Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Tyler Reddick's 3-Peat | The Burnout With Matt Weaver & Ryan Larkin

Transcript

Tyler Reddick's 3-Peat | The Burnout With Matt Weaver & Ryan Larkin · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  What's up everyone, welcome to the burnout.
• 0:02
  I'm Ryan Larkin. With me, as always, is Matt
• 0:04
  Weaver. Sorry for a little bit of delay
• 0:06
  there, but Matt was breaking news.
• 0:08
  He's beating the the rest of the reporters to to the report there
• 0:12
  on the on some lawsuit stuff. So we were delayed a few
• 0:15
  minutes, but Matt is P1 on the reporting this evening, which is
• 0:19
  fantastic. I was watching him do his do his
• 0:21
  thing in the background. Matt, I know you had a weekend
• 0:24
  off from from traveling to the Cup Series race, but you still
• 0:27
  got to watch it in its full force on on television and
• 0:30
  everything. Would you make of the the Coda
• 0:31
  race weekend? Yeah, I'm, I'm still doing this
• 0:34
  in real time. I'm actually sharing our link
• 0:36
  now so people can can watch. It was it was, it was, it was a
• 0:41
  race. It was a race that happened.
• 0:43
  I mean, I think this race is going to be remembered more for
• 0:46
  its historical significance, you know, repeat then it will be for
• 0:51
  being any kind of barn burner. I thought the finish was
• 0:53
  interesting, right? Like having Tyler chasing three
• 0:57
  in a row to open the season, the first time in NASCAR history
• 1:02
  that would have happened, did happen.
• 1:05
  Shane van Gisbergen chasing Jeff Gordon for six straight Rd.
• 1:08
  course wins. That was super, super
• 1:10
  compelling. I keep writing it and I tweeted
• 1:14
  it, but it's like the immovable force versus the irresistible
• 1:18
  object or, or however that that expression goes.
• 1:22
  Yeah, this is the other way around.
• 1:25
  Yes. It is.
• 1:26
  That was the dyslexic version. But I, I listen, I appreciate a,
• 1:32
  a a beat down and I got this thing that I say all the time
• 1:36
  that this is a competition, not a performance.
• 1:39
  When everyone straps in, put puts on their helmet and they
• 1:43
  drop the rag, their goal is to not entertain you.
• 1:47
  Their goal is to win, is to score the most points, to have
• 1:52
  success meeting their goals. And if that bores the shit out
• 1:56
  of you sometimes, so be it. And to, to wit, I don't think
• 2:00
  this was the most compelling stock car motor sporting event,
• 2:04
  but it was historically significant.
• 2:07
  Yeah, sure. I'll definitely send that tweet
• 2:09
  out so we get all the, all the people in here talking with us.
• 2:11
  If you want to leave a comment, please do.
• 2:13
  We'll we'll try to answer any questions or, or what we can
• 2:16
  throughout the show. Yeah, the, the big thing for me
• 2:20
  is I, I enjoyed the race. I thought, you know, not every
• 2:23
  race can be a a crazy banger that has a bunch of cautions or
• 2:27
  a bunch of lead changes. Sometimes they're just races and
• 2:30
  the best car wins. You know, like it just kind of
• 2:32
  how it works, especially when the best car starts on the pole
• 2:35
  And he, you know, he dropped to what, 8th or 9th there on the
• 2:37
  first run. So it's not like he didn't have
• 2:39
  to drive back through the field, but he clearly, once he got
• 2:42
  dialed in, had the best car and. There was the the loose wheel
• 2:45
  scare. Yep.
• 2:47
  Yeah. Well, I I guess he just didn't
• 2:49
  like the way it fired off on on kind of used tires after a few
• 2:52
  laps. That was weird.
• 2:54
  But I, I want a caveat. I don't know if he was the best
• 2:57
  car. Yeah, I don't want to get the
• 2:59
  Connor Zils just yet, but I'm not quite sure Reddick had the
• 3:03
  best car. I do think Reddick, you know,
• 3:05
  executed the weekend perfectly, though.
• 3:06
  You know, even losing those positions, he was clean.
• 3:09
  He was able to kind of come back up through the field and and
• 3:11
  make things happen. Let's get into it. 3 P Obviously
• 3:14
  there's a very big historical significance here.
• 3:17
  It's the first time it's ever happened in the beginning of the
• 3:20
  season. It's not the first time we it
• 3:21
  happened last year with Christopher Bell.
• 3:23
  So it's not like irrationally uncommon, but it's still pretty
• 3:27
  cool to see it happen. You know, especially when you
• 3:29
  factor in Daytona, Atlanta are so crazy for it to happen the
• 3:32
  first three weeks of the year, coupled with the the Michael
• 3:35
  Jordan, you know, carryovers where there's the three P aspect
• 3:38
  of how he won his championships in the NBA and everything around
• 3:41
  that. It's pretty big deal.
• 3:42
  What? What do you make of that?
• 3:44
  Well, there's two ways of looking at it, right?
• 3:45
  Like it's really, really impressive 3 different
• 3:50
  disciplines of of race tracks and for that team to be that on
• 3:55
  kill and to execute at the highest possible level, It's
• 4:00
  it's, it's, it's astounding. And, and, and Denny was in the
• 4:03
  Media Center for the third week in a row talking about it.
• 4:06
  And that's kind of the other part of the story too.
• 4:08
  I mean, Denny says he's he's kind of become the perfect
• 4:11
  well-rounded driver. There's just a little bit he's
• 4:13
  lacking on short tracks and that's the last thing from
• 4:16
  making him complete. On the other hand, this is now
• 4:20
  the third week in a row that we've talked to to Denny and to
• 4:24
  Billy Scott into Tyler Reddick. And it's it's starting to give
• 4:28
  me some, some PTSD as a as a Jeff Gordon fan growing up when
• 4:33
  the the Jimmie Johnson championship buzz saw first
• 4:36
  started. I mean, even like in 2006, it
• 4:39
  was like once, once it started it, it didn't turn off.
• 4:42
  And by the way, that was in an era where Hendrick was building
• 4:45
  the best cars. The fact this is happening is
• 4:47
  sort of dominance across multiple disciplines in a spec
• 4:52
  car and beating Shane van Gisbergen on a road course.
• 4:55
  You, you throw all that into a blender and it's just, it's,
• 4:58
  it's astounding. Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:00
  And you know that that's a big talk around this car, right, is
• 5:03
  that no one can dominate anymore.
• 5:05
  You can't make stars because no one can go out there and win 67.
• 5:07
  Races everyone wanted points racing, we'll go look at the
• 5:09
  standings. It's getting brutal out there.
• 5:13
  I'm not sure the, the points racing, you know, the season
• 5:16
  long thing is going to feel great because of what Tyler
• 5:19
  Reich does to it. But you know, I felt like 2
• 5:21
  years ago he, you know, when he was battling for the regular
• 5:24
  season championship and, and it kind of, he held onto it, but
• 5:27
  it, it looked kind of ugly there at Darlington.
• 5:28
  I thought that year was kind of Reddick's breakout season.
• 5:31
  I was like, OK, this guy is in that upper echelon.
• 5:33
  And then last year he really kind of didn't follow it up.
• 5:37
  It was a, it was a struggle. But this year, obviously
• 5:39
  starting three wins is a whole level of difference.
• 5:42
  But he does feel like he's entering that conversation with
• 5:45
  this type of performance to go up there and challenge the very
• 5:48
  best of Hamlin and Larson as the face of the the series.
• 5:52
  And obviously we're three races in.
• 5:54
  It's it's we still got 33 more events to go.
• 5:57
  So a lot can change. We saw it with Bell last year.
• 5:59
  We had the same feeling with Bell.
• 6:00
  It's like, wow, he won three races.
• 6:02
  It's unbelievable. Bell's the guy and then we don't
• 6:04
  hear from him for the rest of the year.
• 6:05
  So there's still a lot to play out, but very, very incredible
• 6:09
  performance from him. He also got bubble walls second
• 6:11
  in points, still ended up, I think he was 12th.
• 6:13
  Obviously it's a row course, not his best strong school, but he's
• 6:16
  still second in points. So you got 231112 in the points
• 6:19
  at the three races. It really is the the Michael
• 6:22
  Jordan 2311 show right now for the NASCAR Cup Series.
• 6:25
  So that is definitely something something to see how that plays
• 6:28
  out the next few months. But I kind of teased who I
• 6:32
  thought was the best driver or the best car on the then.
• 6:35
  Had a point on that real fast. Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:37
  Always stop because I'll ramble if you.
• 6:39
  Don't stop. Yeah.
• 6:39
  So like, listen, the thing that I think is most interesting and,
• 6:42
  and listen this, the sample size is so small.
• 6:45
  We have a, a superspeedway, a super intermediate is what I
• 6:50
  think I'm going to start calling Atlanta.
• 6:51
  So we got a superspeedway, a super intermediate in a road
• 6:54
  course. So we haven't even gotten to
• 6:56
  the, you know, the meat and potatoes of the NASCAR Cup
• 6:59
  Series schedule. But Reddick and Wallace have
• 7:03
  amassed such a points advantage. And I mean, Bubba's still five
• 7:07
  points over Chase Elliott for 3rd.
• 7:09
  I believe it is. The thing that stands out the
• 7:13
  most to me is that this is not supposed to happen.
• 7:17
  The, the, the sport is dictated. Success in the sport is dictated
• 7:20
  by the big three, the, the OEM, you know, partner teams.
• 7:24
  And I, I, I did always kind of wonder if going to the, the
• 7:29
  Chase for the championship format, if it would allow a team
• 7:33
  that has a, a strong satellite program like a 2311 or even
• 7:37
  Aspire, who has all three of their cars in the top ten as
• 7:40
  well, if it would give them the best chance in RFK to be in the
• 7:45
  championship hunt. Because with the old format,
• 7:50
  winning literally was everything.
• 7:51
  And it's really hard for a non big three team to consistently
• 7:56
  win at the level needed to win the championship in that format.
• 8:01
  But you know, you can nickel and dime them with the face format.
• 8:05
  And to me, I'm, I'm thinking ahead for, for Reddick.
• 8:07
  And how can you not think ahead? You know, when you win, when you
• 8:11
  win 3 races in the regular season, you've got a great shot
• 8:16
  of being in that regular season, you know, champion mix when you
• 8:20
  do it in the first three races of the year, how can you not
• 8:23
  start to dream about what the, the, the Chase could look like?
• 8:27
  And you give Tyler Reddick a 25 point buffer over over someone
• 8:32
  and allow him to to do that nickel and dime to, you know,
• 8:37
  maybe, maybe pull out one win somewhere, but just top five
• 8:41
  them to death. That's a real pathway to get a
• 8:44
  champion. That's not part of that Hendrick
• 8:47
  Penske Gibbs hegemon. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:51
  And he got a real, I don't want to say gift in Charlotte being
• 8:54
  an Oval race in the fall, but when you look at the
• 8:57
  championship schedule, Homestead being back in the playoffs or
• 9:01
  Chase is a huge boost for him. Charlotte and anything that's
• 9:04
  intermediate driven. So he's going to have Kansas,
• 9:06
  Homestead, Charlotte, Vegas, those are all tracks you can go
• 9:09
  out there and and win, not just caught 5 his way through.
• 9:12
  Like there's a really strong track type for him.
• 9:14
  It feels like a lot of it does lay out well for him.
• 9:17
  He's won the 1st 2, you know, super Speedway.
