoughts on Zilich and and
• 23:10
  just that performance in general?
• 23:11
  Yeah, I, I was super impressed. I mean, I was, I was talking to
• 23:14
  Connor on Friday and I, I kind of, I'm not saying I predicted
• 23:20
  this, but I felt really good about his chances because, you
• 23:25
  know, we have a new rules package and we had the, the,
• 23:29
  the, the track bite, the resin applied all the way down from
• 23:33
  top to bottom. And I asked Connor, I said, you
• 23:36
  know. A lot of other drivers, your
• 23:38
  peers, have a preconceived notion of what Dover is supposed
• 23:44
  to be, what it's supposed to feel.
• 23:45
  Like, and this is his first ever cup start at Dover and he has
• 23:49
  no, no innate knowledge on what this was supposed to be.
• 23:55
  And certainly, you know, track house had to give him a good
• 23:57
  car, which is asking a lot this year.
• 24:01
  So I'm not saying that I predicted that, but I, I think
• 24:04
  that it goes to show you that if track house gets the setup
• 24:08
  right, they've got a really good driver that can carry the team
• 24:12
  and, and execute. And man, you've got to wonder
• 24:15
  about what could have been with that penalty.
• 24:17
  I don't think that anyone had anything for the for the 11.
• 24:21
  And you know, the same thing with the 19 too.
• 24:24
  I mean, there was a lot of people who were trying to
• 24:26
  suggest that the only reason Denny was able to complete the
• 24:30
  pass on Chase was Bubba's Pit Rd. entry.
• 24:34
  And he kind of backed up to Chase and I asked Chase and he's
• 24:39
  like, it wasn't my preferred way for him to get down Pit Rd. but
• 24:43
  he's like, Denny already had me. So my, my point being is I, I
• 24:47
  think Denny was going to win this race no matter what, but it
• 24:51
  would have been a really good story to see Connor not have to
• 24:55
  drive all the way through the field.
• 24:57
  And certainly you wonder what could have been.
• 25:00
  And I asked Connor that after the race too.
• 25:01
  You can see the the interview on my social media channels.
• 25:05
  I said, do you view this as a really good day or are you going
• 25:12
  to leave here wondering what could have been?
• 25:15
  He's like, I am thrilled. If you would have told me waking
• 25:19
  up this morning I would be top five in the All Star race, first
• 25:23
  time at Dover, I would be ecstatic.
• 25:25
  It's like this is a really good day.
• 25:27
  And so it's just a reminder that village.
• 25:32
  Is really good and I know he's got his teeth kicked in this
• 25:34
  year. Track House has got their teeth
• 25:36
  kicked in this year and there's not.
• 25:39
  Been a lot for that that organization to celebrate so
• 25:44
  good for them. Great showing.
• 25:47
  Yeah, absolutely. So let's transition to I.
• 25:51
  I have these in my mind. I see them transition to silly
• 25:55
  season talk because. Are we talking about the next
• 25:57
  driver of the 48? We are talking about the next
• 26:00
  driver of the 48 because two months ago, three months ago,
• 26:05
  two months ago, I said Corey Davey in that car.
• 26:08
  You've been all about it. I've been I was P1 on that
• 26:11
  thing. Now Freddie Kraft thinks he's,
• 26:14
  you know, breaking news here that he's got all the insight,
• 26:17
  but a lot of people online are also, and this is one of those
• 26:20
  probably just NASCAR fan rumors things that, oh, could Zilch's
• 26:24
  contract be bought out and could he go in that car?
• 26:27
  So I think there's two guys that both kind of shine this weekend.
• 26:30
  Obviously we'll get the Corey days win as well.
• 26:33
  But that 48 seat, it seems like it's heating up.
• 26:36
  And I think we're going to find out our answer sooner than later
• 26:38
  because Rick Hendrick doesn't typically sit on news.
• 26:42
  He typically says, OK, this is our guy, this is what we're
• 26:44
  doing. So what are the rumblings?
• 26:47
  What do you think of this whole dynamic?
• 26:49
  Is Zilich potentially going there or do you think I'm right
• 26:51
  about the Corey Day thing? Yeah, I mean, I, I, I would not
• 26:55
  personally have drawn it up that way.
• 26:58
  Although as the year has gone on, I'm a Corey Day believer, so
• 27:02
  this has never been like, I don't believe he's ready.
• 27:04
  I just don't want to. Put a driver in a situation to
• 27:08
  fail. Maybe it's when I grew up and I
• 27:12
  lived through as as a kid, I lived through Casey Atwood and
• 27:17
  for some reason Casey. Atwood has always been in the
• 27:20
  back of my mind of like what happens when you put the weight
• 27:23
  and pressure and expectation. On a driver that's not ready for
• 27:28
  it or or not ready to commit in the way that he needs to.
• 27:31
  But I've also lived through Denny Hamlin and there's no way
• 27:34
  that Denny Hamlin was ready to drive that 11 car and he made it
• 27:39
  work. So maybe Corey Day is the next
• 27:40
  Denny Hamlin in that regard. But I certainly think he's a Cup
• 27:45
  caliber driver who is still being refined and there's no.
• 27:50
  Way to learn the Cup series. Other than racing in the Cup
• 27:54
  series because there's nothing that carries over from the
• 27:57
  O'Reilly car and the truck is closer than the Cup car.
• 28:02
  So As for the rumblings, there are.
• 28:04
  Certainly rumblings. I mean for.
• 28:06
  One Alex Bowman and and Connor Zillich have the same agent.
• 28:13
  They're both Bibby management drivers and so certainly that
• 28:18
  makes it easier for all parties. Like if you just wanted to do a
• 28:23
  straight up trade and say, you know, we still believe in Alex
• 28:27
  and we want Alex to be in a good situation.
• 28:30
  And maybe it's Alex and funding and and data.
• 28:35
  This is not the rumblings. This is me speculating.
• 28:38
  I could see it being on the table of we'll buy him out of
• 28:41
  his contract. We'll, we, we will give you
• 28:44
  support because we believe in, in Alex and we want him to be in
• 28:48
  a position to succeed too. And maybe there's some data we
• 28:53
  can give you too to help you catch up for where Chevrolet
• 28:57
  needs to go. And Kendrick.
• 28:59
  Has the history of doing something like this.
• 29:01
  He's totally with past drivers, did it with Kasey Kahne.
• 29:03
  He he takes care of his guys even when he moves on from them.
• 29:06
  So the idea that he would spend a couple $1,000,000 to make
• 29:09
  everyone good on the back end is totally there.
• 29:12
  Yeah, I have a a friend of mine who is in the IndyCar.
• 29:18
  I've seen IndyCar friend. I'll put it this way.
• 29:20
  And I got the text a month ago. It's like, hey, if you want to.
• 29:24
  To kick this around, you know, Hendrick has had conversations
• 29:31
  about the framework of what that would look like.
• 29:35
  And of course, no one's talking and, and no one's taking the
• 29:38
  bait. I mean, I ask the questions and,
• 29:41
  and the answers are, will you never say never?
• 29:44
  And you know, that driver is under contract and that's a, a
• 29:47
  Chevy partner. And when we, we respect Chevy
• 29:51
  partners and all that stuff. But where there's smoke, there's
• 29:57
  fire, right? And I I I think.
• 29:59
  That this this is the way I look at it.
• 30:03
  And again, this isn't. This isn't.
• 30:05
  This is educated speculation. Certainly I've had the
• 30:09
  conversation, so I'm not oblivious to the truth here.
• 30:14
  But when a lot of people are like, no comment, we're not
• 30:18
  talking about that publicly. All you can do is an offer an
• 30:22
  informed speculation right If you have Connor Zilich under
• 30:27
  contract for a little while. But you're getting your teeth
• 30:32
  kicked in as a company because you're just not.
• 30:35
  Caught up by time your track house and you've got this
• 30:40
  figured out. Maybe it takes a year or two.
