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Denny Hamlin Leads JGR Charge at Gateway | Playoff Drama & Round of 16 at Bristol
Denny Hamlin Leads JGR Charge at Gateway | Playoff Drama & Round of 16 at Bristol
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About this episode
The podcast dives deep into Denny Hamlin's leadership and calm approach during the playoffs, highlighting Toyota's strong performance and Joe Gibbs Racing's dominance. They discuss key playoff contenders, including Bubba Wallace's resilience and Ryan Blaney's clash with Kyle Larson. The hosts debate the impact of Saturday night races on TV ratings, Bristol's challenging track dynamics, and the significance of tire strategy. Rookie Connor Zillich's impressive Xfinity season and Austin Cindric's upcoming Supercars wildcard entry are also featured. The episode wraps with race predictions, insights on team dynamics, and a lighthearted social sips segment.
Topics:
denny hamlin leadership
toyota performance
playoff drivers
bubba wallace resilience
ryan blaney vs kyle larson
bristol race dynamics
saturday night racing tv ratings
connor zillich rookie season
austin cindric supercars
team dynamics and strategy
Kevin Harvick, Kaitlyn Vincie, and Mamba Smith break down all the action from the NASCAR weekend at Gateway, where Denny Hamlin dominated and Joe Gibbs Racing cars flexed their strength. The crew also reacts to tough outings for playoff contenders like Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace, Shane van Gisbergen, and Josh Berry, who now face even more pressure heading into Bristol. Looking ahead, the group previews the Round of 16 cutoff race at Bristol, with Kevin offering his insight into why the short track is one of the toughest challenges of the postseason. Mamba delivers the best moments on social media in Social Sips, and the show wraps up with Last Call, where the crew grades Hamlin’s burnout and makes their Bristol predictions.
LINK TO SUBMIT PICKS FOR BRISTOL: https://forms.gle/TPEvWM7jD6UHLcns8
0:00 - Intro
3:50 - Gateway Recap
32:13 - Bristol Preview
41:10 - Mamba’s Social Sips
49:31 - Last Call!
58:04 - Submit Picks For Bristol
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Oldsmobile Intrigue
"... Ryan Blaney, but it didn't come out without some intrigue as well between him and Kyle Larson."
Car
Chrysler Voyager
"...turing my real one. But while I was on the Virgin Voyager cruise, they gave me one during one of the party ..."
- Intro
- Gateway Recap
- Bristol Preview
- Mamba’s Social Sips
- Last Call!
- Submit Picks For Bristol
Select text to request an explanation
He led them right through the water, and they drank it.
He's a walking Hall of Fame.
Why do we ever race on a Saturday night?
Sounds like we have an item for the Dunn committee.
It won't be a sleepy race at all.
I promise you won't.
I can't even beat the 13-year-old.
Could you imagine me trying to shift left-handed at this age?
Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour presented by NASCAR on Fox.
I'm Kevin Harvick.
She's Caitlyn Vincey.
He's Mama Smith.
Who owns two phones we learned.
Yeah, he owns two phones.
One is gold.
Yeah, one is gold.
Will you tell us the reason?
I don't understand.
Why I have two phones?
Yeah.
Because, look, I don't understand a lot of things about you,
but this is just the most recent.
So I'm an Android user.
OK.
Why?
Why?
Because I've always been one.
I've always, like, the first Motorola, like, sliding touchscreen
phone, like, I had it.
OK.
And so I've always been an Android user.
But, you know, iPhone people always make fun of Android people
for being poor, even though our phone, even though the Android
phone is more intuitive, it just does more.
Like, iPhone's a basics.
That is a big word.
We're starting out.
You know what that means?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, good.
I used to.
I know what it means.
I know how to use it.
That's all that matters.
OK.
And also, I got the amount of times
I got turned down by girls, because I would give them
weird exchange phone numbers.
And then I'd text them right there.
And then they'd be like, your number comes up green.
And they'd go from being interested to not in front
of my face.
And so I'm like, this is just not going to work.
So why not just get rid of the green one?
Because I like it.
It's me.
I like it.
And also, my business partner hates texting green text
as well, so he made me get an iPhone.
There you go.
That's the reason behind it.
I mean, I could save you some money
if you're looking to get into your budget.
I mean, we could talk about your budget if you'd like.
No, I'm good.
OK.
I mean, I can immediately save you
half on your cell phone.
Honestly, shout out Ryan Reynolds.
I got Mint Mobile on the iPhone.
That thing is like.
Oh, you have Mint Mobile?
I have always wondered who has Mint Mobile.
I do.
It works great.
Wow.
I've met the first person who uses it.
Yeah, Ryan's a new Charlotte teen, so shout out to you.
Do you know who Ryan Reynolds is?
No.
The actor?
Is he an actor?
I have no idea.
He's married to Blake Lively.
Never seen it.
The proposal?
Never seen it.
I can't.
We're not even going to get into it.
We're off to a good start here on episode 62.
And I'm cold.
So I don't want to hear anything about my jacket on today.
The old fleece?
Yeah, I'm old.
It's 70 degrees outside.
It's not in here.
It's becoming fall here in Charlotte.
It was definitely cold this morning.
We might not ever even talk about racing today.
That's fine, because we talk about the same people
every week.
Hey, you know what this week is?
I don't know.
I got a hair on my jacket.
It's Elimination Week.
So we know we will have less people to talk about
after Saturday for going home.
All right, we have plenty to recap, though.
After the gateway race, you have your sips as usual.
Yeah, welcome in.
Here we are, episode 62.
That's crazy how many.
The year is really just ripping by.
Ripping.
Ripping.
I feel like the year's almost over.
Yeah, I feel like the older I get, the faster
the years go by.
That is it.
And the more gray you get in your beard.
Yeah, I know, but I like that part.
Yeah, I like that part.
Your beard's longer than your hair.
Yeah, yeah, I keep switching up.
I got a haircut while I was on vacation.
He left the cruise ship to get a haircut.
Really?