• 9:20
  So we know he can do well at Talladega if he needs to.
• 9:22
  You know this and it's not hyperbolic to talk about this
• 9:26
  early. I don't think because he's got
• 9:28
  100 points on like the majority of the field.
• 9:31
  He is 2 1/2 races up essentially, or I guess a race
• 9:35
  and 1/2 that you know, if you maximize your day at at a track.
• 9:38
  But it's it's a huge points hall that he is up right now in the
• 9:41
  field. And it does feel like he can
• 9:43
  kind of just nickel and dime it top ten his way to A to a
• 9:47
  regular season championship. And Bubba too.
• 9:49
  And this is Chase Elliott's bread and butter.
• 9:51
  I mean I know, I know Chase fans want him to win more.
• 9:54
  But one thing Chase does, Chase finish races and he gets top
• 9:58
  10's and he gets stage points. And this format I feel like was
• 10:03
  right up the the Nines wheelhouse.
• 10:05
  Yeah, I mean Chase sucked all day and finished 7th.
• 10:08
  That's what Chase does. He's not that he sucks, but but
• 10:12
  Chase knows how to maximize a car or a performance where he's
• 10:17
  just not going to win. He's not going to throw that
• 10:19
  race away. He's going to take whatever he's
• 10:23
  given that day. And that's actually a real gift.
• 10:26
  Yeah, he he's very low variance really as a driver.
• 10:30
  He he brings it home in one piece.
• 10:31
  He's probably one of the lowest crash rate guys in the series.
• 10:34
  So yeah, I mean, it does feel like it's set up for guys like
• 10:38
  that. Obviously, those are the three
• 10:39
  that are kind of already up there in the point standings.
• 10:42
  Can I get to Connor Zillich yet? I mean, that's really good.
• 10:46
  But let's let's do it. He felt like the the main thing
• 10:49
  to watch throughout the race. Obviously, you know, he got spun
• 10:52
  twice, once by the guy that used to drive the car and once by
• 10:56
  Danny Hamlin, who just, I don't know, typical Danny thing just
• 11:02
  overdrove it being at the front of the row course race probably
• 11:04
  was too much for him, but. Turn 1 though, I mean, that's.
• 11:07
  That's what it is and it's just it's crazy that happened to the
• 11:10
  same guy. He twice and he drove through
• 11:13
  the field twice and that final stint, it was 17 laps or
• 11:15
  whatever. He went from 32nd to 13th to
• 11:18
  14th. Like it was just an unbelievable
• 11:20
  performance. His speed was fantastic after
• 11:23
  the first spin. And you know, I'm watching SVG.
• 11:26
  Not really. Reddick look better all day.
• 11:29
  SVG was great. He's going to run top three.
• 11:31
  He's just that good. I felt like Zilich was the one
• 11:34
  guy that can contend and it didn't go his way.
• 11:36
  A lot of things went against him.
• 11:38
  Just like last year. Just like last year.
• 11:40
  But that level of speed, what's he war races into his career now
• 11:46
  like, it's unbelievable. I'm I'm kind of blown away with
• 11:50
  how good he was today, especially driving through the
• 11:53
  field. He's making passes with the
• 11:54
  scars. Not easy, but he was just the
• 11:56
  best guy on the track for me. Yeah, I mean, listen, this is no
• 11:59
  surprise to anyone who has watched Connor Zilich and
• 12:03
  literally anything he's driven. But I remember the first time I
• 12:08
  first kind of became aware of Connor, it's when he first
• 12:11
  started running late models. And clearly I'm a late model
• 12:13
  guy. And I remember hearing of his
• 12:17
  resume, what he was doing in MX5 Cup and what he was doing and
• 12:21
  some of the other categories he was running back then.
• 12:24
  And because I'm such a short track, you know, Oval snob, I'm
• 12:27
  like, I've seen these types before.
• 12:30
  You know, someone that's got the road racing background, TA-2 and
• 12:34
  they get in a late model and they're just completely out to
• 12:36
  lunch Oval racing. I'm like this Connor Zillich
• 12:39
  will be a flash in the pan and he took the late models very,
• 12:43
  very fast and he was super up to speed, super comfortable.
• 12:48
  We we see it his first time in a truck two years ago on pole by
• 12:53
  like a second and then he overshoots turn one.
• 12:57
  But he is so his adaptability is off the charts.
• 13:03
  And so it does not surprise me. And he he got a cup of tea last
• 13:06
  year and you know, This is why he's here.
• 13:09
  I mean, very similar to to Shane.
• 13:13
  Track House knows that we've got, you know, five to seven
• 13:18
  chances to win 'cause we can count Daytona Tala, they get
• 13:21
  land. I mean, certainly Shane's been
• 13:23
  more than capable of holding his own there.
• 13:26
  So we'll add that to the, to the Kitty of places he can win and,
• 13:30
  and certainly Connor too. And then the rest of it is you
• 13:33
  allow them to develop on their own because they, they have that
• 13:37
  one elite skill set. And so it, it, it doesn't
• 13:40
  surprise me. I mean, he is already, you know,
• 13:44
  one of the five best Rd. racers, arguably 2.
• 13:47
  I mean, he's, he's, he's probably second to Shane.
• 13:49
  We we, we see it every time they get in there, but Tyler clearly
• 13:53
  isn't that that mix too. It doesn't surprise me.
• 13:58
  It's super unfortunate he wasn't around at the end because I
• 14:01
  think that would've been a really compelling show.
• 14:05
  Bell Bell on tires was really fascinating and I've been really
• 14:08
  cool to see him in that mix. And it's just a a bummer for him
• 14:12
  too, because these are the races that he needs to maximize.
• 14:16
  I don't. I don't know if we expect him to
• 14:18
  be a a Chase guy this year, but if he is, these are the races he
• 14:22
  has to maximize and he's not. Right.
• 14:25
  Yeah, he. No fault of his own.
• 14:27
  Yeah, it it it's this is obviously where he was going to
• 14:30
  do well, if he's going to do well, and this is definitely
• 14:33
  what he's going to be best at. He's got a long learning curve.
• 14:35
  But I just thought when you when you juxtapose that against
• 14:39
  Christopher Bell and against William Byron and you just look
• 14:42
  at his raw pace and his ability to drive through, like I was
• 14:45
  really, really impressed. Even for someone who's so good
• 14:47
  and that we kind of know is going to be good.
• 14:49
  I thought it was really impressive.
• 14:50
  And obviously because it's a road course race, because we
• 14:53
  didn't have a lot happening and he was basically the only two
• 14:56
  incidences it it gave us something to follow throughout
• 14:59
  the race. I felt like which which was good
• 15:01
  and at least I was entertained by.
• 15:02
  I know there's, you know, I wish he could have been there at the
• 15:05
  end. I think throwing him in the mix
• 15:06
  with Reddick and SBG would have made that even more compelling.
• 15:09
  Do. You think he gets a win this
• 15:11
  year? Yes.
• 15:13
  I think so too. I really think he's.
• 15:15
  I think it was real. Yeah, I, I think there is
• 15:20
  obviously something that SVG is not quite as good here.
• 15:23
  I think he's obviously great. He's not winning like Mexico.
• 15:28
  He could have won by a minute like it.
• 15:29
  He was just so far better, right.
• 15:31
  There's there's certain tracks where he is exceptional and
• 15:34
  there's just no touching him here.
• 15:36
  He's touchable. There's a couple others where I
• 15:38
  do think Connor Zilich could go toe to toe with him and and so
• 15:41
  winning a race is is certainly plausible.
• 15:44
  So I'm glad we both agree on that.
• 15:46
  I had one other note really for the Cup series.
• 15:49
  Not a lot happened. Alex Bowman gets out of the car.
• 15:53
  He, I guess, I don't know, was he just sick?
• 15:56
  The whole. Time.
• 15:57
  I don't know yet. Yeah.
• 15:58
  I mean, I get the I get the impression, oh, reading the tea
• 16:02
  leaves, it sounds like an illness.
• 16:03
  But I don't want to speak without, you know, speak out of
• 16:06
  my ass. OK, but what we get out of that
• 16:10
  is Mike Snyder jumps in the car is, you know, we haven't seen a
• 16:14
  mid race driver change and I feel like forever.
• 16:17
  It used to be super common in the 90s every other week was
• 16:19
  something, you know, someone had a collarbone, collarbone that
• 16:21
  was broken or something. So driver swaps were common.
• 16:24
  Now they don't happen really anymore.
• 16:26
  And we get Myatt Snyder off the pit Rd. crew.
• 16:29
  I wouldn't even want to say off the bench.
• 16:30
  He wasn't on anyone's bench and and comes in hops in the car.
• 16:34
  What do you make of that? Was working on the broadcast.
• 16:36
  Yeah. Let me tell a story about but
• 16:39
  Maya, because I, I see Maya literally every week and it's a
• 16:43
  it's a bummer because like I, I've wanted to write a story
• 16:46
  about him for a while and I just keep kind of shelving it because
• 16:49
  I'm like, this is not the most important thing that I need to
• 16:53
  get to during the winter. There was so much going on, but
• 16:56
  I I love Maya. I first met Maya when he was in
• 17:00
  late model stock cars and I got to tell you a funny story.
• 17:04
  If you know Maya, this will make you laugh.
• 17:07
  Maya was running the Martinsville Late Model race.
• 17:10
  This is like 2013, so long time ago.
• 17:16
  And he gave me a quote that was like, I would, I would, I would
• 17:22
  like, I would wreck your mom. I would, I would, I would wreck
• 17:24
  anyone to win a grandfather clock.
• 17:28
  And it was, it was, it was an accurate quote.
• 17:30
  He said it. And I guess his dad or someone
• 17:33
  who wanted him just to be a little more mindful of saying
• 17:36
  the right things was like, you can't say that.
• 17:38
  Then they came back to me was like, hey, man, can you, can you
• 17:40
  take that out of the story? I just I don't want that to to
• 17:43
  be who I am and being a young, a much younger reporter, I took it
• 17:49
  out. Older me would not do that and
• 17:52
  be like, no bro, you said it. It's good too.
• 17:54
  It's a great question. Yeah, it's great.
• 17:56
  And I don't think it changed his trajectory one way or the other.
• 17:59
  Like it's Martinsville. Everyone wrecks everyone to win
• 18:02
  Martinsville in a late model. Now they're doing it at the
• 18:05
  national touring level. But I so I go back with with
• 18:08
  Maya for this is year 13 of knowing Maya Snyder.
• 18:13
  And like I said earlier, he just works really, really hard and
• 18:17
  he's got very limited funding to run the races he wants to run.
• 18:21
  He spent the last two years going to school mathematics
• 18:25
  degree, getting his pilot license, all the meanwhile
• 18:30
  working as a pit Rd. Stringer basically.
• 18:33
  And whether it's for his dad or for Jamie Little, his job is to
• 18:38
  run across Pit Rd. during the race, before the race, get
• 18:41
  information for the broadcast to help the pit Rd. reporter out.
• 18:45
  And that's his way of staying in the game.
• 18:47
  And it keeps his face it and in front of mind.
• 18:50
  And it's just a testament to how hard he works to just be in this
• 18:56
  industry in some shape or form. And every race car driver that
• 19:00
  I've ever known at a high level professional keeping on my it's
• 19:04
  a O'Reilly series winner he is. He is 1 at the highest levels.