• 30:43
  Now Connor's going to leave anyway because he's a free
• 30:46
  agent. And so if you can get something
• 30:50
  of value, because Connor is an asset and and just an asset,
• 30:55
  yeah, super valuable and Justin's not oblivious to smart
• 30:59
  business. And you can take that valuable
• 31:01
  asset and turn that into something to make you better
• 31:04
  now. And even if you can get Alex
• 31:07
  Bowman and plug him in and you've got a veteran who knows
• 31:10
  what. That car is supposed to feel
• 31:12
  like to pair with Ross and. And SPG can still go in Rd.
• 31:19
  courses. SPG can win your Rd. courses.
• 31:21
  Fantastic. So if you get the cars right,
• 31:23
  Ross can compete. It's not like you're, you got
• 31:25
  one guy, you know, like they have talent in house still.
• 31:28
  Yeah. So Connor is only valuable if
• 31:30
  you think you're ready to win championships or compete for
• 31:35
  championships in the next year or two.
• 31:38
  And I don't know that they are. And so if you can make an
• 31:40
  informed business decision to catch you up and to turn that
• 31:44
  asset into value, you have to entertain it.
• 31:47
  That's what I'll say, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:49
  I I completely agree. We see it all the time in other
• 31:53
  sports where it's like we have this running back, he will
• 31:56
  never, we're not in the position to win, but we can trade him for
• 31:59
  or maybe wide receiver is better.
• 32:00
  These running backs don't have worth, but like you have a a
• 32:02
  really good wide receiver and you can trade him for a first
• 32:04
  round pick. You do it, you get the even
• 32:07
  though he's the best receiver in the league, you still do it
• 32:09
  because you're not going to win with him anyways, right?
• 32:11
  That type of dynamic and obviously what Rick Hendrick
• 32:15
  wants, he gets. I mean that that's pretty much
• 32:18
  how it is. And I don't think they have
• 32:20
  enough, like you kind of mentioned, contract leverage to
• 32:24
  keep Zilich. I mean it, it's a he'll be gone
• 32:27
  in a year and a half regardless of what you do.
• 32:29
  So take what you can get. I think that makes most sense.
• 32:32
  But then what happens with Corey Day, I guess you know, for you
• 32:35
  and for what everyone probably thought in the beginning of the
• 32:37
  year is that this is going to be a two, maybe even 3 year project
• 32:40
  here. Maybe get some spot cup starts
• 32:42
  and you know, at some point, you know, with an open team or
• 32:45
  whatever, they run an open car friend to get some cub
• 32:47
  experience. So maybe that's just the same
• 32:49
  path they go down. But it also feels like he could
• 32:53
  be putting his name in the hat as well with these.
• 32:55
  And by the way, if you really believe that Corey Day is your
• 32:59
  guy, and certainly this weekend changes the calculus a little
• 33:04
  bit, but there's your driver of the future that cost you
• 33:07
  nothing, so maybe you just plug them in.
• 33:12
  Maybe maybe. I mean, that's that's why I
• 33:15
  always thought it was the wise decision is if he goes out there
• 33:18
  and wins races, and that was the caveat I put on.
• 33:20
  It's like he has to win. Well, this was a statement when
• 33:23
  he went out there and kicked their ass.
• 33:25
  That wasn't a fluke win. That wasn't Talladega.
• 33:26
  That was he ran Justin Algarve down past them.
• 33:31
  With entire advantage. I don't.
• 33:33
  Care. I don't.
• 33:34
  I don't care either but I want to be into like totally honest
• 33:37
  about it. It was 4 green flag laps.
• 33:40
  Let's not get carried away with this huge tire advantage.
• 33:42
  It it was 4 green flag laps. There's a quick caution.
• 33:45
  They pitted 4 laps later. It wasn't big and at the end of
• 33:49
  an 80 lap run, that's not going to be a big deal.
• 33:52
  I mean, it's going to be pretty equal, all things considered.
• 33:54
  Not enough for him to make those games.
• 33:56
  Those games were made because of his talent.
• 33:59
  They were made because he was ripping the top because he's
• 34:01
  finding grip that others couldn't.
• 34:03
  That's all it was in my opinion. Now you can disagree, that's
• 34:05
  fine. But.
• 34:06
  No, I'm, I'm with you. I just I, I want to make sure
• 34:10
  that I cover my bases there. I, I, I've been a day one
• 34:13
  believer of Corey Day, even when things didn't start out
• 34:16
  particularly well, Like I still think that he's the best guy.
• 34:19
  I I've always felt. Like.
• 34:24
  Corey was the inevitable replacement for Larson.
• 34:27
  Like to me the timing of of bringing Corey and as your
• 34:32
  development driver and Kyle signing what very much feels
• 34:35
  like his last contract that I thought that was not a.
• 34:39
  A. Coincidence.
• 34:40
  But I think how quickly this is coming to him and you know, the,
• 34:45
  the situation with the 48 being what it is, I think it just
• 34:50
  gives them another option. I mean, by the way, it's not
• 34:52
  completely out of the question whether or not that Alex comes
• 34:55
  back. Maybe you give Alex another year
• 34:56
  to try to piece it together. They, they, they love Alex.
• 35:01
  I think the best thing for Hendrick Motorsports is they
• 35:04
  have no shortage of options. It's it's not like JGR was a
• 35:08
  couple of years ago where it's like, man, if any leaves, what
• 35:10
  do we do? Right.
• 35:13
  Right in, you know the other side of this is Corey Day still
• 35:16
  what, 19? Yeah, if he's I know we want to
• 35:20
  rush guys at times. And William Byron was 19 when he
• 35:24
  signed his Cup deal and Zillich was obviously 19.
• 35:26
  And when, you know, you know, Kyle Larson had a mediocre year
• 35:31
  in the O'Reilly series before he went the Cup, but everyone knew
• 35:35
  is like, no, this is the guy, we're not going to waste any
• 35:37
  time, right? And when you know, you know, and
• 35:39
  I kind of feel like we're getting to that point with him.
• 35:42
  But also, if you're not going to put them in your ride, there's
• 35:44
  no sense in rushing them. And I know at some point he'll
• 35:47
  end up in open ride. The Kyle Larson thing makes
• 35:49
  sense. How long is he going to run the
• 35:51
  Cup car, right? Like at some point Larson is
• 35:54
  going to want to go do his open wheel stuff.
• 35:56
  He's going to want to kind of get away from being a full time
• 35:58
  Cup driver. And it seems like every time we
• 36:01
  talk about the Indy 500 or other stuff, he said.
• 36:04
  Yeah, when my career is over, when my, it almost feels like
• 36:06
  he's dialing into when he wants to leave.
• 36:08
  Remember 8 years ago he he caused the biggest kerfuffle of
• 36:13
  his career to date when he said that he was going to retire
• 36:18
  before he was 40 and go run World of Outlaws full time.
• 36:23
  Now he owns a series that competes with World of Outlaws.
• 36:26
  His final contract takes him right up to before 40.
• 36:30
  So like to me the the math maths out with what?
• 36:36
  He is always said. Right.
• 36:38
  Yeah. And he, so he's 33 now, right.
• 36:41
  So he's, you know, it's crazy. He's like on year 14 here.
• 36:45
  Rick. Rick, Rick said to us at
• 36:48
  Daytona. I asked him the question.
• 36:49
  I said the last time you had a really powerful driver, crew
• 36:55
  chief. Tandem like this?
• 36:57
  It was Jeff Gordon and it was it was Ray Everingham.
• 37:01
  And you saw in the driver to a lifetime contract.
• 37:04
  Did you try to talk Kyle into a lifetime contract?
• 37:07
  And, and Rick said if I could, if I could have had him on a
• 37:12
  lifetime deal, I certainly would have, which implied that Kyle's
• 37:17
  not. Going to be alive for he doesn't
• 37:18
  want to be here full time. He has the contract that he
• 37:22
  wants to have, right? Absolutely.
