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Darlington Southern 500 Breakdown! | Matt Weaver Reports · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  We're not going to call it an upset, but it kind of upset the
• 0:03
  status quo. Here we are.
• 0:05
  Darlington Raceway, my favorite NASCAR track, Southern 500, my
• 0:10
  favorite NASCAR race. And did we see this coming?
• 0:15
  I mean, on one hand, Chase Briscoe won last year for
• 0:18
  Stewart Haas Racing. It's not a huge surprise that he
• 0:22
  would do it again with Joe Gibbs Racing.
• 0:24
  Better equipment, more resources, a place that you
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  know, you look at the top five today, right?
• 0:32
  You've got Eric Jones, who is very good, knows his way around
• 0:35
  here. This is a driver's track.
• 0:39
  But the reason I say that it kind of upset the status quo is
• 0:45
  that one, you know, you look at the the playoff standings now
• 0:51
  got my notepad. You Chase Briscoe has seven more
• 0:55
  playoff points and you know that's going to serve him very
• 1:01
  well in his pursuit of getting to the championship race.
• 1:06
  At media day on Wednesday, he said that he felt like he was
• 1:10
  going to have to win in that final round to to make it to
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  Phoenix, and he still might have to.
• 1:17
  I mean, you look at what happened last year, Bale and
• 1:21
  Hamlin and who else was eliminated that day, all because
• 1:28
  three guys who absolutely needed to win did.
• 1:33
  But having seven more playoffs one week into seven more playoff
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  points, one week into the the 10 race tournament, it goes a long
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  way. And the thing that I think was
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  super consequential about this race was obviously the number of
• 1:51
  good teams that had some problems on Pit Rd.
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  Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, William Byron, a lot of
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  problems on Pit Rd. And say what you will about the
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  Next Gen. car, but you know that when you lose your track
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  position, that's going to be really, really hard to pass.
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  Cars are too equal, not enough power, It's too heavy, too much
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  wake off the car coming behind you.
• 2:19
  Clean air is king. And you look at these playoff
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  points right now, right? You've got Chase Elliott 9
• 2:26
  points above the cut line. Christopher Bell is 11.
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  Joey Logano is -3 Shane van Gisbergen.
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  This was supposed to be his best track to make something out of
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  this round. And I'm not totally sure this is
• 2:41
  going to work out for him now he's three up.
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  He used up the entirety of his buffer and it's not even his
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  fault. I think that Shane was probably
• 2:50
  going to coast towards a top 20 run.
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  He went long every single stage. He's a really, really good tire
• 3:00
  manager. Even on ovals.
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  He's really good at Richmond, right?
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  We saw him run the wall at Richmond and finished 14th and
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  he finished 20th here in the spring and that was his 7th ever
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  Cup race or whatever it was, right.
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  And so I don't think it's looking too good for Shane
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  Logano is in trouble. It reminds me of two years ago
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  where he had the crash at Bristol in the night race and he
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  was the defending champion and was eliminated in the first
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  round. Wouldn't that be something two
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  first rounds in a row that Joey Logano comes in as the the the
• 3:39
  reigning champion gets eliminated at Bristol.
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  Remember he is even your magic. Made the final four in 14/16/18.
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  Won the Championship 2022. Won the Championship 24.
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  This is an odd year and the last odd year that he was the
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  reigning champion. He is out and so interesting
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  setup, right? Blaney had a bad day and it
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  wasn't his fault. I mean, Blaine, he even said
• 4:11
  that after the race. Blaine, he said, you know, he's
• 4:15
  we asked him what's wrong and he's like, we were fine.
• 4:18
  Everyone around us screwed up and screwed us up.
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  Carson Hosevar and and and Chase Elliot.
• 4:29
  You know, the old DVC guys used to say the Ross Chastain don't
• 4:34
  give up Tour. This is now the Carson host of
• 4:38
  our not giving a tour that was racing what happened between
• 4:45
  between him and Chase early in the race.
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  But the the boldness, the temerity, the unmitigated gall
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  of Carson to come over the radio and say I don't care.
• 4:58
  I don't give up who he drives for.
• 5:02
  I'm over his crap or whatever. It was exactly that the Carson
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  said. It makes for great theater.
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  But then Carson you know, cuts off Christopher Bell on Pit Rd.
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  and and damages the right front splitter on the 20 car and
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  causes a really bad day for Christopher.
