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Chase Briscoe Wins At Talladega & Playoff Pressure Builds Ahead of Martinsville
Chase Briscoe Wins At Talladega & Playoff Pressure Builds Ahead of Martinsville
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About this episode
Chase Briscoe's Talladega win and the playoff pressure heading into Martinsville take center stage, with in-depth analysis of super speedway racing dynamics and team strategies. The hosts discuss the intense competition among playoff drivers, mechanical challenges faced by top teams, and the evolving mindset of contenders like Briscoe. They also highlight the excitement of short track racing, spotlight emerging talents, and debate the playoff format's impact on driver focus. Personal stories and lighthearted moments add depth, making it a comprehensive look at NASCAR's current landscape and the high stakes of the championship chase.
Topics:
chase briscoe talladega win
playoff pressure martinsville
super speedway racing strategy
team dynamics and mechanical issues
nascar playoff format debate
short track racing highlights
emerging racing talents
driver mindset and evolution
race predictions and championship outlook
personal racing stories
Cars:
Porsche Cayman
Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith break down an electric Talladega weekend where Chase Briscoe scored a clutch win to shake up the NASCAR Playoffs. The crew dives into the biggest moments from the race, how Briscoe pulled off the victory, and what it means for the Championship 4 battle. They also break down the playoff picture heading into Martinsville, the final race in the Round of 8, and debate which drivers have momentum—and who’s under the most pressure with everything on the line. Mamba delivers the best social media reactions in Social Sips, and the show wraps up with burnout grades for Briscoe and Martinsville predictions in Last Call.
LINK TO SUBMIT PICKS FOR MARTINSVILLE: https://forms.gle/gP5eBuaQMF3hHqCg8
0:00 - Intro
5:48 - Talladega Recap
32:22 - Martinsville Preview
42:32 - Mamba’s Social Sips
53:03 - Last Call!
56:40 - Submit Picks For Martinsville
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Too Afraid to Ask
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Porsche Cayman
"...his guy who bought a nearly scrapped 2020 Porsche Cayman. He rebuilt the whole thing, all with parts he fo..."
- Intro
- Talladega Recap
- Martinsville Preview
- Mamba’s Social Sips
- Last Call!
- Submit Picks For Martinsville
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I think the rules should change constantly with the super speedway.
What the 19 is doing is wildly impressive.
I'm reluctant to say, yeah, Blaney's out of it and Logano is out of it.
Brittany Logano will whoop my advice if I say that.
Yeah, they're never out of it.
Apparently I'm going to run full speed and run in the s*** at the same time.
So.
Keep your eyes forward, Kevin.
Keeping our eyes forward to Martinsville.
Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour presented by NASCAR on Fox.
I'm Kevin Harvick.
She's Caitlin Bensie and he's the one and only Mama Smith.
He's already trying to get me spun out before we even got going.
He acted like I have something on my face.
Yes.
I was just itching my nose and she started itching her nose.
That was always funny.
Yeah, trying to play games.
Sorry.
Listen, we have nothing but time today.
We do.
Full slate.
Full slate.
We'll start it off right.
I like that we have these fall colors.
Yeah.
I didn't get the memo.
You're close.
Teal is, I mean, but I will say you didn't get the fall memo, but the way your fit
is put together.
The laces match the top.
The socks match.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not a hard.
As long as you keep it to simple colors.
Simple.
Yeah.
Keep everything in line.
Yeah.
Neutral palettes.
I didn't even have to ask anybody this morning.
No.
Well, it's because you're learning, Kevin.
Yes.
I'm a slow learner.
I'm a slow learner.
Yeah.
But it's working.
I guess.
I mean, at least Delayna, I'm sure it's better for her.
She only has to put two people together instead of three people together.
Three.
Yeah, we're back to school this week.
So.
Are we?
Yeah.
Had fall break last week.
So kids were home all week.
So how was that?
I was excited.
I was excited that we got back to school this morning.
I know that feeling.
Yes.
It was a big weekend for your family, though.
It was.
Yeah.
I was in North Wilkesboro this weekend and I raced, not long, had a little engine failure
with about 20 laps into the race.
But other than that, I got to go sit up on top of the truck and watch Keelan have a great
race with Luke Baldwin there towards the end of the race and Landon and Connor Hall
racing for the late model stock championship.
That was intense.
So great weekend all around for the cars tour in general with two great finishes
and hopefully, well, we did cap off another year, but hopefully leading up to another season.
So it was a fun weekend.
It was, those two kids were racing super hard.
Yes, they were.
And I don't know, I just really love watching that because you can see the race craft
in them both.
And a lot of times when we watch younger drivers, even older drivers at the short
track level right now, it's weird how people race sometimes and to watch that
type of craft and the coot, then the car control for both of them and not running
each other.
Yeah, it was interesting though, because the first time Keelan drove in there and tried
to try to drive in their heart, he kind of hit Luke right in the door.
And the next next few times it was like, all right, here's a whole car.
And then it was OK, I hit him in the door.
Now I've given him too much room.
Now I'm going to slide up there and the finesse got a little bit better.
But when you're able to race against people that that race well, you can trust them
and you can trust them and it's not just going to be some surprise hack move here,
hack move there from both of them.
It puts on puts on good finishes.
And so they've they've raced against each other a couple of times.
And the part that I like about last weekend for Keelan in particular is
he gets to race against somebody like Luke, who has a ton of short track
experience, obviously the smart tour modified champion.
He won the championship on Saturday in the smart modified tour.
So, you know, Luke's Luke's a he's a good little short track racer.
I want to see Luke Baldwin at the next level.
He he's he's got something.
He has an it factor and, you know,
seeing Tommy around the racetrack is always good.
That is always a plus.
Yes, for sure.
Good some good talent coming through the pipeline.
I saw your wife posted a cool picture of Keelan sitting with you
and I think a media center years ago.
Yeah, she did two pictures back to back.
It's kind of cool. Yeah.
It's it's it's weird when they asked me to come to the media center now
for the first time that happened, obviously, at North Wilkesboro,
things are a little bit different because you got enough media there to
to actually have a press conference.
Have a scroll and I'm standing up in Victory Lane just walking around
just trying to stay out of the way.
And they're like, hey, we need you in the media center.
I'm like, or what? Yeah.
Well, you know, you're kind of dad team owner, whatever you want to call it.
We can we can position it as and in Delano.
I saw that picture she posted, but he used to always
go up there and do something silly.
Or I think he had a he he had a he had a stack of hats on his head.
That was that was in that was in Michigan.
We were up there up there by by ourselves.
We used to always like going to Michigan together
because we had a golf course and we had a lake and ice cream shop
and a pizza parlor and all the things that we always like like to do up there.