It was $85 on the ship just to get my.
Mamba was on a cruise, by the way.
Yeah, sorry.
It was $85 on the ship just to get my beard trimmed.
And I'm like, no, we're good.
Are you going to go with the mustache for November?
Maybe, from November?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe, yeah, OK.
That's fun.
OK, stay tuned on his facial hair.
Yeah.
OK, so I know you already interviewed Denny Hamlin,
our big winner for the weekend.
I did, yeah.
I learned that he's really into this whole fishing thing.
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked him,
because I've been fascinated by that as well.
I just, I'm really intrigued by his demeanor.
He just seems so loose.
Very low key.
I know it helps when the cars are running good
and all those things.
But since the start of the playoffs,
he has just been super relaxed.
And hearing him explain just why that is
and his approach to the playoffs this year,
obviously he's got a different crew chief this year.
But he kind of backed up the driver's demeanor,
the driver's personality, setting the tone for the team.
And I think that's a lot of what we see in these playoffs.
You see a lot of mistakes on pit road.
You see speeding penalties.
I mean, we've seen all the mistakes
that were typically seen from the guys
who don't do it on a weekly basis.
And then they get tense.
They get up tight.
Their crew guys get up tight.
The crew chief starts making calls.
So it was interesting to hear Denny talk about that
and the things that he wanted to do differently going in.
And a lot of that comes with maturity,
but he definitely spoke about trying to be the leader
of his team and setting that tone
as far as the personality and things that go with it.
He has a pretty uncanny ability to tune out distractions,
because we've talked about on the course of this show,
Kevin mentioned it, crew chief change,
lawsuit, had another child,
and it feels like he's not really missing a beat.
Are you on the bandwagon or no?
No, you're gonna get run over by it.
Are you getting run over?
Listen, you better speed that bandwagon up
if you're gonna run over me.
No, I'm not, I'm not.
I don't think, he's one of the,
he's a walking Hall of Famer.
Yes.
And he's done it in his way.
Yeah, that's a good way to put that.
Yeah, I think you gotta respect the way
that he's put together his resume and his career,
and he's won every big race that you could want to win.
Obviously, the championship is what matters the most.
I mean, if you ask him, he does a good job
at being like, eh, if we win it, we win it.
If not, we don't.
It's like, no, you want to win it.
Like, that is the entire reason why we do this,
is to win that championship.
So, but for him to be able to just kind of navigate
that and stay in the right frame of mind, right?
If you play loose, you play fast,
and if you are loose in the car,
you're gonna drive better.
Everything doesn't feel so impactful, detrimental,
when it goes wrong.
It seems like he's able to just kind of say that.
And I think when you grow into being the leader,
you learn how to navigate life better.
And I don't think that just his race team,
I mean, you hear him talk about things
that he needs to do different,
and that leads to things that he does at home,
and it leads to heading out on the fishing boat,
or going to the golf course, how to balance.
And we talk about the circle of life on here,
sometimes being able to balance that as a driver,
is super difficult.
You look at, the next one's gonna be Connor Zillich, right?
Like, how does that circle of life get balanced?
Because it evolves and it changes.
Eventually, you get a girlfriend,
and then you get a wife,
and then you start to eat well.
But I'm saying then you get businesses,
and then you have things that are going on,
and all of a sudden you're learning more and more and more
about that circle of life, and how to balance it,
in ways that work for you.
But ultimately, in the end, his seniority,
his age, his maturity in life,
are what allows him to be the leader of his team.
And there's a lot to be learned by a lot of drivers
and people that are watching in how and why
that is important in our sport,
as much as we wanna talk about the pit crew,
or the team, or the driver, who's the most valuable.
In the end, when the star is the leader,
you get the most out of it.
Yeah, I think it's interesting when you talk about
who's great and how they become great.
He's big difference between good and great.
Yeah, Matt, there's a lot of people
that are really good at what they do.
There's a lot of, and I would say that we call
those people like B players, right?
To be an A player, there's a lot of sacrifice
that goes into it and being great and being elite.
And you have to understand how to get the most out
of your people.
And sometimes that's being the bad cop,
but sometimes it's being the good cop.
But either way, you gotta know how to motivate
the people around you.
And I think right now, that 11 group is pretty motivated.
I think the switch between Gabe Hart to Gale
has been probably better than I think even Denny
thought it was gonna be,
because at the beginning of the year,
he wasn't really excited.
I don't think he wasn't excited about Chris Gale.
He just wasn't excited about losing Gabe Hart,
which I wouldn't be excited about losing Gabe Hart either.
But Chris Gale has been able to not skip a beat
in the speed in the process.
And I think that in the past,
Gabe Hart was more the leader than Denny.
Yes.
But I think it taught Denny how to be the leader.
And now he is the leader of the 11 car unquestionably.
Like it's not a,
there's still a balance there between driver and crew chief,
but in order to get that process right,
I mean, he led him right to the water and they drank it.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Well, I was just gonna say,
we have talked about too with Chris Gale.
He was always with young and experienced drivers.
Now this is the first time we've seen him paired
with a veteran.
So it's interesting to see that dynamic
with the two of them.
For sure.
Okay. So we can all agree.
I think we need to, before we get too far,
we need to talk about how fast those Toyotas are.
That's just where I was leading you.
We're trying out of your mouth.
We're trying out of your mouth to say,
we can all agree Denny Hanlon and company
are on a good pace,
but so is Joe Gibbs racing than Toyota.
Go ahead, Kevin.
Well, they had all four in the top 10.
Yeah.
All four Joe Gibbs cars were in the top 10,
but Bubba Wallace had a chance to win the race.
If he doesn't miss that shift,
he had control of the race.
And I don't know what happened to the shifter,
why it got hung up or whatever,
whatever the scenario is there.
But I think when you look at the 23 car,
really fast, Tyler Redick ran in the top 10,
John Hunter Nemechek was in the top 10.
Jay's and them boys are getting it right now.
But I'm just telling you that the Toyotas came to play.
