Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / The Michael Jordan Effect, Hurricane Hocevar & The Excitement of Atlanta! | Mast Cast Ep 5
Transcript
- 0:00Well, dad, we're back. I think this is like episode.
- 0:04I like that face you're making. All right, that'll be that.
- 0:08We can make that to YouTube thumbnail that whatever we were
- 0:10just doing there. I'll screencap that and that'll
- 0:11be our thumbnail. Mast cast is back.
- 0:14He's former NASCAR driver Rick Mast.
- 0:17I'm his non driving son, Ricky Mast and dad, this was another
- 0:22great, great weekend for NASCAR in my opinion.
- 0:25The entire weekend was awesome. We've come a long way from
- 0:30seemingly well, it was just a month ago when we were talking
- 0:34about Mother Nature screwing us over with the clash and all
- 0:36that. And it's everything's been a
- 0:39whole lot better since then in my in my opinion.
- 0:42And this week in Atlanta, I will go ahead and say reinforces what
- 0:47I said previously on mass cast. I think that Atlanta, excuse me,
- 0:51Echo Park Speedway, it's going to take me some getting used to.
- 0:54I'm going to call it Atlanta a lot still probably.
- 0:57I think Atlanta is the most entertaining track on the
- 1:02circuit right now, at least for the fans.
- 1:04I'm not getting into the the maybe the the purity of it or
- 1:11the the old school note of it and nobody being able to pull
- 1:13away from each other. I'm not debating all that.
- 1:15I'm just saying I'm a fan in the stands or I'm a fan at home
- 1:19watching on TV like I was. And I do live in the Atlanta
- 1:22area now, but we have a little 1 here and we didn't have a
- 1:25babysitter so we were watching on TV but all weekend trucks.
- 1:31O'Reilly series, I got that one right.
- 1:33O'Reilly series, Cup series, very entertaining.
- 1:38Ended with amazing win from Tyler Reddick.
- 1:41Michael Jordan front and center again, all kinds of great stuff.
- 1:46So where you want to start, There's all kinds of stuff to
- 1:48unpack. Here yeah, it was it was great I
- 1:50mean they we listen we got some momentum going right now, man,
- 1:53NASCAR's got the big MO on their side, right.
- 1:56I mean the Daytona deal that was everybody agreed that was great
- 2:00had great TV ratings. Everything was good about
- 2:02Daytona during if we didn't follow it up with Atlanta,
- 2:05right, It was just man, phenomenal, phenomenal racing on
- 2:09TV to watch on TV. And then a lot of folks were in
- 2:11the stands. They keep saying ever since
- 2:13they've reconfigured it, each time they come back, they get
- 2:16more and more fans back in the stands and and that that that
- 2:20point was proven Sunday when you want to watch the race.
- 2:24But man, you couldn't ask for a better, I don't know, you
- 2:27couldn't ask for better races. The three the three races, they
- 2:30were just great. I mean, it just, again, all
- 2:33kinds of storylines about these races and the whole deal.
- 2:36But to me, it's like, you know, we got momentum on her side,
- 2:39man. We got NASCAR's got momentum.
- 2:41We haven't had this in a while like this.
- 2:43You just kind of feel it there. You, you, you read it, you see
- 2:46it, OK, you hear it. Then tones of voices of people
- 2:50talking, the interviews they do all the stuff that's going on.
- 2:53You just, it's just like you, you hear it and you see it in
- 2:55these folks, man. It's like, you know, we got
- 2:57renewed enthusiasm, OK, with, with not just fans, but the
- 3:03participants, you know, some of the media, you just, I don't
- 3:07know, it's, it's a good gig going right now.
- 3:08We got to keep it going. It is.
- 3:11And you got to keep some things in perspective.
- 3:12And I'm sure somebody could hear me say this and then pull a
- 3:16certain picture of a certain angle of the stands at Atlanta
- 3:18and say, well, it wasn't sold out, You know, it wasn't like it
- 3:22was in 1999, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 3:24Yeah, yeah, OK. But put it in perspective.
- 3:26It wasn't that long ago seemingly that we're going to
- 3:30Atlanta once a year and the grandstands would be, it was
- 3:33pretty tough. There would be a whole lot of
- 3:36open seats and now you're coming there twice a year and you got a
- 3:39whole lot of butts in those seats and you got great racing
- 3:42to go along with it. So I keep things in perspective
- 3:46here. Don't live too much in the
- 3:47moment. Just think back a few years to
- 3:48where we were at that particular venue where NASCAR has been for
- 3:52decades and decades. And now it was, I don't know if
- 3:55it was ever truly in in like at risk of going away completely.
- 4:00And I find that hard to believe with a market like Atlanta, but
- 4:04it was struggling, if we're being honest here.
- 4:06This was and now look at where we're at right now.
- 4:09And we're we're in a much. Better just keep things in
- 4:11perspective. We're in a much better spot
- 4:13right now. Oh yeah, it's it's good.
- 4:14Yeah. They reconfigured that track and
- 4:16making it a mini restrictor plate track.
- 4:18Well, they don't use restrictor plates any longer, but same same
- 4:21concept. You know, it's a mini Daytona,
- 4:23mini Talladega. I mean, it's it's so good right
- 4:25now we're starting to hear rumbles about reconfigure some
- 4:28of the other race tracks. Man, I hope they don't do that.
- 4:30I make it, do it. You know, you can do it at any
- 4:32of those mile, mile and a half race tracks if you wanted to,
- 4:35you know, do it at Kansas, do it at Texas, do it all these
- 4:38places. And then what you have is
- 4:40another Atlanta. It's not Talladega Daytona, but
- 4:43it is a shorter version of Talladega Daytona, right?
- 4:46Everybody stays packed up one step there.
- 4:48Everybody stays wide open. The draft comes in into play.
- 4:52But you know, the last few races Atlanta has been like that.
- 4:55You know, it's just that. I don't know, it's like it's
- 4:59catching on with people now or something all of a sudden.
- 5:01I'm not sure it's a great deal. Our buddy Kurt, who listens and
- 5:06watches, we've known for a long, long time.
- 5:09Good dude. Kurt, you know, he went watches
- 5:11and listens to us. He sent me a message.
- 5:13He's like he, he's all for a reconfigure in Texas to be like
- 5:16Atlanta. And he said, you know, y'all
- 5:18should talk about that. And I wanted to talk about it
- 5:20'cause I do think it's a great topic.
- 5:22I I'm with you. I don't want to reconfigure
- 5:25anyplace else to be like Atlanta because I think, and this is not
- 5:31just NASCAR, this is any sport like really a lot of forms of
- 5:34entertainment. You find something that works
- 5:36and sometimes your reaction can be all right, we got to
- 5:40replicate this as much as we can, as many other places as we
- 5:43can. And then you end up kind of you
- 5:46end up losing a little bit of what's special about it.
- 5:49It's kind of like, I don't know if this is a fair comparison,
- 5:52but it's kind of like the championship debate, what we've
- 5:55had the last decade with where we we had created or conjured up
- 6:00a Game 7 moment. But the problem is if you build
- 6:04a of Game 7 moment every year, like it's a sure thing you're
- 6:07going to get it, then it kind of loses the magic of a Game 7.
- 6:11That's what makes a Game 7 special is you don't have one
- 6:13every year. So I think the Atlanta is such a
- 6:18good race now, let's leave it that way.
- 6:20We know it's going to be races two years, 2 * a year.
- 6:23Let's leave it that way. Kind of like I'll give you a
- 6:26good case in point would be hypothetically say F1 say, you
- 6:31know, they come into the United States, the worldwide, the
- 6:34worldwide deal. F1 is they did the next next
- 6:37flick Series A few years ago that that really got interest
- 6:39going and they got a couple races US Dow.
- 6:42And when they come, they get all the fanfare.
- 6:44You know, they get a lot of people show up a lot talked
- 6:46about it a big deal, right? And I've always said F1, I love
- 6:51F1. The forest, the engineering
- 6:53part, you know, the technical part, the racing itself sucks.
- 6:56I mean, just get out there and everybody goes hard as it can.
- 6:58But it's not racing, you know, I just see who go the fastest, but
- 7:02you only race each other very much.
- 7:04Take those one or two races that they run with the fanfare.
- 7:08Add 25 more races to it in the United States.
- 7:10Make those guys run every week, right?
- 7:1336 races like NASCAR. And then come back and tell me
- 7:16how special it is, right? It it goes into what you're
- 7:19saying. You do you know something,
- 7:21something is good. You don't.
- 7:22You don't over saturate it. Yeah, it's, it's an easy thing
- 7:26to do. It really is like anything in
- 7:28life, if you find something that's really good, you're, you
- 7:31want to do it as much as possible.
- 7:32In some areas that can work. But it's, it's sometimes what
- 7:36makes things special is they don't happen every day.
- 7:38They don't happen every place you go like that's you look
- 7:40forward to those things. You know, like you, the masters
- 7:43is only one time a year and one course a year.
- 7:46I don't know why that's the first thing that came to my
- 7:48mind. Maybe it's because it's around
- 7:49the corner, but that's just kind of what makes these things
- 7:51special is you don't have it all the time.
- 7:55And I like the and I like the idea of I don't want the same
- 8:01type of racing every week. You know, I don't want that.
- 8:04I I want, I want to see some races where a guy can drive away
- 8:08or pull away. I want that mixed in there too.
- 8:10I don't need every week to be green, white checkered 3 four
- 8:143/4 of the field wrecks that whole deal.