• 37:24
  So I think the puzzle pieces are starting to get put together
• 37:28
  here. I'm switching my allegiance to
• 37:30
  Zilich in that 48. If not, then Bowman gets one
• 37:34
  more year and then Hendrick makes the play once Zilich
• 37:38
  contracts out. I think that's the way I'm
• 37:40
  starting to lean. Even though I was big on Corey
• 37:42
  Day, I'd I'd love the win. I think it even added to it.
• 37:46
  But I I think the more smoke is kind of put in other directions.
• 37:50
  I think that's kind of where we got to start leaning personally,
• 37:52
  But it it's still wide open and I think it's awesome.
• 37:55
  Like to me, this is what makes sports fun.
• 37:57
  The what ifs, who's going where, what's going to happen,
• 37:59
  especially for such a big team. I think it's a a cool storyline.
• 38:01
  Apollo. Agreed.
• 38:05
  O'Reilly Ray. So we talked about Corey Day.
• 38:07
  Great win. Do you want to touch on his
• 38:08
  performance anymore or? I mean, I I thought it was
• 38:12
  fantastic, but I just don't really know.
• 38:14
  I know you're going to talk about how good the race car is
• 38:16
  and how good the racing is and how good the platform is and all
• 38:19
  that stuff, but. No, I mean we've, we've.
• 38:20
  Beaten that horse to death. I mean, it is, but that's like
• 38:23
  getting on this podcast and saying that, you know, did you
• 38:26
  guys know the sky is blue and the grass is green?
• 38:29
  I don't, I don't, I don't think there's any new ground to cover
• 38:32
  there. Trying to think if there's
• 38:36
  anything else that I got. Let's talk Roger Carruth because
• 38:39
  he had a very up and down day. I feel like that's one of the
• 38:42
  only other storylines from this race really.
• 38:46
  What did he had, what, 3 incidents?
• 38:49
  Nothing too crazy, nothing where he tore his stuff up
• 38:51
  necessarily. But he had one of those races
• 38:54
  where it felt like a really big learning experience And it felt
• 38:57
  like, it was kind of like, oh, crap, you know, I, I got to, you
• 39:01
  know, maybe I don't want to say watch what I'm doing, but just
• 39:05
  it, it's, it felt like a good learning experience because he's
• 39:07
  still really young in his career right at this level.
• 39:10
  And he only gets so many races in the JRM stuff.
• 39:13
  And I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
• 39:14
  And I'm kind of how his race went and what we can kind of
• 39:17
  look for going forward or if it even matters that much.
• 39:20
  And I'm just like making too much of it.
• 39:23
  Well, I think it's problematic because now this is 3 times he's
• 39:27
  wrecked the two, Martinsville, Rockingham, and now Saturday.
• 39:32
  And it's so unfortunate because I was at Rockingham the last
• 39:40
  time he wrecked the two and I was talking to Danny Lawrence,
• 39:43
  who is in charge of RCR's O'Reilly series operations for a
• 39:48
  Cletus story, and I got a head that I was the one that got it
• 39:54
  in. There it is.
• 39:56
  Is he in the graphic somewhere? He.
• 39:58
  Is. Good, good, good.
• 40:00
  Well, there's there's our Cletus mentioned so you guys can jump
• 40:03
  off the chat now. That's that's, that's the extent
• 40:05
  of our Cletus conversation this weekend.
• 40:09
  The chat Cletus, I was, I was talking to Danny Lawrence about
• 40:13
  Cletus. And after we wrapped up the
• 40:16
  conversation, I told Danny, I said, just so you know, I just
• 40:20
  got done talking to Raja. He feels terrible and he's
• 40:24
  probably coming down here to come talk to you.
• 40:26
  So just know. He's he's going to come look for
• 40:29
  you. And like magic, he appeared
• 40:32
  behind me and I just let them them talk.
• 40:35
  But as I walked away, I heard Raj saying, you know, Mr.
• 40:39
  Lawrence just wanted to stop by and apologize and.
• 40:43
  I, I I. Made a mistake and Danny was
• 40:47
  like, I appreciate you saying that.
• 40:48
  And that's where I walked away. I kind of just wanted to I
• 40:51
  turned around and I, I read the body language.
• 40:53
  So I didn't want to interject myself into that conversation,
• 40:56
  but I could tell that that Raja I was trying to to be contrite
• 41:02
  and Danny was stern, but it looked like he was accepting of
• 41:08
  of that. And they shook hands and.
• 41:10
  That was that, and so I asked Raja after.
• 41:14
  The he had two incidents really kind of three.
• 41:18
  But I, I said, you know, this is now three times that you've
• 41:22
  acknowledged now that you've wronged the two and you've
• 41:25
  already apologized. Like how do you smooth this one
• 41:29
  over? And he's like, I have no idea,
• 41:31
  'cause like I, I, I can't just keep going back and apologizing.
• 41:36
  And I actually waited out Jesse. And I think if Jesse hears about
• 41:41
  this or watches it, I'll be curious if he reaches out.
• 41:44
  But I felt like he kind of was dodging me because I don't think
• 41:47
  he wanted to talk to me about it and he didn't talk to anyone
• 41:49
  else. In the media and there was a
• 41:51
  big. Group Powwow with Danny Lawrence
• 41:54
  and Austin Hill was there and other other RCR people kind of
• 42:01
  jumped in and out of the country.
• 42:02
  Sheldon, Sheldon Creed walked over and you could almost kind
• 42:06
  of tell where the conversation was like we have a, a thing that
• 42:12
  we need to figure out here. And I don't know if if Raja ever
• 42:17
  had the conversation. I feel bad for him because I
• 42:21
  don't know how you can in good faith walk up to them and be
• 42:26
  like, hey, it's me again. Sorry.
• 42:29
  But I I also sympathize and I empathize with where Raja is at
• 42:36
  right now because. He.
• 42:39
  He said it in in in our pit Rd. conversation.
• 42:43
  I am racing and fighting for my life and he is.
• 42:49
  He has a limited number of starts and.
• 42:53
  He has a plurality of the season in that in that 88 car, but he
• 42:57
  wants to make the most of them. And I get the impression that
• 43:04
  that he is not promised anything beyond this year.
• 43:08
  The support that he's got from from Rick and Linda and I, I,
• 43:14
  I'm not a race car driver. And so I'm not going to pretend
• 43:17
  to to tell Raja how to do his job because he is a winner, a
• 43:24
  multiple time winner in the Truck Series.
• 43:26
  But you can tell that when he gets close to the lead or he's
• 43:30
  racing for the lead, he presses a little bit.
• 43:33
  And I'm not even going to to say that he's wrong for that.
• 43:39
  He's trying to capitalize on a chance to win a race at this
• 43:42
  level because he needs to. And there's been just a couple
• 43:47
  of Times Now he's made mistakes racing for the lead.
• 43:52
  And I do not envy the position that he's in because as someone
• 43:57
  in a very challenging field, that makes me feel like I am
• 44:02
  fighting for my life and career. If I don't get that good story
• 44:05
  that could quote or the good clip, I feel like I am letting
• 44:12
  everyone around me down. You know the the girlfriend
• 44:15
  that's that relies on me to continue paying helping to.
• 44:19
  Pay the bills or. The company that has invested so
• 44:23
  much into me and in my career. I don't want to make this about
• 44:26
  me, but I'm saying that I understand what it's like and
• 44:31
  sometimes I'm really. Aggressive with the.
• 44:33
  Story that I write or question that I asked and it's really
• 44:36
  easy for them people to look at me and was like Weaver, you
• 44:39
  asshole, why did you do it that way?
• 44:41
  Because I'm pressing and it's really easy for someone to be
• 44:44
  like Raj you hack. Why are you doing it that way?