But we always we always had a good time in Michigan.
So we would go by ourselves for the most part and just have
have like a father son weekend every year when we went to Michigan.
Usually we went twice.
So that was I don't know if that was a particular weekend
that we got the golf cart stuck under the tree.
I think I've told that story on here.
Yeah, but we definitely spent some time at the golf course
and one time was under the tree under the tree.
That's so cool. The full circle moments.
It's got to be neat for you.
OK, so guys, we have plenty to talk about leaving Talladega.
Martinsville is up next.
You have some good Sips, really racy Sips.
Real racy Sips.
We're going back to our track races.
I love that. OK, so we've got plenty to break down.
How was Talladega? By the way, you were there.
I was there. Yeah.
How was the energy?
Energy was high.
Whiskey Myers put on a great show on Saturday night.
Is that a guy or a group? It's a group.
OK.
They're big race fans. OK.
They played at Ryan Blaney's awards.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're buddies with Ryan.
They're also buddies with Rico Abreu on the dirt side.
Like they like racing.
So and the fans, man, I'm telling you what, they were rowdy.
Yeah. I saw they were rowdy.
There was a lot of overalls being worn.
A lot of it was a fun weekend.
I don't. Did I tell the story about my walk down the boulevard last year?
No. That's the first time I'd walked down the boulevard was last year.
OK. Actually, that was this year.
Yeah. OK. Talladega.
It was this year at Talladega.
So I've ridden on the little float
and done all the driver things that go down the boulevard.
But we were like, all right, let's just ride over there
and walk down the boulevard.
Well, the Fox group, right? Yeah.
Yeah. I think I told the story, but I think I know about it.
But you go ahead.
Yeah. So we drive the golf cart over there
and we park it on the on the side of the fence
and we walk into the boulevard.
And the first thing we see are three ladies
that should not have their shirts off.
Just walking down the boulevard, like.
Just like another regular day. Nothing was happening.
You got people walking around in their underwear, costumes, normal.
It's quite the interesting place.
Talladega boulevard.
Did you did you spend some time on the boulevard?
Not not remotely.
I saw Whiskey Myers for a hot minute and stuff.
It's places like international waters.
That's really what Talladega boulevard is.
They're like like the rules there are just very different.
Yeah. Well, there really are no rules.
It seems that's what it seems.
Yeah. And that's why we love it.
Anything goes in Talladega.
Which is why people fly from all over the place.
I think there was some folks in from Alaska that were there.
Like like Talladega for us is like a must is a spectacle.
It's a must go to event.
You got to experience it.
If you like racing at all, you should go check out Talladega just because it's
I wonder what it looks like today.
I've seen it on days like today.
Well, the Talladega social media used to post a funny series of photos
the day after of all the weird things they found.
In the infield, I don't know if they still do that, but it was always very entertaining.
Yeah, we did it when I did it.
We did a video one year and like we went around and picked all that.
I said, I'll do it, but I would have to be in like a full has Matt.
Like I was in a full gloves boots.
Like I was not touching my bare hands, but Talladega was fun.
Yeah. You love Talladega.
Who? Jeff Gordon.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Jeff Gordon is a big Talladega boulevard.
Yeah. Yeah. He's a big Talladega fan.
There's some interesting competitions that take place at Talladega.
You know, check it out in the spring.
Yeah, you guys got to go.
Hopefully we're selling this really well.
OK, as it comes to the race,
were what did you feel like this was a traditional Talladega
or did it flow differently?
Well, I think it's been what we've seen, right?
I think that if I had to turn it on with 25 laps to go out,
I've been like, man, that was a bad ass race.
But, you know, I think that the the fuel mileage and all the things
that that happened in the beginning of the race is just make it different.
And there there were savings and not savings
and people backing to pace up.
But it's very it's very at the end.
It was it was very exciting to watch
and very intense for for the way that the race finishes.
Now, I understand that there are moments
that that that lead up to getting towards the finish.
And the drivers all know how to get to the finish
as we watch the video clip here of Kyle Larson
running out of gas at the end of the race.
And that really broke that bottom line up
and allowed Briscoe to get underneath
Bubba Wallace right there with his teammate tucked in
right behind him and Ty Gibbs.
And they were able to get themselves organized
and get to the start finish line first.
So just a great finish.
You know, I think that there's definitely some things
that need to happen with super speedway racing
that allow us to see what we saw at Daytona.
I think a lot of that, you know, if do we need another stage?
What do we need to do to break up all the all the fuel mileage?
All the fuel mileage stuff to have those bowls
in the in the middle of the race to get rid of those?
I still don't like the fact that I think the rules
should change constantly with the super speedway cars
to keep the teams evolving to keep the competition mixed up.
I do think that the Ford's and lost a little bit
of their advantage compared to the Chevy's
and the Toyotas this this time around, which is
as we keep going with the same rules,
things become more and more even and then it becomes about strategy.
And so I'm a big fan of keeping the rules mixed up
at the super speedways.
I still don't like the fact that you can push
as hard as they can push and not get more rewarded for it.
I don't know how we fix that problem of when the two cars
get connected, that it's a bigger difference of speed
than what it is right now.
But the amount of time that they spend pushing
and shoving to not have it be mixed up more
isn't isn't how it needs to be, isn't isn't how you want
super speedway racing to be.
You want to be able to go from the back to the front
and not get when they're all going, it's two lanes
until they decide to fan out and try to, you know,
make those moves at the end of the race.
But if those moves only last for a lap or two
when people are going and trying to get their final position,
for the most part, it winds up double file, two lanes
and they're pushing like crazy
and not able to get broken away from a lane.
I just wish we could understand what we need to do
to get those pushes to be more rewarding,
to get more gain out of the, because you have to,
I mean, you have to push really hard,
which is why we see most of the wrecks
because, you know, even when we saw the 17 car
of Chris Buscher get spun out,
that didn't happen from the guy right behind him.
That happened from the guy that was pushing
the second car in line and that,
the Byron was probably off the brake
and on the brake pedal and off the gas
and the guy behind him and all the momentum
from that line just shoved him forward.
I mean, that should be a massive advantage to that line.
So we've got to be able to figure out
how to make the intensity of the pushes mean more
with the speed gain in the cars that are happening
because they just get locked into that double file racing,
but awful late to make a change
when it's already end of October
to get to the Daytona 500, so.
Yeah.
So two Joe Gibbs racing drivers now know
that they will be going to the championship four
and it was neat to hear Chase Briscoe talking
after the race about doors that have closed
in his career, the ones that have opened
and we all know Chase and he's such a genuine person
and it's really neat to see this opportunity
come together for him and to know
he's gonna race for a championship in the Cup Series.
Yeah.