- 8:18So I think it's a very, very I love that Kurt brought that up.
- 8:21I think it's a great, great topic.
- 8:24I think that they've I think you've they found a way to
- 8:27really fix it, like fix Atlanta as far as attendance and
- 8:30interest wise. And so great.
- 8:32Cool. That doesn't mean like if
- 8:35another venue area needs a little bit of help with
- 8:37something, you don't have to don't have to replicate Atlanta.
- 8:40You can you can find some other ways to to do that.
- 8:42So all that being said, so I'll, I'll, before we get into the
- 8:47race, I'll say this the the winner of the first two weeks,
- 8:49Tyler Reddick. So in between his first two
- 8:51races, he was on a week long media tour with NASCAR.
- 8:55Of course, you win the Daytona 500.
- 8:57They take you anywhere and everywhere and you're on anybody
- 9:02that's even got a camera and a microphone though they they,
- 9:05they take you there. So Tyler Reddick was all over
- 9:08the place. He was on the Empire State
- 9:09Building. He's I'd look on TV, he's on
- 9:11ESPN, he's here, he's there. Well, Friday, this past Friday,
- 9:15he was in the Atlanta area, obviously coming here for race
- 9:18weekend in Atlanta and he came out to Truist Park where I work
- 9:22with the Braves. And I got to meet him and
- 9:25interview him for, for those who watch the show and don't know, I
- 9:28host a a podcast for the Atlanta Braves called behind the Braves.
- 9:31So Tyler is my guest that that show will be dropping out
- 9:34dropping this week. And I got to tell you, I'd never
- 9:37met him before I became a Tyler Reddick fan after meeting him,
- 9:41talking with him. Super, super nice guy.
- 9:47I played, if you listen to the show when it comes out, I played
- 9:49like a little history game with him where I've got a bunch of
- 9:53names of actual NASCAR drivers and Major League Baseball
- 9:56players from the past. And he had to guess, you know,
- 9:59was each one a baseball player, NASCAR driver.
- 10:02And in talking with him and that that's where I found out he's,
- 10:05he's a regular on raceandreference.com and like
- 10:08somebody that's very interested in the history of the sport too,
- 10:11which was, which was, and appreciates it, which I thought
- 10:13was really cool. And once he put it together that
- 10:16that I was your son, He he really, he got a kick out of
- 10:19that. And he, yeah, he even said he's
- 10:21like, well, when he found out, when I told him like who my dad
- 10:24was, he goes, he was on stage with Harry the Hall of Fame.
- 10:28And I was like, yeah, yeah, he was.
- 10:29So, and then after we did the interview, we went on a took him
- 10:33on a tour of the ballpark. And then he did a fan event at
- 10:36our clubhouse store just for an hour, had the Daytona 500 trophy
- 10:39there, the Harley J Earl trophy. Fans could come in for free, get
- 10:43autographs and pictures with him.
- 10:44And this is what this is what I love.
- 10:46He took pictures and signed whatever people want to sign.
- 10:49But with each person they had a, we had a big crowd, right?
- 10:52So we had to keep it moving. But with every single person, he
- 10:55was taking time to actually talk to him a little bit.
- 10:58You know, it wasn't just signing looking down, never looking at
- 11:01him or anything like was taking time to actually talk with
- 11:04everybody, interact with them. Great video.
- 11:07We posted on Braves channels of him, there's a kid taking his
- 11:11picture with him and Tyler just all of a sudden takes off his
- 11:14Daytona 500 ring, says here, pop that on for a second and the kid
- 11:17just lights up like he made that kids year, right.
- 11:21So all that to say, I became a big Tyler Reddick fan after
- 11:24that. So it was cool to see him win on
- 11:29Sunday. Came out of nowhere.
- 11:32No, no Fender on the right front, which I was going to ask
- 11:35you about that. Do you think that actually
- 11:36helped him? I'm stupid when it comes that
- 11:38stuff, so you got to tell me. I don't know, man, I, I listened
- 11:40to all the, I listened to all the talking heads right all day.
- 11:44And it seems like nobody can quite figure that out.
- 11:47I all I can do, all I can do is go off history.
- 11:50And I, I remember Martinsville, Bristol and somebody at Dover
- 11:56lost right front Fender, right. I think it was Earnhardt at
- 12:00Bristol and I think Gant maybe at Martinsville and I forget
- 12:02Dover. Anyhow, I think they were after
- 12:04the fingers got knocked off, man, they dominated right?
- 12:07And everybody said the reason was, well, it's keeping the
- 12:10right front tire cool. And I heard that today from some
- 12:13talking head and racing. Well, that's what they figures
- 12:15going on. I will say this, we, we, we talk
- 12:18about thousands of an inch and all the body configurations and
- 12:21everything they do. The one thing that does make
- 12:24sense, you do get a little technical here.
- 12:26The air, first thing that air sees is a bumper, right?
- 12:29It sees the bumper, then it kind of it kind of jumps up and, and,
- 12:32and the part of his Fender that was missing was that round part
- 12:36above the bumper on as it rounds up and goes back.
- 12:39That part was missing that my understanding is not a real
- 12:44critical area. In the other words is not going,
- 12:47not a lot going on right there. The bumpers done the work start
- 12:50with and it separates and there goes up and where the air was
- 12:54going up. It really evidently is not
- 12:56attaching itself to the Fender in that area very much OK to
- 12:59begin with. And so with the Fender not
- 13:02there, it didn't really affect it much.
- 13:03So had to be some effect. You know, we didn't see, we
- 13:06didn't see him leading the pack or leading the line for five
- 13:09laps, right? I mean, all I had to do it was
- 13:11what, quarter of a mile, you know, he got jumped out and got
- 13:14the lead with that big push and the momentum help, momentum held
- 13:18him. Don't know if he could have if
- 13:20he could have let it pack or not for a lap or two, right.
- 13:22Don't know what that was about. But you know, when it first
- 13:25happened and I saw that and I saw actually the damage of the
- 13:27car when it was Victory Lane or wherever it was, I'm like, damn,
- 13:30the whole thing is gone, right? But how in the world is that?
- 13:33How does that happen? And then thinking about it and
- 13:36going back in my pulling back my old aerodynamic studies from
- 13:41years ago, thinking about that area right in there is not, you
- 13:45know, the down on the side. It is.
- 13:46I mean, I know that's a big deal on the side right there, but it
- 13:49was gone. So I mean, I don't know, Ricky,
- 13:51I'm sure probably we got guys already cut thunders off the
- 13:54cars today, maybe even NASCAR sticking a car in the window to
- 13:57see what was going on there. I don't know.
- 13:59But pretty remarkable that car was still able to run that fast
- 14:03to do that and win that race. Yeah, yeah, it really was.
- 14:08It was interesting. So.
- 14:10So now I'm sitting here in my mind thinking about how the air
- 14:12moves on the car so. Let's go go with that theory.
- 14:15The bumper's doing all the work. That means the next time that
- 14:17air is really hitting something on the car, you would be the
- 14:19windshield essentially, kind of. And the.
- 14:22Yeah, before somewhere before the a post before the
- 14:24windshield, you know, when it starts doing this thing again,
- 14:27you know, then you've got but then you've got the air exiting
- 14:30out of the hood with the new style body, you know, get the
- 14:32air coming out of the hood and stuff going on that I'm not
- 14:35Privy to as far as aerodynamics and what what what's actually
- 14:38going on with that? You know, 'cause you know, right
- 14:41now if this car, you know, the air comes in the grill, it's
- 14:43the, and it just directly goes out the vents of the hood,
- 14:47right? It feeds the, it feeds the fuel
- 14:49cooling system and it feeds the engine for air, you know, air
- 14:53for the engine. And then the leftover goes out
- 14:56the exits of the hood. And I'm not not ever working
- 14:59with these cars myself with a went on.
- 15:01I'm not sure what goes on right there.
- 15:02But Needless to say, you can run a half a lap in Atlanta with a
- 15:06push and win the race with the right front Fender.
- 15:09That's all I can tell you for sure.
- 15:12Do you see there was the one really good video, his on board
- 15:15camera when he was when he went from 24 about like 20th or 21st
- 15:21up to about third and I think it was like 2 laps or something.
- 15:24That was pretty, that was pretty wild to watch it.
- 15:27It's one of those videos, even though I've been basically
- 15:29watching this stuff my entire life, it was one of those videos
- 15:32that still is a good reminder to me of like how good you guys are
- 15:36and how tough it is to do what you do.
- 15:38And the split second decisions that have to be made.
- 15:42Honestly, I don't know, 100 * a lap.
- 15:45I I mean, just it's you're constantly making these split
- 15:48second decisions And when you see one that just works out
- 15:53perfectly. It's like when, when our buddy
- 15:55Kenny Wallace pushed Dale Senior to his last win at Talladega.
- 15:58Like when it just everything just comes together right.
- 16:01You know, all the you made all the right decisions and the the
- 16:04bounces bounced your way where you needed them to.
- 16:07It's like, it's almost like art like when it just works
- 16:09perfectly like that to watch that kind of stuff.
- 16:11It's really, really, I love watching that.
- 16:14Yeah, it is. It's it's you.
- 16:16You kind of get a knack for it as time goes on.