• 44:48
  Because he's pressing and I, I understand where he's coming
• 44:52
  from and I, I, I see how hard he's trying to, to make this
• 44:57
  happen. And it's, it's a tough place to
• 45:00
  be in to race for your career. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 45:03
  I mean, I, I think most people can identify with it.
• 45:07
  You know, I certainly can with, you know, with what I do for my
• 45:10
  job. If we aren't winning, you know,
• 45:13
  our our contest and stuff, I have a very negative feel.
• 45:18
  I feel like I am not doing my job properly.
• 45:20
  I'm I'm screwing up. I'm not delivering when I need
• 45:23
  to and you know, because this is how I make my money because I'm
• 45:27
  charging people for a service and I'm didn't deliver today or
• 45:31
  if I don't deliver for a multitude of races, like 3-4 in
• 45:34
  a row, I get very anxious. I get very upset.
• 45:36
  I get very nervous when the competition beats me.
• 45:38
  I'm like, why the hell did they beat me, right?
• 45:40
  Like, so we all have it in our lives.
• 45:42
  Sometimes we lose sight of that because we're watching athletes
• 45:45
  on television, right? Or we're watching drivers and we
• 45:47
  think, oh, why did he screw up? But at the same time, he's just
• 45:50
  doing a job and he's very young within that job and he's making
• 45:55
  mistakes. To your point on the pressing,
• 45:58
  one of the coolest things that I saw in a race once and I I've
• 46:03
  never seen it again because it was actually cool.
• 46:06
  So they got rid of it is they showed the heart rate of the
• 46:09
  drivers and they showed Denny Hamlin.
• 46:12
  And I swear that dude in the middle of a race had a resting
• 46:15
  heart rate. It was like 72 beats per minute.
• 46:17
  He was not flustered. He was not, you know, nothing
• 46:20
  calm game of Suarez was pegged like one 35140.
• 46:24
  And it's kind of that difference between that's why he's great
• 46:28
  because he can compartmentalize everything.
• 46:30
  He stays calm, he stays cool and he can deliver.
• 46:32
  And part of that's experience. Part of that's just confidence
• 46:35
  in yourself, right? Confidence in your situation.
• 46:38
  You're not under pressure of any sorts that they handled like I'm
• 46:41
  good. Whereas the guy that's in the
• 46:43
  car for the first time are with the team for the first time, are
• 46:44
  racing for their career. Every moment matters and, and
• 46:48
  they sometimes overstep and they make those mistakes.
• 46:51
  And I, I, I like that we see that.
• 46:53
  I like that we see that from these drivers.
• 46:55
  I like to see the emotion. I like the and I think that's
• 46:59
  part of what makes the O'Reilly Series great, right?
• 47:02
  It is, you're seeing these young drivers, you're seeing the
• 47:04
  emotions. It's kind of raw at times.
• 47:06
  Where is the Cup level? We don't see that rawness as
• 47:08
  much anymore. I think we're still seeing that
• 47:10
  a lot with some of these younger drivers on a week in week out
• 47:12
  basis where they're getting out of the car, they're emotional,
• 47:15
  they're they Kaden Honeycutt few weeks back where he's just like,
• 47:18
  how can I not win this race? I should have won this damn
• 47:21
  right. And I love that.
• 47:23
  And so I I think Rodgers done a great job this year and a lot of
• 47:28
  respects. The key thing is the show speed.
• 47:32
  When you get into a top car, can you run top five?
• 47:34
  He has checked that box at the end of the day.
• 47:37
  Now it's just about getting the finishes and not wrecking
• 47:39
  people, right? Like not having this run in with
• 47:41
  Jesse Love repeatedly. At some point, I think Love's
• 47:44
  going to pay this back. I think it's gotten to the point
• 47:46
  where he's going to send one. That's just my feeling on it.
• 47:49
  You don't have to, but Raj is there and he's knocking on the
• 47:53
  door. Top fives and wins if he can put
• 47:56
  it all together. So I, I, I want to see how he
• 47:58
  does. He's 15 races into this O'Reilly
• 48:01
  Series career. So I, I, I, I am excited for him
• 48:05
  still. But it, that's a, it's a
• 48:06
  learning experience, right? So, yeah, I, I don't know if
• 48:09
  there's anything else on the O'Reilly race.
• 48:10
  That's pretty much all that I saw.
• 48:13
  Good racing, good event, but kind of all there is now let's
• 48:16
  move the truck. Trucks.
• 48:17
  Real fast before we do I I am reading the chat at all times
• 48:21
  and there are some questions about I don't know when they're
• 48:24
  going to start. They're all over the place, say
• 48:25
  8393010301130. Basically my rule is is like one
• 48:31
  this race started way earlier so we we got to the show way
• 48:35
  earlier. The race ends.
• 48:37
  Typically I'm at the racetrack, I go and get my post race
• 48:39
  interviews. I write for an hour or two and.
• 48:43
  I typically try to get this show.
• 48:45
  Started whenever I'm done writing and so it's all over the
• 48:49
  place because NASCAR start times are all over the place and
• 48:52
  sometimes I have more to write about another weekend sometimes
• 48:56
  I'm at the track and sometimes I'm at home and so.
• 48:59
  Yeah, I I wish I could give you a a.
• 49:01
  A consistent start time, I would never be able to meet it.
• 49:05
  I, I would, I would just lie to you and I don't want to lie to
• 49:07
  you. And so typically within two
• 49:10
  hours of a race ending, that's typically when you can find us.
• 49:14
  Yeah, in the other part of that too, which Matt didn't really
• 49:17
  talk about, is he, you know, he lives kind of near me, but an
• 49:22
  hour from or not hour from Martinsville, what, 45 minutes
• 49:25
  from Martinsville, an hour from Charlotte, an hour from North
• 49:27
  Williamsboro, right. So some of those races, like I'm
• 49:29
  going to drive home, I'm going to get this drive done, then
• 49:31
  we'll do a podcast, right. So there's just a lot of
• 49:33
  different variables. Talladega, he drives to his camp
• 49:35
  or whatever, but but some of those variables do exist.
• 49:39
  If you don't catch a slide, I'd love for you to because then you
• 49:41
  can, you know, comment live and all that and ask some questions.
• 49:44
  But if not, just watch afterwards.
• 49:46
  Let us know you watch or whatever.
• 49:47
  Real quick though, before I get carried away, you brought up
• 49:50
  Cletus and the stuff has arrived.
• 49:52
  OK, so we got a nice Cletus hat, we got a Freedom Factory hat,
• 49:58
  and then a fun Cletus McFarland shirt.
• 50:02
  All right, I think it's pretty much it's a Dale 3 truck.
• 50:05
  Like I figured all fans would like that.
• 50:07
  We are going to give this away here pretty soon.
• 50:09
  Next week, maybe two weeks. I'm going to line it up with the
• 50:11
  Nashville race. But if you are here and you
• 50:13
  watch the show, be ready for however we're going to do this
• 50:16
  giveaway because I'm giving all this out to one person.
• 50:18
  Whoever wins wins it. But I wear some Cletus stuff.
• 50:21
  Hopefully you guys enjoy it. If you're Cletus fan, there you
• 50:24
  go. Did he do anything this week?
• 50:27
  Did you pay attention? I didn't.
• 50:28
  I'm sorry I didn't pay attention.
• 50:29
  Again, I don't. I don't know either.
• 50:31
  OK, so natural. I got myself in trouble last
• 50:35
  week not realizing what had happened within his social
• 50:38
  circle. So I don't want to open mouth
• 50:41
  insert foot. Fair enough.
• 50:45
  I do think he has had some going on.
• 50:47
  I, I, I just, I got busy and didn't look it up.
• 50:49
  But we will pay a lot of attention to him coming up in
• 50:52
  the next couple weeks. I promise if you're a Cletus
• 50:53
  fan, we will spend a lot of time talking about him, especially
• 50:56
  around Nashville race. Speaking of drivers who maybe
• 51:01
  don't belong in race cars, Natalie Decker had a moment
• 51:04
  again. Oh dear, we're we're talking
• 51:07
  about this. Listen, I brought this up to you
• 51:09
  last week and I thought you were very, very nice and you danced
• 51:13
  around what I asked you and you didn't.