And typically in the past,
we've seen the Pinsky cars be the ones
that step up going to the playoffs.
The JGR or the Toyotas were already
in a position to be fast,
but they seem to be the ones that have stepped up
to the plate once the playoffs have started.
I think, and I know we're going to talk mainly
about playoff drivers and as we're sure,
because they're the ones fighting for the championship.
But the fact that the legacy motor club team
is running better and running as well as they are,
that is a significant step for Toyota as a group
to have another team that you can rely on
with information.
Like I'm sure, I'm sure that it's no coincidence
that the 42 is right behind the playoff drivers.
And the 43 has been in the middle of them.
Right in the middle of them, right in the mix.
So that's a big thing for,
if you're driving a Toyota,
having another reliable team to lean on, that's huge.
And then, you know, we said at the beginning of the playoffs,
I thought the Briscoe and Bubba were the two most dangerous
drivers, too much dangerous teams.
I did say that.
And they are not messing around.
They're both really, like Danny Hamlin,
they're both loose and very comfortable
in their process.
And the thing that I liked about Bubba Wallace
this weekend was the fact that
when he had those issues,
it didn't turn into a meltdown.
Yeah.
In the past, we would see that
maybe have turned into a meltdown on a day like that
when you're in position to win a race.
It's not all about winning the race.
It's important to win the race,
but there's going to be things happen
and being able to deal with that mentally
and move on to the next goal
are the things that you have to learn how to deal with.
And with Bubba, you go from thinking
you're gonna win the race,
having control of the race to tread and water
to get the solid finish.
And being able to get that solid finish,
you look at Blaney, got spun out,
you look at Bubba Wallace leading the race.
Those are just a couple of examples of guys
that rebounded and had a good day
because stuff's gonna happen.
And it's just not having it be catastrophic.
That is most important.
It seems like since Bubba won at Indy,
that team has been firing on all cylinders
because he's had five top 10s in the last seven.
And his crew chief has made a huge, huge difference
in just the way that it seems like the team
goes about the thing.
And really probably the best,
they are the best 23-11 car, the 45.
He still just hasn't got it going.
He was in the mix up in the top 10 this week,
but never to the level that we expect them to be
as far as winning races.
I think from a speed standpoint,
just the eye test would tell you that Bubba
and that group, the 23 group,
is probably the third best Toyota.
It's really close with C-Bell.
Like C-Bell, they have speed too,
but it seems like it's not as connected right now
for whatever reason.
So obviously they're gonna probably try
to really lock that in moving in this next round.
But the 19, the 11, the 23, those three Toyotas are...
And just watching, the 19 car,
I mean they had issues this weekend too,
on pit road and came back and finished second.
That shows you-
Huge strategy from James Small.
Yeah, but it shows you the strength in that team.
And they're getting themselves into this position
from just listening and watching the things
that they say and do,
just purely from hard work.
And they are, they bust of their asses
to get to this point.
And I know everybody thinks that they bust their ass,
but those guys have had to work hard
and overcome in a new team, new relationship
and put themselves into position to be real contenders
because you look at a day like yesterday,
it could have been a disaster.
This is another great example of could have been a disaster
come back and finish second.
It shows you how fast their cars are
and they're mentally capable of competing.
Okay, real quick.
I was surprised on that restart with Brad.
Brad took the bottom and then Brisco took the bottom.
So it gave Denny outside,
he was starting second on the top.
I was surprised that he wanted to get behind him
because I felt like he was gonna get stuck.
He went down into one, had a plan and took it,
they went three wide, actually, yeah, they went three wide.
Now the 11 got the jump
and that kind of ultimately was the difference.
I think Denny was probably gonna beat him anyway.
He was.
But it definitely made it to our surprise
that he decided to restart behind him
instead of outside of him.
Yeah, and I think the six was obviously hoping
for a miracle, a caution comes out,
trying to do the fuel mileage thing.
But at that point, you've kind of made your bed
of what you're gonna do.
But it seemed like James got him back,
James Small got him back into the race
by that two tire strategy.
And at that point, it was, okay,
let's get the best finish.
We'll put ourself in a position to get a top five
and move on out of here
with what could have been outside of the top 10 day
really easily.
So I think at that point, the 11 had him beat.
And in that scenario, he was just,
he was the car that had superior tires
and the track position to go along with that.
So it was, they did, 19 did a good job.
We're talking about drivers and teams
that finished in the top five.
So too did Ryan Blaney, but it didn't come out
without some intrigue as well
between him and Kyle Larson.
This happened at the tail end of stage two.
They were battling kind of just,
I guess Larson just wrecked him.
Yeah, I don't know how to put this.
Well, there was a lot that had gone on.
The five had been in position
trying to pass the 12 car for a long time.
But the one thing I will say is the way
that Kyle Larson races is a lot about situations like this.
He misjudged in this situation obviously
by a fair amount, trying to slide up
and slide into the, you know,
across the back bumper of Blaney.
But that's the way Kyle races.
There's a lot of times you'll go in the corner
and he'll dive it way in there,
slide right up to your door,
not bang into your door or anything,
but he'll freak you out.
Some of his strategy is trying to freak you out a little bit
to make you think he's gonna hit you
or whatever the case is.
But I really think in this position,
knowing how Kyle races,
I'm not saying that it's dirty,
but he is a guy that's gonna try to make you think
about being put into a bad position
and being able to spook you and make a bad pass.
And I think that when we see this move,
there were a lot of laps.
I don't even know how many laps he was upside by side
with him trying to finish that pass on the 12
who was running the high side,
but Larson definitely misjudged and spun Blaney out.
But there are a lot of times when you'll see him drive in
and do a lot of these types of moves
in order to try to get you to react.
And this time he got him to react,
just counter steer, spin out.
Too much.
Yeah, had a conversation after the race.
Seemed very civil.
Obviously a lot of respect between the two of them,
but Ryan did say that he's gonna remember this.
Yeah, right.