- 16:18And then when you make the wrong move, it's so frigging glaring,
- 16:22you know, IE Bubba. I mean, you know, Lord of Mercy
- 16:27guy had lead going in three last lap, you know, but that's that's
- 16:32that's what happens. He's type race tracks,
- 16:34Talladega, Daytona, Atlanta. Now, you know, going into three
- 16:36leading doesn't mean anything, man.
- 16:38It's getting off through the turn off 4.
- 16:40But you know, bubble with the all the way to the outside with
- 16:43and I listened to some of his in car Freddie, Freddie crafty
- 16:47spotter, you know, very, very good spotter and he kept telling
- 16:50him clear, hi, clear hi and I don't I don't know, you know
- 16:54what went on there. But you know, obviously and
- 16:57Bubba tell you I'm sure because he's dejected is the wrong move
- 17:00to make thing of it is if he just stayed down there, that
- 17:02outside line may have went on by him anyhow.
- 17:04I don't know. But it just, it turned out to
- 17:06look like a glare mistake on Bubba's part.
- 17:09But you know, whatever I mean, I mean, Reddick made a hell again.
- 17:13Reddick made a hell of a move to do what he did to win that race,
- 17:17a heck of a deal. Come back up through the pack
- 17:18the way he did to to do all that.
- 17:21And you know, they've, they've got things going for him right
- 17:24now. They just, they got it going on.
- 17:28Yeah, I know that. That's a great calling, Baba.
- 17:30I think he even said, I can't remember exactly how he said it
- 17:32in his his interview, but he said something.
- 17:34The effect of it sucks. Sort of like he didn't realize,
- 17:37he didn't think he went as high as he went, you know, So I think
- 17:41he was all mine. He was dejected, but he almost
- 17:43looked a little like just trying to, you know, rewind in his
- 17:47mind, trying to figure out what he had.
- 17:48But you're exactly right. Like he had to make a movie.
- 17:50He couldn't just stay on the bottom.
- 17:51He had to go up. So it just, it just didn't work
- 17:53out for him. But yeah, to your .2311, I mean,
- 17:58basically if you go back to whatever day it was in December
- 18:02on the courthouse steps with him and Jim France, it's just been
- 18:05nothing but wins for that team. I mean, just absolutely nothing
- 18:10as far as the the race and you know, Denny of course has had
- 18:13some terrible things off the off the track and not related to
- 18:16racing that have happened, but performance wise and everything
- 18:19as far as that team and their moment.
- 18:21Talk about big momentum. I mean, goodness gracious, you
- 18:24just couldn't script it any better for them.
- 18:26What what's happened? And then Michael Jordan,
- 18:30obviously we have to talk about this.
- 18:31So just the impact of who is still, I would say the most
- 18:38popular athlete on the planet, even though he's been retired
- 18:42for about 20 some years now, it just it's hard to, it's hard to,
- 18:47I would have a hard time saying that there's still anybody
- 18:49that's not as popular as him as far as athletes current or
- 18:53retired go and just with the brand.
- 18:55And he's just one of those very, very few truly larger than life
- 19:00figures that we we've seen. And so for him to be front and
- 19:03center in NASCAR at all, much less the first two weeks.
- 19:08And I thought this was interesting.
- 19:09I read this today. So I actually saw Jamie Little
- 19:12had it was a post from awful announcing and Jamie Little
- 19:16commented on it. So NBCI don't know how much
- 19:19money, but NBC the as the story goes, paid Jordan.
- 19:23Everybody thinks a whole lot of money for him to be a basketball
- 19:27analyst during their basketball coverage this year.
- 19:30Now, look, I don't watch a lot of NBAI try to keep up with the
- 19:33Hawks here in town as much as I can, but don't watch a ton of
- 19:36NBAI watch our our who's in college.
- 19:38That's mainly our Virginia Cavaliers.
- 19:40We're up to #11 by the way, after a big win this weekend.
- 19:44But from what I read, NBC paid MJA lot of money and there's a
- 19:48big deal. They're going to have him as a
- 19:50basketball analyst this year. And the article I read basically
- 19:52sounds like he did one sit down with Mike Tirico at some point
- 19:56earlier in the season and they've kind of chopped that up
- 20:00and they're just showing bits of it every now and then.
- 20:02So far to date, it's only like 4 minutes or 5 minutes in total of
- 20:08these segments that have aired that have actually shown up on
- 20:10NBC. They're talking about how
- 20:13Minutes was in the last 8 days. He's actually done more time on
- 20:18Fox during NASCAR races for free obviously.
- 20:23These last eight days on Fox, just with the NASCAR coverage,
- 20:28it's a big deal, man, for for the world's most popular athlete
- 20:31to be there front and Center for NASCAR each week.
- 20:34I know he's not one of the drivers like we, we our drivers
- 20:37are our heroes, right? We need to make them our heroes.
- 20:40But that's a big deal that he's there and he's such a, he's a
- 20:42legitimate, he legitimately loves the sport, which is which
- 20:46is great. And I will I give Jamie Little a
- 20:48shout out to it seems like she has a must have a really good
- 20:52rapport with him because he he's not one to do a lot of
- 20:55interviews and he seems like he'll pretty much if she asked
- 20:58him to say something, he'll do it, which is great.
- 21:00So I'll start it there. But let's just talk about the
- 21:03Jordan effect and where what you think about it.
- 21:05So. Well, yeah, I heard, I think
- 21:08talk to talk about what you said there.
- 21:11I heard Jamie Little interview she did first time she met
- 21:14Gordon Jordan somewhere. She was not in Nike, she was in
- 21:18Adidas. So yeah, they have to move the
- 21:22camera off. Not a full shot, right?
- 21:25But anyhow, oh, Michael Jordan, I'll talk about five years now
- 21:29or is it 6? And I'm going to get to this
- 21:31deal. But what I want to talk about
- 21:32here real quickly is the Joe Gibbs effect.
- 21:35All right, Joe Gibbs came into our sport 909293 very early 90s.
- 21:44And I remember going to a welcome, a welcome mean, I don't
- 21:49know, gathering or something. It was in Daytona is one of one
- 21:52of the fancy motels, the big ballroom.
- 21:54And they were they were actually honoring Joe Gibbs welcome in
- 21:57the entire sport. I remember Ricky Skaggs is there
- 22:00singing a lot of different things going on.
- 22:02But you got to understand this was back before social media,
- 22:06this back for all the stuff you you, you found out things by
- 22:10watching television and your newspaper, right?
- 22:14And at that point nationally, I don't know that there was a more
- 22:18discussed or more well named, well well known name than Joe
- 22:22Gibbs just because of all his success with the Redskins and
- 22:25all of the the Super Bowls and all that.
- 22:27He was just, he was a reverend coach.
- 22:29But people just love Joe Gibbs and he shows up in racing, right
- 22:33as a team owner and he's still here, you know, 40 years later
- 22:36or whatever. And I remember thinking, man,
- 22:40this is a big deal and everybody in our sport thought it was a
- 22:42big deal. And, and, and Joe Gibbs had a
- 22:45positive impact on our sport. There's no doubt he bought, he
- 22:49brought thousands and thousands of fans to our sport and even
- 22:52more eyeballs to our sport and people that watch it maybe
- 22:55didn't stick on and stay with us, but there's a lot, a lot of
- 22:59long time fans in our sport today that came because of Joe
- 23:02Gibbs in those days. And again, he was a national
- 23:04personality here. Now we got Michael MJ showing
- 23:09up. It's been five years since they
- 23:11started. I think maybe 6, maybe this or
- 23:13six year. And I've been waiting, I've been
- 23:17waiting all this time for the Joe Gibbs effect to happen with
- 23:20Michael, OK, he came in, I mean, every being a lot of everybody
- 23:24in the sport praised him and wrote stuff about him, talked
- 23:27about him and did did all that. But it seems like it was like a
- 23:32perfect storm happened, man, when he, him and NASCAR got in
- 23:35the suit. They got suing each other last
- 23:37year. And it comes down to the winter
- 23:39time in December. And that's all over the news.
- 23:41It's if you go on social media, it's all you hear Michael Jordan
- 23:44suing NASCAR, All right, Michael Jordan this, Michael Jordan that
- 23:48NASCAR, they get that thing sold.
- 23:51We go to friggin Daytona. Michael Jordan wins, his team
- 23:54wins in Daytona 500 and it's all over not just national, but
- 24:00worldwide. And here's the reason I say
- 24:01worldwide. Michael Joe Gibbs was a
- 24:04nationwide product brand. Michael Jordan is a worldwide
- 24:07brand and product, right? I don't mean product right,
- 24:10Mike's Mike, but his name and and his influence and his his
- 24:15reach is worldwide. And for some reason is like a
- 24:18perfect storm happened five years later or six years later
- 24:21after he came to the sport. All of a sudden it's like the
- 24:26country and the world is finding out, hey, Michael Jordan, he's
- 24:29in NASCAR. Michael Jordan has a race team.
- 24:31Well, he's been here five years. Well, guess what?
- 24:33Michael's so low keyed, he doesn't do interviews.
- 24:35Everybody knows that. Very low keyed, you know, be
- 24:39hard, hard, hard pressed to get a interview out of him from
- 24:42anybody, right? He just, he's very, he's very
- 24:46high. Kind of like Earnhardt in that
- 24:47stuff, right? They all kept himself.
- 24:49Michael keeps himself, but to go to Daytona and do what they did,
- 24:54Jamie got the interviews. Then they go to Atlanta, man,
- 24:57and they win again. And there's Michael during the
- 25:00race telling Jamie Little on national TV that no, it's not
- 25:05cold. I'm so excited.