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  And like I said, now it's a + 11.
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  That's a small, tiny margin of error for Christopher at Gateway
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  or Bristol or anything can happen going back to Lagana,
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  right? But the thing that I thought was
• 5:40
  really, really impressive is, like I said, you know, Chase
• 5:44
  Briscoe winning back-to-back. First of all, we talked about
• 5:47
  the hype and the hoopla of the playoffs, and this is still the
• 5:52
  Southern 500. Like I said, it's my personal
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  favorite NASCAR race. I love this place.
• 5:57
  That's your point, this way. I love Darlington Raceway.
• 6:00
  It's cold. I'm actually really chilly.
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  It's the coldest Southern 500 I've ever covered.
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  Especially once it got to be about 8-9 o'clock cold front
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  really came in. But for for Chase Briscoe to win
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  two of these in a row, one for Tony Stewart, one for Joe Gibbs,
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  make an early playoff statement. Thought that was a really big
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  deal. The legacy guys, right?
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  We know Eric Jones is good here. 2 times Southern 500 winner
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  himself. His teammate John Hunter
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  Nemechek having a really good day too.
• 6:38
  Got to talk about the finish, right Man, I love Darlington, I
• 6:44
  love the Southern 500. I do not love the next Gen. and
• 6:47
  I'm so sick of jumping on these post race debrief videos.
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  Whether it was a Richmond Oregon, you know the
• 6:56
  superspeedway racing we saw at Daytona.
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  I'm so tired of talking about arrow and wide tires and
• 7:03
  underpowered heavy bricks. Tyler Reddick was a faster car
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  at the end and I don't know if the cars are too equal or, you
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  know, if there were some mirror driving, Tyler was able to drive
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  it in super deep and just couldn't quite get there.
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  And I've watched enough Xfinity races here over the last couple
• 7:27
  of years. I, I've watched cup races with
• 7:29
  the Gen. 6 when they took the big spoiler off.
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  In fact, you know, remember the, the first year 2019, they ran
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  the, the drafting package. It was the full 750.
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  I say full. It was the tapered 750, but with
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  the big spoiler and they were running the bottom.
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  This kind of reminds me of that. This tire falls off pretty good.
• 7:56
  But I, I hate this car just doesn't allow for the kind of,
• 8:05
  you know, Ricky Craven, Kurt Busch, the things we see in the
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  Xfinity Series, Kyle Busch and Chase Briscoe here, the pandemic
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  year. So 2020 stinks.
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  Got to find some way to take the underbody out.
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  Let's go with the, the short track roll package here.
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  We actually run we the royal, we the Cup series runs the
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  intermediate package, which I think helps tire wear.
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  It's a little bit more load on the tire.
• 8:37
  That's a good. But I, I wonder if you could fix
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  some of The Dirty air stuff if you run the, the simplified
• 8:44
  diffuser here at Darlington. It's frustrating.
• 8:50
  Umm, but I still love coming here.
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  The crowd was a little underwhelming.
• 8:56
  Umm, it's the least impressive crowd here, I think, not
• 9:02
  counting the pandemic. Uh, certainly in the next
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  genera. And I would, I would warn NASCAR
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  fans around the PD and around the Carolinas.
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  But if you love this race, we've, we've lost it before,
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  let's not lose it again the, the Labor Day holiday weekend.
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  Certainly that's, let's not lose 2 dates.
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  But some of that's on NASCAR too, right?
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  Like fix the car. And I don't think we're going to
• 9:30
  fix the car until this lawsuit is done.
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  And I just want, I want a Southern 500 that looks like the
• 9:38
  old Gen. 6 and the old Gen. 5 and the Xfinity cars, right?
• 9:44
  AJ Allmendinger got to talk about him too, right?
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  Top five, top 10, all race, top five finisher.
• 9:51
  AJ is 43. And there's a part of me that
• 9:54
  sits there and wonders, man, I wish, I wish AJ was a little
• 9:58
  younger because Colic is 2-3 years away from running Dodges
• 10:05
  and being a full-fledged factory team.
• 10:07
  And can you, Can you imagine this version of AJ Allmendinger
• 10:12
  with Chris Rice and Matt Collig, who is super filling himself for
• 10:18
  the most part happy, as happy as AJ can be behind the wheel?
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  Can you imagine AJ with Tier 1 manufacturer support?
