Chase Elliott Wins at Martinsville, Hamlin Falls Short, NASCAR Race Breakdown & Bristol Preview

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A gutsy call, but ultimately it put him

in position to win the race.

Think Chase is enjoying driving race cars again.

Your teammate's the guy that's won four races.

Can't lose your cool like that.

Like, to get to eighth from 16th by itself will be a task.

Are you talking about that bracket?

I ain't nobody gonna give a f*** that.

He said that's probably how Momville

looks leaving Ask Our Sundays.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour,

presented by NASCAR on Fox.

I'm Kevin Harvick.

She's Caitlyn Bensie and he's Mamba Smith.

Hey, still here.

Hey, still, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Before we get too far into this,

we gotta introduce him the right way.

Correct. This is Kevin Harvick.

Future Hall of Famer.

Future Hall of Freaking Famer.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

That was pretty cool.

They got me.

You know what I hate about working at Fox?

That they surprise you all the time.

They surprise me.

I hate surprises.

And all the time on this show, on the pre-race show,

during broadcast, it's always something.

So I guess I should be used to it.

But that was a pretty cool surprise,

having Mike Hilton show up at the desk

and be able to tell me that I was nominated.

Nominated.

To go into the Hall of Fame was pretty neat.

So you work your whole life to get to that point.

That's right.

You're more than deserving.

You're sure everything you've done for this whole sport

outside of just driving, too.

I love it.

That's what I've based my whole life on.

So it's the people that I like to be around.

It's what I like to do.

Did you see it coming?

No, it was really weird.

Because all of a sudden, we were standing there

and Hilton was getting ready to come on.

And the next thing you know, there's

like six or seven more cameras.

Oh.

And I'm like, well, this is weird.

We never have more than three cameras for pre-race.

And the next thing we know, we had media standing around.

And so now it all makes sense.

But it didn't at the time.

Right.

Yeah, I'm surprised they were able to pull a fast one on him.

Because he's pretty, you know.

Well, you know, he gets locked in, you know.

He does.

Mike, it's like putting the helmet back on.

He's just locked into the task at hand.

Future Hall of Famer.

It's going to be cool.

I'm excited to see that.

I appreciate it.

Very excited for you.

OK, welcome into another edition of Happy Hour.

Plenty to talk about leaving Martinsville to short track.

And you've got some really good sips with us today.

We got some solid sips.

We're going short track racing.

We're going motorcycle racing.

We're going vintage racing.

All types of racing this week.

All types of racing.

And we're also going racing at Bristol in two weeks.

So we will preview that race coming up as well.

Hang on.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Make sure you guys follow us on the Happy Pod

on all our socials.

Good job.

Delivering his line.

Catch it right there.

I got you.

I'm still thinking about the Oscar Mayer wiener.

Kevin's got wiener on the brain right now.

OK, you've got to give a backstory on that.

Will Buxton was just here telling us

how they commentated the wiener race.

We were talking about commentating the wiener mobile

race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

And of course, Will has to sing the song.

So now it's stuck in Kevin's head.

I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener.

So that sticks in your brain.

Yeah, yeah.

And then after going through the whole weekend

of talking about nuclear red hot dogs.

True.

This is a lot of wiener talk.

Yeah.

And I mean, every so often they would post how many hot dogs

they'd sold at the racetrack.

And it's right outside the booth.

So last I saw it was 47,000 hot dogs.

That's impressive.

You were locked in on the hot dog situation this week.

He said he ate zero.

I ate zero hot dogs.

I've only had one my whole life.

That's probably for the best.

And I ate it in the TV booth.

That's right.

We put it on the air for the Word of the Week thing.

Yeah, look good.

But we didn't end up doing.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we didn't do that word.

We did not do that word.

That one was questionable.

Questionable.

You know her?

Yeah.

OK, good.

Well, you know what else was questionable, potentially,

was the call Alan Gustafson had for Chase Elliott.

But it ended up paying off in a big way.

And I want to start with our winner and Martinsville,

of course, in the Cup Series.

They have to feel like that was a pretty validating win

for that whole group, right?

I think so.

Can you say his last name one more time?

Gustafson?

OK.

I was just checking.

Can you say his last name?

Yeah.

So anyway, I think that the call, you know,

I think Alan gets a lot of grief about whether he should

be Chase's crew chief or not.

And when you're the crew chief for the most popular driver,

you're always going to get grief whether you want it or not.

And he doesn't.

I mean, they don't care.

Like they don't listen.

They do their own thing.

And, you know, I think that that call, I mean, he was the,

I believe the first one to Pit Road and being the first one

to Pit Road, if that doesn't go right,

sure you're setting the tone to go from,

he went from ninth to the lead on that pit exchange.

But if it doesn't go right, you're

going to be at least one lap down, if not two.

But by the time things all cycle around.

So gutsy call.

But ultimately, it put him in position to win the race.

And once he got control of the race

and was able to get the lead, you know, he never looked back.

So it didn't make any mistakes.

And his car was good.

His car was really good on Saturday.

It was not as good to start the races

as what we had anticipated the nine car being.

So he fell back a little bit at the start of the race.

They came in and made some big adjustments,

got themselves back in the pack a little bit.

And ultimately, you know, in the end, that pit call

is what won him the race.

Yeah, great call by Allen.

Put him in position.

He was able to maintain it.

After the race, I don't know what you guys thought.

I felt like it sort of seemed like a reinvigorated chase

Elliot.

He was very grateful, expressed a lot of gratitude,

seemed genuinely very happy.

Not that he hasn't in the past, but it

seems like he's maybe in a different zone.

You're smiling.

Do you agree?

Sounds like that's the type of energy

that shift that would create a breakout season for somebody

that I don't know who talked about that at the beginning

of the year.

No, I mean, I think Chase is enjoying driving race cars

again.