- 25:07I don't even know it's cold out here.
- 25:09And for for all that to happen, it's like, man, we're the whole
- 25:15country now is talking about Michael Jordan.
- 25:17Now, what I mean by the Joe give effect is we're going to have
- 25:20the Michael Jordan effect. We're going to get we're going
- 25:22to get thousands and thousands of people watching our sport now
- 25:26for a while just because of the interest of Michael Jordan.
- 25:28There's there's no denying that. There's no doubt of that.
- 25:31You know, this is what this is kind of the moment that I've
- 25:35been waiting on since Michael Jordan came in their sport,
- 25:37right? And I've never outside of her
- 25:40sport. I don't know know how many
- 25:42people or the rest of the country or the world knew about
- 25:44him being in her sport. But now after the last, what, 3
- 25:48months, four months? Everybody in this country, most
- 25:50people in the world know Michael Jordan is a part of NASCAR.
- 25:55And the neat part about it, there's nothing pretendious
- 25:58about that. There's nothing.
- 26:01There's nothing other than he loves our sport of NASCAR.
- 26:06And it was instilled in him by his daddy.
- 26:07His daddy took him as a little kid to the races, right?
- 26:11And his daddy loved it. And then Michael fell in love
- 26:13with it. Then he spent a few years off
- 26:15messing around with basketball or something making a few
- 26:17billion dollars, right? But then he kind of, it's kind
- 26:21of like, it's kind of like you could see it, man, who's at the
- 26:24racetrack and what he's talking to people and interacting and
- 26:27even being interviewed what you didn't ever do.
- 26:30It's like it's like he's home. It's like this is his home.
- 26:33Maybe you know, it's like he's back to you.
- 26:36I don't know if it's back to his roots or whatever it is, but the
- 26:40other thing it does too, it it gives him, you know, the
- 26:43competitive person like Michael, you know, he hadn't had anything
- 26:46to have these things get these juices flowing in in a couple of
- 26:49decade or two, right? And believe me, believe you be
- 26:53this. If you're in NASCAR and you're
- 26:54in that garage here and you've got an ownership role in the
- 26:56team, you're going to be sweating bullets and jumping up
- 27:00and down and screaming and hollering if your team wins.
- 27:03And you know, he's a perfect example of of a of a of a race
- 27:07fan number one that is now a race team owner and.
- 27:11NASCAR, everybody in our sport, we we can't do anything but
- 27:15benefit from from him being there.
- 27:17And again, it's a Joe Gibbs effect, IE now Michael Jordan
- 27:20effect. Yeah, no, you're exactly right.
- 27:23I I love that you touched on it because I wanted to bring that
- 27:25up too. You can tell the competitor like
- 27:28this is, you know, he had, he's been retired from basketball for
- 27:32a couple decades. He had the ownership in the NBA,
- 27:35didn't really see, as far as you know, wins and banners hanging
- 27:38up, didn't see a lot of success there.
- 27:40He sold that team. This is but this is is you can
- 27:44tell it's scratching that competitive itch and he's fully
- 27:48that never you might have to give up.
- 27:52You know, you got to retire from basketball or whatever, but it's
- 27:54not like that competitive drive goes away.
- 27:56It's still there. You find something else that
- 27:59they get you fired. I think he even said it after
- 28:01they won Daytona last week. He said something the effect of
- 28:04he felt like he was like winning another NBA championship.
- 28:08Basically, that's how he felt and that's that's legit.
- 28:10I'll give you the the MJ effect. Here's just a little small
- 28:14example of it from this weekend. So my buddy Kevin Mcalpin, who
- 28:18you know, he officiated my wedding long time Braves Nate
- 28:22radio network reporter networks for impact financial here in
- 28:26Atlanta. So he he and his son Max went to
- 28:29their first NASCAR race this weekend.
- 28:31They went to the race yesterday, had a good time and they were,
- 28:34they were very cold, very, very cold.
- 28:37But he said they had a great time and he was posting all
- 28:39these pictures. They were down on Pit Rd. for
- 28:41the race and walking around and Max is getting this picture next
- 28:44to all the cars and all that. But then Kevin sent in in a
- 28:50Group, A friends group text. We have he sent a picture
- 28:53because the airport and for those who don't know, in
- 28:55Atlanta, the airport that all the drivers and teams fly in and
- 28:58out of is right there, right there by the racetrack outside
- 29:01of turn two. I forget it's right there by the
- 29:04racetrack. Kevin sends us a picture and it
- 29:07was just of MJS plane sitting there at at the airport.
- 29:13He saw that new immediately. That's Michael Jordan's plane
- 29:16because it's kind of it's hard to mistake it, but that's just
- 29:19kind of that effect of somebody's never been to a
- 29:21NASCAR racer like turn Michael Jordan's here, you know, and
- 29:24they're aware that Michael Jordan's there and the the the
- 29:28effect of that just can't be understated.
- 29:31I tell you, if you're going to go through all the pain of that
- 29:34lawsuit and how nasty that got publicly and it was and it was
- 29:38bordering on not just detrimental, but catastrophic
- 29:44for the sport if if it played out a certain way.
- 29:49And when I say a certain way, I'm not trying to be cryptic
- 29:52there. I'm saying we, you and I talked
- 29:53about it before, had they not reached a settlement and one
- 29:57either side just wins and one side loses, I think in the end
- 30:00for the sport, the sport would have lost regardless of who who
- 30:04won and who lost. So for them to go through all
- 30:07that, if you're going to go through all that, boy, it
- 30:09couldn't, you couldn't have scripted it any better for this
- 30:12to be the way it comes out. Where again, we talked about
- 30:16last week, Michael Jordan's team wins the Daytona 500.
- 30:19He is smiling and fired up in Victory Lane and Jim France is
- 30:21right there with him in Victory Lane, smiling and fired up
- 30:25because he knows how good this like how good this is for the
- 30:27sport. So I mean, it's just a
- 30:31incredible, incredible first two weeks, man It's it's I don't
- 30:34think NASCAR could have asked for much of anything better
- 30:36these first two weeks. I really don't Mother Nature
- 30:38cooperated finally, for the most part, they had, you know, at
- 30:42least for the cup cup race. It it cooperated and it's it's
- 30:48it's it's part of the show now. M JS there, which is which is
- 30:52great. I wanted to I do want to talk
- 30:55let's talk about putting on a show.
- 30:58Love him or hate him, Carson Josavar is is part of the show.
- 31:02And I had a people and I everybody's going to have strong
- 31:05opinions about him and I interviewed him last year on the
- 31:08Braves podcast as well and got to spend a little bit of time
- 31:10with him. I I liked him.
- 31:12I found him to be the same guy that he is you see on TV.
- 31:15He's really funny on social media.
- 31:17That's who he is in person too. Very fast.
- 31:20Definitely he's got you know, he's he's he's going to win
- 31:26races at some point, but you know, he's still he's still very
- 31:29young in his career, but I'll come back to what I started
- 31:31with. Love him or hate him, he's
- 31:34entertaining to watch. So what, what, what did you,
- 31:37what did you think of Josefar and the particularly the move
- 31:39late there? Well, I'm a fan host of our I'm
- 31:42a fan, you know, and I'll tell you why.
- 31:45I'll tell you the result of that being a fan.
- 31:48I found myself during the race at Echo Park Speedway on TV
- 31:53looking for the 77 car and I and I I found myself doing it at
- 31:57Daytona, but at Daytona kept having left rear tires.
- 32:00He's spinning down the he's kept spinning out with the blooming
- 32:02tires. But the the deal, Atlanta or
- 32:04Echo Park Speedway, I kept looking for the 77 car on TV,
- 32:09right? And I'm like, yeah, OK, this
- 32:12guy's got it going on. Yeah, he, you know, he catches
- 32:15so much. Probably if I'm a driver and I'm
- 32:18in, I'm one of the other 35 drivers or whatever, I'm
- 32:20probably pissed off that guy 'cause he's done something wrong
- 32:23to me and I'd assume him not being out on the racetrack with
- 32:26me, right. So as from a driver's
- 32:28standpoint, I probably wouldn't like that.
- 32:31But from a fan standpoint, man, you know, it's not the next
- 32:37coming of Earnhardt, but good Lord of mercy, he, he's excited
- 32:40to watch. I mean, you know, the ill
- 32:42advised trying to get in the hole going into turn one of the
- 32:46last lap, you know, that the wrecked that wrecked out.
- 32:51Who was that erect? Eric Bell.
- 32:54Yeah. Christopher Bell, Yeah.
- 32:56You know, for like 1/2 a second, there was like maybe 1 inch of
- 33:01width wider than the car. That hole was there and he he
- 33:04had it wide open. He stuck it in there.
- 33:05And then that hole went away. And then of course, Bell got
- 33:08wrecked. And then, you know, the rest is
- 33:10history. But you know, it's like my
- 33:14problem with him is, you know, he's got so much talent and, and
- 33:17so many people yapping about him and, and the good party.
- 33:20He doesn't seem to be letting it affect him yet.
- 33:22Because here's the deal with drivers.
- 33:24And I've seen this many times drivers have come in, they're
- 33:27very fast, they're very aggressive and they wreck it all
- 33:29the time and everybody gets mad at them and they keep, they get
- 33:33themselves reined in a little bit where they're not wrecking.
- 33:36Guess what? They lose that edge, They lose
- 33:38that little bit of speed that made them excited.