• 51:16
  You didn't want to be mean. You're going to have to
• 51:17
  interview or track all that stuff.
• 51:20
  That was an utter meltdown after an unbelievable showing on
• 51:25
  track. Yeah, I've got a completely
• 51:26
  different answer now, by the way.
• 51:28
  Great. So if you're unfamiliar with
• 51:32
  what happened, Natalie Decker and the truck race had a race
• 51:35
  start violation on the initial structure race and I believe she
• 51:38
  had a speeding penalty or some sort of issue when she came down
• 51:41
  for that. Then she also got black 5 for
• 51:42
  running too slow. Within mixed in this she had
• 51:46
  what I would call pretty significant radio meltdown where
• 51:49
  said she's not going to run the series.
• 51:50
  The race director sucks. I'm going to stick to the
• 51:53
  O'Reilly series which my initial reaction was like jeez, if you
• 51:55
  can't do the Truck Series, why are you in the O'Reilly series?
• 51:59
  I assume it was Josh Rayum on the yeah.
• 52:03
  Josh and Joe White. Joe White was a spotter.
• 52:06
  Holy crap, how they were able to stay so calm and collected and
• 52:10
  like, please don't wreck my truck.
• 52:11
  Just bring it in, you know, type deal.
• 52:14
  Did an amazing job with the whole situation.
• 52:17
  I I said it last week, you're too slow on the racetrack and
• 52:20
  that's why you shouldn't be out there.
• 52:21
  It's cut and dry but dating back to getting spun out by a tow
• 52:26
  truck at Bristol. Fast forward seven years later,
• 52:29
  I mean this isn't new, this is 7 years later, we are still having
• 52:33
  issues with the same driver where they're not up the pace
• 52:36
  and that rant was as unprofessional and unbecoming of
• 52:39
  someone in the sport on top of the fact that they're just not
• 52:42
  good enough to be here. What do you make of this whole
• 52:45
  situation? Please, you know, if I'm being
• 52:48
  too hard to say it, but you know, I just, I would disgust it
• 52:51
  if I'm being honest. No, listen, what for?
• 52:54
  For those who have not heard my Natalie commentary in the past,
• 52:58
  I have a lot of admiration for her marketing savviness.
• 53:04
  Like she knows how to sell her partnerships and her
• 53:08
  relationships from a from a business standpoint.
• 53:12
  And I've always said that her, her participation in this sport,
• 53:18
  which she does genuinely have a passion for.
• 53:21
  She comes from a, a, a racing family that has raced for
• 53:25
  multiple generations. She does love the sport.
• 53:28
  She is not just using NASCAR to fund her, her lifestyle, her,
• 53:34
  her lifestyle brand, like she grew up in a racing family.
• 53:39
  Racing is all she's ever known. She's just not good at it.
• 53:43
  And I've always said that. And so I, I've never, I've never
• 53:46
  made excuses for Natalie Decker, the driver.
• 53:50
  I just always felt like there was a better use of her, her
• 53:56
  contributions than behind the wheel.
• 53:59
  And you know, it's, it's funny, it's not funny, it's sad.
• 54:02
  But the one thing that she said in her in her radio radio
• 54:07
  meltdown is that she just wants her husband to, to go drive the
• 54:11
  rest of her races. Derek, when you when you listen
• 54:14
  to the to the radio chatter, she's like Derek, You, you run
• 54:18
  the next race or the next races. And Josh was like, Derek, we got
• 54:23
  to figure out something for you. That's her husband, Derek Lemke,
• 54:26
  who is a accomplished short track driver, knows what he's
• 54:31
  doing behind the wheel. I always felt like, you know, if
• 54:36
  Natalie could figure out a way to get partnerships and funding
• 54:40
  to, you know, get Derek more seat time, that'd be great.
• 54:45
  And it would keep her in the sport.
• 54:46
  I always thought that maybe she'd be better poised as an
• 54:49
  owner. So all of this is.
• 54:52
  Very consistent with the things that I've always said about
• 54:57
  Natalie. But what I will say that's
• 54:59
  different now is I don't want her in a race car ever again.
• 55:05
  Like that has to be the end of it.
• 55:07
  Like, and it can't be you're going to go run the O'Reilly
• 55:09
  series. I mean, nothing good comes of
• 55:11
  that either. It showed me a complete lack of
• 55:19
  maturity and resolve and regard and respect for everyone around
• 55:25
  you that is trying to build whatever this program is.
• 55:30
  And it also makes me question and worry about everything from
• 55:36
  a safety standpoint. The fact that she was even
• 55:39
  willing to I'm I'll I'll keep turning laps if you want me to.
• 55:44
  I don't think anyone wants you to like if you're, if you're
• 55:47
  struggling like that, you don't need to be on the racetrack.
• 55:50
  And just purely from a, from a safety standpoint, and people
• 55:54
  will say, you know, give her grace and she might be having a
• 55:58
  panic attack or some kind of, you know, emotional moment that
• 56:03
  we all have as human beings. But when you're driving a race
• 56:07
  car at high speeds and you're around other people doing the
• 56:11
  same thing, you can't do that. You, you can't do that.
• 56:16
  The number of times she has done it, if it was like the the Joey
• 56:21
  Logano meltdown because they're not able to inflate his tires
• 56:26
  and push him off the track, that's funny.
• 56:28
  And you move on from it because Joey's a professional who likes
• 56:32
  to yell on the radio sometimes. Ryan Blaney is as good for a
• 56:36
  radio meltdown as anyone in the sport, but you're never going to
• 56:40
  question if he will carry it on to the next green flag sequence.
• 56:46
  I have questions about whether I would trust Natalie to race
• 56:51
  around and if she wants to start funding Derek's career.
• 56:56
  That's my preference because that is just hard to listen to
• 57:03
  and it makes me concerned to race alongside her And if
• 57:07
  there's something there, and this is my last caveat, if there
• 57:11
  is something else there that I don't know about something from
• 57:16
  a a mental health standpoint, I do not mean to disregard that.
• 57:24
  I don't I don't I don't I didn't intend to bring this up on the
• 57:28
  show, but this is like a natural Segway.
• 57:31
  I just got put on on anti anxiety medication for the first
• 57:35
  time in my life this last week and like I struggle with my
• 57:40
  place in this sport and if I'm good enough, if I'm if I'm going
• 57:45
  to stick and it causes me to feel everything.
• 57:49
  I get it. And so the only reason I bring
• 57:52
  that up is like, I understand, I understand on a scale how hard
• 57:59
  they can make doing your job, but I still also think that you
• 58:05
  have to go home and look in the mirror and say, despite all of
• 58:08
  that, is this the best use of my time, resources and, and and
• 58:16
  assets? And I hope that whatever answer
• 58:19
  she gets when she looks in the mirror tonight gives her
• 58:23
  clarity. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 58:26
  I, I didn't think you would share the anxiety thing either.
• 58:29
  I, I, you know, I, when he texted me, I was like, dude,
• 58:33
  I've been there so many times. I.
• 58:35
  Just want to be. I want to be like, I want to be
• 58:38
  empathetic. I think that is the most
• 58:39
  important characteristic of any human being because I don't want
• 58:43
  to sit here and criticize Natalie if she's having a
• 58:48
  legitimate mental health moment because I want her to know I
• 58:54
  understand. But I have to look in the mirror
• 58:56
  and I hope she does too. Yeah, my biggest thing here is
• 59:01
  you're good at your job, right? Like you are undeniably good at
• 59:06
  your job. She's not good at that job.
• 59:08
  She's not qualified, she's not cut out.