I think he came into this year with a different energy

and a little bit more swagger than he's had over the last

couple of years.

And I think that translates into your team.

And I think that Allen is someone who's probably a top five,

top six crew chief, as far as, especially

when it comes to leadership, I think

he's someone who really galvanizes his troops around him

and keeps his driver locked in and pushing

because they've had a rocky tenure together,

not like between each other, just like a lot of ups and downs.

I would agree with that, but it's going to take a strong

personality to be able to wrangle the situation

that you're in with the hand that you're dealt with with

Chase Elliott because of his popularity

and the criticism that you're going to take.

But I think that Chase is just at a point in his life

where it seems like the maturity level is he's always

been very mature, I felt, for his age.

But to be successful in this, and we've

talked about it with Tyler Reddick, right?

You've got to take responsibility for the workload

and things that go with what it takes to go out and consistently

win races week after week and contend for a championship.

And Chase has done that, but it's hard to do it year after year

and stay motivated.

And there's so many things to distract you from being

motivated and the amount of stardom that he has,

it's even harder because a lot of times you just

want to be left alone.

You have to go around people so much

and it's always so in your face.

And all the things that come with it are hard to deal with.

I look at Chase and Dale Jr. and it's like, man,

I always wanted to do really good and be popular

for the right reasons.

But those guys are at a whole different level of things

that they have to deal with.

So that's a tough situation when you have to deal with a driver

like Chase Elliott.

Chase, Dale, Bubba, Bubba has a lot of that too.

The things that they deal with are different.

And that means the people around them

have to deal with different things

and the people around all the other drivers.

So everyone's got to be on the same page

and understanding what those things are.

And I think Allen does a really good job of that.

And that call, that's why he's on top of the box.

But also listen to his driver because Chase was saying

he didn't feel like he could conserve tires anymore

and immediately reacted to that, right?

Yeah, it was quick.

I mean, it was in a lap or two that they were on pit road.

Once he said that, it's like, all right, well,

if we can't do anything good with what we're doing

in our original plan, we're going to abort.

But he's always had guts.

Like he's never been scared to just pull the trigger

and see what happens.

And it paid off for him big time.

You got to do stuff that's going to win the race, right?

If you can't just sit around and wait for it to come to you,

you got to shake it up.

Try and do something different.

Yeah, so he mentioned after the race

that he had a phone call from Mr. H going into the race weekend,

I guess Sunday morning, Allen did.

We've talked about on here about Hendrick Motorsports

and when would we see them get to the win column?

Has this kind of sidelined any doubts

based on what you saw at HMS over the course of the weekend?

Well, I think anytime you get back to victory lane,

it just, it immediately ends those conversations.

And I think at Martinsville, they had won 30 races.

So this was 31 as an organization.

So they're pretty good there.

And when you go back there, you expect them to be good again.

And I think that Chase Elliott carried the banner this week

and Byron qualified good, but he never had the pace

that the nine car had in practice.

Or but I mean, he laid down a lay down a good lap.

So these are exactly the expectations that we have.

And Hendrick Motorsports has for themselves along with with Chevrolet

and everything that they've done with the new car.

Now, I think it fixes all the problems.

No, do I think when we get to the mile and a half,

they're going to be better than they were at Vegas?

Probably.

It's just taking them longer to figure things out

than I think that they anticipated with how good the car was

on paper.

So it can always look good on paper,

but until you get it to the racetrack, you don't really know.

So I think they still have some work to do,

but where it came down to the mechanical piece of the car

and the things that they do at Martinsville Speedway,

they were still there.

The process, that's what I think that's really what you learn

the most is that our process is getting better.

And even though this isn't going to relate to a mile and a half

race, at least we know that we're doing it.

What we're doing is creating speed and giving us opportunities.

And when you win races that maybe, I'm not going to say you're not

supposed to win, but when there is someone that dominant

and you're able to rip it from somebody else,

that goes a long way as to what you feel like you can do as a group.

They had a better pit call.

They had the better situation and they outdid the 11.

They didn't have the fastest car.

So we still haven't seen a race where they've had the fastest car

as far as the organization and Chevrolet that I can remember.

Going back to, I still don't think they had the fastest car,

but they had what was really close to a top three car.

And being the fastest car on several laps.

So I think that you never really know until they get to the front.

And once he got to the front, I mean,

Hamlin didn't have anything for him in his situation.

And I think it sounds like he had a loose left rear wheel

at the end of the race that he was navigating.

So ultimately, in the end, they were the best team.

When it counted, made the best call.

You mentioned the dominant car.

Denny Hamlin obviously got the pole, swept both the stages,

had an issue on the restart.

Mr. Shift, it seemed to me.

I couldn't tell if he spun the tires

and got it hung on the rev limiter or what happened there.

But he didn't have a good restart.

And I think that it actually came down

to that situation and the caution coming out.

And Chase was able to get by him.

And then that allowed Chase to have control in the next restart.

And I think that Denny lost control of the race.

And he had the moment right here with Ryan Blaney.

He kind of got that right rear quarter panel

hung on the left front fender of Blaney's.

And when that happens, they usually,

you can see Denny's car kind of turn to the right.

He tried to force him up the racetrack right there.

But I don't think he meant for what happened to happen.

A lot of times they just get hung.

And when it takes that 11 car and kind of turns the nose

to the right, it hangs those cars together.

And Blaney, ultimately, the one who got the bat

into the stick on that one and got stuck in the fence.

But he came back and finished six.

So he wound up having a decent day.

Would you see out of Ryan Blaney still able to get a sixth place

effort despite what happened?

I mean, you know, they they did what they needed to do.

They stayed in contention all all race long.

I think they knew that they didn't have the speed to beat the 11 straight up.

And in that situation, if you can get in front of the 11,

maybe they felt like they could were as good as a nine, right?

So if you could have been with the nine

and then maybe you could have took the lead away from him

and then you're controlling the race.