- 33:41I've, I've seen, I've also seen it the other way.
- 33:43Guys come in and, and, and tone down the, the, the ill advised
- 33:46moves, the ill advised moves. Excuse me, they're still
- 33:50excited. They still got that edge.
- 33:53We don't know what's going to happen with Carson.
- 33:55We don't if he, you know, maybe he just keeps doing the way he
- 33:58is. Maybe he just keeps it like it
- 33:59is. And, you know, whatever happens,
- 34:01happens. But, you know, I just don't want
- 34:03him. I don't want him reeling
- 34:06anything in and lose. That is that that's what was
- 34:09what makes him so exciting right now.
- 34:12The other part of it is, you know, he's not with a Hendrick,
- 34:15he's not with a Penske, he's not with a Gibbs.
- 34:17You know, right now he's with Spire.
- 34:19And this is no disrespect to Spire, but they're not on the
- 34:22level as Hendrick, Gibbs and, and and Penske right now, right?
- 34:26And so you know how long that team stays like that before they
- 34:32become a constant up front runner.
- 34:35I don't, I, I don't want Kosovar to flounder in a bad car for a
- 34:40long time when he gets himself taken out of the sport or his
- 34:44spirit gets broken, right, Just because maybe he's not with a
- 34:48top tier team. Hopefully spirit can get it up
- 34:51there. They can do that.
- 34:52And, and, and, and this comes into play when you go to the
- 34:56plate races, Ricky, you know, the, the, they're not plates
- 34:59anymore. I call them plate races.
- 35:00Restricted horsepower, let's put it that way.
- 35:04When everything that equals everything up, it equals the
- 35:07cars up. Well, every time they have one
- 35:10of those deals for equal cars, guess what, that 77's up towards
- 35:13the front somewhere, right when he's just showing off your
- 35:16talent and what he's doing, he's he's up front.
- 35:19So then if you go back to the races where you know, it's it's
- 35:23you take it a little bit away from the driver to put more on
- 35:25the car, then, you know, he's a kind of not an also runner, but
- 35:29you know, not not doing what we saw the last two weeks.
- 35:32And there's a lot of things going on there with him, a lot
- 35:35of things going on with him that I want to see work out great.
- 35:38But I will say this, bottom line, I'm a fan.
- 35:40I love, I love, I love watching, you know, if he just wasn't
- 35:44wrecking and hitting people and all that, you know, ill advised
- 35:47moves, but hell, every lot, so many drivers go through this.
- 35:50So many have gone through. But like back in our day, the
- 35:54time you got in the cup, you'd already went through this,
- 35:57right? The time you got hired in cup,
- 35:59you weren't 19 or 20 years of age.
- 36:01You're 30 years of age to get hired to cup car.
- 36:03Well, you've already gone through the maturation process
- 36:06of wrecking and getting wrecked and going in holes and doing
- 36:09things you shouldn't. The time you get in cup, that's
- 36:11all that's history you got. You pretty much got that all
- 36:15figured out. And as time is going on now,
- 36:17we're getting younger and younger and younger guys out
- 36:19there and they're, they're have to learn all this stuff and the
- 36:21big lights on the big stage in front of everybody.
- 36:24And that's kind of where Carson is at right now.
- 36:27But you know, hopefully, hopefully, man, it, it'll, it'll
- 36:30work. I, I, I think, you know, I'm
- 36:32kind of like Kyle Petty on this deal, man.
- 36:34I think it's going to be a superstar.
- 36:36I really do. That's what I'm hoping for.
- 36:38I just laid out some things that kind of could hinder him a
- 36:40little bit and I don't want to see that happening.
- 36:43Yeah, No, I'm, I'm with you. I agree with you.
- 36:44I think he's it's going to be a star.
- 36:46I think the, the biggest thing beyond his God-given talent that
- 36:50he's got going for him is he really doesn't seem like I don't
- 36:53think any of it affects him. I don't think he seems to be
- 36:56from everything you see. I don't think he's one bit at
- 36:59all worried or concerned about making friends that are fellow
- 37:02drivers. I don't think he's I don't, and
- 37:06I mean, I'll, I'll admit, if it was me, I'd have a little bit of
- 37:09problem with that because I'm I'm somebody.
- 37:10I want people to like me. And if I'm around these guys, I
- 37:13want them to to like me, but I guess I want them to respect me
- 37:16and like me and all that. But that would probably be my a
- 37:20hindrance to me and that. Well, you don't have to.
- 37:22You don't have. They don't have to like you, but
- 37:24right? But they do have to respect.
- 37:26You right, they don't. Like you, no big deal, but if
- 37:29they don't respect you also, then you're in trouble.
- 37:31But they have to respect the guy that's Got Talent like that, you
- 37:34know, It's just the way it is. Can you think of, and maybe you
- 37:37can off the top of your head, but you laid out a couple
- 37:40scenarios of somebody that comes in hot like that, but then when
- 37:43they get rained in, they lose the edge.
- 37:45But then you said what you've seen it go the other way where
- 37:48somebody comes in and they they managed to kind of clean up some
- 37:52of the ill advised moves, but they still have that edge and
- 37:55and the aggressiveness that the good aggressiveness.
- 37:59Can you think who who would be an example of somebody?
- 38:01Number one, Number one standouts Ernie.
- 38:03Ernie Irvin. OK.
- 38:05Ernie Erv was #1 on that list for me.
- 38:07That's why. That was Ernie.
- 38:11Ernie is very talented, God-given talent fast.
- 38:13But Lord of Mercy caused a lot of trouble, right?
- 38:16A lot of races, cars got wrecked and he made a conscious effort.
- 38:20He got in front of us at a drivers meeting somewhere after
- 38:23he took out a bunch of cars at Talladega and apologized
- 38:26everybody in front of the drivers meeting.
- 38:27So I'm going to straighten this out.
- 38:28And he did to his credit, he did right?
- 38:31And he didn't lose a bit of fastness or that edge.
- 38:35He you know, he's one of those guys that when he reigned it in
- 38:38man, he was still just as good as he was before, right.
- 38:40So you know, that's where that's where host of our needs to be at
- 38:43some point. Yeah, well, it's going to be
- 38:46going to be fun to watch for sure.
- 38:49I don't want to leave Atlanta here without talking about at
- 38:53least touching on the the other races.
- 38:55Man, the O'Reilly series is is so much fun to watch.
- 38:59I really like where that series is at right now.
- 39:01It's kind of got its own it's own group of kind of stars, you
- 39:05would say. And then just enough mix of cup
- 39:09guys showing up every now and then to make it interesting.
- 39:13That's something I've harped on with that series for a long time
- 39:16because I just remember it when it was still the Bush Grand
- 39:19National Series, when you were coming up through it, when it
- 39:21was still a relatively new series.
- 39:23And what made it so cool back in those days was you had guys like
- 39:27yourself that that we're using it like a lot of guys or most
- 39:30people use it now to try to get up to the top level of Cup.
- 39:33But you also had guys that were really, really darn good race
- 39:36car drivers who I don't know if some of them ever even really
- 39:40trying to get the Cup. It had its own identity where it
- 39:42was a lot more short tracks. You'd still run what Daytona,
- 39:45Charlotte, Darlington, Dover, but you're also running Orange
- 39:51County and Pulaski and Lanier and, you know, name South Boston
- 39:58Hickories, on and on and on. So you had guys that were, were
- 40:02content being really good at, at, at those places and had
- 40:05their own team, could have, could afford to have their own
- 40:07team at that level. So you had its own group of
- 40:09stars, its own personality. And every now and then you
- 40:13sprinkle in some cup guys, mainly at some of the the larger
- 40:16tracks and it was just a really good mix.
- 40:19And I feel like what they've got going right now in the O'Reilly
- 40:21series is a really, really good, good mixture.
- 40:24They put on a great show. I felt this way last year,
- 40:26honestly. Then I got, we had that deal at
- 40:28Phoenix last year, the O'Reilly race where some, some TV
- 40:32stations, they took the white flag in overtime and some TV
- 40:35stations cut away from the fee. Well, my, my station, my station
- 40:38here is one of them. And I got so mad that I just
- 40:42thought I didn't boycott, but I the next Saturday, instead of
- 40:45rearranging my day to make sure I was around for that race, I
- 40:48was like, well, if I happen to be home, I'll watch it.
- 40:52So and I got mad for a little bit, but I came back.
- 40:55But they've got the series itself is great.
- 41:00Austin Hill. You got to watch him at these
- 41:02types of places. Course it was exciting fitness.
- 41:04Sheldon Creed ends up getting his first one.
- 41:07I didn't realize till I said on the broadcast I knew he'd
- 41:09finished second a lot. 15 times he'd finished second and hadn't
- 41:12won. So that was cool to see somebody
- 41:15breakthrough the broadcast booth for those O'Reilly series races
- 41:20is great. I mean the the call, I thought
- 41:22Adam Alexander, the booth call that race was was great.
- 41:25And don't anybody listen to this take this as a knock on any of
- 41:28the other broadcast, because it's not.
- 41:29I just I'm giving that series and that broadcast team some
- 41:32love because I I just thought that was a really, really it was
- 41:36a great broadcast. They, they got, they called the
- 41:38moment really well. So I'm just, I, I don't, I don't
- 41:42even have a question for you other than just saying I'm
- 41:44really enjoying watching that, that series right now.
- 41:46I like what they got going there.