I mean, Kyle to Kevin's point,
he's trying to get people to flinch
because in that situation where they are,
if he lifts a little bit or bobbles,
he's probably gonna get the run that he ultimately needed
to make the pass down in one and missed it.
And, you know, Ryan talking about someone
who can melt down sometimes is doesn't anymore.
Like since he won the championship,
the melt, like even on the radio,
like he gets fired up.
It's not exactly the same as it used to be.
It's kind of controlled and they bounce back.
Could still do a lot better at it.
Yeah, yeah.
But they bounce back and you talk about
someone leading their team.
Like I think the way that he leads his team
and the way Jonathan Hassler's crew chief
leads the team, I think that they have
that championship grit and metal
and they're not worried about falling back
and not being able to come through.
They know that they can do it and they had a talk
and it seemed like Ryan was like,
yeah, I don't think it was malicious,
but he messed up.
So now I owe you one.
Like he basically was like, I owe you one.
I don't think he's gonna blatantly wreck him.
You're gonna get egregious.
But I think if they're racing tight,
especially at maybe the Roval,
like a road course type that, and he, oh, sorry.
Yeah, I mean, he's just put him in the dirt.
I mean, that's just the way that it goes.
But Kyle is definitely one that's going to try
to put you in a bad position.
He's going to do everything he can
to make you feel uncomfortable.
And sometimes it's a slide job
and checking up in front of you.
Sometimes it's right on your door.
Sometimes it's sliding across your back bumper.
But I'm with you.
I don't think there was anything malicious
in this particular instance with the scenario.
I think he just missed it.
It's interesting to me how Ryan,
the respect level, like he doesn't,
he just will sit there and then there's talk to you.
And like, it seems like the guy's respect,
there's a lot of respect that comes to
when you're dealing with the 12.
It seems like versus other people,
it's a lot of jarring.
And when Ryan comes up to the other drivers,
it seems like there's a lot of understanding
and almost like a disappointment.
It's kind of a mild manner to come in, for the most part.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, when the helmet's off.
He doesn't flip out on people on a regular basis.
It's just interesting.
So do you think that in this instance,
does he need to settle the score?
I think he'll do it in his own way
if he feels like it's necessary.
I think whereas maybe before,
he would have given him more room.
The next couple races, he probably won't.
Yeah.
I mean, he's not gonna put himself in a bad spot
just to go out and get the five.
You know what I mean?
It's not like a whole subar situation
where people feel like they want to go out of their way
to go get them back.
Your buddies with him ask him and report back.
Yeah, give us a report.
Let me just, RB, I'm gonna text you right now.
So we can agree that it was not a malicious intent
there between Larson and Ryan Blaney.
So too, I don't think for Josh Berry and Chase Elliott,
but Chase did send him into the wall.
When he was running 15th, back-to-back weeks,
tough for Josh Berry.
I hate seeing that.
Yeah, and it looks like, you know,
when the nine goes in,
you judge off the bottom of the racetrack.
You see him just get a little wiggle right there
going in the corner
and he has to use a half a lane.
And unfortunately, Josh Berry is right there.
So puts the 21 car in a position.
You can really see it right here
when he just has that little wiggle
and has to chase it up.
But Josh Berry in a must-win situation,
going into Bristol playoffs,
definitely haven't started the way that the 21 car
would have wanted it to with, you know,
the mistakes that they made last week
with the car and getting on the ground
and crashing right off the bat at Darlington.
And this week,
just kind of doing his own thing right there
and winds up, you know, driver side into the fence.
So it's just a, it's a tough place on those restarts
with the way that the racetrack is so wide.
And that's the thing that I loved about the racetrack
this weekend is you had options.
You could run the bottom, middle, top
and really knowing how bad the cars are behind each other.
It gives you an option to be able to move your car around
but the restarts were wild, you know, going in there.
And you got to take everything that you can get.
And I think that with the five and the nine,
you just see them trying to press the issue
in really tight spaces to be able to try to
gain that position and it just costs somebody else.
We saw that happen a couple of times, right?
Someone getting into the corner, getting a little free.
And I think one thing about that is you're downshifting too.
There's a lot of work twice.
There's a lot of work that's going on
in that section of the racetrack.
And then you, so if the car gets unsettled
while you're trying to do that,
it's really easy to get free
because probably when the car's the lightest,
I would imagine.
And I mean, it's a very interesting corner
because the straightaways, the corners are so sharp
and the way that that turn one dumps off, you know,
from the straightaway into the banking right there.
I mean, it naturally, and the two downshifts,
like you're saying, it naturally is just edgy right there.
And we saw that in a, in the situation
with the Dillon brothers as well.
Oh yeah.
Austin wiped out Ty.
Oh man.
Nothing worse for Richard Childress
to have to stand up there and try to navigate.
Navigate the family tree.
Not only that, but it was a, you know,
not a great day from a performance standpoint
for the RCR cars and Ty and everything.
So.
Once the Draft Kings got on the car, they were like,
oh, you know, we're here, it's gonna be a good time.
And then they just kind of get dumped by the brother.
Austin Dillon, he did collect points in stage two.
I mean, he's not out of the conversation,
a loving back right now.
And I really think he's probably,
I mean, I don't see, you know,
everything that we've seen so far,
I don't see the 48 putting together a day
that they can go out and win a race.
I think they have the speed,
but they just, they can't put a day together.
Whether it's speeding on pit road, pit stops,
just it seems like anything that can go wrong has,
is going wrong.
And it just seems really disorganized currently.
But, you know, I think that from a point standpoint,
I think Austin Dillon, if Austin Cendric
has some trouble right there
and doesn't get stage points
and Dillon can get some stage points,
has the potential to go out and do that.
They've run okay at Bristol in the past,
but, you know, they didn't, they didn't run well at,
they didn't run well at St. Louis,
but did get some stage points
and make something out of it.
And that's all you can ask,
is just keep yourself in the game.
Just stay in the game.
Stay in the game.
Take your brother out while you're at it.