And now maybe Denny doesn't get to you, right?

So they were in the mix.

And that's I think when your competitor is that much better than you.

That's really all that you can you can ask for.

One of the biggest things that stood out to me about that team this weekend

was no mistakes on Pit Road because we have been documenting

how many issues and errors they have had.

How big is it for them to quote unquote stop the bleeding, as you said?

Well, they did and in kudos to them for not making any changes

with all the pressure that that the outside world was putting on the on the pit crew.

And I can't remember how many cars Ryan Blaney has passed,

but it was a staggering amount.

And at a race like Martinsville, you put yourself in the back.

You're not making it back to the front.

And so they couldn't make a mistake.

I think they lost one spot on the first pit stop

and ultimately just kind of held their own for the rest of the day.

So in a situation like that, where you have a team that is struggling

and trying to get their footing, you know, back on the ground

and get things headed back in the right direction.

You just have to have a scenario where you don't have any mistakes, a clean day

and just put that confidence back in everybody that you can do this.

Everything's going to be fine.

And obviously they know that they have a good pit crew, but.

Hasn't been great.

Yeah, you know, from a speed start, a speed point on Pit Road this year.

Their ranking has been awful, but they didn't they didn't look like that team on Sunday.

Yeah. And you got to give credit to to Ryan for not.

Bailing on his guys,

bailing on his guys, like believing in them and letting them go through the process

to get better.

And obviously that that instills a lot of confidence in those guys that, OK,

our our driver believes in us.

We know we can be better.

Jonathan Hassler believes we can be better.

So let's let's, you know, let's do it now.

Let's put it on. I still think the problem that they have

is they're just not as good as the Hendrick and the and the Gibbs pit crews

as a total company, just as a company in general.

I mean, it's not a lot. Yeah.

But it's just, you know, you look at Christopher Bell,

he was probably a 12th place car somewhere around there.

And they gained two spots on every stop and and he finished, you know,

somewhere somewhere in the top 10, he didn't run there.

So his pit crew put him in a position to to have a better finish

than than what they had and what they had as far as the performance of the car.

Yeah. And that's what we talk about being such a team sport, right?

Like you need everything working out to get there.

So does this spur the conversation of a pit crew draft?

Oh, look, I would love the pit crew draft.

I've been preaching this for several years to be able to.

Now, the teams are going to be pissed because they put all the money

into trying to go find their own people.

But I think you should have to put them in the system

and let's have let's have this like NFL style pit crew draft every year.

Listen, hear me. Hear me out.

Hear me out if kind of like an expansion team

when a new team joins the NFL or NBA or whatever.

And then you get to you get to select a couple of people on your team

to keep locked up and everyone else kind of goes into the draft.

And if you want them, you might get them, but you might not.

I think that would be so dope.

It'd be spicy. Every imagine if the guy

that Jack Scott Larson's car wound up having to Jack Noah Gregson's car.

I mean, I bought a great Jack guy this year.

It's going to be a hell of a year.

But the cool thing is you're going to get compensated.

As the picker guys, you're going to get compensated for that.

You know, I mean, if you're the best at that position

and you end up with a maybe a lesser team, you're still going to get paid.

You know what I mean? So they hate it.

They would. In theory, it's a great idea.

And it would be it would be a lot of fun.

The picker guys would hate it.

Yeah, because now you talk about different

or like it's not like they all train there.

You know, I mean, like everything would be way different.

Oh, yeah. Every cool though.

A fun thought.

We were talking about Team Penske before I derailed everybody with the draft.

And another person who has to feel good leaving

Martinsville is Joey Logano after a very dismal Darlington.

He even said after the race, after races like that, I start to question everything.

How huge was that run for the team?

And that's the way it works, right?

Like no matter how many championships you've won or how many races you've won,

when you have a race where you get lap three times, you're like, that's tough.

And am I doing something wrong?

Can I still do this?

That I just did it all just the switch just go off and I'm done

knowing how to drive this race car.

But you start, I mean, you ask yourself those questions.

Your crew chief is asking those questions.

You're an engineer, but being able to switch it into the into the next week

and be able to dig down deep and have that finish at a racetrack.

That that's 14 straight top 10 finishes for him at Martinsville.

So it has obviously been a great racetrack for him.

They qualified up front, ran up front pretty much the whole day.

So, you know, that that's that's how you rebound from getting lap three times.

Yeah. Stopping the bleeding often comes with a good finish at a place that you

run good at, you know what I mean?

Like, or it rips it open more where you're like, I'm usually good here.

And now it's really, really bad.

So the depending on how the schedule lands, it can really stop gas.

Oh, if you could imagine if he had a second bad week, having to go out of this

awfully miserable hanging over, now it's like, OK, we know we've got some work

to do it at certain racetracks, but I at least know what I'm doing.

And that's just the weird mind of race car drivers.

I bet I bet money.

If he would have had another bad week, he would have not had an off weekend.

Would have ended up at Rockingham somewhere just to get just to run some more.

I don't see that happening.

He ran up at Rockingham.

He likes that place. He's good there. Yeah.

Someone who's been good everywhere lately is Ty Gibbs.

Once again, a very solid finish for him.

He has strung together such a consistent stretch of races.

Do you see a weakness in their program right now?

Well, I think that for the most part, you know,

the Gibbs organization has shown speed everywhere that they've been.

I think that I think we saw this brewing with the 54 last year.

Those last 10 weeks of the season, the speed that Ty and his team had,

we saw the changes that they that they made within the team.

And, you know, I think it it's it's it started last year.

I think now you're starting to see some consistency in the team,

no matter what type of racetrack that we go to.

And they have the speed in the cars to go with it like their teammates,

which wasn't necessarily the case when we started the season last year.

It just didn't even look like the car was coming out of Joe Gibbs racing.

It was just so far off the pace and at some of those races.