• 19:11
  Even if they don't have a ride on any given weekend, they bring
• 19:15
  their bag with their helmet and their fire suit and their shoes
• 19:18
  every single weekend just in case.
• 19:21
  And 99% of the time it means nothing.
• 19:24
  It just collects dust. It goes back and forth on the
• 19:28
  plane every week. And this is the 1% of the time
• 19:31
  where Hendrick Motorsports needed someone to drive the 48
• 19:35
  car. And it's kind of surprising to
• 19:37
  me that they don't have a a standby guy.
• 19:40
  I wonder how close we were to getting, you know, Jeff Gordon
• 19:44
  back in the car. It would have been awesome.
• 19:48
  But. But fortunately, Mr. G, as I
• 19:50
  call Jeff now because he's kind of morphing into you.
• 19:52
  Yeah. He's.
• 19:54
  A new Mr. H, so I call him Mr. G Mr. G was able to find Maya,
• 19:59
  and, you know, he just turn laps.
• 20:02
  He wasn't trying to compete. He wasn't going to tear the car
• 20:06
  up. His goal was if they started
• 20:08
  tearing. Well, yeah, yeah.
• 20:10
  If they started tearing up cars in front of them, racing for the
• 20:12
  win and they wipe out, you know, 13 cars in Turn 1.
• 20:16
  On the last lap he can just drive by him and pick up 13
• 20:19
  points for, for Alex. And so I, I think he finished
• 20:22
  35th or whatever. But it's just a cool spotlight.
• 20:26
  And this will be an opportunity for me because now I've got the
• 20:29
  the motivation and the reason to write that story.
• 20:31
  I've wanted to for two years, just to let people know, Maya's
• 20:35
  still at the racetrack every week.
• 20:37
  He still wants to be a high level race car driver.
• 20:40
  But if not, he's got his, his mathematics degree.
• 20:42
  He, he's got all this experience working in TV and come hell or
• 20:46
  high water, Maya Snyder's going to be in this industry doing
• 20:51
  something and that's, that's cool to me.
• 20:54
  Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, it's funny
• 20:56
  that you talk about him having his race suit in his helmet.
• 20:59
  They're like, it feels so abnormal, probably too regular
• 21:03
  because like, why would he take that?
• 21:05
  Why would it be there? Well, you never know.
• 21:08
  And and you know, this is obviously a super low percentage
• 21:12
  situation, but you never know on a Saturday in the Xfinity Series
• 21:16
  where someone just can't go when something can't happen.
• 21:18
  So it's really cool. I think it's a fun story at the
• 21:22
  end of the day. It's just something different,
• 21:23
  something fun, something for us to talk about.
• 21:25
  And it was really cool for him. It is a spotlight for him.
• 21:27
  And now you're going to write an article and then maybe someone's
• 21:30
  season is like, hey, let me go do a couple races with them.
• 21:32
  You never know what kind of doors open from these
• 21:34
  situations. Mr. H owes him a favor, and it's
• 21:37
  not the biggest favor in the world.
• 21:38
  It's not like he moved a mountain for him.
• 21:41
  But they needed someone to be in that seat, just in case they
• 21:44
  could pick up a handful of extra points that Alex might need.
• 21:48
  And it's better for Mr. H to owe you than for you to owe Mr. H.
• 21:53
  Absolutely. So I thought that was really
• 21:55
  cool. But I do want to transition to
• 21:56
  Alex Bowman. Back to Alex Bowman, I should
• 21:59
  say, because there is a I think there's an issue here.
• 22:03
  He is dead last in points of everyone that's run three races.
• 22:06
  He's 36 in points. He scored 23 points on the year.
• 22:10
  This is a horrific start to to say the least.
• 22:14
  This is driver who pretty much year over year gets talked about
• 22:17
  getting replaced because he's. A contract here, though.
• 22:20
  For real, a contract here. Yeah, I mean, this is a a make
• 22:23
  or break situation for him and he's not starting out the best.
• 22:26
  Making the case is going to be incredibly difficult at this
• 22:30
  point. And, and you know, the, the
• 22:33
  whispers of, oh, should someone else replace them has been going
• 22:36
  on for four or five years. Like that's part of being the
• 22:38
  4th driver, you know, the 4th head of a forced dragon.
• 22:42
  You know, the HMS is because they got championship level
• 22:45
  drivers in the other three cars. And this is not the best
• 22:49
  situation for them right now being lasting points, being so
• 22:52
  far behind the cut line. What do you think of this
• 22:55
  situation? Are you as nervous for Alex
• 22:58
  Bowman as I am? And what does he need to do to
• 23:00
  kind of kind of regain confidence or whatever to to
• 23:05
  kind of turn this around? He is 45 points out of a Chase
• 23:09
  for the Championship spot. And so, I mean, I guess to me
• 23:13
  the answer then is when? Because winning is what, 1550
• 23:16
  points? Yeah.
• 23:17
  Well, yeah, I think it's 55 now, isn't it?
• 23:20
  I think it's 55. So he's got to win a race and
• 23:23
  win a race. Yeah.
• 23:25
  And, and listen, I will say my biggest fear is that moving to a
• 23:29
  points based format, winning would feel less consequential.
• 23:33
  And that's not the case. We got one guy winning
• 23:35
  everything and it it matters because of the points to go with
• 23:38
  it. And I, I feel like the
• 23:40
  difference between what was he 3630?
• 23:43
  Fifth, wherever he's at now, I think he's 36.
• 23:47
  It's hard to, it's hard to say that out loud.
• 23:48
  It's like he's not 36. He's like 33rd or something and
• 23:51
  he's 36th. You win one race and now you're
• 23:56
  back in that, that mix because there's, you're going to
• 23:59
  leapfrog so many people that run 30th every week.
• 24:02
  But he can't continue to be that guy that's running 30th every
• 24:05
  week. And I don't know what, what the
• 24:07
  deal there is. And I know there's been some
• 24:09
  small sample size things that's happened.
• 24:12
  The injuries that's kind of derailed time over like 3
• 24:15
  different injuries have, have cost him over the, the last
• 24:19
  couple of years. He has a great relationship with
• 24:22
  Blake Harris. So it's not, it's not like the
• 24:24
  driver and crew chief don't get along.
• 24:28
  They, they spend a lot of time doing other things.
• 24:31
  They, they, they went to Chili Bowl, not together, but the car
• 24:36
  that the Jesse Love drove was owned by Blake, that Blake
• 24:39
  bought from Alex. And it, it's been serviced at
• 24:42
  the HMS shop. So they're super tight.
• 24:44
  So it's not a relationship issue.
• 24:47
  I just sometimes wonder if I, I had kind of hoped for Alex's
• 24:51
  sake and even for Blake's sake, you know, do you swap something
• 24:54
  out up there just to see if you can make something happen?
• 24:57
  It reminds me of 2011 when Hendrick swapped everyone but
• 25:03
  Jimmy and Chad, right? That's that's the year that Alan
• 25:05
  went went over to Jeff and Mcgrew went over to Martin and
• 25:13
  Stevie went over to Dale. And so just I don't, I don't
• 25:16
  know how that would work at Hendrick right now.
• 25:17
  Like Rudy and they got like. All different crew chiefs on
• 25:21
  salary so it's. It's true, That's true.
• 25:25
  So I don't I don't know. I I just I think I think the
• 25:28
  sport is better for having Alex Bowman being a high profile
• 25:32
  ride. And I hope this is not the
• 25:34
  beginning of the end for that, as much as that would be a
• 25:37
  really good opportunity for a lot of promising race car
• 25:40
  drivers to just to want to be in that ride.
• 25:44
  I think Alex is just a he's a he's a fun personality or really
• 25:48
  just a intriguing race car driver and they would just be
• 25:51
  super unfortunate if this is how it goes out.
• 25:53
  So I hope that you know, he's capable of winning.
• 25:56
  We've seen it winning in bunches and he's going to need to
• 26:00
  because this is like the worst case possible scenario to start
• 26:03
  out your year. It's like the complete opposite
• 26:05
  of what's going on at the 45. It's funny.
• 26:07
  Everything balances out, right? You got one guy who's who's won
• 26:10
  all three races and then the other guy that is crashing and
• 26:13
  not getting points and getting sick.
• 26:16
  Yeah, it's tough. Obviously there's a lot more
• 26:20
  dynamic to that. You know, Mr. H is an incredibly
• 26:24
  loyal person. He, he takes care of his people.
• 26:27
  He does not like moving off people unless he kind of has to.
• 26:29
  The sponsor seems like Bowman for cheating.
• 26:32
  You know, there's not anything off the track that would get
• 26:35
  Alex Bowman out of the rise. It's going to be performance and
• 26:39
  if there's a need to boost that performance.
• 26:42
  So I'm very interested to see how that dynamic plays out.
• 26:45
  I think it's an important one because he is kind of the first
• 26:48
  or the biggest domino that could kind of shake up the silly
• 26:51
  season coming up. And hopefully, you know, just
• 26:55
  from regular performance because Alex Bowman has always been
• 26:57
  enjoyable. He's he's obviously a good
• 26:59
  driver. You, you can't win 8-9 whatever
• 27:01
  coverage he has without being a good driver.
• 27:04
  He he obviously gets overshadowed, but hopefully he
• 27:07
  gets to turn around. We'll see.
• 27:07
  But I think that's the storyline to follow throughout the year.
• 27:13
  Can we can we talk about Cole Custer sending Carson Tosa bar?
• 27:17
  Yeah, I was getting. Ready to go.
• 27:19
  I had. I had.
• 27:20
  Blended out of the board on the list of times it was such a
• 27:24
  largely inconsequential thing, right?
• 27:26
  Like their, their, their beds were made-up.
• 27:29
  And I don't, I don't know what happened before, before that,
• 27:33
  but I, I appreciate that all week the narrative was, is that
• 27:38
  everyone's just collectively decided they're not going to, to
• 27:42
  do anything about Carson. And I think it was Tommy Baldwin
• 27:45
  on DBC was like, we can sit here and, and scream into the void,
• 27:50
  but it doesn't matter because they're letting him do it and
• 27:54
  there's no consequences for the way that he drives.
• 27:56
  And so I, I, I appreciate not that I'm saying Carson deserves
• 28:01
  it. It's I'm, I'm not, I'm not
• 28:03
  picking a side. It's almost like someone was
• 28:06
  like, you know what? Someone needs to.
• 28:08
  It's going to be me. It, it's, it's so it, yes, it, I
• 28:14
  think it's funny in that sense, but it's also like, man, we're
• 28:16
  wrecking cars for 30 seconds. Like what?
• 28:18
  Are we doing here? It's like, cool, was the message
• 28:22
  really sent it? It wasn't as high profile, I
• 28:25
  guess, as I would have liked, but it's, you know, Custer, you
• 28:28
  know, he, he is not a guy that kind of gives a damn.
• 28:30
  He's definitely someone that will will go toe to toe with
• 28:33
  people if he needs to. Obviously he doesn't get the
• 28:35
  same respect as as the top guy because of his situation.
• 28:39
  But it it, it was interesting to see because I didn't know what
• 28:42
  happened to Hosvar for like an hour and then Twitter started
• 28:45
  popping up. I was like, oh, OK, that makes a
• 28:47
  lot of sense. So now does anyone?
• 28:50
  Else HBO thing is such a gift. Yes, yes, it really is fun to
• 28:55
  watch like it's I. Here's what I have.