That's right, yeah.
Yeah, that sounds expensive for a pop off.
Yeah.
We were joking, we liked the three box though,
the two box, like that's entertaining.
All right, let's talk about SVG for a moment,
because he had a 25th place finish,
also went for a spin.
What do you make of kind of where he's at right now
in the playoffs?
Well, they've actually qualified way better.
You know, so I think that the oval progression
is still there.
I think that, you know, seeing how he qualified,
but he was super aggressive all day
and beat his car up a little bit,
got himself in a position right here
where he got loose and got turned around.
But honestly, these are some of the things
that he needs to do
and see how far he can go with some of these things.
You see him get loose,
getting in the corner,
firing up against the wall too,
but he was really aggressive on all the restarts
and all the scenarios using the bumper.
And I think those are just things
that he hasn't really done in the past.
And I think that probably
might have been a little too aggressive
on some of those restarts.
And I think he got to spin the car out.
And I think you got to run into a few guys here and there.
And now he's experiencing that in the playoffs
and he knows that it's do or die
in this first round on the ovals, but 15 out.
So I think that, you know, it's going to be,
which is not,
it's going to be a tough hill to climb for them.
That's on the oval.
Yeah, that's a lot for them.
But that's, I think if you look at that,
and you told everyone that he was only going to be 15 now,
you're like, damn, that's pretty respectable
for what they're trying to do.
I think you're really building for next year.
I think they're really looking at.
Going through these moments.
Yeah, going through these moments
it's building for next year.
So maybe it's a little bit too aggressive right now,
but we want to start somewhere closer to this.
Find the middle road for me.
Yeah, we're going to start closer to this next year,
then easing into it
so we can be further down the road
when we get back in the playoffs.
Cause he's going to be back in the playoffs
cause there's road courses
as long as there's road course on the schedule.
But you can see that the speed of the car
and you know, his comfort level based upon qualifying
is way up.
You know, I think they,
I think they qualified 15th or 16th this weekend.
You know, and then last week it was better as well.
So I think that the seeing that qualifying improved
definitely shows you that,
that the comfort level and the cars
are getting better on the ovals.
Yes.
We're talking about SVG and kind of leading into that
is Connor Zillich.
I want to give a shout out to him.
Got you.
The explaining series, regular season champion.
Nine Royce wins this year.
That's pretty impressive.
It's very impressive.
And you know, I think that the, you know,
the biggest detriment to Connor is just his accident
seems to be actually a little bit accident.
A little bit accident.
A little bit of accident.
He was thrown outside of the race car.
It's never going to be inside the car.
This week he tore up his suit,
slide down the hood of the car,
got hooked on a hood pin,
ripped the ass out of his suit.
He did that because he was like,
there's no way I'm going to get hurt sliding down this.
And yet still something happens.
Something stupid.
Yeah. So I mean, Connor's biggest fear
is getting hurt exiting the car.
Getting out of the car after a while.
About killed the camera man.
Doing his burnout, slid down,
slid down there and about wiped out the camera man.
So the, so Sunday night,
the late football game was the Bills versus the Ravens.
God, I thought it was over.
It was a great game.
I turned it off.
So did, so did they for sure, right?
And a meme, an NFL meme account on Twitter
was like, was like basically saying
the Ravens celebrating while they're up
and then they used Connor falling down
as to me.
Oh really?
It comes like, I thought we were over this.
Like, no brother, I'm sorry.
That lives forever.
Anytime someone has it and then it's just,
sorry, Rob.
It was so funny.
But what an impressive feat.
Winning this rookie season in history.
Yeah.
Let that sink in.
That's quite an achievement.
Kevin, I think the last time
we probably seen someone like this
was probably Byron's Xfinity season.
He had one like this that was kind of similar
and he ended up winning the championship, I think.
Yeah, I don't know if it,
I mean, was it his rookie?
Yeah, he was one year in truck,
then one year in Xfinity.
Yeah, I mean really the only thing you can compare him
this, the season that he's having
just outside of the fact that he's a rookie,
he's blowing all that away.
I think, you know, you're starting to get compared
to those great years that Kyle Bush had in the car
and all the wins and different things
that he was able to accomplish
when he was at his prime.
What do you, just real quick,
I mean, what do you guys think?
Like, if he's the one pushing SVG
on the road courses now,
I would say he's probably,
he's a head of SVG on ovals right now.
So you remember the line in the days of Thunder Movie?
Yeah.
Which one?
There's a lot of them.
In the beginning, when Rowdy told Cole now,
you did a good job, son.
Now go get your own team in your own car.
That's what it's going to come down to, right?
Like it's going to come down to
what kind of team can they put around him?
How does it gel?
How fast can the cars go?
I think that there's going to be
a learning curve that goes along with that.
But there is a road course early in the season.
I think that, I mean, his potential is through the roof.
No idea where it is.
But in the end, it all boils down to
how fast can the car go?
And that's going to come down to the people
that put the cars on the racetrack.
And in that situation,
even though you have the best driver,
you still got to have one of the best teams
to get the full potential out of the driver.
You need the team.
It takes everybody to get it done.
There it is.
And the team.
It takes the team, but you look at
you look at Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe,
they're in there, they're in there giving the feedback.
Now Denny's giving the feedback,
Chase is getting the feedback, right?
Yeah.
So there's two different scenarios.
So, you know, you've got a rookie with a lot of potential.
Now who's going to guide him to get the right information
out of him.
And I think that's going to be the tricky part
because now it's a game of problems.
Yeah, right now, right now it's,
Darian Grab has been the crew chief
when they run that extra car, I think.
And which Darian obviously has worked with the best,
like literally the best drivers that we've had.
Look at Watkins Glen.
I mean, he was a mid-pack car.
Right.
And practice and qualifying.
And that's, that's my point, right?
Like Watkins Glen is his best racetrack
from a road course standpoint, it seems.
And when it's not right, you're mid-pack.
And that's the best you're going to do in cup
unless it's, unless it's all right.
