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Christopher Bell Goes Back To Back | COTA Press Conference · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  John may be Savage Ventures. So I was talking to William
• 0:03
  after the race and he said the end of the race was how it
• 0:05
  should be. You guys used a little bit of
• 0:07
  contact, but nobody was going to wreck each other because you
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  have, you know, complete respect and you're all, you know, top
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  five in points. I was curious from your
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  perspective, like how where are you of which drivers are behind
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  you in those? Closing laps, yeah, definitely,
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  really, really aware. And it was it was very
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  refreshing and fun to see a clean race play out.
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  And, you know, last year, obviously I had the mishap with
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  Kyle Busch and I, you know, I pride myself on racing
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  respectful. And I feel like my image around
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  the garage is, is respected in that aspect and and people know
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  that I race clean. And William repaid that today.
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  He he, he ran extremely hard, but fair and clean and we saw a
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  heck of a race out of it. Rob Tiansen from the podium.
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  finish.net Christopher, congratulations on your second
• 0:59
  win of the season, second in a row.
• 1:00
  You know, what message do you have to say is when sent to your
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  competitors and to your team, about the versatility of your
• 1:06
  driving your team and just knowing that you're just
• 1:08
  sharpening your knives so early in the year?
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  I don't know, I mean, I, I, I don't really have a message to
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  send to any of them, but it, it's, it's nice to be able to,
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  you know, capitalize on, on race wins.
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  And last year there were so many race wins.
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  They got away whenever I had the fastest car.
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  And you know, the last two weeks at Atlanta and here I kind of
• 1:35
  won without the fastest car. So it's really nice to get those
• 1:38
  those back that I lost last year and, and I'm excited about
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  what's to come. We we have high expectations
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  and, and high hopes and goals for this year.
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  And you know, frankly, the last couple years being at Jo Gibbs
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  Racing in this number 20 car, I haven't been living up to the
• 1:55
  standards that I hold to myself. And our goal going into 2025 is
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  to to do that for my or my goal is to do that for myself.
• 2:03
  And I know Adam Stevens, you know, he feels the same way.
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  He feels that we're capable of, you know, a lot of great things.
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  And we haven't haven't done that yet in the NASCAR Cup Series
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  season. So maybe 2025 will be the year.
• 2:14
  Jerry Jordan kicking the tires on that.
• 2:15
  You might want to watch Adams press conference because he's
• 2:18
  like one week doesn't isn't indicative of the next and he
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  pretty much expects you to be in the Victory Lane for the next
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  two weeks. Says they're circled.
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  Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
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  So, you know, Kyle out there was telling us he did everything he
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  could to screw up so that you could dump him and, and the
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  tires were gone. There was nothing he could do to
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  hang on. How did you pass him to get by
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  cleanly and, and and go on to what what Chase Elliott said was
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  a master class in clean racing? Yeah, I mean, I just, I, I can't
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  reiterate enough how amazing it was to have such respectful,
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  clean and hard racing. I mean, that was just, it was a
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  beautiful ending to a race and and you know, Kyle, whenever he
• 3:03
  got Kyle Busch, whenever he got out front, I just was like, I'm
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  trying my hardest to get position on him to outbreak him.
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  And I just, he was attacking his brake zones so hard that I could
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  not get there. And there was once I had to
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  abort and I'm sure everyone saw it getting into one.
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  I'm like, alright, I got him now.
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  I got him and I drove in there and lock the rears up and I'm
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  like sliding and I had to go right to try and miss him.
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  Thankfully I did miss him. And yeah, I mean, whenever I got
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  out front, I had been struggling on the long run and I think
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  probably we all were, but I I've been falling it back compared to
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  my compare competitors all race. So I thought maybe once I got in
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  the lead I could be good. But I was just slipping and
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  sliding around like we all were. And you know, I was just
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  concentrating on not beating myself and it wasn't the
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  cleanest laps that I ran at the end, but they were enough to to
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  hold on. Just love.
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  You know, Jaycee Christopher, you mentioned the.
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  Mishap from last year. How did that change your
• 4:01
  approach in the way? You race Kyle.
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  Today, Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't think
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  it, it changed my approach at all.
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  It certainly I, I don't know. I mean, I just, I didn't want to
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  do that again and I wasn't going to put myself in jeopardy to,
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  you know, make contact and ruin his race.
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  But I don't think it, it affected, you know, how I raced
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  him or anything. I just was trying to put the
• 4:27
  pressure on him and, you know, his, his tires eventually gave
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  up and he slipped getting into I think it's 15 and allowed me to
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  get inside of them. And then the race was on from
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  there. Just curious.
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  There was some confusion with Turn 6 and early in the race and
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  there was a lot of confusion. All right, elaborate for me,
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  please. Well, I was watching the Xfinity
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  race yesterday and I saw several guys cut Turn 6 and not get
• 4:52
  penalties. And I'm like, man, that's really
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  weird. Really weird.