I mean, like he, when we sat here on the playoffs started,
I said that I thought the most dangerous drivers
were the 19 and the 23.
You were right.
He was 50% right.
I was 50% right.
Now the 23 was dangerous.
It is, they should have won Kansas
and they didn't in whatever happened, whatever.
But like listen, the 19 has seven top tens
and has an average finish of 5.62.
Look at him doing his notes.
Okay, they are, they have been throughout the playoffs.
They have been head and shoulders
above everyone with consistency
and he has, he won, this is the second one in the playoffs.
He finished second at Gateway.
So like it's not like he could have already had
it in the second win.
So they've been pushing
and then you look at the 24
who's a regular season champion throughout that same time.
They only have two top tens
and average finish of 16th.
Yeah.
We talk about the playoff system
and people are mad about whatever Byron not being in it.
Yeah, Byron has, they have done everything
that they were supposed to do in the last couple of weeks
cause some things haven't worked out.
You know, the wreck at Vegas
and then kind of getting spit out of line here
come to the line.
But ultimately where it's finishing,
where they're finishing is just not up to snuff.
That's not what they've been all year
and it's not very good in the playoffs.
And this is why the playoffs are cool
is cause it all, when he cut to this time of the season
it all really, really matters.
Who locks in and it takes a lock, right?
It's hard to win these things.
But what the 19 is doing is wildly impressive.
Yeah. And when I interviewed Chase
in our winners interview earlier,
the part that intrigues me
is how he started to where he is
and being able to evolve with that mindset
that, you know, going from surviving
knowing that if I don't make this work
I'm not going to get another job again
to I'm a winner now,
to now I'm a consistent top five contender
and can win every week.
That mindset that evolution and growth
that they've had through the year is pretty impressive.
And I think that now it's going to evolve
whether they win or lose this championship at Phoenix
they're going to get that experience.
They're going to have a full evolution
of experiencing all the different levels of pressure
and evolution as a team and people
when they get to the Daytona 500 next year
if, you know, I don't see James letting up on Chase
and I don't see Chase, you know, pushing back to say,
hey, I'm not doing this and changing his work ethic
because that's what's got them to this point
is the evolution of their relationship
on and off the racetrack,
what works, what doesn't work in the car.
They've cycled through all that stuff
and now they're consistent winners and contenders
on a week to week basis.
And, you know, that's quite the difference in mindset
from I hope I can get in it.
I hope I can keep my job.
And if I don't, I'm not going to get another job
to thinking I'm a championship contender.
He also won with Johnny Morris.
There, listen y'all, the difference
when you win it's huge anyway
and you get the phone call from the sponsors
and everyone's happy.
But when you win and the sponsor is there
because it's so hard to win
and so far and few in between
that you get to do that with everyone there,
you really solidify your situation I feel like
with a brand.
Well, think about this
and Chase told me this earlier.
He said, the last time Johnny Morris
was in Victory Lane at Talladega
was with the L. Earnhardt senior.
To have him there and to see how excited he was,
he was telling us that it's one of the greatest days
in his company's history.
And I didn't even realize he told me
he'd not been in Victory Lane at Talladega
since with Dale Earnhardt.
So that was really, really cool
just to see how excited and jacked up he was.
And then, you know, it was our third win of the year
so I got to do some three for Dales
with Johnny in Victory Lane at Talladega.
Yeah, it was a perfect day.
25 years ago.
Those emotions and memories for Johnny Morris
at Talladega flashing the threes in Victory Lane
for their third win of the season.
I didn't even think about that.
You know, that is something that usually locks
into sponsor for a long time.
When they have those memories
and remember the joy and excitement
that they got out of it with one of their good friends
and now their brand is on a car
they obviously believe in NASCAR racing.
But when you look at Johnny Morris in the past,
it's Talladega and Bristol
that seemed to be the most important races
for that brand and having them in Victory Lane.
You know, that's good for the longevity of the partnership.
There's a good job.
A little more security there.
Yeah, picked a good one to win.
Yeah, for sure.
Big moment for Chase Briscoe.
So he was happy leaving Talladega.
Pretty much every other driver they interviewed
seemed rather dejected.
And I want to start with the Penske guys
because both Joey and Ryan seemed to express
they were surprised they weren't getting more help.
And we had talked to the week before
about how well the Fords typically work together.
What do you think was missing for that piece?
Yeah, and you know, I don't think that those,
I think that everybody knows if they put them
in a position to win, they're gonna win.
And if they can keep them shuffled
and put them in the middle of the field,
that's gonna make the odds of them having that track position
and being able to have that work out for them.
I mean, guys know when you have the dominant car
and they're not, let's face it,
they're not Dale Earnhardt Jr., right?
Like, or Dale Earnhardt Sr.
They don't, people don't wanna see them win
and don't wanna be a part of their win.
And when you get to a point of being dominant,
the competitors wanna put you in a bad spot.
And they got shuffled and put themselves
in the middle of the pack and that was it.
And as we talked, I think that that might be it
for those guys, I think that I felt like they needed,
one of them needed to win this race
to get themselves to have a chance to go forward.
They didn't capitalize on that.
They didn't, one of those cars didn't get to victory lane
and I think that that could be the end
of their championship run.
Yeah, it seemed like they had a good plan.
The team, Team Penske as a whole.
One of the other two, Cindrick and Barry
was gonna kind of stick with the 12,
one was gonna stick with the 22.
It kind of seemed like that was
where all their help was coming.
And then Barry got an issue with the rear end,
seemed like maybe a rear end burned up a little bit
on them and then Cindrick got caught in a wreck.
So those were the two.
And they lost their help.
So they lost their two, their wingman.
Guaranteed wingman.
Guaranteed wingman.
And now it's like, all right, how do we reshuffle this?
Because of course, RFK in front row
wanna help the blue ovals as a whole,
but like trying to make their year.
They need to make, a win changes their whole
perspective of their year.
And I don't fault them.
And then you look at the other OEMs,
they definitely don't want them in, right?
So it was like, if you're behind one of those guys,
don't help if it doesn't help you.
If it doesn't help one of us.
Because, and you look at it, right?
They get to Phoenix and they've been inevitable
at Phoenix in the championship race.
So to Kevin's point, if you can keep them out,
you're gonna keep them out.
And that's what happens when you've been dominant.
And I think that it just doesn't feel the same
this year.
As far as, like even at Vegas, right?
Like when you look at the 12 car and the 22 car,
it just doesn't feel like they made the jump
and the 12 was gonna be good.
I mean, but he wasn't gonna be dominant.
Yeah, yeah.
I just think that the dominant cars,
speed-wise, are the Gibbs cars.
Yeah.
Right now.
And that's been the case at most of the places
that we've been except for Loudon.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, Joey kind of eloquently said
he didn't have the car either.