• 28:59
  We get to watch a race on on Sundays and if you're a super,
• 29:03
  super hardcore fan and I'm, I'm not sure I'm this hardcore, you
• 29:07
  can go back and rewatch that race 3637 different times and
• 29:12
  get 37 different experiences out of it.
• 29:15
  And say what you will about being a NASCAR fan right now
• 29:19
  compared to any other point in our history.
• 29:21
  I know some fans like to say, oh, the golden age was the 90's,
• 29:25
  the golden age was the 2000s and Fox and ESPN.
• 29:29
  And I'm not saying this is the golden age, but I, I think that
• 29:32
  one thing this era has is great accessibility, great technology,
• 29:36
  great data and analytics. And it's, it's a really fun time
• 29:41
  to be a fan in the things and having the things that I only
• 29:45
  dreamed of in like 2007, thinking that I don't know if
• 29:49
  you remember this, the DIRECTV hot pass with the four different
• 29:54
  exclusive driver channels, those were awesome.
• 29:57
  And it's kind of like having that.
• 29:59
  There was a Talladega race. I don't, I don't remember what
• 30:02
  year it was. It was right around the tandem
• 30:03
  draft, right before the tandem draft just started.
• 30:06
  And we had my dad worked for Dale Junior.
• 30:08
  So we had the Dale Junior went up and he was like tell Jamie,
• 30:11
  I'm going to get on Jamie McMurray, I'm going to get on
• 30:13
  his ass, I'm going to push him up there.
• 30:14
  Just like right. It was like the start of the
• 30:16
  tandem draft and you can listen to all that stuff and see it,
• 30:20
  but you only had like 4 drivers back then.
• 30:22
  Now you can see. And it was Dale every single
• 30:24
  week. And the other three were the
• 30:28
  ones that were random. And that was a smart decision.
• 30:31
  But as a Gordon fan, I was like, what do I got to do to get some
• 30:34
  some JG love here on the the hot pass?
• 30:38
  But yeah, I, I, I thought seeing, you know, the host for
• 30:41
  our thing, that's one he's a lot of people still owe him though,
• 30:44
  So there's probably more coming in the future.
• 30:46
  But also I'm I'm interested to hear what you think of Kyle
• 30:50
  Busch with no love for Jesse Love.
• 30:55
  Run up, run it by me one more time.
• 30:56
  I just got a text. Man, I just had a cool little
• 30:59
  segue now. There's a lot happening on a
• 31:02
  Sunday night. Kyle Busch.
• 31:05
  I mean, yeah, yeah, that OK, that was fascinating, right?
• 31:09
  Like it's, it's Kyle Bush's tenure at at RCR is the most
• 31:16
  fascinating thing. Like he, he clearly is getting
• 31:18
  along there. Well on personality standpoint,
• 31:21
  there's frustrations, right? But everyone seems to be pulling
• 31:25
  in the same direction. But I, I think that it doesn't
• 31:29
  matter that that's an RCR car there, there are lessons to be
• 31:33
  doled out and Rowdy would not have allowed that five years
• 31:37
  ago. He wouldn't have allowed it 10
• 31:39
  years ago. And it doesn't matter if it's
• 31:40
  for 16th or wherever they were running.
• 31:43
  I think it was they're in the top 10 actually, right?
• 31:45
  Or just outside. They're around 20th I.
• 31:47
  Believe right at the time. I don't know if that was before
• 31:49
  the the flipping, but yeah, it's it's unfortunate that Chris
• 31:55
  Buscher paid the price for it because he was not.
• 31:58
  He was, he was a non party, as they say in legalese.
• 32:02
  But I appreciate those moments that Kyle Busch reminds the
• 32:06
  world that he's still rowdy. I just wish that was for 10th or
• 32:10
  11th and not 26th. Yeah, what?
• 32:13
  What do you? Yeah, this second teammate on
• 32:15
  teammate crime we've seen when, you know, Hamlin dumped Gibbs
• 32:19
  last year, We've seen it here. Are you totally OK with, you
• 32:22
  know, wrecking a teammate, sending a message, especially to
• 32:25
  a younger one who's maybe not getting through their head?
• 32:27
  Yeah, Jeff Burton told me a long time ago, and it took me a long
• 32:30
  time afterwards to appreciate what he meant when I first
• 32:35
  started coming around. Yeah, I got to give a ton of
• 32:37
  credit to Jeff Burton because he was the first Cub driver, active
• 32:42
  Cup driver, that kind of took me under him and was like, here,
• 32:46
  I'll show you and I'll tell you some things.
• 32:48
  And he loved that. I love late model stock cars.
• 32:51
  And we had a relationship because of that.
• 32:53
  And Harrison came up, but Jeff told me one at one point, we
• 32:59
  need to stop talking about teams.
• 33:02
  He's like, at the end of the day, like my team is my crew
• 33:07
  chief, my engineer, the people that are wearing the same shirts
• 33:12
  as me. My team is not the other car in
• 33:16
  in the building. We just happened to drive for
• 33:18
  the same owner. And he's like, I think sometimes
• 33:24
  we we Santa. This is Jeff Talkin in 2012.
• 33:28
  He's like, sometimes I think we make the sport more sanitized by
• 33:32
  boiling everything down into whose team you are.
• 33:35
  There are not 13 teams. There's then 40 there, there,
• 33:39
  there are 40 teams and we don't spend enough time talking about
• 33:43
  the 40 as opposed to the 13. And that that started to like
• 33:47
  stick with me in the last couple of years.
• 33:49
  I mean, the JGR thing that happened in New Hampshire, yeah,
• 33:54
  there is a code that should be applied within the building.
• 33:59
  But I also think it's fair for Ty Gibbs fans to say I don't
• 34:03
  care about Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell and and Chase
• 34:08
  Briscoe. I want my driver who's looking
• 34:10
  for his first win, if he's got a chance racing inside the top 10
• 34:14
  to go for it, to do just that. And that's my team.
• 34:19
  If you're a fan of the 54, I'm Team 54, not Team JGR.
• 34:24
  And so I would also add that I think that you race your
• 34:29
  teammates harder and you try to dole out lessons harder if they
• 34:34
  are in the same building. And I'm sure at some point
• 34:37
  during the debrief, Jesse's going to be in the building and
• 34:39
  Kyle's going to be like, you had it coming.
• 34:42
  And I just need you to know you had it coming.
• 34:45
  And I just hope you understand why 24 hours later, why you had
• 34:49
  it coming. Yeah, yeah, I, I think it's fair
• 34:52
  enough. Obviously taking out Buscher's
• 34:54
  kind of frustrating. I, I think that's the one issue
• 34:57
  I have is kind of the the unfair casualty that was Chris
• 35:01
  Buscher's race. Kyle Bushnell has one coming.
• 35:03
  If you, if you want to, if you, if you want to say that this is
• 35:06
  the code, this is the the ethics that are being applied.
• 35:09
  And I'm sure Kyle would probably acknowledge and accept that and
• 35:14
  probably reach out to them too and be like, my bad.
• 35:20
  You better. I wonder sometimes with Kyle,
• 35:23
  because it's Kyle, right? Is Kyle a call you and say I'm
• 35:26
  sorry kind of guy? But in this case, I think it was
• 35:29
  so egregious that it would almost be downright rude for
• 35:32
  Kyle not to say, hey man, you got caught up in something that
• 35:36
  was internal. Yeah, fair enough.
• 35:40
  So the thing you're really caring about these days is, is a
• 35:43
  lawsuit. Obviously we had Chris Gabe
• 35:45
  Hart's response throughout the week.
• 35:47
  You had some stuff break right before we got on the show.
• 35:50
  First off, would you make a gay parts response?
• 35:53
  And then what do you make of the the development since since
• 35:56
  then? And it seems like we're heading
• 35:57
  to court. Yeah, I think we're going to go
• 35:59
  to court tomorrow at 12:30 for the rest of this injunction and
• 36:04
  temporary restraining order hearing.
• 36:07
  I don't want to rehash everything because I wrote a
• 36:09
  story on it that you can get the the details.
• 36:11
  But for those who are just casually following JGR does not
• 36:16
  want gay part working for Spire right now.
• 36:20
  Certainly they want to wait till the rest of his contract ends,
• 36:24
  which is 18 months from now, which they say is standard
• 36:27
  operating procedure. Spire says, well, we gave him a
• 36:33
  promotion and he's not doing the same job that he was doing a
• 36:37
  JGRJGR says. But he is.
• 36:41
  And in court on Friday, Spire could not give a straight
• 36:47
  answer. One, when he started working
• 36:49
  there and two, what even is a chief Motorsports officer and
• 36:54
  what do they do? And I thought it was really
• 36:57
  interesting that Jenna and Bob were at Saint Pete on Saturday.
• 37:01
  And I get the impression that Dickerson and and Bill and and
• 37:06
  Chris got them both there in that room was like, listen, we
• 37:09
  need to define what the job is for for legal purposes.
• 37:12
  So or maybe both reached out to him too.
• 37:15
  I don't want to say that they were some and that's not fair to
• 37:18
  to elite level reporters, but it's clear that Spire wanted
• 37:24
  that that. Message out.
• 37:26
  There that message of of the job description to be a public thing
• 37:30
  because now they're both both sides are using it.
• 37:35
  I don't know if that is enough to deter the restraining order
• 37:41
  because if there's any capacity in which Spire can have Gabe
• 37:46
  Hart oversee their NASCAR teams, which he is admittedly going to
• 37:50
  do in that role, the overlap there is enough to probably
• 37:55
  warrant the restraining order and listen.
• 37:58
  So the judge told everyone in the room, those of us in the
• 38:00
  gallery, do not try to interpret my line of questioning or my
• 38:07
  body language or anything that I do to to signal as one way that
• 38:14
  I'm leaning. But gosh, the way that she told
• 38:18
  Gabe Hart's attorneys, who told the judge, we want you to make a
• 38:23
  decision on this. And the judge was like, Are you
• 38:26
  sure? Are you sure you don't want to
• 38:29
  talk about it over the weekend? She's she's like, I can make a
• 38:32
  ruling right now. I've got 3 minutes before my
• 38:36
  court reporter has to leave 30 minutes early.
• 38:40
  I've got 3 more minutes with her and we can make it.
• 38:43
  But it's like I would encourage you in the best interest of all
• 38:46
  of you. She didn't say this to just
• 38:47
  their side, but all parties to discuss amongst yourselves over
• 38:52
  the weekend and see if a middle ground can be can be reached.
• 38:57
  She gave both sides until 9:00 PM on Sunday today to reach that
• 39:02
  middle ground and to notify the court of what that could be in.
• 39:09
  Based on the filings today, they are not on the same page and
• 39:12
  they both are outlining reasons for why it should go their way.
• 39:17
  So I think we're going to go to court tomorrow and the judge is
• 39:19
  going to make a ruling. And I think it tends to learn
• 39:22
  more towards the JGR side mostly because like when when you go to
• 39:27
  court, you have to be able to to prove that you have a shot on
• 39:31
  the merits. Not that you can that you will
• 39:34
  succeed on the merits, but you can succeed on the merits.
• 39:37
  And I just think what they call the balance of equities, I think
• 39:41
  that it would be more prudent to prevent him from working at
• 39:46
  Spire just until we we reached some sort of conclusion on what
• 39:52
  this is, what happened, what day that they're doing more
• 39:55
  analytics, They're investigating Chris's phone, his wife
• 39:59
  Jennifer, her phone is going to be examined.
• 40:01
  I don't know if Spires devices are going to be examined.