Now it looks like Denny Hamlin's and Christopher Bell's.

And Chase Prisco is a little bit of a different conversation right now.

But, you know, I think that when you can get that top five consistency,

you're going to win a race because you're in the mix.

You've got the speed, you're qualifying well and you're finishing.

And that means the pit stops are going well, you're going down pit road.

Well, you're having good restarts and all those things.

And you have to learn how to race up there.

And I don't care what you've won before.

You got to learn how to race in the top five and cup consistently

because it's it's a different style of racing.

But it's also a different level of detail that go along with what you need to do

in order to beat Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson

and all those guys that that consistently win races every year.

And he's a proven winner based on all the things he did in the development series

for Ty Gibbs, you know, it's just I feel like a matter of time

before he crosses that threshold and gets one at the top level.

Yeah, I'm happy for the kid because about a year or two ago, we were like,

this is not looking very good, but he's had time.

You got to give some people this time.

He's also been through a lot.

That's what I'm saying.

Like he's been through a lot.

He's in a different situation than other people, because he's also trying to,

you know, his last name is on the side of the building.

So there's comes with a different type of responsibility.

This goes back to that pressure we're talking about.

That pressure that we're talking about, like it's a different responsibility.

So the fact that he's kind of getting into this little bit of flow state

where he's like, everything's running well, it's all consistent.

And I'm really happy to see that the kid that won the O'Reilly's championship

a few years ago, we're starting to get that kid back as far as how he's moving.

Well, I think that's the other thing.

He's not a kid. I mean, he's still young, but he's matured into a man.

And, you know, I think that when you can take yourself and take it

to the next level from who you are as a person and have that blend over

into what you do in the race car, that's the type of communication

that it takes in order to get the details out of these race cars

with structure, organization, people, personnel, your schedule,

the things that you say, the things that you do.

And like I say, we're going to go back to Tyler Redick

and the conversations that we've had about him and just the things that he says

and does and, you know, the little inside that we've that we've been able to have

with Denny and the things that he said and Tyler has told us,

you know, the sooner you realize the level of expectations

that come with everything outside of the car.

And you learn how to deal with those things from a circle of life standpoint,

the quicker you're going to get to where you want to be at this level racing.

Speaking of expectations, you mentioned him briefly.

His teammate at Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, ended up qualifying 27th,

pretty much out of the picture the whole day.

We've documented their struggles to start the year their way back in the points.

What do you think is what's going to need to happen for them to just write the ship?

Well, you know, this week was a result of last week from qualifying.

You know, you have a bad week, you know, at Darlington and bad finish,

and then all of a sudden you got to go out early and qualify and at Martinsville.

If you go out early, you have no chance of being able to put yourself

in the front of the pack until the until the race track gets cleaned off.

That's just the way that this works.

So a lot of times a bad week leads to a bad qualifying effort.

And just keep going from there.

And I was really surprised that he ran as bad as he did.

This week, because the rest of those cars,

I mean, Bell was at the tail end of the top 10 all weekend.

You know, Chase got lapped early in the race by Denny Hamlin.

And, you know, I just thought that they were further ahead of where they were.

They've had a lot of bad luck and a lot of things have gone wrong.

But, you know, now we're now we're talking about the confidence in things

that go with what you need to do to perform at a high level.

And those are always the tests of, OK, what's this guy got?

What's this team actually have?

You know, what's this team actually have now that they're in a hole?

How do they get out of it?

You know, can they keep it all together?

Can the driver keep it together?

Can they keep it together as a team mentally to be able to perform

at a level that it takes to be to know where they need to be and have been?

And that's that's that's the that's the questions that I have now.

Can they carry?

And I had the same question going into the year.

Can they carry the same enthusiasm as a group and work ethic and

and, you know, the mental capabilities that they had last year into a new year

and do it again. Mm hmm.

Yeah, I mean, we're we're working on being like a quarter of the way.

Yeah, I think it's 21st and a point.

Yeah, he's 20. I just looked at he's 21st, 222 down.

Yeah. Daniel Suarez, I think is 16th.

And I thought I think it said like 186 down.

So like that gap is don't even care about that gap.

If you're going to win the championship, you need to.

What's the gap to six? You need to get to six.

Yeah. So like that.

The only way you can get there is so there's a point right there.

The only way he can get there is by really pulling up those bootstraps

and they really got to roll off, get some stage wins, collect those points.

And they got to win. We're up front.

They got to finish in the top three.

They got his teammates a great example.

Ty Gibbs had a couple of bad finishes at the beginning with the wrecks

and things that happened at Daytona and Atlanta.

But now they've been knocking off these top fives

and scoring those stage points in the top five.

And he's what, sixth in a points.

Yeah. So, you know, you can climb your way back up there,

but you can't qualify in the back and you can't not get stage points

and can't do what you did at the end of Darlington

and knock the thing into the fence.

And so, you know, they're in a they're in a tough spot now

and the mental battle is real.

As we get closer to the end season challenge,

the picture is going to be it's going to be real hard

because the point gap is it's going to be interesting where it all is.

And if you can really make up that many points

on guys that are being consistent, like to get to eighth from sixteenth

by itself will be a tough season challenge.

Are you talking about that bracket thing? Yeah.

And nobody gives shit about that.

Everybody you had to have known that would be his reaction.

Yeah. But when we get to it, that's when we're like, he's thinking about

he's thinking about where he's going to be at race 26.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying is that when we get to that,

he could care less who he's seated up against.

Yeah, but when we get to that, there's like there's like seven races left.

So like that's when you'll know really where you're at if you can make it or not.

Yeah. As someone we were trying to figure out

if they knew where they were at was bubble Wallace that caused a big pile up

with Carson Hosevar resulting in a very dented dente car for Carson.

What did you make of this situation?

What do you call that? What do you call the inner fender?

What do you call that?