Now, I mean, the best drivers with the best cars
have to have the best people
and then they all compete together.
And sometimes the best driver doesn't get the best people.
And, you know, it's an uphill battle.
I think it's an underestimated fact
that when you add another car, it really takes a lot.
Like the amount of work that it takes for that car
to be slightly as quick as your main cars.
That's why Jimmy isn't racing as much
because he felt like it was taking away
from the two cars that need to be running the best.
And it looks like he was right.
And I think when you, like when you look at yesterday
for the track house team in general,
Ross ran okay at the beginning of the race
and then they all kind of migrated, you know,
to the middle of the pack, Daniel got wrecked.
But, you know, I think that that,
that is just going to be the key to the puzzle.
We've seen a lot of things changing at track house.
I think that some of that is the anticipation
of making sure that they get that,
that three car dynamic correct.
So they've got the drivers that they want with Ross.
He can grind out any race
when his vehicle is up to snuff.
And, you know, I think that the difference
between Ross and SVG and Connor and Daniel
is he can grind it out and get a, you know,
a finish out of an average car.
I don't, I don't, I mean, Connor's got a lot to learn.
So in the end, it's just going to be,
it's going to be about how fast can they make the car go.
I'm interested.
It'll be interesting.
Yeah, to see how Connor's village progresses
in the cup side.
But for now, his sites are set, obviously,
in the XFINI series and getting a championship there.
Nearly home.
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We are moving on now to Bristol,
a very cool venue on the circuit for an elimination race.
This is going to be exciting.
It's a Saturday night race.
Saturday night, baby.
Under the lights.
Saturday night, let's talk about this.
Nope, I didn't get very far.
Okay, listen.
Why do we ever race on a Saturday night?
It makes no sense.
It doesn't?
No, zero.
Makes zero sense.
Why does it make zero sense?
Just look at the TV ratings when you get done.
I know it's football season,
but the TV ratings are historically completely well-known
by everybody in the industry
that it does not score ever, ever, ever, ever
on a Saturday night.
Ever.
How long has this race been on a Saturday night
since the 90s?
I don't.
Early 90s?
I don't know.
Since Earnhardt dumped Terry Labani?
Yeah, but still, I mean we go back,
we went from Saturday to Sunday at Richmond.
TV numbers go up.
We go from Sunday to Saturday.
Crowd goes up.
I'm more concerned about the TV ratings
than I am how many people are sitting in the grandstands
because that's what makes it go around.
So no NASCAR race should ever not be on a Sunday.
You think they all should be on a Sunday?
Every one of them should be on a Sunday.
So if we moved to Sunday,
do you think we should move the time slot?
Yeah, just run it Sunday afternoon.
Sunday earlier.
Yeah, the Bristol night races is forever not there.
It's not in August.
We're in the middle of September now.
Oh, okay, I see what you're saying.
You know what I mean?
It's a playoff race as I spit everywhere.
It's a playoff race.
Fire it up over here.
How about this race?
It's a playoff race that got moved to September.
It's not the Bristol night race anymore.
No, I understand.
No, I understand your, with that mindset,
now you get where you're at.
As I go back and I look at the Richmond TV ratings,
they know it doesn't score on Saturday night.
It's a dumb move.
So maybe we should just flip it.
They should all be Sunday.
Oh, just leave them all Sunday.
They all should be Sunday.
For every race or playoffs?
Every race.
Every race, okay.
Kevin thinks that we should.
There's no Saturday night racing in the history
of NASCAR since the Bristol night races
that has scored well in the last five years.
Sounds like we have an item for the done committee here.
We haven't had one in a couple of weeks.
That's right.
The interesting part about that,
I think, is the dynamic of the teams.
And if they want that...
Don't care what the teams want.
See?
I don't care what anybody wants.
Sunday races rate better than Saturday.
There you go.
Listen, he's not wrong.
The numbers said it.
The numbers don't lie.
The numbers don't lie.
Why do we keep going back and doing dumb shit?
I love night racing, but the numbers don't lie.
I like night racing.
You can't make it on a Sunday night
during football season?
Yeah, and Sunday nights are tough.
Yeah.
Sunday nights are tough anyway,
even if you're watching it from the TV at stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, for now it is a Saturday race.
Got me fired up.
Sorry to say.
Damn it, Saturday.
What are these teams in for?
With this racetrack,
you've obviously a ton of experience there.
You're gonna struggle with the night.
Yeah.
Well, I think that the Bristol night race
always seems to have a little more flair to it
than the spring race,
just because it's a Bristol night race.
It should be the Bristol day race,
but it's a racetrack where we can see them go
150, 200 laps, whatever the length of the whole stage is
under green, or we can have 15, 20 cautions.
So you just, you don't really ever know,
but it seems like this race has a lot more potential
to have crashes and things go wrong than the other races,
but it's an intense place.
You're gonna see both grooves open up.
They're gonna do everything they can
to keep it on the bottom
as long as they can with the track treatment
and everything that they put into it.
So, but got the 48, you've got the three,
you've got the 88,
you've got a lot of guys that the agendas
are drastically different for this weekend.
Josh Berry has to win, 48 has to win.
I mean, there's a lot of guys in a must win situation.
All the rest of them that aren't in the playoffs
don't give a shit either.
They just want to,
they want to go out and put themselves in position
to try to save their season and win a race.
So, so yeah, it's a tough race
with a lot of different agendas this time of year.
Do you, which configurate,
I guess configuration might not be the right word,
but when the groove was slammed on the, around the bottom.
Yeah.
Versus now we have two defined grooves for the most part,
which-
It's too perfect now.
Which, yeah.
Yeah, I think that old Bristol was better
because you really only had one option.
Yep.
And that was run the bottom of the racetrack
and if you were gonna pass them, you had to move them.
Yep.
And it took a skill to do that.
Yeah.
And not wreck them.
And not wreck them, yeah.
You know, I think that,
I think if you go back and look at it,
they probably wouldn't do what they did to the track
and make it the way that it is.