Like besides the strategy not working,
he didn't really have the car.
I wanna go to the Hendrick Motorsports guys
for a moment and chase Elliott.
Now 62 points below the line,
got caught up in an early incident.
Definitely in a must win.
Yeah.
And I think everybody,
I really think that the two guys that have won,
obviously you're in a good spot.
But I think that really the four guys that are out
and the two guys that are in,
all have to race like they're in a must win
because it's like you said earlier
before we started the show,
you've got Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell
one point apart.
That's it.
So they can race each other.
So you got two different agendas, right?
Like you know if you're behind Christopher Bell
and you're Kyle Larson,
that you might be the guy out
because you have to assume that one of those other four
guys that are not in it
are gonna have a chance to win.
Chase Elliott's definitely in a must win.
Ryan Blaney, you know, Joey Logano.
They're all, I mean, yeah.
All of them have won there in the past too.
Yeah, that's the crazy part
because they've all won there in the past.
This is, the way that this is shaped up,
honestly is so, is cinematic.
It's so great because,
so you look at the two guys in,
Denny has the most wins of the season, right?
So you'd want someone like that to be in.
Chase has the most top fives.
That's consistently in speed
and he has the most balls, so he's in.
And then you got Bell,
who I think he has the most top tens
and then Larson has the most lead laps, right?
So that's your current top four.
The guys outside of that,
and there's three for sure that I feel I could win.
Joey, it's gonna take a lot.
I just don't think that they've had the raw speed.
And especially at Martin's Rock,
I haven't really seen over the last couple of years.
It's been a while, 2018, the last time we won.
But Blaney and Blaney, Chase and Byron,
like it's been every year,
they've been right up front in the mix
and they went toe-to-toe with it to duke it out last year.
So if I'm Larson and Bell's teams,
I'm like, look, we are racing the 20.
Yeah, whichever one of us,
whichever one of those two is lower,
that's the one getting knocked out.
Yeah, and the unique part is,
and we've had this happen a few times this year,
we got a little bit different left side tire.
And that always seems to throw,
hey, this is who's gonna do it,
here's who's got the advantage,
because you had this little piece of the puzzle
that could change everything, right?
And so to me, that's the piece that you just,
you have some, you're reluctant,
I'm reluctant to say, yeah,
Blaney's out of it and Logano is out of it
because of Loudon.
And the fact that they put together
such a great weekend up there,
so I don't know.
I mean, I wanna say that Blaney and Logano are out of it,
but I know better than to say they're out of it.
Brittany and Logano will whoop my ass
if I say that they're out of it.
Yeah, they're never out of it.
And really, nobody's ever out of it
because of the quality of competition
and the quality of teams and cars,
the level that they race at in the playoffs
from preparation and everything that goes with it.
So, I think that any of them could win.
They've obviously done that there before,
but I think they all have to race to win.
Yeah, yeah, and the agendas are gonna be interesting.
The lights have never been brighter than they are right now
and I can't wait for it.
Yeah, it's gonna be very interesting to see how it unfolds.
I still wanna hit some things from Talladega.
Denny Hamlin expressing some frustration about their cars
because they had a throttle issue.
Yeah, I was gonna ask.
I mean, how concerning is that?
Because you also wanna have momentum to going to Phoenix.
Yeah, and they've had this throttle problem a few times
and when you look at it,
I think that's where the frustration from Denny
came from on the radio was the fact
that they've dealt with that particular issue,
but you've talked about some other mechanical issues
that go with that car.
And we've seen the brake issues that 2311 has had.
We see the brake issues that Christopher Bell had there
with the rotor.
So the mechanical issues are just,
there's been a lot of them.
And I think that that was where the frustration
has come with Denny in the power steering that he had
at Kansas and all the things
that have come with those really fast cars.
They've had some gremlins that go along with that,
but that one seems to have been multiple times
that it's happened.
Only the 11 that,
like the other one seemed to be pretty sound
with their week to week other cars are,
I'm not gonna say prepare
because I don't wanna make it sound like
the guys back at the shop aren't preparing the car correctly
because obviously it's coming to track fast.
I just don't know why it seems to be that fast.
Well, I think fast is different than mechanically sound.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
You think the processes would be almost the same,
but obviously there's something different that is going on.
And I'm sure they wanna figure that out this week for sure.
Yeah, they're definitely not doing it on purpose.
I think that that it could be a coincidence,
but it seems to be somewhat consistent with that car.
He says, why can't we keep our cars together?
It was the quote from Denny.
What about Kyle Larson running out of fuel at the very end?
We typically don't see something like that
out of the five group.
Well, we saw a lot of cars pit.
I think that the 12 and the 22 when that caution came out,
they timed it to get the track position
and didn't time it to not get to the end.
And they timed it for the track position
and it put him in a position where they had to pit.
So obviously the five was close.
Yeah, I mean, without that last caution
with the 17, he's probably making it, right?
So like, and I think Cliff even said that
Kyle kind of talked about that in his post race.
Like they knew they were close.
Yes.
They thought that once they flipped the switch,
they were going to be right there
and it just came up a little short.
But get on him for realizing that and just like
getting completely out of the way.
Now it screwed the 24 regardless.
It did.
And it really opened it up to where like,
it was Chase Briscoe's,
because he had Gibbs behind him pushing
and he had Bubba Wallace,
another Toyota on the outside.
And then 24 got spit out and it just died.
It was over there.
Yeah, my pick got spit out with a hundred yards.
A hundred yards.
We don't want to address the picks just yet.
Listen, listen.
That's a little later.
Even though that was your pick, he's my champ pick.
And so that I need that.
Yeah.
We're in the spot now.
You guys got to win.
We got it.
Yes, sweetie.
Ours are still alive, technically.
Yeah.
Bell and Larson.
We're better than him.
We're above.
Yeah, one of you guys is making it.
Yep.
Sure.
So SPG always in the news for something.
And fortunately, it wasn't a mistake he made.
He had an incident coming to Pit Road,
hit the water just right.
And that could have been way worse than it was.
Yeah, the fact that he was able to spin out like this
and nobody else wrecked was pretty spectacular.
You see him go through the middle of all those cars
and wind up stuck in the grass.
And that water on the apron,
obviously it's not ideal,
but that is pretty much normal at Talladega.
It always has those weepers in the cracks
and he just caught that seam exactly on.
They had a great shot of it,
exactly in that seam where the water was running out of it
and lost control of the back of the car.
It snapped around quick.
And you're already edgy right there
with locking up the rear tires coming onto Pit Road.
And he got in there pretty hot
and it just snapped around on him.
But the fact that nobody else crashed right there
was pretty lucky.
And he's still the top 15 at Talladega by the way.