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  I know he had that, you know, partial year at Team Penske and
• 10:33
  the suspension happened. It was a different AJ.
• 10:37
  It was a different, different NASCAR.
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  The Gen. 6 obviously is a car that I think suits his driving
• 10:43
  techniques really well. But a great run for AJ.
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  And I am bummed that I did not personally talk to AJ after the
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  race. I was trying to chase down all
• 10:53
  the playoff guys. But I would be remiss if I did
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  not talk about Aja little bit. I will say, listen, we've we've
• 11:00
  talked about the car and things I wish was better about the car.
• 11:07
  I still enjoy the strategy. I enjoy trying to see the
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  undercut and the overcut here on pit Rd. doing whatever you can
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  to get track position. It's stung for a guy like Shane
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  because you get caught by a bad caution.
• 11:22
  That's your entire race. And you know, we talked about
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  how awful it was a day for Hendrick Motorsports.
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  Some of that was just bad luck timing.
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  You lose your track position because the you know, your pit
• 11:34
  timing doesn't work out. You catch a bad caution that
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  happened to the nine team. It ruins your race.
• 11:42
  So it's kind of a double edged sword to that, right?
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  Like it shouldn't be this hard to pass.
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  It should be hard to pass. It's super slick.
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  It's Darlington, but it also makes the race really compelling
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  from a strategic engineering data and analytics standpoint.
• 12:03
  And I try to find things that I like even in the things that I
• 12:07
  don't like. And I would encourage everyone
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  who watches NASCAR to try to do more of that too.
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  And listen, any, any Sunday night, Labor Day morning that I
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  can spend here at Darlington Raceway, it's a good day.
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  And if you watch the race, it's a good day too.
• 12:28
  So playoffs are underway. We've got some early drama.
• 12:33
  I think Joey Logano's in a little bit of trouble.
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  One more bad day and it's a repeat of 23.
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  I think Shane is done. I know he's three points above
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  the cut line, but he's not going to get that back.
• 12:44
  I don't think Christopher Bell is at risk.
• 12:49
  Look at my handy dandy notepad, Kiki's Delivery Service for the
• 12:53
  for the nerds out there. It's my favorite Studio Ghibli
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  Miyazaki movie. Bought this today at a
• 13:01
  bookstore. Cool notepad, Dylan.
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  I think Dylan's in trouble -8 not that they can't have good
• 13:09
  runs, I think they could have a good Bristol and a good gateway.
• 13:12
  They just haven't showed that greatness consistently enough to
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  convince me that it's going to happen.
• 13:19
  Right, Berry? Haven't talked about Josh Berry
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  this whole time. Qualified 3rd right here.
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  Where I'm looking at turn 1, I see the skid marks.
• 13:32
  Wow, that stinks because I don't know that they have enough to go
• 13:36
  out and score a ton of stage points and 19 points out you
• 13:40
  might need to win the race. And so that sucks.
• 13:43
  I mean, I've I've written about it, I've talked about it.
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  I've known Josh Berry for a long time.
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  I've covered his entire late model career, his short track
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  career. Super stoked to see him in the
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  playoffs. And I don't think this is going
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  to be a a magical run unless he has a magical moment.
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  And listen, the Penske cars and The Wood Brothers, they're good
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  at a place like Gateway. And Bristol is a short track.
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  And you know, it fits what Josh Berry does.
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  But everyone's a short tracker here at this level too.
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  So we will see what sort of drama Gateway and then Bristol
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  has in store for us. So if you're up late, get up
• 14:24
  early. Watch this in the morning.
• 14:27
  I'm tired. I sound exasperated.
• 14:29
  I've been up since 10:00 this morning.
• 14:31
  It's now 3:00 in the morning here in the PD and don't quite
• 14:36
  have the same energy that I normally do I'm tired.
• 14:39
  I've got a 2 hour drive back to North Carolina, so we'll leave
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  it there. Thank you for humoring me,
• 14:47
  talking, racing with me. Saw a bunch of you guys that
• 14:50
  recognize me at Quincy's. Michael Kelly made a new friend
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  his family. Good to meet you guys.
• 14:58
  Some other people whose whose name I didn't get.
• 15:01
  Cars tore on Friday. Always a good time at Florence.
• 15:05
  Interesting Truck Series race on Saturday too.
• 15:09
  And we're off to the playoff races and we'll talk to you guys
• 15:13
  next week later.