• 59:10
  She doesn't need to be there. And I think that's the big
• 59:12
  difference for me is just and I I've never understood, and I
• 59:17
  don't mean to disrespect anybody, like anyone that shows
• 59:20
  like I'll I'll say Garrett Smith Lee because I think he's has
• 59:22
  three hundredth race. I don't understand what makes
• 59:26
  him want to show up and run 30th every week, whether he's good or
• 59:28
  not. Regardless, I don't understand
• 59:30
  what drives him for that, right? And I don't understand what
• 59:33
  would make Natalie Decker want to 1 run the races in the way
• 59:37
  she's doing it, with the rides that she's doing it, but also go
• 59:41
  through the scrutiny that she's going through as a result of
• 59:44
  this situation, whether it's her fault or the car's fault.
• 59:47
  I mentioned last week, maybe the truck's just 10 seconds off the
• 59:49
  pace. Maybe it's not her fault, but
• 59:51
  you are still going through that for what?
• 59:54
  And that's my only question is, what is the overall game here?
• 59:56
  What is the end result? You know, for Joshua Adam, he's
• 1:00:00
  running a race team and he's paying his bills and he's paying
• 1:00:02
  the bills of however many employees he has, right?
• 1:00:04
  They have a purpose for her. It's like, what is that purpose
• 1:00:07
  if it isn't to just like for you to pay your bills?
• 1:00:12
  Is it for attention? Is it for notoriety of some
• 1:00:15
  sort? What is the gain?
• 1:00:16
  And so you mentioned it. She doesn't need to be in a race
• 1:00:19
  car anymore. It just doesn't happen.
• 1:00:21
  If you can market really well and you can drop people in.
• 1:00:23
  Do that, bring it to a team. We used to watch AM racing shut
• 1:00:26
  down. There are teams out there that
• 1:00:28
  still shut down because there's not enough funding, there's not
• 1:00:31
  enough support and there's not enough prize money.
• 1:00:33
  Make use of your assets and your potential as a marketer and turn
• 1:00:38
  that into something positive because right now it's just a, a
• 1:00:40
  complete negative. And I, I felt, dude, I posted on
• 1:00:45
  social media the audio clip with my thoughts on it.
• 1:00:48
  And it blew up in a way I didn't expect it to.
• 1:00:50
  It got a whole, it got picked up by like the MAGA bots, like, and
• 1:00:54
  I'm not a political person at all, so that's not what this is.
• 1:00:57
  But I got flooded with 200 plus comments about about it.
• 1:01:01
  And I was just like, how did this even go that far?
• 1:01:04
  And it made me realize there is a segment of the Internet that
• 1:01:07
  is going absolute bonkers on her and a lot more than I thought it
• 1:01:11
  would. I was like, OK, I'm going to say
• 1:01:13
  this, don't be in a race car anymore.
• 1:01:14
  And I thought racing fans would be like, yeah, that sucks, but
• 1:01:17
  it became this whole other thing.
• 1:01:18
  And if you got algorithms. I got algorithms and it it, it
• 1:01:21
  was like, holy crap, I got so it has like 800 likes and I don't
• 1:01:25
  typically get that many, but it was literally 250 comments and
• 1:01:29
  it was all the same thing, all the same thing.
• 1:01:31
  And it's all for I got 100 followers off of it.
• 1:01:33
  I don't get it. I don't understand how that
• 1:01:35
  algorithm works, but it made me realize like, OK, there's a
• 1:01:39
  whole subset to social media and all this stuff that is extremely
• 1:01:43
  negative, that's extremely over the top and she's going to have
• 1:01:46
  to experience that. So when she says that on the
• 1:01:48
  radio, I'm like, oh, OK, this. And at that point I, I backed
• 1:01:51
  off. I'm like, man, I, I have my own
• 1:01:55
  anxiety. I had three months ago where I
• 1:01:57
  couldn't get out of bed. Like I was sad for days.
• 1:02:00
  I didn't want to move. I didn't want to like we hugged
• 1:02:02
  those moments that I don't want her to be extremely upset or I
• 1:02:06
  don't want, I don't want to go too far.
• 1:02:09
  And so I don't want to push too hard.
• 1:02:12
  But there's also this caveat of like this is just the reality of
• 1:02:15
  the situation. But I, I saw the social media
• 1:02:19
  aspect that she's talking about and it's real and it's kind of
• 1:02:24
  ugly. And I, I don't like, you can say
• 1:02:27
  someone's bad and maybe shouldn't do this, but it gets
• 1:02:30
  taken further. And so I don't know where I was
• 1:02:33
  going with that. I just, I, I just kind of got
• 1:02:36
  going. Honestly, I just kind of
• 1:02:37
  rambled, but there's nuances to it I guess.
• 1:02:40
  And we we need to say, hey, don't do this, but also respect
• 1:02:45
  the human being. I guess to to a degree as well.
• 1:02:49
  I'm going to transition to Dynasty Spurlock because I think
• 1:02:51
  there is a conversation we had here as well.
• 1:02:58
  First ever truck start at Dover, which I hate.
• 1:03:01
  Again, kind of back to the cleest thing.
• 1:03:03
  Why Rockingham? Why Dover?
• 1:03:05
  Why are we picking some of the hardest tracks?
• 1:03:07
  Nashville makes sense. It's seven lanes wide.
• 1:03:09
  You miss the freaking corner. You just kind of go up there and
• 1:03:11
  collect yourself and go on, right?
• 1:03:12
  We have an immediacy issue that we have to do everything right
• 1:03:16
  now ASAP, get approved for this and move on to this and then
• 1:03:19
  this and this. And all these guys are just
• 1:03:22
  trying to guys, Galaxy gal guys collectively, right?
• 1:03:26
  Just trying to move everything way too fast, especially for
• 1:03:29
  someone that has not even ran more than two late model races.
• 1:03:35
  How like serious question how she approved these are the arca
• 1:03:37
  starts I guess. She was able to get an ARCA
• 1:03:41
  because she ran some limited late model races at Hickory and
• 1:03:49
  she then got approved for truck short tracks because of the ARCA
• 1:03:54
  start starts. OK, so she has probably 10 more
• 1:04:00
  racing starts than I do at this point would be my guess.
• 1:04:05
  Circuit racing, right? Full bodied car circuit racing,
• 1:04:08
  Yeah. And I want to say that I don't
• 1:04:10
  think she's been abnormally bad. I think, you know, some of the
• 1:04:14
  Arkansas she's been OK. That's what you know it's.
• 1:04:17
  It's going better than I anticipated.
• 1:04:20
  Yeah, a lot better than you would think, right?
• 1:04:22
  Which is a good sign. But it's also like we're moving
• 1:04:24
  way too quick and at the end of the day, they ended up in a race
• 1:04:27
  truck. So since it is along the same
• 1:04:31
  lines of Decker and Cletus and, and some of the things we've
• 1:04:34
  harped on, I, I First off, first black woman ever, you know, race
• 1:04:39
  and, and that's obviously storyline.
• 1:04:41
  Some people hate it, some people appreciate it for what it is.
• 1:04:45
  Just talk about that for a second.
• 1:04:46
  The the same situation there. I'm assuming you're just going
• 1:04:48
  to say please be smarter about how we're going about it, but
• 1:04:51
  just talk on it for a second. Yeah, I don't.
• 1:04:53
  I don't know that I have a lot to add just because I don't.
• 1:04:57
  It's not that I don't take it seriously, I just, I don't.
• 1:05:00
  There's not a lot of meat on the bone there.
• 1:05:02
  Like I, I, I respect. Anyone that comes into this
• 1:05:06
  space and treats it with respect and I will give her that.
• 1:05:10
  She has been nothing but respectful to really nice.
• 1:05:14
  Actually really like. Yes.
• 1:05:15
  Entirely and I, I, I need to sit down and have a longer
• 1:05:19
  conversation with her than just a press conference setting
• 1:05:23
  because I, I want to get to know her more just because I, I, I
• 1:05:27
  want to meet everyone in this industry and I, I pride myself
• 1:05:30
  on having relationships with everyone.