It poured. Mr. SVG.
It poured the night before.
And they were doing, they were driving the track
like leading up like Preways got pushed back.
So the fact that that was the only incident
that we really had with that is lucky.
I thought he was just gonna, I'm like watching it.
And I'm like, is he just gonna drift this thing
all the way down Pit Road?
Like it seemed like it was gonna kind of catch back straight.
And then the 24, and there was a 24, the 20
and the five were all being touched
by the 88 wall inside.
I thought he was gonna bounce off
the back of the 20 and straighten back out.
But it just kept going.
Exciting moments.
Another one happened in stage one
when Eric Jones was attempting to push the four
and this caused a pretty big pile up.
And the scary situation had appeared for AJ Allmendinger.
Yeah, and when you look at the situation
of this particular incident,
I think it's like the other ones that's coming
from the car, the third car in line.
And when Eric got to the back bumper of AJ,
it just wasn't square.
And with those Chevy's and Toyotas, if you're not square,
it's gonna spin them out with that much momentum.
I think the Fords are really the only ones
that you can get away with not really hitting them square.
You can still do the exact same thing
with the way that those front bumpers are shaped.
But when those Toyotas and Chevrolets
bumped draft each other, it's very, very delicate
as to being off center like that
and spitting the guy out and spinning them out.
So AJ took a big shot.
We saw him on fire there
and apparently it had the breath knocked out of him.
And he was on the ground
because he couldn't stay in the car
because it was full of smoke.
While he's trying to catch his breath,
I'm sure most people have had the wind
knocked out of him before.
And we were trying to do that.
Not you, Brandon.
Not in the car.
I don't remember ever having the breath knocked out of me
in the car.
Can you imagine getting the breath knocked out of you
and then trying to get it back
while you're inhaling smoke?
Yeah.
Like panic in my mind would come in
because you can't breathe
and I got to think about unstrapping to get out.
Has that happened?
Have you gotten knocked out?
Not in a race car.
I've gotten knocked out in other situations.
But have you been knocked out from a punch?
No, it was from a lacrosse wall.
Yeah, that worked.
I only know of one time that I've been knocked out in my life.
How'd it happen?
Well, my sister and I were playing tag in the front yard
and I looked back to see where she was
and ran into the tree.
I was going to say mine.
That's the only time I ever remember being knocked out.
I, similar, fell out of a tree house.
Oh, you fell out.
And on my back and that knocked me out good for a second.
Yeah.
You fell out of a tree house?
Oh, my God.
That's how I got this scar on my head too.
I wasn't going to ask.
It was tagged inside.
Yeah, I was going to ask.
That wasn't from the tree.
This was the same situation hitting the door jamb.
Oh, wow.
So you're not going to tag?
No, apparently.
So the moral of the story is?
Apparently, I'm going to run full speed
and run into shit at the same time.
Keep your eyes forward, Kevin.
Eyes forward.
Yeah, eyes forward.
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We're keeping our eyes forward to Martinsville.
That's where we're headed next.
You know, man, I'm trying to make sure
that it was incredible.
I'm going to go with that.
What's the intensity like for everybody this week,
leading up to this just?
Well, your whole season's on the line.
If you're one of those guys that hasn't won a race,
if you're not Chase Briscoe or Denny Hamlin,
your whole season comes down to this
to still have a chance.
It's a lot of pressure and it's a lot of pressure.
I would rather be in the four guys below the cut line
than the two guys above the cut line
because you only have one way in.
So you only have to think about one way.
Those other two guys have to think about winning,
protecting points, racing one car,
all the things that come with that last point spot.
If they're not one of those guys that's in contention to win.
So that just makes it more difficult.
I think that, you know, you can talk about,
I'm just going there to, they'll tell you that
I'm just going there to win.
But in the end, you're going to go there
to try to beat Christopher Bell or Kyle Larson
if you're one of those two guys.
You've got to have two different agendas.
But it's as much pressure as you could ever put on
one human being in sports in this type of situation.
So it's great if you're Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin
because you're just checking the box
to get ready for biggest weekend of the year in Phoenix.
But it's a lot of pressure.
You've been in that situation,
obviously being on a team at this point in the year.
It's a lot on the whole group.
Yeah. I mean, you are the focus.
We talked about when the playoffs started,
like you're laser focused when the playoffs start.
But when you're in this situation,
you're almost like not speaking.
Like at the shop, like you just know what your job is.
Everyone's just like locked into doing their job.
It's not like we're not talking to each other
because we're mad at each other.
It's just like you're just like you're kind of anxious.
I'm so good at it.
Yeah, you're anxious because you don't know how far,
you hope that you're bringing the fastest piece
for your driver to get the job done.
And that's the first thing, all we fast.
Because if we're not fast, now we're in really big trouble
because we don't have the tools and the time to fix it.
So now it's gonna come into all right,
what kind of strategy can Rodney on the box
get us to get out of this situation?
Can the pit crew nail every pit stop?
Like it's a money stop and can we flip it somehow
to get close enough to give Kevin an opportunity
to do what he needs to do to get us in?
So it all starts at the shop and the pressure is like,
you can cut it with a butter knife
when you walk in the shops.
And I'm interested to see with the 11 and the 19,
like you guys can be focused on Phoenix obviously,
but if you bring a fast car to Martinsville,
you can definitely affect the outcome
and who you're racing against.
So how much are you, you know what I mean?
No enemies, just don't make any enemies.
That's all you don't want for Phoenix, right?
Like ask Denny Hamlin, look at he and Chase Elliott, right?
I mean, Chase settled the score at Phoenix.
So you just don't wanna leave Martinsville
with any enemies,
but it also puts the drivers in a position
to where you have to do things
that you don't wanna do, right?
We saw it with Ross at the roval,
he had to do what he had to do
and tried to knock Denny Hamlin out of the way.
I've done it, I had to knock Kyle Busch out of the way
and spun him out and wound up spinning myself out
and not getting by him when you need one point.
So sometimes you gotta sacrifice the guy in front of you
doing something dumb in order to try to get in.
And that's just the position that it puts you in as a driver
to do something that is totally outside of your character,
totally something that you don't wanna do,
but you know if you don't do it,
it's over.
You're gonna hear about it.
And you gotta do things that are uncomfortable sometimes
that are just way out of character
in order to put yourself into having a chance
to get into the playoffs
and suffer the consequences later.
From my observations covering your Cup career,
it seemed like you really thrived though
in these situations.
I think we were always pretty good
at these pressure pack situations
of being able to get everybody in the right mindset
and knowing that how to be able to focus in
on getting everything out of every lap.
And when I say every lap, I mean every lap,
once that car hits the track,
it's one lap of practice at a time,
go execute and qualifying,
get the car on the pit road
and do everything that you can do
to minimize the loss and maximize the gain.