- 41:48It's it's a fun, it's a good, it's I tell you what, what made
- 41:52me what I couldn't stand was about 20 years ago, and I don't
- 41:55fault anybody for doing it. But where you had guys that were
- 41:59competing full time in both cups cup series.
- 42:02And I guess at that time it was probably nationwide.
- 42:04Whatever form of it was then, I couldn't stand that.
- 42:09But what they've got right now, I really, really like the the
- 42:13mixture in the formula they got. So just what are your thoughts
- 42:16on that series? When I, when I, when I came
- 42:17through the Bush series, excuse me, the majority of the folks
- 42:22there were making their living at that.
- 42:24They didn't have aspirations of going on the Cup.
- 42:26You know, my, my reason for being in Bush was trying to get
- 42:30into cup racing. That was that way.
- 42:32And as time evolved after me, then it started going another
- 42:36way. We started getting more and more
- 42:37of the guys coming in, just making that a stepping stone
- 42:40into cup. But you know, things evolve and
- 42:44things change. But like right now, you're
- 42:45right. I mean, they got a good deal
- 42:46going on the that race, that particular race at Atlanta, Echo
- 42:53Car, Echo Park Speedway, you know the couple things about
- 42:57that. I, I go back to Austin hill #1
- 43:01ill advised block going into three.
- 43:02It wasn't going to happen, right?
- 43:04Chance staying had it coming. I mean he was coming so fast.
- 43:08He'll pulls down on him. No way that's going to work.
- 43:11You know, at that point, Hills just got to stay in his lane and
- 43:15take the consequences of probably losing the race coming
- 43:19down. You're going to do if you do
- 43:20that, you're going to get rid. What amazed me, man, he got that
- 43:23thing crossed up and went went in the flat.
- 43:25He was able to turn the thing back left real quick and never
- 43:27spun it out. He even said that I think the
- 43:29post race. Can you how about that save?
- 43:31And I'm like, yeah, I give you that all.
- 43:33Should I give you that then? I didn't.
- 43:34Blame him. I didn't blame him for touting
- 43:36that because I thought that, golly, I said it live, me and my
- 43:39wife Laura Watson. And I was like, I went and he
- 43:41saved it. Like, I, I mean, I was just
- 43:43waiting for that. I mean, I was getting ready.
- 43:45I was waiting for the viciousness to happen of either
- 43:49or if he didn't get T-bone, T-bone in the wall himself.
- 43:54So that was an incredible save, yeah.
- 43:57Another thing about him, you know he when Sheldon Creed talk
- 44:01about Sheldon Creed, kudos to him, by the way, I I didn't know
- 44:0415 seconds, but I knew he'd never won.
- 44:06I didn't know he'd finished second how many times?
- 44:08I knew he'd finished second a lot, but he'd never won a race.
- 44:11And then when when he departed RCR, man, that was a bad deal.
- 44:14You know, if you remember Petrie was jumping on him at
- 44:16Martinsville and about something the last lap.
- 44:20And then, you know, Austin Hill was mouth and Sheldon Creed.
- 44:23I'll be glad when he's not my partner and our teammate
- 44:26anymore. And you know, what was so
- 44:29freaking cool when Victor Lane there was there was Austin Hill
- 44:32coming to Victor Lane, pouring beer on the boy, hugging him,
- 44:35high fiving him and truly happy for the boy's success.
- 44:38So, you know, that tells everybody, right?
- 44:40They made-up. I, I saw some post on social
- 44:42media since that race. I thought that two were
- 44:44fighting. I thought they were fighting,
- 44:46you know, and of course that series and those things don't
- 44:48get covered the way the cup deal does.
- 44:50So people don't really know what's going on.
- 44:52So I don't really know other than they evidently they patched
- 44:54it up and that was good to see. So I didn't know that either.
- 44:58I'm like you, I watch, I watch the race every week.
- 45:00I don't keep up with anything beyond the race itself.
- 45:04I'm not keeping up with a lot of the other stuff, like to the
- 45:06level that I am with the with the Cup series per SE.
- 45:10So I didn't realize until afterward that I think they said
- 45:14it on the broadcast. And then I saw Austin Hill's
- 45:16post he put on social media like that after that whole deal.
- 45:20And that was a bad deal. Martinsville when, when Sheldon
- 45:23was leaving RCR. I mean, there were definitely a
- 45:25lot of people mad at each other over that deal, that the two of
- 45:28them, Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed, had become friends since
- 45:30then and become good friends then.
- 45:32And Austin posted a picture of the two of them.
- 45:36It looked like a summertime pool party where they were both
- 45:39wearing like just some some, some very American outfits,
- 45:43let's say. And I had a whole lot of beer
- 45:45around. And it was a funny, funny
- 45:46picture, but it was kind of. But Austin's post was nice and
- 45:50just talking about how happy he was for Sheldon.
- 45:52So it was that was that was very cool to see it.
- 45:55I was just like you. I did not realize they had
- 45:57patched thing not only patched things up, but apparently have
- 45:59become very good friends since all that.
- 46:02So that was another nice thing. Whenever you see a guy like that
- 46:05get his first win. And I mean, I could even go back
- 46:10to your first win at Dover in 87.
- 46:12I could, I could play right now the broadcast of the opening of
- 46:16the broadcast very next week at Martinsville with Jerry Punch
- 46:18talking about this, how if you can't win, it's always good when
- 46:24you see one of your fellow competitors that you that you
- 46:26like a lot, that you respect a lot, get there first when and to
- 46:31see his fellow competitors all kind of, you know, giving him
- 46:34thumbs up and to see him happy for him.
- 46:36It's like, OK, that kind of tells you a little bit about
- 46:40how, how his competitors view him that they they, they like
- 46:43him and they, that he has their respect.
- 46:45So yeah, it was just it was it was another great race for that
- 46:49series. It's a it's a fun, fun series to
- 46:51watch right now. And yeah, well, and we'll touch
- 46:58on the trucks real quick. Just Atlanta just had three
- 47:00great races this week and Kyle Busch wins.
- 47:02Carson Hosavar helps him to the win.
- 47:05I thought that was really cool. Just another fun race.
- 47:09It's cool to see Kyle Busch like Brexton, his son runs out there,
- 47:12like to see, you know, the family side of it.
- 47:14That's another thing you think about 20 years ago, Kyle Busch
- 47:1720 years ago and now you see him out there as a as kind of a dad
- 47:21and all that. That was that was really cool.
- 47:23Aspire to to to win that and Hosovar being a good teammate
- 47:28and wing man in that situation I thought was.
- 47:30Yeah, he yeah, yeah, he was. He was good on that.
- 47:33Nobody had any reason to fuss about hosting far in the truck
- 47:35race. I mean, he helped, he helped his
- 47:37teammate win the race, right. And and it's good.
- 47:43It's, I tell you, no little subject.
- 47:46But NASCAR, we need NASCAR needs a couple things to happen.
- 47:51If it be, it would be cool. NASCAR needs Kyle Busch winning.
- 47:57Yeah. NASCAR needs Chase Elliott
- 48:00winning again, right? If somehow another you can
- 48:04magically do a formula in, in those two guys, you know, start
- 48:07winning again, that would be that would be it would be good
- 48:11for a sport right now. You know, and you got a little
- 48:14taste of that little flavor of that with Kyle and Victor Lane
- 48:18in that truck race. Like, man, I'm sitting there
- 48:20thinking, man, you know, he needs to be winning on Sunday
- 48:23more, you know, are back to winning these old ways.
- 48:26It's just a a good Little Mix. But I tell you, you know,
- 48:30everybody wants to win and cut, but it's very, very hard to do.
- 48:33Very hard to do. It is.
- 48:36It'll be interesting to see. We got our first Rd. course of
- 48:39the year. So I think we go to a road
- 48:40course now in 2026. The story then, I don't care
- 48:44which row, of course it is. The story is can anybody beat
- 48:46SVG? And I actually, you know,
- 48:49Richard Petty was talking about, he was quoted recently talking
- 48:52about how we don't have. Oh, what was the expression?
- 48:56He used somebody to chase like a yeah, you have like a dominant
- 49:01force. Yeah.
- 49:02And I. Yeah.
- 49:03I don't know. I don't think it's the worst
- 49:04thing if you have if you have a little bit more parody as
- 49:07opposed to somebody just dominating the whole series.
- 49:10But I do feel like we have a little bit of it, at least with
- 49:13the road courses. And then you got a guy that like
- 49:15seems unbeatable, which to me actually makes it intriguing.
- 49:20You go into these Rd. courses like, well, can anybody beat
- 49:23this guy? Everybody's touting Connor
- 49:25Zilich and he's apparently he's a very, very good Rd. racer.
- 49:28Can he? And he's his teammate.
- 49:29So, you know, he's got the same equipment.
- 49:31Can he overcome Chase is a good Rd. racer.
- 49:34Then you got guys like Michael McDowell.
- 49:36I mean you got. Yeah, to me.
- 49:38That's intriguing. Do you have cuz he going to
- 49:41dominate because then at some point somebody will beat him,
- 49:44right? Somebody's going to beat him and
- 49:45it'll be that much more of an accomplishment that they beat
- 49:49him. So I don't know that I want a
- 49:51full year of like what the king was laying out, but I feel like
- 49:54we kind of have a little bit of that with the road courses that
- 49:56you got somebody it don't Matt. Nothing else that's happened.
- 49:59It don't matter what else is going on.