• 1:05:32
  And then certainly I haven't had a chance to really get to know
• 1:05:35
  her yet. But what I have seen is she
• 1:05:38
  respects what it takes to do this and she doesn't do a lot of
• 1:05:43
  things bad. She's just clearly inexperienced
• 1:05:49
  and there are things that you could even learn from an arrow
• 1:05:53
  standpoint by running a late model at North Wilkesboro or
• 1:05:57
  five flags Speedway. Just the way that, you know, the
• 1:06:00
  air bounces around the cars and more Arca starts would do her a
• 1:06:05
  lot of a lot of, you know, benefit.
• 1:06:07
  And I just the the one thing that I wish was different in
• 1:06:13
  this industry is that when you don't have a ton of money or you
• 1:06:20
  don't have manufacturer support, you feel like you need to
• 1:06:24
  maximize your partner's value by taking it as far as it'll go as
• 1:06:31
  quickly as it will go. If you have more funding or you
• 1:06:34
  have manufacturer support, it's easy for you to be like, I'm
• 1:06:38
  going to spend a year in cars tour, I'm going to go spend a
• 1:06:40
  year and in ARCA and then we're going to do short track truck
• 1:06:46
  stuff and then full time trucks after that.
• 1:06:48
  And so when you feel like either in the case of Cletus that
• 1:06:53
  you're trying to catch up as quickly as possible because you
• 1:06:56
  know the clock is ticking, or in the case of of this destiny that
• 1:07:01
  you have X amount of money and you need to maximize how you
• 1:07:04
  spend it, there's not a lot of patience in that model.
• 1:07:09
  And. That part is just unfortunate
• 1:07:12
  all. Right, got that out of the way.
• 1:07:16
  We're going to end on a good note.
• 1:07:17
  KFB is back, sort of Kyle Busch, very, very good weekend, won the
• 1:07:22
  truck race and I thought he was a lot more competitive at the
• 1:07:25
  Cup level. Obviously our race was was
• 1:07:27
  tricky, but he showed good speed, like RCR as a whole
• 1:07:30
  showed good speed. I thought he had moments there,
• 1:07:32
  at least in the beginning of that race.
• 1:07:34
  I don't know what happened the second-half.
• 1:07:35
  I went to Costco the second-half of that race as, as I messaged
• 1:07:39
  you, I had to run out and grab some stuff.
• 1:07:41
  But. Speeding penalty.
• 1:07:43
  Speeding kind of OK, there it was.
• 1:07:44
  I saw him in stage one. It looked like he drove up the
• 1:07:46
  6th, 7th in it kind of early in that stage 1.
• 1:07:49
  Jesus, segment 1, whatever they call it.
• 1:07:51
  But the truck went. It's the first time I've seen
• 1:07:54
  him kind of be dominant in the Truck Series in a while.
• 1:07:56
  He's obviously one that Atlanta races.
• 1:07:58
  Those are a little wonky. He was very, very impressive.
• 1:08:01
  Felt like the old Kyle Bush, go get the pole, win the stages
• 1:08:04
  fast, slab, all that stuff. Dominate.
• 1:08:08
  Just speak on that a little bit. Obviously doesn't.
• 1:08:10
  I mean it's Kyle Butch's 69th truck win I believe.
• 1:08:13
  So it's not like we haven't been, but it's the first time
• 1:08:16
  it's it's been around for Kyle Butch outside of Atlanta for
• 1:08:19
  like 3 years I feel like at the Truck Series.
• 1:08:21
  So it still felt important. Yeah, I mean, listen, there's
• 1:08:27
  been a difference. Remarkably small sample size
• 1:08:32
  since Andy St. jumped in that team and there seems to be a
• 1:08:36
  little bit of a stability. And this is something that you
• 1:08:39
  kind of called with Jim Pullman that you just felt like
• 1:08:42
  philosophically or just spiritually there is just not a
• 1:08:46
  obvious fit there. And you were proven correct in
• 1:08:50
  that and that Andy jumped right back into the role he was in
• 1:08:53
  late last year. And oddly enough, they're
• 1:08:57
  running as good as they were at the end of last year.
• 1:09:00
  I mean, we, I say it's a small sample size, but it's not if you
• 1:09:04
  go back to what they were during the playoffs last year.
• 1:09:09
  I mean, they weren't in the playoffs, but they were
• 1:09:10
  consistently a top ten, top 12 team during those races.
• 1:09:17
  And now the last couple of weeks they've been together, they're a
• 1:09:21
  top ten, top 12 program. And obviously Austin had some
• 1:09:27
  speed. There's some caveats today too.
• 1:09:29
  And before the speeding penalty and and the crash, Kyle looked
• 1:09:35
  like he was a top ten guy in the All Star race too.
• 1:09:38
  And so it's weird to me, right? Like I, I would not have
• 1:09:41
  predicted that just simply changing the the voice in the
• 1:09:47
  room from Jim Pullman to Andy St. would have made a
• 1:09:51
  significant difference. Because if your cars are slow,
• 1:09:56
  crew chief doesn't make the car any faster.
• 1:09:58
  Fundamentally, it's your engineering, but it does seem
• 1:10:01
  like there's something there between Kyle Bush and Andy St.
• 1:10:04
  and it might save that relationship.
• 1:10:08
  I mean, it's gone from us talking about, you know, where
• 1:10:11
  is Kyle going to go? And there's no obvious places
• 1:10:14
  for Kyle to go anywhere else. And so that's probably the
• 1:10:17
  reason more than anything else. But it seems like that's going
• 1:10:21
  to be where he finishes his career and he might just finish
• 1:10:25
  it with Andy St. Because they have a pretty
• 1:10:28
  decent thing going there between last year and this year.
• 1:10:32
  So are you saying that you believe Cowboys will be there
• 1:10:35
  next year? Every indication is because when
• 1:10:39
  I talked to agents and I talked to engineers and spotters and
• 1:10:44
  all the people that kind of talk to each other, they all say the
• 1:10:49
  same thing to me, which is even if he wanted to leave, where
• 1:10:54
  does he go? And this is still the best
• 1:10:59
  option for him to get paid like he's Kyle Busch.
• 1:11:03
  And if he's got the right people around him, then there's no real
• 1:11:07
  reason to leave. And so at this point, the
• 1:11:10
  conversation is either RCR or retirement.
• 1:11:15
  He's not going to Rick. We're racing at.
• 1:11:21
  What point does he go around truck racing full time?
• 1:11:25
  Do you think that's something that bees?
• 1:11:26
  To me, the last box for in the check is be the first guy to win
• 1:11:30
  a championship in all three series and I think he being the
• 1:11:33
  first one, that is a goal he can set.
• 1:11:36
  If he can't compete at the Cup level for a championship, what's
• 1:11:40
  stopping it? Well, I almost wonder.
• 1:11:42
  I was thinking about this on Friday because he won the race.
• 1:11:44
  I was like, man, I wonder if there is a relationship to be
• 1:11:48
  forged or an agreement to where you sign a deal with RCR.
• 1:11:55
  You're you're their cup driver for all 38, but you elect for
• 1:11:59
  points in the Truck Series because you're not going to make
• 1:12:03
  probably you're not going to make the playoffs and even if
• 1:12:05
  you do, you're not winning the championship if.
• 1:12:11
  You are a full time cup. Driver, you're still getting
• 1:12:14
  owner points so that you're still contributing to RCRS
• 1:12:17
  business. Your name just doesn't appear in
• 1:12:20
  the the weekly points rundown. It has nothing to do with the
• 1:12:25
  what the driver does right in his contract.
• 1:12:27
  He has I get a percentage of winnings, but they're paid off
• 1:12:31
  owners. But what if he can't compete for
• 1:12:33
  a championship? What's the point?