But I mean, it's a perfect racetrack
because you can run the dead bottom,
you can run the top of the racetrack,
but it's, I think we've all learned that
at the, in this day and age, we don't want perfect.
No.
Yeah.
No.
As a driver, as a driver, it's,
cause you can do whatever you want
you can slide job and it's probably really,
probably one of the most fun tracks to go
and run around, I would imagine.
But from what we know about Bristol,
we're like, ah, that's not exactly.
Yeah.
And I think that, I think that,
I think that this track in general
for this particular car has become
a little bit tougher to race on because of the,
you know, the aerodynamic piece of,
of what the short track racing is.
So it's, you know, I think it,
it has the potential to get ugly.
It has the potential to be clean.
You just never know how all these guys are going to wake up.
Do you know what we're getting for tires this week?
Round ones.
Yeah.
Round ones.
Little softer tire.
Little softer one.
Little softer tire.
And I think that when you add those new elements in
the best race that we've seen at Bristol in the last,
since at the, you know, in the long time
was when the tires wore all the way out.
Big accident.
Yeah.
And the big accident.
Turned into one of the best races.
That turned into one of the best races
that we've ever seen at Bristol in this configuration.
So hopefully it's not all the way there,
but pretty close.
Yeah.
So the new tire element could,
could turn this whole thing upside down
and all these conversations that we're having are out the window
because now you have some sort of tire conservation piece of it
or something that pops in.
Hopefully.
Hopefully we're all hoping for that.
Do you think the four that are below the line stay there?
I do.
I don't think it changes.
Okay.
Do you need me to remind you?
No, I know who's there.
I think the only one that,
the only one that might change is the three on points.
I don't, I agree with,
even if the 48 has the speed,
they got to put together a perfect day
and it just seems like even when it's good.
There's going to be a lot of pressure.
There's going to be a lot of pressure on that team.
Yeah.
You know, if they get eliminated in this first round
of the playoffs with all the chatter
and everything that's happened in the past,
it's going to be, it's going to be interesting.
It's going to be crazy.
It won't be a sleepy,
it won't be a sleepy race at all.
I promise you that.
It won't be that.
That's right.
We do not want a sleepy race.
I don't need anyone sleeping on us.
Okay.
Well, we look forward to it
because it's going to be exciting.
You're also doing the truck race.
I am doing the truck race.
Hey.
So am I on pit road.
Hey.
Thursday night.
Who's your booth mate?
Do you know?
Do you remember, recall?
I don't know.
I don't even know Zia.
I think it's Lugano.
Oh, okay.
I think Joey's in the booth.
Oh, that'll be awesome.
That'll be good.
Yeah.
Have you guys ever had any run-ins on Epristo?
I don't think.
Probably.
Well, I did spin him out one time.
Okay, you guys can talk.
I did spin him out one time.
He was chopping me.
He was chopping and chopping and chopping and chopping
and we were coming to checkered,
so I just wiped him out.
That's fair.
Yeah.
Well, that happens.
It wasn't the only time.
I didn't have a wipe out.
It was just one of those moments in the
in the Lugano Harvest saga that we worked through.
It just took a while.
Can you please bring the shirt?
What's the fight?
The eye weather.
What is it?
She wears a fire suit.
Oh, I wear the fire suit.
Yeah, we bring that shirt and give it to him.
He has him.
I know, but I just want you to give him a go.
That was one of the great parts about my retirement year.
That was one of the fun weekends that we did.
Yeah.
And we actually, I actually went to Joey and I was like,
hey, we want to do this.
Is this, would you be cool with this?
And he played right along and fell right in.
And Joey and I actually became pretty good friends
as we got towards the end of my career
and worked through all the nonsense
that we went through in the beginning.
It was fun to watch, I assume, but Joey's just a,
he's a good dude.
Yes.
And he works hard.
He's very vested in all things.
Racing works hard off the racetrack
from a business standpoint.
So it's fun.
It'll be very fun having the two of you in the booth.
Make sure you don't miss that
Craftsman Truck Series race on FS1.
OK, it is time now.
It is.
It's a perk up.
I thought the show was over.
No.
I thought this segment got canceled.
No, this is, no, this is.
Should get canceled.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your favorite segment
of the show, Mamba's Social Sips.
We're actively looking for a partner
to make this even bigger.
I thought we'd change this.
Like an alcohol partner?
Yeah, I thought it was slappy social sip.
No, that's just what you in your mind.
We changed it in your mind.
It changed for about a half a second.
And I'm glad that Tyler has the right title
around the bottom right here.
Slapstick.
What could we sell?
What if we renamed it Slapstick Social?
Harvey.
If that's what gets us a partner on this part.
I got to find something that sells something
that maybe there's like a slappy tequila or a slapstick
jerky or something.
Maybe the 10-runner whiskey that RB just dropped.
Oh, there you go.
Maybe 10-runner whiskey.
That'd be pretty cool, by the way.
Ryan just dropped Elansta whiskey.
No, that's not fun.
We need something called Slapsticks.
Yeah, you're a slapstick.
That's not funny.
Just sit over there.
Did you say bucket?
What'd you say?
Just sit over there.
You'll be all right.
OK.
Yeah.
All right.
Anyway, this past week, Erica Enders,
who's one of the goats of in the motorsport space,
NHRI Pro Stock, like five-time champion,
got her 50th career win.
Big number.
It was in this, you know, which is super cool
because this team has been,
they've been struggling a little bit throughout this year,
facing an uphill battle that I think,
typically, you wouldn't see from someone.
You can tell how excited they are.
They're elation.
Yeah.
Because that was also the U.S. nationals.
Very cool.
Because, you know, it was a big race.
So, shout out to her.
I always loved that Disney Channel movie
about her and her sister.
I didn't see that one either.
Yeah, your kids probably know about it.
You can stream it right now.
It's really cool.
I forget what it was called,
but it was basically their story
of how they got to where they were at in NHRI.
So, all the trials and tribulations.