- 50:01Nothing else matters. You go into this type of track,
- 50:04there is one guy everybody's chasing and that, at least for
- 50:08these few races, is interesting to me.
- 50:10I don't know what. Do you think?
- 50:12Yeah, no, I agree with that. Disagree 100%.
- 50:15He in a shout out and you said his name is Ellie.
- 50:18Shout out to that dude, man. The two races in these draft
- 50:21races, you know, that car has been doing that.
- 50:24That dude's been doing well, I think.
- 50:26What's he frigging 19 years old, which is ridiculous.
- 50:29And, and, and I saw him make a few moves at Daytona and
- 50:34Atlanta. I'm like, oh boy, okay, he's
- 50:37figuring this thing out here, right?
- 50:39I'm like this this guy is the real deal.
- 50:42And, you know, it wouldn't surprise me a bit seem go to to
- 50:46where are we going? Coda Is that what it's called
- 50:48Coda Coda do do real well there again, you know, 'cause he he
- 50:53does. He did real well last year at
- 50:54those races. So, you know, excited to see,
- 50:56excited to see what happens with.
- 50:58Him Speaking of SVGI, actually at one point last night's race
- 51:02in Atlanta or at Echo Park late, he snuck up in there in like top
- 51:06five, top ten and I even said out loud, like where does Fiji
- 51:09come from? Like every now and then he if he
- 51:12if a guy like that's making improvements on and some places
- 51:14like that, that's another interesting thing to.
- 51:16He stuck in there in Daytona time or two also during the
- 51:19race, he was like there there's a road racer up in here mixing
- 51:22up these guys, right? You know, I know that, I know
- 51:26that the track house, I know they've got a lot of, they've
- 51:30got a lot of well, they got a lot of support for him, but they
- 51:34they have a lot of they really want him to do good and they
- 51:37think he will OK that that that whole team, the owner, they they
- 51:40think he's got a lot of potential once he gets this
- 51:43thing figured out and we'll see who knows all.
- 51:46Right. I wanted to, I saw this today on
- 51:48on social media. It's kind of a debate that some
- 51:50folks are having. And of course we talked so much
- 51:52about the point system in the offseason.
- 51:55And then of course NASCAR made the change, which we agreed with
- 51:58and a lot of people agreed with. So I saw some folks debating
- 52:01this today and I wanted to get your take on it.
- 52:03And I'll, I'll, I'll tell you my take first and then you can, you
- 52:06can say what yours is, how the question or the topic is how
- 52:10early should we actually start paying attention to the point
- 52:15standings and should that be a major talking point as we're
- 52:19going to the race tracker, we're broadcasting these races and
- 52:22talking about these races each week.
- 52:23Now here's my take on it. And I am a, I'm a baseball guy.
- 52:28I work in baseball, love baseball.
- 52:30So I baseball, I love NASCAR, but baseball is just my #1
- 52:34sport. That's what's consumed a lot of
- 52:36my life and it's my career and what I love.
- 52:40This is why I tell folks, obviously if you don't watch
- 52:42baseball, the regular season, 6 months long, you pretty much
- 52:45playing a game every day. You play 162 games in a season.
- 52:48It's it's a long season. When in your division is is key.
- 52:54That's the first step. You can get a wild card to go to
- 52:57the playoffs, but when in your divisions, what you want to do
- 53:00to get into the playoffs, the season starts basically, let's
- 53:04call it you run an April 1st to about October 1st pretty much
- 53:07give or take a few days. That's the six month window.
- 53:11I don't even really look. I don't even look at the
- 53:15standings. So that would be baseball's
- 53:17equivalent of of a point system. I don't even start looking till
- 53:22maybe late May and I really, really don't honest to God start
- 53:27actually checking it regularly until June.
- 53:30So and tore about a good, good third of the way into the
- 53:37season, maybe even a little bit beyond that.
- 53:40Do I actually really start paying attention to the
- 53:42division? Because I've seen on both sides
- 53:46of it. I've seen my team, the Braves,
- 53:47I've seen us on both sides of it over my many years as a as a
- 53:50baseball fan. I've seen us be down by
- 53:54seemingly insurmountable deficit and come back and win the
- 53:57division and I've seen us let some leads slip away.
- 54:02So all that to say, I'm not a week into the season or two
- 54:05weeks into a six month season and am I sitting there looking
- 54:08at the standings? Because it to me it just doesn't
- 54:10matter yet. So point standings, I'm anxious
- 54:14to see how it all works out. I don't envision myself looking
- 54:16at the NASCAR points until we're well into the season.
- 54:20So what do you think? When When would you actually
- 54:23start looking? As a competitor, you start at
- 54:27Daytona right inside the garage. You're looking at it there, but
- 54:31it's not really relevant for a long time.
- 54:36The problem with here's the problem we got, we got to break
- 54:38the habit of the media. We're so ingrained every week
- 54:42last few years about the points, the points that is a chase when
- 54:47you're in and all that. It it, it, it's kind of like old
- 54:50habit with the guy, with the press guys.
- 54:52And I get it, I understand it. But the points don't even really
- 54:55need to be talked about right now.
- 54:57They don't even be discussed. They don't need to be talked
- 54:59about is it's not it's not of relevance right now.
- 55:03They need to be talking about the actual race in the winner of
- 55:07the race and what happened in the race that, you know, give
- 55:10that 99.9% of all the content. Leave that little tiny bit
- 55:14there. All he's, he's 19th in points,
- 55:16by the way, right, 38 out of first or whatever that is.
- 55:21You know, I just, I just don't want, I don't want any.
- 55:24I don't, I, I was just so, so frustrated last few years with
- 55:29every frigging week. That's all we talked about.
- 55:31We talked about it during the the broadcast.
- 55:34The broadcasters will talk about it continually all day long,
- 55:37right? Well, he's going to win the
- 55:38chase against five points. He's going to do this that
- 55:40points this and doing it in points, points point I.
- 55:43It was very frustrating for me as a fan, I guess you say to sit
- 55:49and watch that stuff, right. And when we made this change,
- 55:52I'm like, thankfully, good Lord, we ain't going to listen to that
- 55:55all the time now. And I noticed they're they're
- 55:58getting away from a little bit. Not as much as I'd like for him
- 56:00to it just it just it doesn't need to be discussed right now.
- 56:04It really doesn't it. What needs to be discussed is
- 56:06that driver, that driver, host of our right Shreddick Wallace.
- 56:12All that stuff is what needs to be talked about, not the points.
- 56:14Right now, it's too way, way, way too early to to put any
- 56:18relevance into what's going on with the points.
- 56:19It's just it's just way too early, you know, and of course
- 56:22you finish last or finish your first.
- 56:24It feels good as a competitor. The competitors know, right?
- 56:27The teams, they all know what they're doing.
- 56:29They know what's going on with the points.
- 56:30They know where they're at, where they got to make up points
- 56:32and all that stuff. But it's not something that we
- 56:34need to continue to be talking about every week.
- 56:36And I, and again, well, that was one of my hopes with going with
- 56:40the new deal this year that we wouldn't have to listen to that
- 56:42crap by every, every 5 minutes of every broadcast and all week
- 56:45long on social media. So, you know, that's the way it
- 56:48is. I think that's something I'll
- 56:49I'll draw Atlanta Braves comparison.
- 56:52So our Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox and then his one of
- 56:55his successors and protegees, Brian Snitker, who was our
- 56:58manager for the last decade and of course he just retired.
- 57:00But one of their mantras that they preached was, you know, you
- 57:05play in baseball, you play series of three games, right?
- 57:07You play a team for three games and you move on to the next
- 57:10series for another three games. Your goal is each day, show up,
- 57:14win that day, but win series. That's a big thing.
- 57:17Let's look, we got three games against whoever the New York
- 57:19Mets this weekend. Win, take two out of three.
- 57:22And if you do that enough throughout the season, you're
- 57:24going to look at the standings and go, all right, we're right
- 57:26where we need to be. And of course you get down to it
- 57:29like when it's getting close, if you're in a close race, like
- 57:31yeah, of course you're looking at and you know the math, you
- 57:33know what you need to win. But the point is if you're going
- 57:36about your business and doing what you need to do along the
- 57:39way, then that standings there will be you'll be where you
- 57:42want, you'll be right in the mix of where you want to be if
- 57:44you're doing your job that you should be doing and the bounces
- 57:48and the, you know, fall your way along the way.
- 57:49So I completely, I would look at it this way.
- 57:53Like we've sat here and talked almost an hour and I only
- 57:56brought up the point subject just because I thought I saw it
- 57:58was a little debate online at no point yesterday or last week
- 58:03watching Daytona that I once think about points.
- 58:06And then that was a freeing. It was actually a nice freeing
- 58:10thought because I've been thinking about we should be
- 58:13talking about Tyler Reddick winning the first two races,
- 58:15Michael Jordan being on TV and being now like a great
- 58:19ambassador for the sport. We're talking about Bubba being
- 58:22so close, talking about host of our just doing all the things
- 58:26he's doing and the moves he's making.
- 58:28That's that's what you need to be talking about week in and
- 58:31week out. And then they'll come a time
- 58:33when the points thing gets interesting and becomes a
- 58:36legitimate talking point. You know, when you get later in
- 58:39the year, because I remember that even back in your day,
- 58:41especially you take a like a like greatest points race of all
- 58:44time, right, 92. They'll come a time where it's
- 58:47like, all right, we're really checking that now and we're
- 58:49focusing on all right, if this is what needs to happen this
- 58:51week and and that's legit, you should be doing it then as a fan
- 58:55or broadcast. But two weeks in, ain't it if
- 58:58you can't find if you can't find anything to talk about these
- 59:02first two races that you feel like you have to talk about
- 59:05points and you're just not looking hard enough or you're
- 59:07programmed, your mind is 2 programs.