• 1:12:34
  Yeah, and he can still continue to build the program and RCR
• 1:12:38
  gets Kyle Busch and they get to sell the merchandise and he's
• 1:12:41
  still part of the weekly conversation.
• 1:12:44
  And if he. Wins a race, it's still a big
• 1:12:46
  deal. It's not winning you're in
• 1:12:49
  anymore, so it doesn't really change.
• 1:12:50
  Their 21st in the standings. So yeah, that's, that's the only
• 1:12:54
  caveat there is. And, and, and maybe I should
• 1:12:56
  have asked that on Friday. It just seemed kind of if it
• 1:13:00
  felt demeaning or insulting to say that, hey, sign your next
• 1:13:04
  contract and be a truck driver. But I think it's probably a fair
• 1:13:07
  question. Like is there an agreement or an
• 1:13:09
  arrangement that could be had to where you're still the RCR full
• 1:13:13
  time 8 driver, you're just chasing a truck championship for
• 1:13:16
  Spire? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:13:18
  I, I think he should do that. Like I, I don't, there's
• 1:13:22
  obviously dynamics at play with that and, and it's, it's weird.
• 1:13:26
  While we're on this conversation, though, should we
• 1:13:28
  do away with this rule in totality?
• 1:13:31
  Yeah, it's outdated, unnecessary.
• 1:13:35
  OK so drivers should be able to click points in whichever series
• 1:13:38
  they want, but at that point we still are are dealing with the
• 1:13:44
  cub. Drivers can run a Max of what, 7
• 1:13:45
  or 8 races in the Truck Series? Right now, and by the way, that
• 1:13:49
  this is all a moot point too, because even if you were to take
• 1:13:53
  away the participation limits now, no, no, no cup guy is
• 1:13:57
  really running full time because they can't afford to.
• 1:14:00
  Yeah, there's no, this is a completely different economic
• 1:14:03
  environment that we're in now to where 1520 years ago.
• 1:14:10
  Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and all those guys were running full
• 1:14:18
  time because there was sponsorship the teams found to
• 1:14:24
  allow them to be paid to run. If I had this conversation with
• 1:14:30
  Joey Logano like a year and a half ago and Joey's like, I
• 1:14:33
  would like to run more races, but Penske at the time is like,
• 1:14:38
  you've got to pay for it. He's like, I don't want to pay
• 1:14:42
  for it, I want to be paid to race a car.
• 1:14:45
  And if Joey Logano can find funding or sponsorship, they're
• 1:14:52
  going to put it on the 22 Cup car.
• 1:14:55
  So it's it's just a. Completely different economic
• 1:14:59
  environment than we were in 20 years ago.
• 1:15:01
  Yeah, SPSPG said this recently. They asked him, hey, would you
• 1:15:04
  like to run more trucks and stuff?
• 1:15:05
  And he's like, well, I can't, I can't get funding.
• 1:15:08
  Like there has to be the money for me to go do it needs to
• 1:15:11
  stepped up and put them in a couple of races, which is pretty
• 1:15:14
  cool. But yeah, I don't think anyone,
• 1:15:16
  maybe maybe one or two guys can maybe find something.
• 1:15:20
  But you're right, there's just not going to be a driver that's
• 1:15:22
  going to be able to put that type of funding together.
• 1:15:23
  And when you look at how late in the year Danny Hamlin and and
• 1:15:28
  some of these drivers are putting sponsorship deals
• 1:15:30
  together, none of these teams are really funded the way they
• 1:15:33
  used to be, right? Like it's Cup guys are fighting
• 1:15:37
  for for even the biggest teams are still fighting to find the
• 1:15:39
  sponsorship to fill out the full year.
• 1:15:41
  They're certainly not going to put them to an O'Reilly program
• 1:15:44
  at this point, you know, So I hope Kyle Bush goes and gets
• 1:15:47
  that record because I think if anyone deserves it, it's him.
• 1:15:50
  You know, Austin Dillon winning a championship with the Cub will
• 1:15:52
  be pretty cool too. I'd celebrate the hell out of
• 1:15:54
  that. But I I think it feels like it
• 1:15:57
  should be Kyle's record considering how many races he's
• 1:16:00
  won in all the series. And so I do wonder if that comes
• 1:16:03
  up at some point. I got nothing else.
• 1:16:06
  I don't know if anything else has happened on the weekend to
• 1:16:09
  talk about. If not, we can get out of here.
• 1:16:11
  Plug your stuff. motorsport.com short track scene car store
• 1:16:15
  coming up soon. Something going on?
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a super busy week in the Charlotte
• 1:16:20
  area. We've got the ASA Stars race at
• 1:16:23
  Hickory on Thursday. Chase Elliott is running that
• 1:16:27
  race, 28 cars on the entry list. They actually race Thursday at
• 1:16:34
  Hickory and Saturday at Tri-county, which is like an
• 1:16:37
  hour and oh, now we're 20 minutes away from Charlotte.
• 1:16:41
  And so I've got to figure out on Saturday, do I leave before the
• 1:16:47
  O'Reilly race to go cover ASA instead?
• 1:16:49
  But I'll, I'll be at Charlotte on Friday and Sunday, I'll be at
• 1:16:53
  Hickory on on Thursday and part of Saturday.
• 1:16:58
  A lot to do. Looking forward to Coke 600
• 1:17:01
  weekend. That race has been a banger in
• 1:17:04
  the next genera. I used to go to the Indy 500
• 1:17:07
  every year. I was at the Indy 500 every year
• 1:17:09
  from 2012 to 2021. And so I've never been to the
• 1:17:18
  600 until 2022. And that was the first race for
• 1:17:22
  the Next Gen. and right now this car at that racetrack, I don't
• 1:17:26
  want to miss another one. I'm super stoked for the October
• 1:17:29
  race. I'm so happy to be watching the
• 1:17:32
  Next Gen. intermediate package at Charlotte Motor Speedway so
• 1:17:37
  should be a good time. How awesome would like a 100 lap
• 1:17:40
  All Star race be at that track? Depends on the.
• 1:17:44
  Format. I mean, it'd be it'd be a fine
• 1:17:46
  race. I just don't want it to feel
• 1:17:47
  like the last 100 laps of the Coke 600.
• 1:17:51
  I want. I want some sort of nugget.
• 1:17:55
  Yeah, cool. So ASA is is.
• 1:17:59
  They just had a race cancelled though didn't they?
• 1:18:01
  Yeah, Dominion, they actually, they only had nine cars entered
• 1:18:06
  for that race. And Dominion is a hard place to
• 1:18:09
  get to and fuel costs are not great right now, but I, I and
• 1:18:14
  plus they've, they've had a lot of races.
• 1:18:16
  And so I think having to take a a month off now they're ready to
• 1:18:22
  go spend money, OK, because they went from a nine car entry list
• 1:18:27
  to a 27 car entry list. So clearly taking a couple of
• 1:18:31
  weeks off allowed them to go find some pennies in their
• 1:18:35
  couches. Yeah, there you go.
• 1:18:37
  So if you're in the Charlotte area, if you're coming in to
• 1:18:39
  watch the racing, go to Hickory on Thursday, go to tri-county.
• 1:18:42
  tri-county is a really cool track.
• 1:18:43
  I like it. It's so wonderful, so awesome.
• 1:18:46
  Yeah, it's it's it's in nowhere a little bit, but it's it's a
• 1:18:48
  good track, short track scene. Can I have all the coverage for
• 1:18:51
  that? motorsport.com, you posted a
• 1:18:53
  couple of really good articles this week that I checked out.
• 1:18:55
  So guys, make sure to check that out.
• 1:18:58
  Give us a follow on Twitter, all that fun stuff like the video,
• 1:19:00
  subscribe everything else that you can do to help Kenny Walls
• 1:19:03
  network and everything else. Appreciate you guys checking out
• 1:19:06
  the show and we'll catch you next week.
• 1:19:07
  See you guys. Bye.