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  And then in the early in the race, I saw several competitors
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  in front of me cut Turn 6 and break the rule.
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  And thankfully Adam got on the radio.
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  I don't remember what it was, probably lap 20-30.
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  And he's like, hey, they're not going to police track limits in
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  turn 6:00. So that changed the way that all
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  of us attacked Turn 6 and you know it, it changed the race for
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  sure for the better, the worse. I don't know, but it definitely
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  changed the style of or the the the technique that you used to
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  get through there. Chris, for early in the year,
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  you thank Joe Gibbs for letting you do other racing, chili
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  bowls, micro sprints, Super Late Model, stuff like that.
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  Number one, did that help you today with all the craziness on
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  the track and loose and all that?
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  And how does that, I mean, obviously you got two out of
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  three after doing all that, is that helping out your program a
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  lot for this year? You know, dirt racing might have
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  might have helped me today because we were sliding around
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  like crazy. I hope I hope that transpired on
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  TV like it they were able to show it because we were all of
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  us were just slipping and sliding and and drifting the
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  cars around the track. So yeah, I mean that that is
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  that is Rd. course racing one O 1 and that's why it's so much
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  fun. So thank you, Joe Gibbs.
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  I was kind of a nascar.com. Christopher, how do these two
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  back-to-back wins build your confidence for Phoenix or Las
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  Vegas tonight? Another one, yeah.
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  I mean, it's it's amazing. It's amazing to be sitting here
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  with more importantly than two wins is 10 playoff bonus points.
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  And, you know, we're in a we're in a pretty good spot right now.
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  And hopefully, you know, we can go into race tracks that are
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  really good for us. Obviously Phoenix was a, you
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  know, amazing show for the 20 car last year in the spring
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  race. So yeah, I mean, they're they're
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  great race tracks for us. And more importantly, they are
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  extremely important race tracks with Phoenix being the
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  championship event, Vegas being in the round of eight, there are
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  two race tracks where you have to be good at if you're going to
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  compete for a championship. So yeah, we're everyone knows
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  that. Everyone's going to be, you
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  know, bringing their best stuff, trying to see where they stack
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  up and, and taking notes, taking notes for, you know, how it goes
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  and how to be better in the in the fall.
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  Stevenson frontridge.com Christopher, as you alluded to
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  earlier, you ended last year with 694 laps LED without a win.
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  You now have, you now have two wins and 9 laps LED the last two
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  races as a as a driver, is it sweeter to to like, you know, be
• 7:12
  there at the very end and kind of snag a win or is it better
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  the dominators, are they all the same?
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  Yeah, so that that is actually a great question.
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  That is a great question and something that I've paid a lot
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  of attention to over the course of my career.
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  And you know, I, I honestly, the first part of my career really
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  before last year, most of my wins came without leading laps
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  and just just showing up at the end and, and snagging the
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  victory. And, and that's, that's great.
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  But there is something to be said for leading laps.
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  And it wasn't until last year that we were really able to lead
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  laps and control races and, and we didn't win as many as we
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  should have, but it was very refreshing to be able to do
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  that. So, you know, in order to lead
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  laps, the whole piece has to come together.
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  You have to qualify well. You have to unload.
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  Well, you have to have a great pit crew.
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  And we didn't have all of those keys early on in, in my career
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  until last year where we finally, you know, put all the
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  pieces together. So yeah, I have paid a lot of
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  attention to laps LED and races one and, and you know, they,
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  they don't always correlate. And it's, it's good to be able
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  to win the races that you don't lead laps.
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  And it sucks whenever you lead laps and don't win.
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  But that's how it goes sometimes.
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  And you have to look at the positives out of it.
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  Justin Schuler, Athlon Sports I'll throw another stat at you.
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  This is the longest drought that the Cup Series has had without
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  back-to-back races with the same winner.
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  Is that because of the parody of the car or the parody of the
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  field or just how diverse the schedule has become?
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  Because I look back at like, what, maybe 6-7, eight years ago
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  and we had two Rd. courses maybe.
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  And then now we have all these Rd. courses, the hybrid in
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  Atlanta, you know, we used to have the dirt race, but still,
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  it just seems like the schedule's gotten so much
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  whatever. So what can you narrow it down
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  to? Or is it just a combination of
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  all three? I mean, I definitely think the
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  schedule has something to do with it, you know, adding
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  another superspeedway in the fold with Atlanta, the road
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  courses, you know, I guess there is more now than what there was
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  in the past, but with the the superspeedway stuff and the next
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  Gen. car, just really leveling the playing field and not just,
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  you know, there's a lot of competitive cars now where back
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  in the day, I remember it was the big three, right?
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  Everyone had the big three. It was Kyle Martin and and
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  Harvick there for a little bit and different guys would come
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  and go, but it seemed like those teams had a little bit extra
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  where now with the Next Gen. car you can't really get that that
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  that advantage. So winning has certainly become
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  harder and and more guys are capable of it.
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  So whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable, but it's
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  a sport that we live in and and compete in right now.