- 59:09It's just. A It's just a habit right now
- 59:12because they're going to have to slowly get out of it.
- 59:14I think they will. I think, yeah.
- 59:16I think they will. Well, there's a whole bunch of
- 59:18others. There's other stuff going on,
- 59:19but we've, I think we've covered a lot of a lot of meaningful
- 59:22stuff. Well, wait a minute.
- 59:23I do have one more, one or two more little things here.
- 59:27Keelan Harvick, 13 years old, signed to a development deal by
- 59:30Toyota Racing. I was thinking about what I was
- 59:32doing at 13 and I don't know that anybody would have signed
- 59:36me to a development deal of anything.
- 59:39I think I got, I think you were racing for Hooters a year.
- 59:41I turned 13 and I think I got my first pit crew uniform.
- 59:44I didn't do anything, but I had a uniform.
- 59:47So I I saw that and I went turn man.
- 59:51He's he's, he's Toyota. Kind of surprised me.
- 59:53I figured to me like that seemed like a Hendrick, Rick Hendrick
- 59:57special. Yeah, it seemed like another
- 59:59should have been another Chase Alec, Rick Hendrick D All right,
- 1:00:02Yeah. That it doesn't surprise me that
- 1:00:04they signed him. It surprised me a little bit
- 1:00:07that Toyota signed him, you know, just, you know, you would
- 1:00:10think from the, the, the his daddy's relationships over the
- 1:00:15years, but. You know, those people are after
- 1:00:17them. They after them young now.
- 1:00:18So, you know, kudos to kudos to the Harvick family and I'm all
- 1:00:23for John Paul. John Paul is he's a little guy's
- 1:00:26granddaddy, right? That we don't longer have that
- 1:00:31used to race against the Bush series.
- 1:00:33Lot of respect for John Paul, but that's his granddaddy.
- 1:00:36Said it'd be cool. John Paul Linville, right?
- 1:00:39Delana's dad. Correct me if I'm wrong.
- 1:00:42Didn't John Paul was he? He was mainly #62 right?
- 1:00:46Yeah. That's where the, that's how he
- 1:00:47gets that number. He runs 62.
- 1:00:49That's from his his granddaddy, yeah.
- 1:00:51Which is a cool deal. That's.
- 1:00:53And as he comes along, he starts winning and becomes the next
- 1:00:56superstar. Will, Will everybody, the whole
- 1:00:58world will probably learn about John Paul.
- 1:01:00OK, When that, when that all happens, which will be really
- 1:01:03cool. That'd be a very It will.
- 1:01:05It will. That then it'll be interesting
- 1:01:09to see the last thing on my list was Chris Gay part being sued by
- 1:01:14Gibbs and then shortly thereafter being officially
- 1:01:18announced by Spire hire there. So I was I kind of I don't know
- 1:01:23I'm laughing, but I kind of looked at them like it'll be
- 1:01:25kind of nice to follow along with a NASCAR lawsuit where it
- 1:01:28doesn't feel like the entire balance of the sport or the
- 1:01:30entire sport is hanging in the ballast of the outcome.
- 1:01:33This is just going to kind of be, well, we'll just see what
- 1:01:35comes out and what shakes out doesn't affect me personally.
- 1:01:38Yeah, we'll just see how how it works out.
- 1:01:40So that'll just be a fun little sideshow to watch, I think.
- 1:01:43Yeah, I'd say the skateboard don't feel that.
- 1:01:46Way right, but you know that deal Golly, when you when you
- 1:01:52when you we all read the complaint.
- 1:01:55You know from Gibbs out everybody read that you're like,
- 1:01:57oh, OK, this isn't good. But then we saw his his counter
- 1:02:02complaint right. We're like, huh, all right,
- 1:02:06baby, this is not all here the way we think it is, OK, I don't
- 1:02:09care what you do, man. If you're in business, you're in
- 1:02:11a business. That's why they have non
- 1:02:12complete called Don compete clauses and so many, so many
- 1:02:16businesses, right? Heck, I've had a couple of that
- 1:02:19been involved in some of those things.
- 1:02:20And you know, you can't unlearn what you've learned.
- 1:02:25You know, whatever, whatever that dude's got in his mind and
- 1:02:28his brain that he recalls, remembers or maybe went home and
- 1:02:32wrote down notes, I don't know, he kept notes for himself or
- 1:02:34whatever. You can't, you can't keep him
- 1:02:37from using that stuff. But the deal they got him on,
- 1:02:40you know, was supposed to be downloaded using the Gibbs
- 1:02:43hardware and downloaded his hardware direct and all that.
- 1:02:46He says it didn't happen. He says it did, but you know,
- 1:02:51that's one of the things in our sport that that's a tough deal,
- 1:02:54man, but it's gone on since the beginning.
- 1:02:56You know, if you got a crew chief and man, y'all hauling
- 1:02:59butt and somebody comes along boatload of money, guess what?
- 1:03:02That crew chief is going to go for that boatload of money and
- 1:03:04take all his knowledge with him, you know, and that's always
- 1:03:07going on that way. And then they come out, they
- 1:03:09come up with the non compete clauses that everybody signs,
- 1:03:12you know, and you can't. All that means is you can't go
- 1:03:14to work for a competitor for a certain amount of time, right?
- 1:03:17And that goes on in business all the time, not just raising, but
- 1:03:20business, you know, but I don't know it's going to be I hate it
- 1:03:24from I hate it honestly. You know, I hate it from both
- 1:03:26parties. I know both parties are a little
- 1:03:28bit and they're they're both good people, both sides, real
- 1:03:31good people. And for that to happen, you
- 1:03:33know, you got the kind of answers, a lot of questions
- 1:03:35because nobody can get an answer out of anybody.
- 1:03:38What happened in back in November, December when you
- 1:03:40left, hell, couldn't nobody find out anything.
- 1:03:43And this, this here explains why, man, they're all dealing
- 1:03:46with lawyers and keeping their mouth shut to try to get to try
- 1:03:49to get to this point, you know, so hopefully those guys will get
- 1:03:53it resolved and settled and everybody can go about their
- 1:03:55business. Yeah, divorces are just, they're
- 1:03:58just messy sometimes. That's just that's messy.
- 1:04:01I did see, I did say I did. It was really funny when Danny
- 1:04:05Hamlin quote, like he quoted quote tweeted the story when it
- 1:04:09broke. And he just he just used that
- 1:04:12GIF of Kenny Wallace of him doing that guy.
- 1:04:15Just. I got such a kick out of it.
- 1:04:17I was like, God, that was funny. That was so funny.
- 1:04:19So yeah, so it's man, we're two weeks into the season and there
- 1:04:24is not a shortage of stuff to talk about and be entertained by
- 1:04:27and read about and, and now we're going to CODA this weekend
- 1:04:31and I'm sure we'll we'll have a whole lot more to talk about
- 1:04:33next week. So we will, we will.
- 1:04:36All right, well, if you aren't already following us, mass cast
- 1:04:38show on on Instagram X Tech talk.
- 1:04:44He's at Rick Mast 22 on Instagram and X.
- 1:04:47I'm at Ricky Mast on Instagram and X follow Sarah.
- 1:04:51Hey, here's the biggest one. Here's the here's the main one.
- 1:04:54We're still hooked up with the we're hooked up with Kenny
- 1:04:56Wallace media. But as part of that, we are now
- 1:04:59on Rick Mast. I'm sorry, Rick mass cast show
- 1:05:02on YouTube. So you'd give us a a subscribe?
- 1:05:05Subscribe to us on YouTube. Did you say Rick mass cast?
- 1:05:09Rick Masscast show. I thought it was mass cast.
- 1:05:12Well, that's the name of the show, but if you're going to the
- 1:05:15YouTube address, Yeah. OK, Sweet.
- 1:05:17Let me bring it. Heck, I didn't even know that,
- 1:05:19Ricky. Well, I know I'm breaking news
- 1:05:21here. I'm sorry.
- 1:05:22It's at Rick Masscast on YouTube.
- 1:05:24Just give us a follow or subscribe to us on YouTube.
- 1:05:27We're still part of we're part of Kenny Wallace Media, but as
- 1:05:31part of it, we got our own YouTube channel.
- 1:05:33OK, so Rick Mast cast on YouTube.
- 1:05:36Subscribe there. Actually, we put up clip from
- 1:05:41one of our shows a couple weeks ago by our full shows are going
- 1:05:43to start going there. We put up a clip a couple days
- 1:05:47ago of us talking about Dale Earnhardt senior memories and
- 1:05:50some people are are getting a kick out of that and enjoying
- 1:05:52that. So give us a follow there.
- 1:05:54So we're on all the socials and if there's anything you want to
- 1:05:57hear, you want to ask Rick, I don't know or I guess if you
- 1:06:00want to ask me, I don't know what you want to ask me.
- 1:06:01But if you do hit us up on anyone number one of those, any
- 1:06:05one of those places and we'll we'll get back to you.
- 1:06:07So all right, def we'll do it again next week.
- 1:06:10Sounds good, guys. Toodaloo everybody, see ya.