Of the wheel? Well, the wheel. Well, it's the wheel.

Well, it's the wheel. Well, yeah, yeah.

So this this, I think, oh, I know Bubba got riled up

because Carson put him three wide on a restart and put him in a bad spot.

And Bubba didn't like that.

But, you know, it's Martinsville and I've lost my temper a bunch of times

at Martinsville and probably done stuff like this, too.

But, you know, it's it's tough when you crash a guy like that

and then wind up in the crash yourself and your day is done

and it wipes out so many cars.

So I think Bubba just lost his school.

He didn't he didn't like the move that that Carson put on him early in the race

and then kind of lost his lost his school there and wound up crashing

the 77 and himself and several others.

So unfortunate for all the other guys that are involved in these.

Look, we were it wasn't long ago.

We were talking about Bubba and Tyler being one, two in the points.

Bubba's 11th in the points.

And when you look at that and you're, you know, you're the guy that that is

11th in the points and your teammates, the guy that that's won for four races

and leading the points, that's a lot of pressure.

And I promise you that that he's frustrated that he's not been the guy

that that's won the race.

But you got to keep it together.

You can't lose your cool like that and cost yourself and your team.

All those points and everything that that happened in this scenario.

He seemed very frustrated on the radio, frustrated with Carson.

But then in his interview, he seemed like he kind of calmed down

and just stated that he misjudged.

Yeah, the the interview part was he was very calm about it.

He was like, I didn't mean to do that.

I just I misjudged it and he was very calm in it and which is probably

some maturity of calming down.

I don't. But I at the same time, I'm not going to call my liar.

By the same time, I'm like, you look like it looked pretty intentional

from the party misjudges that erect himself.

Yeah, yeah, it looked like you were mad at him.

So I'm going to look at that up for debate.

But I think, you know, we talk about the points and not like finishing

where you need it, where you are.

So finishing, it was probably around like 15th around that time.

Finishing 15th versus finishing 36th,

massive in your point situation, you got to finish where you're running.

If you're having a bad day, your meltdowns are going to be catastrophic.

And that's kind of what we're seeing.

Yeah. And that was definitely a meltdown.

Well, some drivers frustrated leaving Martinsville.

They'll have a week to think about it and everything that's going on since

we have a little bit of a break.

But before we transition from Martinsville, I want to talk briefly

about Lee Poliam, who competed in the out of part series with a very impressive

fifth place showing leading the race towards the tail end of the race.

I know he had some mistakes at the end,

but I feel like he has a lot to be proud of.

He does. And I hate, you know, he missed a couple of shifts there

at the end of the race caused a massive pile up.

And so, you know, it's that that part's unfortunate.

And I think that it's great for short track racing to be able to have a guy

like Lee Poliam be able to show the world what his talents were.

They're in Ken Strayer used to say at the best.

There are hundreds and thousands of race car drivers all over the country

that deserve to to be racing on Saturday and Sunday.

And Lee Poliam is one of those guys that just for whatever reason,

never got the opportunity until Dale gave it to him right there

at Martinsville this weekend.

So great win for short track racing.

I wish we went more places like Martinsville.

You know, Dale actually brought this up that it'd be great to go back

to places like South Boston and to give those guys at least at least one or two

a year of those short tracks besides Martinsville, even if it's just one.

Yeah, one other place each year to kind of take the series around

so that the short track guys could because they're not the same thing.

Bristol. No, that's not Bristol is a totally different.

All these late model stock guys race at Martinsville.

I mean, that's the crown jewel late model stock race

that we have every year in this part of the country.

You go to Martinsville, you know, there's 80 to 100 cars that show up

and you go there and you race.

So it's it's pretty special to when you can have a story come full circle

like that and Lee, I'm super happy for him.

I think everybody in the industry was it was really

neat to see that footage of Dale Jr.

Kind of coaching him after the race because he was visibly frustrated,

I guess, with himself, but also neat listening to the radio transmission

between Dale and him of him trying to kind of help him through.

He's like, dude, you're in second.

Like, yeah, that was funny.

Yeah, I feel like it was like Dale's talking to like almost like a like

a younger cousin where he's like, like you're you got it.

Like you're doing it.

He's like just trying to keep him walking because I think Dale could feel

could feel that he had an opportunity to win the race and he had a real

opportunity to win the race.

And I think he just was trying to keep him from not psyching himself out

because he's a legend of a race car driver.

But just like keep him in the right headspace to do what he needs to do

to have the best finish and not not ruin his day that he had put together.

That was so great.

And it was just Lee's a great guy.

I've known Lee for a long time and he is just somebody that every late

model racer like really looks up to like the lead pulleys and the the

bubble pollards like we pull them all stock racing, bubble poll and straight

row racing like those guys deserve all the accolades and all the success

and the roses that they get.

And finally, we had one of our guys again, because Bob, we got to do it last

year. We got to do it this year.

They both put in great efforts and just shows you that like a lot of the best

race car drivers just don't have the money to line up or they don't have

the money at the right time to get any money.

I mean, you know, you saw full some fence on on there that it's it's possible

to do it. And there's a lot of guys that have made it without having the money.

I kind of get frustrated with the whole, you know, it takes money to do it.

It does take money to do it.

But you have the opportunities are what it takes to do it.

It's how do the stars line up?

And that's I mean, it happened for me.

This scenario happened for Lee.

You know, you look at Kyle Larson, the stars lined up for him because he was

was was great. So I mean, there are opportunities that's just sometimes

you have to you don't get lucky enough to fall into the scenarios where it

works out for you so you can drive.

Yeah, let me ask you guys a question real quick.

Since we're talking about J.R.M. over the week this week, there was a big

discussion about Hall of Fame and who should be in and who should be not in.

And one of the guys on Dale's show, one of the producers on Dale's show is

like Justin Allgaier, not a Hall of Fame or nobody that runs O'Reilly's

nationwide or any of that stuff or trucks or anything deserve to be in that

NASCAR Hall of Fame.