• 40:06
  The court didn't tell us and that was actually a weird thing.
• 40:10
  They kept meeting outside the courtroom to have more private
• 40:14
  conversations over. All of this and we did not get a
• 40:18
  lot of clarity. Both attorneys said we defer to
• 40:21
  what was said on the record, which was not a lot, lot of
• 40:24
  legalese here. I'm sorry.
• 40:26
  But I, I will be very curious to see what the judge rules.
• 40:30
  And I think that she would learn more towards JGR based on the
• 40:35
  damage it could do if he's allowed to continue working at
• 40:39
  Spire. And it turns out later that
• 40:42
  information was transferred. Not that I'm accusing Chris of
• 40:45
  doing it. You can't undo that, so we'll
• 40:50
  see. So I'm always curious, maybe
• 40:52
  this is like me oversimplifying things, but when I'm a Pro
• 40:57
  Football fan, right? We all are in America and my
• 40:59
  favorite player is Cooper Cup. I literally named my kid after
• 41:04
  him. There's fantasy football reasons
• 41:06
  in that, but he was, he was on the Rams for eight years or so,
• 41:11
  obviously knew the playbook as good as anyone else because he's
• 41:14
  an incredibly smart player. And this year he went to the
• 41:18
  division rival Seahawks. And obviously he's not losing
• 41:22
  the knowledge of that playbook when he makes that move.
• 41:24
  And when I think of every sports entity, you know, free agency
• 41:29
  drives players to other teams, to competitive teams all the
• 41:32
  time. What is and, and obviously
• 41:35
  there's going to be technical reasons why NASCAR is different
• 41:38
  than those those sports. But it feels really weird that
• 41:42
  guys can't just go to another team, regardless of what
• 41:45
  information they have and compete in a sport such as
• 41:49
  NASCAR and how how the contracts work with the NASCAR is there.
• 41:54
  It is there any way that they can make an argument similar to
• 41:57
  that? Like we're a sports entity,
• 41:59
  we're accumulating our players in this.
• 42:02
  One thing changed, one thing. I don't want to get too deep in
• 42:05
  the weeds before we establish the one thing that has now
• 42:09
  changed from recent NASCAR history and it's the Next Gen.
• 42:13
  car. I mean, in the past, you could,
• 42:17
  you could afford, even though Hendrick never did let a Lance
• 42:20
  Mcgrew go. They just, I, I joked last week,
• 42:23
  you know, you're, you're the vice president of room 9B and
• 42:28
  we're going to keep you on payroll.
• 42:29
  But Hendrick could still maintain their proprietary
• 42:34
  chassis, their proprietary fabricators.
• 42:40
  Now, the only thing that they have that as proprietary are the
• 42:43
  people. The cars are the same.
• 42:46
  The, the, the, the general playbook for how every team
• 42:51
  makes speed is the same. And the people that have that
• 42:56
  data are the, the variables. And so I, I think in a, in a
• 43:02
  spec car era, the question then becomes what is your proprietary
• 43:08
  data? Is it, you know, just purely
• 43:11
  the, the numbers? Is it the people?
• 43:14
  How do you, how do you deal with the overlap?
• 43:19
  I don't know. And, and, and Denny talked about
• 43:22
  it a little bit on the podcast and he talked about it a little
• 43:25
  bit on Saturday and his media availability.
• 43:28
  But once you let someone leave that room, it's gone forever.
• 43:33
  And they have it forever. And they, they can use it until
• 43:36
  we have a new car because the car is not changing.
• 43:39
  And that's a really perilous place to be in.
• 43:42
  Because I'll look at it this way.
• 43:44
  I understand why JGR is fighting so hard to, to keep Gabe Hart
• 43:50
  out of Spire because he has every single thing that they've
• 43:58
  ever developed to be fast. All of the Toyota, one of the
• 44:02
  files he's accessed, quote UN quote was a Toyota database.
• 44:06
  And once the cat's out of the bag, it's, it's gone.
• 44:10
  And we, we saw that at Richmond. Austin Dillon has 2 Richmond
• 44:13
  wins because that made it super, super valuable.
• 44:19
  It it's weird. How do you give Austin Dillon
• 44:21
  like the best setup? He just wins.
• 44:23
  Maybe we should do that. Every time I think about that a
• 44:26
  lot, I think to myself if they have that Richmond setup, and I
• 44:30
  presume Kyle Busch does too. Why not?
• 44:36
  What, what, what would that mean if you if you put Austin Dillon
• 44:38
  in the JGR car, the Hendrick 48? Well, we saw what happens to the
• 44:42
  Kyle Busch when you take him out of the JGR car.
• 44:45
  That's right. That's right.
• 44:46
  And so I've always thought that Austin is better than people
• 44:49
  give him credit for. He's a better human than people
• 44:52
  give him credit for. He's one of the most genuine,
• 44:54
  likable people in the garage. And I, I hate just on a human
• 44:59
  level that, you know, the, the, the nepotism thing is, is
• 45:03
  weaponized against him because he, he works hard, he races
• 45:07
  hard. Nepotism is fine for 90% of the
• 45:10
  Elliot Dale did all of them it's fine, but with this guy is not
• 45:13
  that that always. Struck me weird, but he he, he's
• 45:17
  won races everywhere he's gone. And then by the way, you look at
• 45:21
  his career now, 6/7 Cup wins, Daytona 500, Coke 600, Texas,
• 45:27
  Richmond, Richmond, that is an admirable career that a lot of
• 45:31
  people. Championship Expanded
• 45:33
  Championship. Yeah, that's a good race car
• 45:36
  driver. I'm not saying that he's a Hall
• 45:37
  of Famer, but that is a very respectable cup career.
• 45:43
  Not a lot of people give him credit for that.
• 45:45
  We're we're we're on a tangent now though, right?
• 45:47
  But my point is, is that say what you will about Austin
• 45:50
  Dillon and whatever you believe about Austin Dillon, that date
• 45:53
  is super valuable to him right now.
• 45:55
  It's super valuable to Spire hypothetically.
• 46:02
  I understand why and this car being so close, JGR has argued
• 46:07
  in their their filings and in court, we're talking about the
• 46:11
  difference in milliseconds and and and fractions of a
• 46:16
  centimeter on on set up decisions.
• 46:18
  And that's what we we can't afford to have go somewhere
• 46:22
  else. And I don't know how you police
• 46:24
  it, because fair. Enough.
• 46:26
  Yeah, fair enough. I I just feel like coach is the
• 46:29
  playbook. At some point people have to be
• 46:31
  able to take other jobs, right? Like it's just so weird to me.
• 46:34
  Obviously there could be a non compete for a few months or for
• 46:37
  a year or something I guess, but.
• 46:39
  But let's talk about Ty Gibbs. I don't know if you wanted to go
• 46:43
  there or not. We have enough data now, though,
• 46:44
  that we we should talk about it. I will say that if you feel so
• 46:48
  strongly about the damage that a Chris Gay part could do if he
• 46:54
  were to leave your organization after you gave him the quote
• 46:57
  key, keys to the Kingdom. That's what Sarah Hutchins, the
• 47:01
  the JGR attorney said in court. That gay part was given the king
• 47:05
  the keys to the Kingdom. All I would say is, and I'm not
• 47:09
  picking on Ty or taking gay part's side, but if you're
• 47:12
  giving someone the keys to the Kingdom, I would not piss him
• 47:16
  off. I would not encourage him to
• 47:19
  leave. I, I, I would.
• 47:22
  And, and by the way, everyone says that gay part's one of the
• 47:24
  smartest guys in the garage. And and so if that guy has a
• 47:28
  suggestion after making the 11 team elite, after making that
• 47:33
  entire company elite, three cars were all elite and one car
• 47:39
  wasn't. And he said that one car was
• 47:41
  managed differently than the other three and he was not
• 47:45
  allowed to manage the 54 the way he did the other three.
• 47:49
  I wouldn't make that guy mad. I would say, you know what?
• 47:52
  We believe in you. We gave you this job, You do
• 47:55
  what you need to do because internally we don't want to risk
• 48:00
  Chris Gay part getting mad over this and going to, I don't know,
• 48:04
  a Spire. Yeah, it's, it's a very weird
• 48:07
  dynamic. I feel like if you're going to
• 48:09
  pull the trigger and give him all that keys to the castle
• 48:11
  nonsense, you better know he's the guy.
• 48:14
  You know, it seems like you better understand what you're
• 48:16
  dealing with. Obviously, people probably don't
• 48:18
  remember what it was like with Wheeler as crew chief of that 11
• 48:21
  car. It was not good.
• 48:24
  Yeah, it it was a struggle there.
• 48:26
  Obviously, Gabe Hart was the reason for the Renaissance, and
• 48:29
  it was at the right time Hamlin hit his stride.
• 48:31
  He was in the prime of his career, all that.
• 48:34
  But because of the way Gabe Hart held him accountable, forced him
• 48:37
  to get into the shape, do his homework SIM later on, I mean,
• 48:42
  it's it's clear that, and I know this for a fact that Gabe Hart's
• 48:46
  big on accountability, right? And everywhere he's gone in that
• 48:51
  company has been better off for it.
• 48:56
  KBM's late model program, you know, should have won the
• 48:59
  snowball Derby with Christopher Bell.
• 49:01
  Got disqualified after winning. He's to me.
• 49:05
  I don't know if people's ever correlated this.
• 49:08
  He is single handedly responsible for Ryan Priest
• 49:12
  being a Cup guy because when he gave up the JD Motorsports full
• 49:17
  time deal to run four or five races with JGR IN201717 Gay part
• 49:25
  was the crew chief and he finished second to Kyle Busch at
• 49:30
  New Hampshire and won Iowa and had just a lot of great runs.
• 49:34
  Gay part was the crew chief on that car and they've become
• 49:37
  great friends since. They collaborate on short track
• 49:39
  stuff and are, are super close. And then you look at what he did
• 49:44
  with, I think it was Eric Jones in the championship battle with
• 49:49
  Suarez and then what he did with Denny and then what he did as
• 49:54
  competition director. I, I just, again, the point that
• 49:56
  I'm trying to make is, is this guy who has such a high batting
• 49:59
  average, if he comes to the, the manager and says here's the
• 50:06
  playbook, we need to run. If I'm Coach Gibbs, I'm like,
• 50:09
  whatever you want to do because I don't want to alienate this
• 50:12
  guy that has been so instrumental to literally every
• 50:16
  facet of our competition business.
• 50:18
  Sure. All right.
• 50:19
  We need to transition. We're running a little long
• 50:21
  here. I think.
• 50:22
  We haven't quite gotten to the other series and everything, but
• 50:24
  there is a good question here, probably the first real question
• 50:27
  I think. We got I was doing Cars tour on
• 50:29
  Saturday, so it's a good thing we ran long.
• 50:31
  I I was casually watching. Good.
• 50:36
  Do you have Matt, any any insight on to what the the new
• 50:40
  horsepower will do for us at Phoenix?
• 50:42
  We have the same tires last year, but but we're up in the
• 50:44
  horsepower, we're going to see a little bit different package.
• 50:46
  How do you think that impacts racing?
• 50:48
  Yeah. I mean, I think it's very
• 50:50
  similar to what we saw at CODA this weekend, not that it's
• 50:53
  apples to apples. I don't know if I saw any
• 50:55
  difference at Coda, I can tell. No, the times were the same.
• 50:59
  And but the reason why is that you you gain a little bit.