And it's, there's nothing better
than being in these positions when it works.
And even when it doesn't work,
I mean that intensity that goes with these types of moments
from the driver's standpoint is exhilarating.
I know that they're talking about a change
in the point system and people want 30s and all that stuff.
I get it.
But those conversations that way,
he just said like that,
you don't get that without some type of playoff format.
And it just as a competitor,
there is nothing better than competing
in these situations.
I just think that that is the purity of sports as a whole.
And I absolutely love that.
And I love being in those pressure cooking moments.
I gotta look up these points.
That's why I got my phone out here.
If we had the old Winston Cup point standing,
it would be Christopher Bell over Chase Briscoe by 17.
Interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that.
I wouldn't have either.
Kyle Arson would be 209 points behind.
So then there's another system that I saw
where it's like if it was just this point,
this points format, how you get points, but season long,
it was a completely different conversation.
It was like four guys in it
and they were completely different.
So like, I'm not against a full thing.
So is it better to, I mean,
if two guys make it all the way to the end of the season
and we had two guys racing for the championship
that when we got to Phoenix
off of the traditional year,
is that, would that be okay in your world?
I don't care.
I mean, that's what I'm asking is a championship race
between two guys as good as it is against four guys,
knowing that it comes down to the last race
and you gotta do this.
This is why I don't like it.
If all you have to do is show up and run 15th,
I don't think that's very good
because these guys are great.
They're gonna run 15th.
Like the 24 has had an awful playoff run
and he's averaging 16th.
Yeah.
I mean, so like that's where I don't,
that's what I don't want.
It is a complex situation.
Yeah, I do.
It's not a very clear answer.
I just, I love these moments.
It's not a game seven moment that I care about.
It's just being in that constant pressure
and having to perform.
That's the part that I love.
So if it's a four race, three race,
end of the year to the championship,
I love that because the pressure is high.
So what about a guy that wins on week 10
and then just kind of caches it in
until the playoff start?
Who does that?
Well, I mean,
you can't win, you,
I mean,
I mean, there's a lot of times we see guys win
and then the next thing you know,
they're just kind of not there.
I think there's a lot of guys that win
and then you don't see them until the playoff start.
Now they're not gonna win the championship.
Well, that's kind of my point is like anyone who's...
But with the not having the playoff system
like we have it, would it make everybody
more honed in the whole year?
No, I don't think so
because a lot of guys are gonna be out of the playoffs
by week 10.
Another section are gonna be out of it by week 25
and you're gonna buy 10 races to go.
I think you'd only have maybe five to six, seven
that are mathematically in,
but are not really interested.
You know what I love?
What's that?
That I don't have to make this decision.
Yeah, no kidding.
Because you're gonna have 50% of them hate you
one way or the other.
They don't matter.
50% are gonna hate you one way or the other.
We've learned that.
They are.
Trust me, I know.
This year we have learned.
Yeah, I know.
So we have to make our predictions though.
What are we predicting?
What we believe the champ four will look like.
Ooh.
So we know two of them.
So who else is going?
Yeah.
My champ four has been blown up once to anyone,
Vegas, because I didn't have a man.
I know, but you can still say who you think is.
Did I have men?
Yeah.
I thought you did.
Yeah, probably.
So Briscoe and Denny are gonna be there.
I think that Blaney and Bell also will be.
So you're saying, okay, so that, okay.
What do you got?
I don't think it changes.
You don't think it changes.
I think the four we have go.
Well, but I picked Larson.
So I guess I have to.
I guess I have to.
No, wait, no, wait, I wasn't gonna correct you.
I'm like, yeah.
I mean, so I think someone from the bottom four
is gonna win and make it in.
And my pick for the championship is William Byron.
So that's where I'm going with.
If William would have won Talladega,
I would have said Blaney would be the one in, right?
Like, so for my pick's sake, I'm going with Byron,
but in my brain, if he was already in,
I would say that Blaney would be the one
winning byron as well.
So it's a small thought is what you're saying.
It's a small thought.
You said it was in your brain.
So if you're gonna have to be a small.
It's not a very big thing.
It had to be a small thought.
Very small thoughts at a time.
Yeah.
I don't know where my brain was at,
but because I have to remain loyal to my original pick,
I have to say it would stay the same, though.
I mean, Kevin can give you an olive branch and you can.
I mean, we let him cheat once, so.
It wasn't cheating.
Is this using all the resources?
Using all the resources.
What do you got?
You said it's not changing.
I think it's the same four.
Okay.
I think the four that are in right now stay in.
I think it's Larson, Bell, Briscoe and Hamlin.
Well, you're just gonna have to watch on Sunday
to find out.
It's gonna be very exciting out at the paperclip.
I can't wait.
Yeah.
Guess what?
It's your turn.
What do you mean?
It's my turn.
I've been carrying this whole thing.
You're out.
Yeah.
She can't do something today.
Kayla says my back is hurting.
I've been carrying the whole show.
Hey, listen, friends, family,
closers from all over the world,
welcome to Mamba's social sips.
Are we worldly?
Huh?
Are we worldly?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, okay.
Yeah, we're coast to coast every see all of it.
Yeah.
Hey, we're gonna start.
I told you we're going short track racing.
Do you ever wonder what you sound like
in like Japanese or something?
I don't think I...
Do they translate us?
No, I don't think they translate it like that.
They could with AI.
Okay.
But I don't think they do that.
I think it's...
I would think that the like Japanese
and any other country would, not just them,
any other country would probably think that you're weird.
I hope so.
Yeah.
Listen, if you wanna be number one,
you gotta be a little odd.
You are definitely unique.
You gotta be odd
What's that the word I was looking for was unique.
I think she got you there.
Okay.
We're going to go on track racing.
My buddy Riko Abu won the High Limits Championship.
I think there was actually two races this weekend.
I think I'm pretty sure he swept them.
Won a bunch of money.
And that series is super cool
what they've been doing, putting it together.
It's a great picture of him,
Megan and Gus, their dog and victory aim.
But the real picture I wanted to show you guys
was this trophy that he won in Texas.
Look at this thing.
Wow.
Look at that long horn.
The long horn, yeah.
That thing is huge.
That's funny.
That might be one of the coolest trophies
that you could win.
Yeah.
That is definitely, definitely very unique.
He's stuck on that unique word.
I wanna give a shout out to Brad Sweet.
I called you weird.
She said unique.
That's fair.
I wanna give a shout out to Brad Sweet
because Brad is retiring from full time racing competition.
There's a really cool,
a really heartfelt speech that he had
on the high limits, socials, I urge everyone to check that.
I wonder how much that has to do with owning the series.