I think that's a bit out of out of touch with how great some of those guys

are and what they've done for the sport.

But I'm interested to hear y'all's opinion on it.

Kevin, you can go first. I know how I feel.

Yeah, that's a tough conversation because I think it's...

It definitely is the NASCAR Hall of Fame and I think you've got Ron Hornaday,

Jr. in there who's a four-time truck series champion.

So it's really got to be defined appropriately.

So I think it's going to be difficult for Justin Allgaier of the world that is

successful in the O'Reilly series but wasn't successful in the Cup series.

So where do you draw that line of having the conversation of, well, he didn't

make it in Cup.

He did really good in Xfinity.

So is that good enough to go into the Hall of Fame?

Yeah, that's the question.

I mean, to me, I want to hear what you think, but to me it's like if Justin had...

He's six on the all-time win list in that series.

The only other person that ran full-time in that series is Jack Ingram and he's in.

So the other guys in the top 10 of the O'Reilly series all-time win list are all Cup guys.

So for him to have his name in the sphere of that matters, I think if you have three

championships, two or three championships, maybe not first-ballot Hall of Famer, but

definitely think you should be on the bat, definitely worthy of consideration.

I wouldn't say no.

What do you think?

Yeah, I would agree with that.

And then like you said, we have the truck series competitors have made it in.

There's mechanics and engine builders and people have gone into it as well.

I mean, is this just about Justin or just as a whole, you mean?

Like, are you saying you want to believe that he will go in or is that it's open to...

If you're going to be in the O'Reilly's or the truck series, you've got to be absolutely dominant.

It's like, I think Corey Heim should be...

We don't even know what he's going to do, but he could even be considered already,

technically, if you're facing non-truck series.

No, yes.

You've got to win a bunch of championships and you've got to win a bunch of races.

Like Ron Hornaday Jr., four championships, like what was it, 40-something races?

One.

Like that's like dominant.

And I think that the other thing is like for Hornaday and Sprague and Skinner,

those guys have a different story attached to their truck series career

because they started the truck series.

The truck series originated.

There's a different story attached to those guys because of the truck series and how it started.

I think that, like I look at a guy like Mike Helton, right?

And he's a guy that's a no question Hall of Famer just because of what he's done for the sport.

I think that those guys that ran in the beginning of the truck series,

or if it's somebody who started a series or something like that, I would agree with you.

But it'd be far fetched for me to say that an all-guired type situation would...

I think it might be eligible, but I don't know would be in there.

Okay.

Well, it's up for debate, you guys.

That's the best part about it.

Next up is Bristol, Kevin.

What teams really need to take advantage of the off-week?

Like, what's the goals you think for most people during that time off?

Yeah.

Well, I think that the 19 car is going to come right back into that equation.

Just how do you get that all straight so that when they show back up,

they forgot everything that just happened?

Yeah.

Because...

That's still the first part of the year out.

Yeah, you've got the cars, you've got the capability, you've already done it.

You can put yourself in a position to get back to winning races.

I think that the big struggle for me is RCR.

The Kyle Busch situation has all of a sudden become nuclear.

Now that his interviews are going like they did at Martinsville outside of the racecar,

radio conversation has already escalated to the point that it has this weekend at Martinsville.

I mean, that's a very volatile situation.

So, that to me is probably the most nuclear scenario that we have is the eight car.

There you go.

The panic button on that group is more than hit.

It's lit up and it's been lit up for a little while, but now it's like, okay, what's the future?

Now we've got to start thinking about the future.

Kyle's got to start thinking about his future and RCR.

I need to start thinking about their future, about how, what the next steps are going to be.

Because even if you put like, I love Jesse Love, but like...

That's great.

I love Jesse Love.

But if he gets in that eight car, it's not going to be better than Kyle.

But you know what I mean?

So like, what are we going to do to get this thing going?

I think the three car was their best car in qualifying and they were 27th.

And I think Kyle was like 35th and Austin Hill was last.

Yeah.

Austin Hill was last.

So you have three wins at Bristol.

It's one of NASCAR's most iconic venues.

Did you sweep all three ones?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah.

Oh five.

I felt like I should have won about 15 of them there.

You know, Bristol is just, it's a place where things can happen fast.

It's loaded with banking.

Sometimes you don't remember where you're at on the racetrack because it all happens so fast.

But it's a place where you have to be in tune with your race car.

You've got to be relaxed in order to bang off a lot of consistent laps there.

You got to get into the Bristol flow.

And you know, just the straight away, the bumps into turn one,

how the car sets you down in the banking, how you let off the brake and get that car set to

rip the banking across the bottom.

And then as soon as the bottom wears out, you got to be able to really change what you do to

drive around the top of the racetrack.

And you know, I think last year we saw that the tires not stay together as far as wearing out.

And it turned into an old school late model stock race.

Having to save tires and pit all the time and green flag pit stops.

So I'm intrigued to see what do we see?

Do we see tire savings again?

Do we see the tires shred?

Do you know, if it's warm enough, that'll take all that out of the question.

Do we see the bottom of the racetrack?

How long does it last?

And everybody ripping around the top because it rubbers up.

So a lot of questions, but a tough place to race, fun place to race.

Fun place to race always creates some interesting rivalries and things like that.

We look forward to it.

As I stated, we do have a week off for Easter, so we will be there in two weeks.

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It is time now for you to take over for Mr. Sunday Sips over here.

Sounded like you had a very successful Sunday set, by the way.

Closers.

What it do, baby?

Welcome to your favorite segment of the show, Mamba Social Sips.

And real quick, I need to do a little shout out to the NASCAR Sunday game that pulled up.

Let's run the video.

NASCAR Sunday!

We had 50 to 60 people.

That was that corner pub.