• 51:04
  Yeah, well, you lose a little bit on entry because you're
• 51:06
  having the, the lift sooner and the tires, the tires did wear
• 51:09
  more. I heard that on the radio a lot.
• 51:11
  I'm I'm even though I'm not at the track, I've got my scanner
• 51:14
  app and I'm, I'm listening to everyone and everyone's radios
• 51:17
  said, you know, tire wear is more significant this year.
• 51:21
  That's good. That's the power.
• 51:24
  But I don't think it's drastically different.
• 51:26
  I'm curious to see on Oval the the, the, the temperature
• 51:29
  matters a lot too. I need to see what the weather
• 51:31
  is for next weekend. We, we, we knew this all along
• 51:36
  that boosting it up 100 was never going to be the single
• 51:40
  handed difference. The hope is that they can start
• 51:44
  to play around more with tires. They did play with some
• 51:48
  underbody stuff. I I think they just need to RIP
• 51:50
  the underbodies off. We have a spec car and I know
• 51:53
  back in the day, the idea behind sealing the the car was that all
• 51:58
  the teams made their gains under the car.
• 52:04
  Maybe it's a good thing if they do work in that area, maybe if
• 52:07
  they create some separation, that is a good thing.
• 52:09
  We we need to see a little bit more disparity.
• 52:12
  But my, my guess to answer that question is Phoenix largely
• 52:16
  looks the way Phoenix has, but the way it has the last calendar
• 52:21
  year isn't bad. Thanks to Goodyear, they've come
• 52:24
  a long way. I think sometimes people get
• 52:30
  beat in their head that all this car sucks or this sucks or that
• 52:32
  sucks and they just kind of regurgitate it.
• 52:34
  But New Hampshire last year was a fantastic race.
• 52:37
  I mean, it's really, really good.
• 52:39
  Phoenix, I felt like was better it.
• 52:41
  Phoenix is never going to be the best track.
• 52:43
  It just isn't the way it's shaped, the way it runs.
• 52:46
  It doesn't matter if it's IndyCar, Cup Series, it does not
• 52:49
  matter. It's not a great track for
• 52:50
  racing, just part of part of the way it is.
• 52:53
  Yeah, I've not seen a lot of great.
• 52:57
  I've seen some great Phoenix finishes and I've seen some
• 52:59
  great fuel mileage pitch strategy Phoenix's, but it's not
• 53:04
  a barn burner racetrack. It's just not.
• 53:07
  Just not going to be, but let's transition to the O'Reilly
• 53:10
  series. Just real quick, SVG wins kind
• 53:13
  of dominated that race. Austin Hill P2HE continues to be
• 53:16
  the best Xfinity O'Reilly regular on the road courses.
• 53:20
  If if SVG without showing up, Austin Hill might have three or
• 53:22
  four wins on road courses by now.
• 53:24
  Connor Zilich had to pass a bunch of cards again.
• 53:27
  He had a brake issue. He probably looked like the best
• 53:30
  car, but brake issue and then gets wrecked by Corey Day.
• 53:32
  I don't want to spend too much time on SVG him when he doesn't
• 53:35
  surprise anyone. Connor Zilch was fantastic.
• 53:37
  Corey Day is the one I want to talk about because.
• 53:39
  I want to talk about Corey Day too.
• 53:41
  He doesn't seem to know how to stop.
• 53:43
  Reckon, you know, last year was his first kind of introduction
• 53:46
  at the high levels in NASCAR. Very much Rex at a high rate
• 53:50
  this year he stopped wrecking himself and he started wrecking
• 53:52
  everyone else that's. Right.
• 53:54
  So, so speak on Corey Day for me.
• 53:56
  President I'm I'm a big believer in Corey Day and I think clearly
• 54:01
  anyone that's seen him race is too and he is just drinking out
• 54:07
  of a fire hydrant right now. He's racing against people that
• 54:14
  have ran a ton of late models who understand what it is to go
• 54:19
  side by side with someone the the the wingspan and they have
• 54:24
  years and years of comfort. This guy was literally a full
• 54:27
  time spring car driver two years ago and then a part time spring
• 54:32
  car or cup or stock car driver last year.
• 54:36
  The sample size of experience is so small and it shows.
• 54:41
  I think Hendrick is doing him a disservice on 2 fronts by having
• 54:46
  him in the O'Reilly Series 1. I think of the plan is is for
• 54:53
  him to be the heir apparent in the five.
• 54:56
  And I do think my my read on this whole situation is that
• 54:59
  he's the heir apparent of the five.
• 55:02
  Larson signed this contract and he's always said that he wants
• 55:05
  to go run Sprint cars full time around age 40.
• 55:09
  Let's get some there. And it gives him five years to
• 55:13
  become a stock car driver. If the plan is for Corey Day to
• 55:17
  be the next Hendrick full time Cup driver five years from now,
• 55:21
  he needs to be in trucks. It's just similar to the the
• 55:24
  host of our thing. The trucks in the Cup cars are
• 55:27
  way more similar than the expensive.
• 55:30
  They compare a lot better. Yeah.
• 55:31
  O'Reilly car doesn't compare at. All the drag, the power, the
• 55:35
  overall grip levels, it's it's the reason why host of our only
• 55:38
  made like six starts before he became a cup guy.
• 55:42
  They just determined, rightfully so, there's nothing he can learn
• 55:47
  there. I think they have him in the
• 55:49
  O'reilly's car for two reasons. One, they own all the stuff.
• 55:52
  It's it's theirs, it's in house. It's easier to manage that
• 55:54
  program as opposed to siphoning it out to JRM or or whatever,
• 55:59
  right? And plus, I think his skill set
• 56:04
  is naturally more analogous to the O'reilly's car and that it's
• 56:12
  super lightweight. The power to weight ratio feels
• 56:17
  more like a Sprint car. And him being successful long
• 56:21
  term is better going through that platform.
• 56:25
  But gosh, he's just not ready to race full time there yet.
• 56:28
  And it doesn't matter because he's going to be there for a
• 56:32
  while. I think the read on this is that
• 56:34
  he's going to be there two or three years and he's going to
• 56:36
  make his mistakes and he's doing so much that's new and it's not
• 56:43
  fair to those that are around him.
• 56:45
  He's fast. I mean, that's that's one thing
• 56:47
  I think he's got going for him. It's not like he's wrecking
• 56:50
  people in a Hendrick car for 20th.
• 56:53
  He's running top five and he's wrecking all the people that
• 56:57
  want to to win races. And so that's the one
• 57:00
  consolation. I would also urge, yeah, I would
• 57:05
  also urge everyone to go back to watching Kyle Larson.
• 57:09
  When he first made that same transition, it wasn't quite as
• 57:12
  rough. But the difference is, is that
• 57:14
  he had two or three days of practice.
• 57:17
  That's the other thing. Day is being thrown to the
• 57:20
  wolves. Very minimal stock car
• 57:22
  experience compared to the rest of his competition.
• 57:24
  He has no practice. We don't practice anymore.
• 57:27
  That sucks. It sucks for him.
• 57:29
  It's it sucks for the industry. We should have way more
• 57:31
  practice. I I think NASCAR for every
• 57:33
  division they should like every two months have this is the
• 57:36
  practice weekend and it's like a rotating collection of tracks.
• 57:40
  We have 6 or 7 weekends every year for or for every division.
• 57:44
  This is practice weekend. You guys get 2 practices this
• 57:47
  week. This these guys get 2 practices
• 57:49
  the next week and. That's a good idea.
• 57:52
  Yeah. And it's not every week we're
• 57:54
  we're not doing 2 practices. One on the intermediate yeah,
• 57:57
  yeah, give yeah, we're. Doing racers from any discipline
• 58:03
  A disservice, whether it's a Jake Andretti, Cletus
• 58:07
  MacFarlane, anyone who wants to come over here, we're just
• 58:10
  dropping the rag and saying fend for yourself.
• 58:13
  And that's a disservice to a talent like Corey David.
• 58:16
  I want to share one Kyle Larson story that's so obscure that
• 58:20
  most people don't remember it but I do is they ran him in a
• 58:24
  late model stock car on the backstretch at Daytona.
• 58:27
  And he wrecked old CE Falk. He wrecked the shit out of CE.
• 58:31
  Falk and I will remember this for the rest of my life.
• 58:35
  They bring them up into the suites where they did the the
• 58:38
  post race press conference and we asked them, you know, why did
• 58:43
  you wreck CE? He's like, well, you know, I'm,
• 58:46
  I'm spring car racing and we don't really race like this.
• 58:50
  And he's like, I don't know, I like I, you know what Kyle does?
• 58:53
  Like I don't know. It's that way of saying it.
• 58:55
  And I don't know it's I think that's what you do in short
• 58:57
  track racing. And I was just like, no, no,
• 59:03
  Charles Edward Faulk the third should murder you.
• 59:10
  But he had some races that were a I'm.
• 59:15
  I'm reading these comments in real time with you too.
• 59:17
  I'm just talking about that. I I appreciate you guys, I
• 59:20
  think. We're, I think we're doing Corey
• 59:21
  a disservice by putting him in the O'Reilly Series with so
• 59:24
  little experience. We're we're doing him a NASCAR
• 59:28
  is doing him a disservice by not allowing him and his peers to
• 59:30
  practice more. And the only way for him to
• 59:33
  learn is to learn under green flag conditions.
• 59:36
  And he's going to tear some stuff up until he starts to go
• 59:40
  to places two times and then get his sea legs under him.
• 59:44
  He's good and I think he's going to be good.
• 59:46
  I think he's going to win Cup races.
• 59:49
  But he's got everything. I don't say everything's working
• 59:52
  against him because you have a Hendrick Motorsports development
• 59:56
  contract and that's a really good place to be in.
• 59:59
  But it's still a tough place to be in because you've got no
• 1:00:02
  experience, you've got no friends.
• 1:00:03
  And it's kind of sad, right? Like he gets out of the car and.
• 1:00:08
  I hope he's got a really good support system around him and
• 1:00:10
  Larson and JG and Jeff Andrews. I'm sure they're doing all the
• 1:00:16
  things to make sure his head is good.
• 1:00:17
  But to see him, and I wasn't there this week, but I saw the
• 1:00:20
  video and I was there at Daytona in Atlanta.
• 1:00:23
  He gets out of the car and everyone wants to go fight him
• 1:00:26
  and he's kind of all by himself. He's got no friends right now
• 1:00:29
  because how could he? Erect them all already.
• 1:00:34
  Yeah. And so it's just it's it's got
• 1:00:36
  to be tough from an emotional, mental standpoint too, that I
• 1:00:39
  hope that he's able to fix it from a competition standpoint
• 1:00:44
  and stay level here, because that's going to be the hardest
• 1:00:46
  part of his development, not the racecraft.
• 1:00:48
  His racecraft will get better as long as his heart and head
• 1:00:52
  allows him to stay in it. Yeah, I I think the the big
• 1:00:55
  issue I've had with day so far is it seems to be a between the
• 1:00:58
  ears issue. Yeah, and and you know, the
• 1:01:02
  talents there and the talent can be there with a a lot of guys.
• 1:01:06
  But it's that final 5%, the, the light switch that Zilich and
• 1:01:10
  Byron and belt like you saw initially out the gate where
• 1:01:13
  it's like not only are they quick, but they understand what
• 1:01:16
  they need to do and what they, you know, I watched him run a
• 1:01:20
  Trans Am race, I think is his first Trans Am race last year
• 1:01:23
  you wrecked the car 5 laps into the race or whatever.