I would think that it's for the point
where to make it grow,
like he probably feels like he needs to be more
involved with the business side.
I haven't had any conversation with him,
but in my brain-
It's a massive undertaking.
A lot of work doing both.
I mean, you've run a series.
To do it the way that they do it, I can't.
I mean, we put a lot of work into the cars tour stuff.
I can't, I mean, they race way more than we do.
So the workload that goes with that is extremely high.
And way more places, like how they travel and all that.
Good for Brad Sweet, though.
He's had a really impressive career.
Yeah, one of the, he's such an ex-
He's synonymous with that series.
He's a great guy.
He's a fun guy, so good for him.
And good for Rico and that whole group.
Car store, staying in the short tracks.
The championships have been completed.
There was a great picture of the drivers and the owners.
And this is the end of the late mall stock race.
So we have Landon S. Huffman, who is Shane Huffman's son.
Shane Huffman is the crew chief for Butterbean
a lot of the time in the orchestra series
and Cain Quaple driving for JRM.
Kevin, we talked about Keelan and Luke Baldwin
duking it out.
I felt like this was just as good.
Absolutely, we were really fortunate
to have two really good finishes
to our late model races this weekend at North Wilkesboro.
So yeah, I had to think about it there.
Where have I been?
I don't know, I'm thinking about where I'm going.
But I think when you look at the finishes,
I mean, that's what we see half the races all year
are great finishes like that.
And you see two guys battling for their first win
with Huffman and Quaple.
You know, the unique part about Caden
and his situation is dad's crew chief
and Travis Quaple, his dad, truck series winner,
longtime racing family to see him.
I mean, he works as freaking guts out
and both of those kids work their guts out as well,
Carson and Caden.
So to see them win
and then you have the Huffman family
long tradition of racing in their family.
So both of those kids did a great job.
Obviously Landon came out a little bit short on the victory
but led most of the race, did a great job
and qualified on a pole.
So a great way to end the car's tour season
with two great races in our pro-late model division
and late model stocks.
Yeah, and we actually get the picture of the champions.
I thought this was great.
The car owners and their drivers, super cool to see that.
I think Delaney's, yep, the KHI owner,
the real owner is in the right in the middle there next to
Landon Lewis who won the late model stock championship
and then on the far right,
you have Rick Ware who won, that's Luke, it is Luke,
it's Luke Baldwin that's standing there with them
but they won the owner's championship in the pro
and then Ben Mayer, right?
Ben Mayer.
He won the driver championship in the pro.
Another long racing family tradition
with the Setzers that build his car.
So that's part of the conversation that I had
with a few people this weekend at the racetrack.
You look at the Setzers and you look at the Huffmans
and you look at the Quappos and our family
and the Earn Hearts and their family.
I mean, racing is a cycle of generation of people
and families and so when you get into this part
of the country in particular,
when you look at the generations of racing families,
you could go in that garage and find multiple stories
just like the ones that I just mentioned.
So it's fun to see the different generations
and commitment that families have made
to auto racing and racing in general.
If this conversation doesn't make people
want to watch cars tour and go to cars tour races,
I don't know what to tell you because-
Support your local short tracks.
Support short tracks.
And speaking of, since we're talking about that,
I want to give a little shout out to Rick Ware
and that group because they have decided to do that
and I would love to see more cup teams,
more national owners, national series owners
involved on different levels,
whether it's just getting their drivers into a race or two
or doing a full season, whatever it is,
it all helps, it all matters a lot.
So love that.
Congratulations, champions.
Hey, we got a mailbag this week.
Oh boy, oh boy.
Michael.
Tartaglia.
Tartaglia.
Thank you, thank you.
Good job, good job.
Good job.
Yeah, it seems like, yeah, very-
Daliano.
Yeah, he's one of our Northeastern fans.
He says, I'm one of your diehard Northeast fans
and love hearing you analyze different tracks.
He must be talking about me, not Kevin.
In your opinion, what makes the perfect racetrack?
Well, that's a tough question
because I think all racetracks
go through an evolution.
And when you go through that evolution,
I just meant mean the surface,
being at a point where it's worn out enough.
How do you, I would tell you this,
I think back to old Bristol,
and we talk about how great it was for so many years,
but it was really only one lane.
It was one lane.
And it was great for a different reason
because in order to pass somebody had to move them,
so the fans loved it.
From a racer standpoint, you like New Bristol, right?
Because of the fact that you can run the bottom,
you can run the middle, you can run the top.
So that's a really delicate question to answer
because of the fact that what makes it exciting
compared to what makes it racy are two different things.
And I think that you want a racetrack
that's got a couple grooves,
but doesn't take the spectacle out of it,
of being able to not have to rub on somebody's door.
It's like you look at North Wilkesboro.
North Wilkesboro is going to keep getting better
and better and better because it's not level.
One straight away is down, one's uphill.
Go to the corners, they're kind of banked,
but this ends over here, that ends over there.
The exit to turn four has got a little more banking
than the middle of the corner, it's funky, right?
So a good racetrack is not perfect.
A good racetrack has great asphalt
and it doesn't, you still have to be able
to have a little door banging.
Yeah, yeah.
When like at North Wilkesboro, right?
You got to lean on them in order to,
they can make it super difficult if they want to.
And you got to be able to lean on them a little bit
and get some donuts on the right side of that thing
in order to get by them.
So drivers love racy racetracks,
but I think that as we've evolved through time,
we also know that a racy racetrack can only be one,
to be exciting, it really can only be one groove.
So you want to be able to race all over the racetrack,
but the racetrack that only has one lane
was also our most exciting for a long time.
So I don't know that there's any right or wrong answer to this.
I think you can have a great race at any given moment,
but the short tracks, I think are where the bread
and butter is, as far as the size of the racetrack.
So we've seen a lot of great races at Loudoun.
We've seen a lot of great races at Bristol,
one's flat and one's bank.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I don't have a perfect answer.
I'm sorry, Michael.
There's no perfect answer,
but they're one of the perfect racetracks,
not the perfect, one of the Thunder Road Speed Bowl.
Never been in Barry Vermont.
You should go, you should go run a race up there.
It's high bank, 24 degree banking, quarter mile.
It's racy.
You do got to, is that the one where you kiss the cow?
That's where you kiss the cow.
That's right.
Yeah, we can get you into the milk bowl.
Listen, I would love to have you guys join me
at a race at my home track.
I grew up racing go-karts there,
so which was crazy, because we're drafting.
On the big track?
On the big track, we're drafting like hell.
So it's crazy.
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There you go.
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So Kevin, before we get into our picks for this week,
let's take a look at the best bet of the weekend,
courtesy of DraftKings.
Well, you definitely could have scored
some money this weekend because Chase Brisco
was plus 2,500.