I still got my wristband from hopping on, so moved over to hopping.

He's just rolled right from the bar here.

It was a long night.

It looks like you might have just come from the bar.

Are you hungover today?

No, I don't get hangovers.

It's one of my superpowers.

But I am a little tired.

Alcohol does not affect you.

No, it does.

Just not like you guys.

I'm not from this world.

You know that already.

So it's different.

So we had a great time.

Thanks for everyone that showed up, because a lot of people heard from the show.

I love that you're raising awareness and getting more people to watch the sport.

That's great.

I hope you need a bigger bar at some point.

Well, when I do, I know who to call about the little Bushelate situation.

We should get some of those in there.

All right, let's get it going.

First off, we're going to start off the top.

Word of the week was a little spicy.

Run the tape.

We see some contact three wide right there.

Big squeeze there.

Left, uh, Chastain on the outside looking in a big block.

Chastain.

I wouldn't block that guy.

That's exactly right.

And a round goes the four of Noah Gregson off the front of AJ Almondinger caution.

Second caution of the day lap 105.

Yeah, all that chaos just created a quite a diabolical situation right there.

And Noah Gregson wound up on the wrong side of that Clint.

Was that your word?

I don't know.

Diabolical?

Oh, I have a very refined vocabulary.

Oh, that was the best part.

That was the best part.

The words are always fun to see if they react up there or not.

But it is definitely become a cat mouse game as to if they think they recognize it.

Every once in a while, Clint will be like,

no, Clint, that's just me.

I love it.

Um, so MotoGP this weekend going on, Jorge Martin, who is a champion,

two-time champion, I think, in this series, won the sprint race.

I was a little surprised that he did this, but he did a wheelie,

which that's not surprising.

It's what happened after the wheelie that kind of just run there.

You guys will see.

So, uh, really, I don't think I would, I don't ride motorcycles,

but when the wheel is to, when the bars are to the right and you land,

I feel like that's a bad deal.

I rode a motorcycle one time and I had a flat tire and I fell off the side of a cliff.

So, uh, that, yeah, I got a flat tire and I pulled over to the side and, and as I pulled

over the side, it kind of slid down the, down the side of the mountain and that was,

that was the last time I rode a dirt bike.

So I feel for this guy because you win the race and now you celebrate and crash the bike.

I view it as possibly maybe how you would celebrate at times.

No, not in a heat race.

Maybe after a big race.

What'd you say earlier? Say it again.

I don't remember.

He said, that's probably how Mamba looks leaving NASCAR Sundays.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Luckily, luckily it wasn't like that because the Ubers around here are really great.

So I didn't have to, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were around, but that's how I was walking

to the next spot when I was on my way.

It was a little sideways.

Um, not ideal.

Not ideal, not ideal.

Short track.

I told you we're going short track racing.

We love short tracks.

First time in a long time, a NASCAR national level series, um, has rejoined Hickory Motor Speedway.

We're not, this isn't a clip of the winner.

This is a clip of the guy who finished second.

I do believe Max Reeves, go Max.

Yeah, the guy that's been fast all night, that number 18, but ultimately finished.

How do you feel about your performance and just the last few laughs and how all that ironed out?

Yeah, we were the best by far tonight, you know, and props to Tristan McKee and all them at PRG.

They were good too, but they, they're nothing on us.

You know, the nine, I don't know what the plan was, but you know, I think he was trying to

take me and the 77 out, but if you can't beat them, you got to wreck them, you know.

So that's, you know,

this reminds me of that one interview with Kyle Busch.

Any like booty, like cried at the haters, you know, but there's a reason I'm in that car

and not one of these other ones.

So, you know, I'm just thankful to all my guys for everything.

And I love all these haters.

That's my favorite part of racing.

And I'm just thankful to be here.

Max Reeves finishes in second tonight.

Uh, look, Bob, it's just silence.

I love your clip.

Go ahead.

I love the, I love the pound of the chest, but you better.

You got to go win, win a lot more races now.

If you're going to talk like that, I just, I don't know.

You, you're touching that you're in some gray area on this one.

It's not that great.

That was definitely some interest.

His interviews are always fantastic though.

I like listening to his interviews because they make me laugh.

But in this one, this one definitely had, had a few of those moments that, that made you,

made you think, oh man, I don't know if I'd have said that, but I'll have to go back and watch

the race. I didn't, I didn't watch the race.

So I don't know exactly what he's referring to.

He did get run into quite a bit.

Like they were, they were really swapping paint.

If you can't read them, you got to write them.

That's what that was.

Let me be a little early for the cobblest comparisons.

Yeah.

You know, Kyle was in the 18, he's in the 18.

And well, JJ, I get it.

Yeah.

Just, just Max like makes it fun.

Yeah.

Got a lot of booze.

I enjoyed watching.

It was fun.

You, you made the show.

So that's right.

Entertaining.

Appreciate that.

Man, we have vintage racing is so cool.

Yeah.

They, like when people bring their old race cars, just to ride around, just to ride around.

Show them off.

But sometimes at Goodwood, they liked to race hard.

This is a video that Parker reposted.

He said, pro motor sports spends billions of dollars over the last 50 years.

Oh my God.

And on safety and advancements, vintage racing at Goodwood says that's cute.

This guy, I don't know what kind of cars they are.

He dropped a couple of wheels in the grass like he was Scottie Mack.

Lee Moley, brother.

You think he's taller?

No.

Got to be, actually.

Yeah.

Probably.

I mean, it looks like it stretched him out of foot.

Can we just look at this race that he's thinking right now.

I have spent a half a million dollars on this car and I'm gonna die.

The worst part is you can see it coming.

You're just like, oh, this is not good.

I wasn't expecting him to get whipped out of the car though.

No, they don't have to.

They don't see belts.

I understand now.

I see that.

Props to Parker though with the very funny.

I'm glad Parker brought that to our attention.