• 1:01:25
  It's like at some point you have to stop doing it regardless of
• 1:01:29
  What Car or what the expectations are, whatever.
• 1:01:31
  You just have to stop. And, and you know, he will get a
• 1:01:37
  long leash here. Like he's gonna get a long
• 1:01:39
  leash, which is a good thing for him.
• 1:01:41
  But I remember, you know, because of my background, I
• 1:01:44
  remember Landon Castle had the exact same issue at JRM.
• 1:01:47
  He wrecked all the time. We built an ARC car for him and
• 1:01:51
  he wrecked the ARC car and and it's a Talladega and he was just
• 1:01:54
  swept up and it's like 10 laps into this ARCA race we got so
• 1:01:56
  you can get approved. You're right.
• 1:01:58
  A good analogy, Stenhouse. Oh yeah.
• 1:02:02
  We took this guy out of Sprint car racing.
• 1:02:04
  Got sat down. Got sat down, he just tore up
• 1:02:07
  too much shit. And I actually think that
• 1:02:09
  Stenhouse, he doesn't get enough credit.
• 1:02:13
  So he will always be Ricky Stenhouse, right?
• 1:02:17
  But as Hayek has got their stuff better, and especially when he
• 1:02:22
  won the Daytona 500 and he locked himself in and he knew he
• 1:02:25
  didn't have to race a certain way, when you when you allow him
• 1:02:29
  to be consistent and clean, he's as clean as they come.
• 1:02:34
  But I think it's very similar to young Ricky and that you pull
• 1:02:37
  him out of Sprint cars and you have so little experience and
• 1:02:40
  we're going to stick you in the Roush Racing Nationwide Series
• 1:02:44
  program. Oh, that was ugly.
• 1:02:46
  And it was the same thing. The difference is, is Ricky at
• 1:02:48
  least had practice. Yeah, Ricky had plenty of track
• 1:02:52
  time. But you you also saw the
• 1:02:54
  flashes, though, like he beat Carl Edwards or he, you know,
• 1:02:57
  like Carl Edwards would be in the sister team to him and he
• 1:03:00
  would beat him. Like you would see these flashes
• 1:03:02
  with him. Maybe that was after he got sat
• 1:03:03
  down. That was after he gained some
• 1:03:04
  experience, right? But at what point does they need
• 1:03:07
  to win a race? At what point does he wait too?
• 1:03:11
  Early for that we're way too early for.
• 1:03:12
  That I look at Bill, he won right away.
• 1:03:14
  I look at Belle, he won right away.
• 1:03:15
  I watch. Him, he ran a full cars tour
• 1:03:17
  season, he ran full fendered seasons.
• 1:03:22
  That's just the difference here. And and that was a mistake,
• 1:03:24
  right? But I I think they wanted to do
• 1:03:26
  everything in house. They want him to have as many
• 1:03:29
  races as possible. I think the only thing we can
• 1:03:32
  quibble with is O'Reilly versus trucks.
• 1:03:36
  I would have had them in trucks, but they don't have a truck
• 1:03:38
  program and I think they want them in house.
• 1:03:41
  Fair enough. I, I just, yeah, I mean.
• 1:03:44
  But the expectation is not the win right now.
• 1:03:46
  It's survive, get experience maybe by the second-half of of
• 1:03:50
  of this season, but the the Corey Day that's expected to win
• 1:03:55
  races and compete for the championship, that's next year.
• 1:03:58
  Well, and also he's got back back top five, so I don't know
• 1:04:02
  why we're being too hard. Well, that's, that's the, the,
• 1:04:04
  the last point I wanted to make on this.
• 1:04:06
  I will always say with any, any development driver that there
• 1:04:12
  are the slow guys that you're trying to push to go faster and
• 1:04:16
  there is a 100% fill rate on them.
• 1:04:18
  They all fail. And then you've got the guys who
• 1:04:22
  are way too fast, way too hard and you have to reel them in a
• 1:04:25
  little bit. And that's, that's scoring.
• 1:04:28
  And it's not entirely different than, you know, Kosovar in some
• 1:04:34
  ways, you know, or, or, or you know Chastain.
• 1:04:36
  And there are guys who are just fast and hard and just got to
• 1:04:40
  reel them in. Cool.
• 1:04:41
  All right, that's it for Xfinity.
• 1:04:44
  Oh, no. One more.
• 1:04:45
  One more big thing. O'reilly's.
• 1:04:46
  God damn O'reilly's. We'll get there.
• 1:04:49
  Brennan Poole, Top 10. Again it.
• 1:04:53
  Again, is unbelievable what he is doing.
• 1:04:55
  I don't think. I don't know if there's words to
• 1:04:57
  kind of talk about how impressive what he's doing is.
• 1:05:01
  Like it's just so good for the level of equipment he's in.
• 1:05:05
  But I was watching and I don't know if you've seen this or not.
• 1:05:07
  I was watching this DC solar documentary that that popped up.
• 1:05:11
  I need to watch it. I've heard about it.
• 1:05:13
  So it for people who haven't seen it, it's YouTube channels,
• 1:05:17
  Fireball it the guy that used to be, I guess he's the
• 1:05:20
  videographer for DC Solar. He used to basically videotape
• 1:05:24
  everything that the company did, every promo video, everything.
• 1:05:26
  He was the guy that shot it. So he has all this footage and
• 1:05:30
  he put together a documentary. He's releasing like one video
• 1:05:32
  every three weeks. It seems like there's 3 or 4 out
• 1:05:34
  right now. And they cover Brennan Poole and
• 1:05:37
  his experience within that. And they, I mean, glowing review
• 1:05:40
  of Brennan and, and his time with the team and everything.
• 1:05:43
  And so he was fresh on my mind already and I wanted to talk
• 1:05:46
  about that. And then he goes out here to
• 1:05:47
  cover and gets another top ten in this guy that should run
• 1:05:50
  25th. Just quick.
• 1:05:53
  Have we seen anything like this? I mean, aside from just someone
• 1:05:57
  overshooting occasion, I mean it feels like it's almost bi weekly
• 1:06:00
  now that Brandon Poole is doing something that he shouldn't be
• 1:06:02
  doing. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I guess
• 1:06:04
  sometimes I'm guilty of being too in the forest to see the
• 1:06:09
  trees. When he was racing for Venturini
• 1:06:13
  in Arca way back in the day, Billy Venturini told me this is
• 1:06:18
  the best guy I've had in our system.
• 1:06:21
  And this is like years after he'd already gone through.
• 1:06:26
  And Billy's always been convinced that Brennan Poole
• 1:06:30
  was, you know, one of the best race car drivers has never
• 1:06:33
  gotten a real good shot. And so I'm, I'm not surprised.
• 1:06:38
  I mean, again, you, you said that is a 25th place car that
• 1:06:42
  Brennan put into the winner's circle program last year, top
• 1:06:46
  20. And that was a really big
• 1:06:47
  accomplishment. And that that is their
• 1:06:50
  championship. I don't, I don't, I don't think
• 1:06:53
  that story was written well enough.
• 1:06:54
  And I wish I would have, but I was going through the job
• 1:06:56
  transition and I just couldn't do it back then, like if it were
• 1:07:00
  this year. But to them, getting inside the
• 1:07:03
  top 20, that's their championship, getting that
• 1:07:05
  winner's circle money, and that's why he's there.
• 1:07:09
  And yeah, there are some drivers who they get paid to go win
• 1:07:14
  races and win championships there.
• 1:07:16
  And then there are paid drivers who bring money.
• 1:07:19
  And then you've got a guy like Brennan who earns a living being
• 1:07:23
  that guy that puts his team in, in the winner's circle program.
• 1:07:26
  And it kind of reminds me of of Landon Castle during the
• 1:07:33
  starting park era. And I still believe that, you
• 1:07:36
  know, Landon Castle never got a really fair shot.
• 1:07:42
  His, his GM money got siphoned by the housing crash.
• 1:07:48
  And I think he was the first casualty of, you know, the, the
• 1:07:53
  colleague system not working out for certain personality types.
• 1:07:57
  I, I think he kind of had the same experience as Josh Williams
• 1:08:00
  to a certain degree. And plus he lost his funding
• 1:08:02
  there too as well. But there's a there's a period
• 1:08:06
  in time where Landon made a living because he was so
• 1:08:12
  naturally fast that he could put your shit box in the field.
• 1:08:16
  You put more in the top 15, that 89 car in the top 15 in there
• 1:08:20
  every time he qualified. We have 4647 cars for a 43 car
• 1:08:24
  show and if you've got a shit box, he puts it in the top 30
• 1:08:28
  for you. And I think he's very similar to
• 1:08:32
  to to Brennan pull in that way and in the sense that and he
• 1:08:36
  will maximize your car. I want.
• 1:08:37
  To go back to what I was saying about Landon, because, you know,
• 1:08:39
  we kind of transitioned, Landon's first year as an 18
• 1:08:43
  year old kid was rough, right? He he, he had a rough start.
• 1:08:46
  He turned into one of the most consistent, least crashing
• 1:08:50
  drivers in the series. And if you look at this time
• 1:08:52
  when he was calling and all that, he he did not and driving
• 1:08:55
  those, you know, starting park type, he did not have the
• 1:08:59
  ability to crash a car when he's driving for Morgan Shepard and
• 1:09:01
  all those guys. So he learned not to and he
• 1:09:02
  became the best at it pretty much.
• 1:09:04
  I think he. Wanted it better if he if he
• 1:09:07
  when he had good opportunity. He's been a little bit more on
• 1:09:10
  kill. Yeah, I think you every every
• 1:09:12
  great race car driver has a degree of I don't care if I tear
• 1:09:16
  it up. Yeah.
• 1:09:20
  Brendan can't read that though, by the way.
• 1:09:22
  It's unfortunate for him because if he were it were in a car to
• 1:09:24
  where he was willing to take more risk, I think he could take
• 1:09:27
  that car into the top ten with greater regularity.
• 1:09:29
  He just can't afford to. So what's Brendan Poole's career
• 1:09:33
  path from here on out? I mean, I, is it, this is it
• 1:09:37
  this for next 15 years? And then he rides off in the
• 1:09:40
  sunset. I would love to see him.
• 1:09:41
  And, and it's so hard because you need $6 million or whatever
• 1:09:44
  they get a big time ride. I, I just, it, it feels like
• 1:09:48
  we're missing an opportunity here because you're right, he is
• 1:09:51
  good enough. The, the reviews you got from
• 1:09:53
  Venturini and everyone else is true.
• 1:09:55
  We raced late models with him when he ran for Jamie Yelton.
• 1:09:57
  He was very good then. Like he's always been great,
• 1:10:01
  except he's never got another chance since he left Ganassi.
• 1:10:05
  And I just don't know. I just don't know how the
• 1:10:07
  opportunity comes for him. He's 34 years old.
• 1:10:09
  I didn't realize he was that old.
• 1:10:11
  I say that old. I mean, I'm, I just turned 38,
• 1:10:13
  so I mean. He's the same age as me
• 1:10:16
  basically, which, you know, I was 19.
• 1:10:18
  I think he was like 17 or something.
• 1:10:20
  Yeah, Ross is 33. And so if he wanted to be on
• 1:10:23
  that Ross Chastain trajectory, he's late happened by now.
• 1:10:28
  Yeah. And it's, it's a shame, right?