Ooh, yeah, 2,500.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
He isn't good on speedways.
No, that was his first super speedway win.
So if you bet on Chase Brisco,
you won some money, but take the checkered flag
with DraftKings Sportsbook,
download the DraftKings Sportsbook app
and use code HAVIC.
That's code HAVIC for new customers
to get $300 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks
and win your first bet.
Only on DraftKings, the crown is yours.
This guy, he had it on before you even finished the read.
I got excited.
I have so many things to say, but I'm not going.
Go Charlotte FC, let's get it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's inflatable.
It is inflatable.
You could take that and pull with you.
Keep your float.
Okay, so we didn't really get to see the burnout,
but we're going to try and show our best version of it.
What do we think about the Brisco burnout, Kevin?
Well, I don't know what to think
because they didn't even show this part that I remember.
All I saw was the car parked against the wall
with a pile of rubber.
So it had to be just a meltdown session
as Chase did the burnout right there
against the wall right at the start finish line.
So not really in contention for anything
at the top of our list.
Obviously it was a big win
and he melted the tires down and was excited after the race.
So pumped.
But hard to top some of the things
that we've seen on the burnout list.
So Chase, you're going to have to work on your burnout.
Chase, you're going to just have to go win again
for the next two weeks so we can get you on the list.
So you know, little Geo had a good burnout
in the truck series this weekend.
Yeah, he did.
Because I was the pit reporter,
so I was in the truck.
You get to see it.
It's like right in front of you happening.
You did a good job.
Good out of him getting that win.
I think it's also kind of hard
at the super speedways because the gearing,
the way the cars are geared up,
it takes a little bit more effort,
I feel like, to keep it going.
Well, I think that hopefully we can see more of it next time.
Yes, please.
We would like to see more.
We would like to see some improvement
in the points as well.
I would.
I mean, Kevin's still leading.
No surprise there.
Take a look, C's.
None of us got points though.
We all laid an egg, that's what we did.
I thought we had good selections.
Kevin was with William Byron,
Mamba Ryan Priest, Ryan Blaney for me.
And see the standings here.
Kevin is still leading.
Running out of races, guys.
Do I look concerned?
She's in trouble.
She has to win the championship
to come bring this thing home.
Yeah.
The good news is we laid an egg,
but not very many of the fans got it either.
No, three percent.
Only three percent of the Briscoe this week, so.
That's what it says.
Honestly, they should have just bet.
That three percent should have just gone
draft Kings and bet,
because they would have won some money
if they really felt the way.
You can submit your picks for Martinsville
by scanning the QR code on your screen
or the link in the description of the podcast.
So we want everyone to join us
for our Martinsville picks.
So who wants to go first?
How's it been working?
It's always me starting, because I'm in last.
Player loser has to go first.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm going with Christopher Bell to win,
but this still would mean the same four
likely would be in.
Yeah, I see what you did there.
Yeah, you see what I did?
I had to.
She's nervous, but she has to keep bars in somehow.
This is a tough one,
because I'm telling you, any of these guys can win,
but go ahead.
My championship pick from day one
has been William Byron in the 24.
I really thought that they would be in already at this point.
They're not, but you know what?
I know that group is hungry.
They have something to prove.
There you go.
Stamp it, 24, victory lane, get it done.
I'm going to pull an asshole move right here.
You sure?
It's not going to be my championship four pick,
but as a defensive gesture,
I'm just going to pick William Byron too,
so you don't score any points.
You realize though, no, it's all right.
Okay.
Because you know that I'm going to win the championship
and then you're going to lose anyway.
What do you mean?
Like, when William Byron wins the championship.
He's not going to win.
He's got Christopher Bell winning.
Yeah, I know who he has winning.
I'm willing to sacrifice Kyle Larson.
This is a sacrificial pick.
Out of this championship four pick,
to just make sure that you lose.
Oh, wow, there you go.
I think America will agree with me when I say
we need a race winning pick for Phoenix
and you have your champ pick.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
Because you don't have to win the race
to win the championship.
Yeah, but that's not going to happen.
We're just making champ picks, I bet, for that one.
That's not going to happen.
I'm just saying.
Okay.
Well, you're just going to have to watch
and see how it all unfolds.
This is getting very interesting.
So we've talked a bit about your Thursday interview.
You want to share with us more?
Yeah, we're going to have our cars tour
Light Model Stock Champion on.
Landon Lewis, who actually drives the car
for Delaney and I at KHI.
For Delaney.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's why it says Kevin Harvick incorporated.
But anyway, I think it's going to be fun.
I know that he's probably super nervous,
but that's the great part about all of these
light model kids putting them in an atmosphere
that they're not used to to get them
the experience that they've earned
to be able to have an interview like this
and have so many of our listeners be able to listen to it.
So Butterbean was great.
You know, we've had him on here before.
So proud of Landon and everything he's done.
So I'm looking forward to drilling him.
That'd be good.
Landon, when guys like Landon get opportunities
because he doesn't come from a spot
with a ton of money to get it done,
that's what keeps people trying.
When you see somebody like that get an opportunity,
that's what keeps them pushing to try and make it too.
And I think it's really important.
I'm proud of him.
He's done a really good job this year.
He's a really nice kid.
Yes, he is.
And he's very helpful with everybody else
that's in his around him, right?
Kevin talks about the circle of life.
He is fully bought into keeping that circle, right?
Of course, sure.
I was very impressed with him when I interviewed him
for that Cars Tour race at North Wilkesboro,
just a good kid.
And goodbye, you also making opportunities
and stuff for all these people
and making a difference in their life.
If it wasn't for who he is as a person,
we would not race that car full-time.
That's the bottom line.
The only reason that we race that car full-time
was for him this year, right?
Because he deserves an opportunity
with who he is as a person
and the things that he's done to help not only Keelan,
but all the other legend kids that he's been around.
And I mean, the kid delivers golf carts
during the week,
out there pressure washing dirty golf carts
and taking them to golf courses
or picking up body parts or putting a body on a car.
I mean, he can build the whole car.
So it's rare that you see a kid like this
come through our sport
and be able to build the whole car himself.
That is rare, yeah.
And do have the work ethic that he has.
You don't hear many of those stories.
So to see him succeed is a lot of fun.
It'd be hard for him not to with the Hornaday's
around him.
Yeah.
You're gonna have to earn it all the way
if you have the Hornaday's in your corner.
That's exactly right.
Make sure you don't miss it.
You can catch that on Thursday.
Well, this has been fun.
We only have a few to go.
Make sure you subscribe on YouTube
wherever you get your podcasts.
Leave a review.
Leave five stars.
Send some mail to Mamba
and we'll see everybody after Martinsville.
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