That was, yeah.

That was wild.

That was brutal.

We quitted with that.

Oh my God.

I heard, I heard a little bit watching that.

My neck hurts like that.

All right.

We actually, guys, mail back question.

Okay.

Wow.

Tyler did not tell me how to pronounce his last name.

Justin.

Do we got a mail back question?

Justin.

It's Justin.

Scutieri.

It's probably that.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay.

We, that's team effort on that one.

Denny Hamlin recently said he thinks he will reach 67 wins

by the time he retires with improvements to tires,

horsepower and downforce.

How different do you think your win total would look

if that package existed in your final seasons?

Kevin Harvick, what say you?

Um, you know, I think that, I think that first,

I think that Denny will get more than 67.

Because I think if he keeps going, I don't think he quits.

67.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, I would have loved the more horsepower package,

but I think in order to win more races,

I'd have had to go find a different car.

Think that, you know, Stewart Haas racing,

being at the end of what they were and seeing what it's evolved into today

and kind of seeing Ryan Priest and Chase Briscoe

and all these guys leave.

I'm like, oh, we were probably overachieving there

with everything that we had going on.

So anytime there's more horsepower,

I think I would have done better.

Hey, we appreciate y'all.

Welcome and thank you for coming to Mamba Social Sips.

Thanks for coming to Mamba Sunday NASCAR.

Yeah, NASCAR Sunday.

Hopefully people keep showing up.

Oh yeah, we're going to keep pushing.

We'll get Kevin out there and Caitlin out there

one time this year too.

Have a good feeling about it.

805-317-4175 is the voicemail number.

If you want to leave a mailbag,

HarvickHappyHour4 at gmail.com.

That's all I got for you.

There you have it.

Did we get the fax machine yet?

No.

Kevin still wants that fax machine.

We didn't get the fax machine.

I think the fax would be great.

Time now for the last call,

and this is for you to grade the Chase Elliott burnout,

which you've given Chase very high marks in the past,

but what did you think of this one?

Well, the good news for Chase is he can't do any worse

than Tyler Reddick did last week.

So that is true.

I thought he was headed to the drifting

against the finisher.

I thought he was going to do that too.

But it looked like right here,

he was trying to do that,

but I don't think that...

That happened.

You didn't get close enough.

It never happened.

But this was a really good burnout.

I love how he just flipped it around right here

and stopped it to start finish line.

A lot of smoke.

So what are you giving it?

I mean, we'll give it a B plus.

B plus for Chase Elliott.

The long burnouts are hard to get the proper smoke.

Like Denny got a lot of smoke.

Chase got a lot of smoke.

Yeah.

It stood its own.

Parked it right there.

Chase on your next win.

On your next win.

If you could just kiss the outside wall for us,

and that would be your signature.

Yeah, that's true.

Speaking of high marks,

let's take a look at the point standings

where I currently am the leader in the clubhouse,

which I am happy for you.

I love it.

I'm happy for you.

24 for me.

Six points for Byron.

I collected.

Kevin, you picked up points for choosing Denny Hamlin.

Of course I did.

He's at 22nd.

Mamba was 0 for selecting Bubba Wallace.

The great part is Mamba's back in last.

I don't mind that you're winning as long as he's in last.

So that's what makes me happy.

And I have one less race than you.

This is true.

You really suck.

We were really good in practice, guys.

We were really good in practice.

You really suck.

So I wish I was an Oscar winner.

Well, we have to make our selections

for our picks for Bristol.

Okay, I'll go first.

Do you want to start, Bristol?

Yeah, I will.

I'm locked in.

I know.

Okay, let's hear.

This guy's been on a tear.

We talked about it's Ty freaking Gibbs.

It's time.

And he won this place.

He had a one last year.

I know.

Just got into Pit Road too hot and overshot it.

But...

Vote of confidence for Ty.

Mine is for Ryan Blaney.

I think he will have a solid showing

coming off the off week.

He's been fast every week.

So that's my pick.

Yeah, I'm going to go with Denny Hamlin.

Okay.

How many times do you think you're going to pick

Denny Hamlin this year?

I'll check the stats.

We're on a great streak.

I'm probably picking next week when we go to Kansas too,

just to let you know.

There you go.

In case you're wondering.

We'll have to see.

I mean, it is a great run for Denny Hamlin

in this stretch of racism.

True.

I mean, why not?

It's all in good fun.

He didn't win this week.

We know he won't pick.

Since this show started, nobody has picked

Denny Hamlin to win more than Kevin Harvick ever.

Oh, nobody's picked Ryan Blaney more to win

than you have either.

I mean, this fan's out there.

I see.

I'm the one who...

We're going to go off the air right here

and we're just going to keep arguing.

So I want to talk about your Thursday show

with Mike Helton, who was just with you

to notify you of the Hall of Fame Ballot nominee.

So tell us about it.

It's always fun to interview somebody

who has that much history in the sport

and he was in a great mood and open

and just to be able to ask just random questions

and he answered them all.

So fun interview with Mike.

Catch that on Thursday.

And I want to say a thank you to our producer, Tyler,

who's been with us the last three years.

He is going on to a new opportunity.

We appreciate all the hard work

over the last few years.

So we will see all the closers

after Bristol in a few weeks.

Bye, Tyler.

Chase Elliott Wins at Martinsville, Hamlin Falls Short, NASCAR Race Breakdown & Bristol Preview

About this episode

eBay

NASCAR

Fox

Hall of Fame

pre-race

short track racing

vintage racing

crew chief

one lap down

pit call

breakout season

rocky tenure

contend for a championship

pit road

pull the trigger

Hendrick Motorsports

Martinsville

pace

Chevrolet

Team Penske

stopping the bleeding

wrecks

radio transmission

rubbers up

wheelie

heat race

Denny Hamlin

Kevin Harvick

Ryan Blaney

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