• 1:10:30
  Like I, I still think maybe he gets one shot in a, in a really
• 1:10:33
  good o'reilly's platform here soon.
• 1:10:36
  He's if there's any justice in the world and there just isn't,
• 1:10:39
  it's a financial world. I would love to see it though.
• 1:10:44
  Yeah, for sure. All right.
• 1:10:46
  O'reilly's series done trucks pretty straightforward lane rigs
• 1:10:50
  wins from the back. That was a fun race.
• 1:10:53
  Would you make of the trucks on the?
• 1:10:54
  He threw that one away. He's going to be kicking himself
• 1:10:56
  for a long time. That was the best truck there,
• 1:10:58
  Majeski, and made a mistake. Yeah, Majeski kind of threw it
• 1:11:03
  away there for sure. He, he, he, I mean, Kate and
• 1:11:07
  Honeycutt also threw away a chance at competing by, by
• 1:11:10
  really struggling in the middle part of that race.
• 1:11:11
  He drove up to the front with those guys, with Riggs, with
• 1:11:14
  Majeski. He was also in that group and
• 1:11:15
  then gets involved in a couple instances and, and has to drive
• 1:11:18
  his way back up, gets a good finish.
• 1:11:19
  But I was kind of hoping those three would converge and kind of
• 1:11:24
  these, they're the three we're going to watch all year.
• 1:11:26
  It's going to be Riggs, Honeycutt and Majeski, so little
• 1:11:29
  little preview there. Do you like the trucks in Saint
• 1:11:31
  Pete? I did and I'm so pleasantly
• 1:11:34
  surprised that it wasn't a shit show.
• 1:11:36
  That was a really high Quality Street race from AII.
• 1:11:42
  Shouldn't be surprised because I I know the Truck Series has that
• 1:11:45
  reputation of being rough and tumble.
• 1:11:47
  That was like 3 years ago and it's the rosters turned over.
• 1:11:51
  I think this this full time Truck Series roster is very it's
• 1:11:58
  Chris Wright, Rich Wright is. In there a little bit.
• 1:12:01
  For us, he is he is, but this is a really good roster and even
• 1:12:04
  the guys who don't have experience like Brendan Queen
• 1:12:07
  and Minnie Tyrell and Cole Butcher, they're really
• 1:12:11
  exceptional race car drivers and they're going to figure this
• 1:12:14
  out. And I know that was kind of an
• 1:12:15
  adventure for those guys. It's an adventure for everyone.
• 1:12:18
  We we we've never St. raced in the Truck Series anyone.
• 1:12:22
  And for the race to be that clean and that professional,
• 1:12:25
  Attaboy, Attaboy to all of you, because that was an exceptional
• 1:12:29
  race. Yeah, it was cool.
• 1:12:30
  I I liked scenes, you know, like Colin Braun or is it Brown?
• 1:12:34
  I still haven't ever figured that out.
• 1:12:36
  Back in the back in the Truck Series with school, Dario
• 1:12:38
  Franchitti, getting to see him one more time with school.
• 1:12:40
  So it it was a good show. I thought the racing was good.
• 1:12:43
  Like you mentioned. I didn't think there was
• 1:12:44
  anything crazy egregious except for Chris Wright just, you know,
• 1:12:47
  driving in Chris Wright. But I thought that was a good
• 1:12:50
  show. It was something different.
• 1:12:51
  I I assume that's kind of the plan going forward and hopefully
• 1:12:54
  they they do that next year, but that's pretty much on it on a
• 1:12:57
  Truck Series. Before we go, you were not at
• 1:13:02
  any NASCAR races. You were with the cars tour with
• 1:13:05
  Southern National, right. So in my head I was watching the
• 1:13:09
  Truck Series and I was like mini Tyrell, Butter Bean Queen and
• 1:13:12
  you see Honeycutt and Riggs who, you know, I've been with series
• 1:13:15
  for a couple years. I'm starting to think I don't
• 1:13:17
  know who's in the cars tour right now.
• 1:13:18
  Who the main thing? I don't either.
• 1:13:20
  I don't either. It's a completely different look
• 1:13:23
  this year. I mean, there's some familiar
• 1:13:25
  faces, right? Like Kaden Quapple.
• 1:13:28
  The Quapple family is kind of become synonymous with Junior
• 1:13:31
  Motorsports. That's the same program Carson
• 1:13:34
  had dominated in. So Kaden won that race.
• 1:13:36
  And then Travis as his crew chief, you know, 2003 truck
• 1:13:39
  champion Travis Quapple. So they're they're winning as a
• 1:13:42
  family and the Junior Motorsports 88.
• 1:13:44
  So that's kind of cool. Obviously you still have Chad
• 1:13:48
  Mccombie in the mix there. He was my go to in NASCAR O 8
• 1:13:53
  back in the day. Was he?
• 1:13:54
  Yeah, he was. I don't know why, man.
• 1:13:56
  He just was. Yeah, Carson Brown is driving
• 1:13:58
  for Lee Pulliam. Sam Butler is driving the the
• 1:14:03
  Dodge, the RNS Dodge car. Treyton Lapsovich's back this
• 1:14:10
  year. That was kind of a last minute
• 1:14:11
  deal. I got a text from his his team
• 1:14:14
  owner, Chad Bryant, who says we're able to put together that
• 1:14:17
  deal. But I I think this is kind of
• 1:14:19
  the start of a of a new era for for cars to run a lot of ways.
• 1:14:23
  I mean this, this last little period has been, you know, the
• 1:14:28
  Carson Quapple, the the. Honeycutt was in there.
• 1:14:36
  Honeycutt was there. I mean, it's, it's a fresh look,
• 1:14:39
  right? And so I'm, I'm really curious
• 1:14:41
  to see who emerges to, to become that next guy, because a lot of
• 1:14:46
  youth, which kind of bums me out because I love cars tour because
• 1:14:49
  it's, it's about the old guys. Historically, the, the, the
• 1:14:53
  series skews younger and younger.
• 1:14:54
  Connor Hall. Connor Hall has been the face
• 1:14:57
  here for the last couple years. They won a championship,
• 1:14:59
  Obviously Brendan and, and many are gone.
• 1:15:02
  And so it, it changes the look of a top five.
• 1:15:05
  And, and Lee Pulliam is back a little bit, but he's just trying
• 1:15:08
  to get ready for for Martinsville.
• 1:15:09
  He's he's not going to be at the next race because the next race
• 1:15:12
  is Wake County, which is the same day as that start at in
• 1:15:16
  Martinsville. So we're, we're, we're still
• 1:15:18
  trying to figure out who is the, the new face of the Carter
• 1:15:22
  Store. Cool.
• 1:15:23
  Well that does it. Are you excited for F1 come
• 1:15:26
  back? By any chance are you an F1 guy?
• 1:15:30
  Casually, but I it's not that I'm anti F1.
• 1:15:33
  I don't want to make this like a, a tribalism things I I hate
• 1:15:37
  racing tribalism. It's just that I only have
• 1:15:41
  bandwidth for so much and I've got my NASCAR coverage all three
• 1:15:44
  divisions. I've got my Sprint cars, I've
• 1:15:47
  got short track scene. If I if I were to watch
• 1:15:50
  international racing, I love supercars.
• 1:15:52
  That is my one international racing platform that I watch
• 1:15:55
  pretty devoutly. And so it just doesn't leave
• 1:15:59
  room for F1. I respect F1.
• 1:16:02
  I I think one thing that a lot of American fans don't
• 1:16:05
  understand about F1 that I would I would encourage them.
• 1:16:08
  They say the racing is boring. And yeah, I guess if you're only
• 1:16:11
  watching what lights out to the end of the race, you're watching
• 1:16:16
  to Turn 1 and you're only watching the leaders, yeah, that
• 1:16:20
  must look like a boring race, but you understand.
• 1:16:25
  They were bored today, watching radically the whole time.
• 1:16:27
  Yeah, probably, yeah. But if you understand how the
• 1:16:30
  Concorde agreement works and points being inside the top ten
• 1:16:34
  and you watch the mid pack battles and you watch that that
• 1:16:38
  struggle to to break into the top 10 into to get all the
• 1:16:43
  benefits there in. If you watch races not just for
• 1:16:47
  Sunday, and you treat the entire weekend as the race, the race
• 1:16:50
  starts Friday with practice and recognizing track position being
• 1:16:54
  so important. You watch qualifying as an
• 1:16:56
  extension of the race and they're qualifying formats.
• 1:16:59
  All of them are all very interesting and so if you watch
• 1:17:02
  an FF1 weekend holistically and treat the whole weekend as a
• 1:17:06
  race, it will change your perception of what F1 is.
• 1:17:10
  With that being said, I just don't have the bandwidth forex I
• 1:17:13
  my Saturdays and Sundays are very full as it is.
• 1:17:17
  Fair enough. Yeah, I, I love F1.
• 1:17:19
  I'm excited. I I just want I got to find one
• 1:17:21
  fan or one person that's like a fan like I am that I can just
• 1:17:25
  absolutely go crazy with F1 Talk about.
• 1:17:27
  But maybe that's for another podcast.
• 1:17:29
  What are your plans for this weekend?
• 1:17:31
  Where are you going to be? I think I'm just going to be
• 1:17:35
  home this weekend. I don't know that I'm doing.
• 1:17:37
  Phoenix is a long way right. It's a long way and the choice
• 1:17:41
  for me was Phoenix versus Vegas, and Vegas has the high limit
• 1:17:46
  opener and I love spring cars. Oh, I thought it was you like
• 1:17:48
  gambling, but yeah OK Spring cars is good too.
• 1:17:51
  I've spent so many years of my career when you own a a
• 1:17:55
  motorsport media publication, that's gambling.
• 1:17:58
  I am 15 grand deep into short track scene that that that's
• 1:18:04
  been enough gambling to to last me a lifetime.
• 1:18:08
  He said go subscribe. That's what he's saying there.
• 1:18:10
  All right, cool. Well, then we'll catch you.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah. Nothing to subscribe.
• 1:18:13
  To that's how dumb I am is I've been doing short track singing
• 1:18:17
  for free. There's no paywall, there's no
• 1:18:20
  subscription. I don't charge you anything.
• 1:18:22
  I've ran this website out of my pocket for fans, asking them
• 1:18:26
  nothing for the benefit of you, the race fans, so you don't have
• 1:18:30
  to subscribejustgoforyou.com and it's there.
• 1:18:34
  Wow, I'm glad to set you up for that.
• 1:18:37
  Just go click on the page, read a little bit so you can sell
• 1:18:40
  some more advertisement. Anyway, it's cool.
• 1:18:44
  We'll we'll be here next week. We'll talk Phoenix.
• 1:18:46
  Hopefully we get a good show. I'm excited for ovals.
• 1:18:48
  I'm excited for standard racing finally to get here.
• 1:18:53
  I don't want to, you know, dismiss anything that's already
• 1:18:56
  happened so far this year. But I mean Phoenix, Vegas, it
• 1:18:59
  feels like we're getting to real racing again.
• 1:19:01
  So excited for that. I appreciate everyone for
• 1:19:04
  joining the show, watching us, doing everything you can to help
• 1:19:06
  support us. If you can share the video with
• 1:19:08
  your mom, whatever. And Matt, I appreciate you for
• 1:19:11
  joining me. Again, best of luck to everyone
• 1:19:14
  on their week, their work week. Hopefully you have a good one
• 1:19:16
  and we will catch you next weekend.
• 1:19:18
  See you guys.