It was cool.
Oh, that's cute.
Yeah, it is cute.
50 wins.
Shout out.
Go.
Another racing space,
but this is completely different.
Very.
Austin Cendrick announced this week
that he's going to,
across the pond, way across the pond.
The way across it, yeah.
The land down under to race during the off-season.
Let's see what Austin has to say.
Hey, Supercars fans, it's Austin Cendrick.
Can't wait to be joining the Supercars grid
this November at the finale weekend
at Adelaide.
Can't thank everyone from Ford Performance,
Tickford Racing, the SA Motorsport Board
and Supercars for putting together
this awesome wildcard opportunity.
And my talking points here say
I'm ready to give it a red-hot crack.
I'll see you all there.
A red-hot crack?
A red-hot crack.
So, it's always, I'm always worried
with a red-hot crack.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I think y'all got to put some baby powder in there
or something.
I don't know what you're supposed to do with that.
Are you sure?
I don't know.
My, I don't have that issue.
Red-hot crack.
Mine's always just tannish.
But anyway, it's huge for them
because Austin, like the Team Penske
they don't usually let their drivers go off
and do stuff.
Yeah, they really don't.
So, I think this is really cool.
So, that'll be something different.
You said you always wanted to do this.
I always wanted to go over and run
because that ship sailed for me.
Why not?
Because he can't even beat the 13-year-old anymore.
I mean, I can't even beat the 13-year-old
and could you imagine me trying to shift
left-handed at this age?
Oh, yeah.
Is it on the wheel?
No, I don't think so.
I think it's all over there.
It's a sequential, but you got to shift with your left hand.
We have a mailbag question, y'all.
We always love when the closers
tag in for these.
Let's see.
Why do even elite teams like Hendrick,
sometimes struggle at specific tracks like St. Louis,
despite the resources and data,
why hasn't Kyle Busch been able to turn things around?
What say you go?
Well, Kyle Busch turns things around almost weekly,
unfortunately.
He's talking about the spin last week.
Had a little spin again this week.
Yeah.
And I think that, you know,
I think that the Kyle Busch question is,
it's going to be tough.
You know, I think their cars are just off.
I think that Kyle, being Kyle,
wants to push it faster or further
and make things try to go faster.
And when you do that in this car, you spin out.
So, you know, he's just, he's in a tough spot right now
with where the cars are performing.
And it seems like he goes overboard
almost on a weekly basis,
you know, with the spin outs and things that have happened
because there's just no, there's no cushion there.
And you can't make the thing do more than it'll do.
And, you know, that's hard
because he's not been programmed that way
for his whole career.
I think that when you look at the Hendrick piece of it
struggling at St. Louis, I think they had pretty fast cars.
The nine and the five were pretty fast.
I think that that data and those resources did,
we talked about it last week.
We thought they were going to be not competitive.
And this week they were very competitive.
And it's the first time that we've seen the speed
out of those cars that we expect
and at a racetrack where, you know,
the results in the past haven't really been, been very good.
So I think that there was, in my opinion,
the sign of hope, but I think that you get,
as an organization, you get good at certain types of tracks,
but it seems to rotate as you go through the years.
Little things will change.
Little things will change.
All of a sudden, you know,
the package that you like with the soft rear springs
or the stiff rear springs or certain type of shocks
doesn't work at those tracks.
And it doesn't really fall into the path
that you've been chasing to get those things to work well
on those styles of racetracks.
And St. Louis is a different track.
It's not like it's a Loudon or Richmond.
It's a very unique racetrack with the length
of the straightaways and the braking
and all the things that go with it.
It's not, it's not uncommon, you know,
for those things to happen within an organization,
but I do think that the one that's making the most grip right now
is going the fastest.
Yeah, shout out Miss Michelle Johnson with that one.
I think too, Kevin, the one thing that changes a lot
that you don't think about, well, I mean the teams do,
but we don't watching is the arrow part.
Like as you're working on different parts of the car,
well, we adjusted this and now this.
Arrow is always king.
The cars that make the most grip run the fastest
and that all comes from the arrow group and the parts
and pieces and maximizing the floorboards and the body panels
and everything that can make that much more grip
and stacking them up times 10.
All of a sudden becomes an advantage.
And I think that that's where that to me is where
the speed changes come in cars.
And when you see a situation like you see with,
you know, the Gibbs cars and the Toyotas right now,
it's just an overall grip enhancement.
Sometimes it might come with a small horsepower piece
that that goes with it.
So put all those pieces together and you see what we've seen
at the start of the playoffs.
The Toyotas are the fastest cars.
Thank you.
Closers.
There you go.
That's your thanks.
Slabby social.
Yeah, a little slapstick.
Slabby's pick.
We can get you like an Elmer's glue.
If we call it slack, we can be like slap sticks.
Social sips presented by Elmer's.
Calm down, Grandpa.
Don't even know what Elmer's glue is.
No one uses that anymore.
No, yes, they do.
Now they're now they're glue sticks.
Glue sticks.
Yeah.
You don't have any kids.
So we we've seen the evolution here.
I don't think I have any kids.
Glue sticks.
Glue stick gal.
Yeah.
Oh, slap sticks.
You don't want to glue sponsor?
No, I think I'm good.
Yeah.
You guys looking for booze.
I think it was the cute.
You can't get picky.
Hope there.
You're looking in the sponsor category.
He could be a little picky.
No, just that could be a whole show in itself.
Yeah.
The sponsor landscape.
Okay, 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.
Denny Hamlin plus 450 this week.
So not over the top, but still could have made some could have
made some decent money off of off of Denny Hamlin going to
the last two weeks or the last two years there.
Yeah.
I mean, he's run.
He's run well.
So it's definitely interesting to see how those odds are set.
But take the checker flag with DraftKings sports book,
download the DraftKings sports book app and use code Harvick.
That's code Harvick for new customers to get $200 in bonus
bets when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings.
The crown is yours.
Yeah.
Let's go.
I did not know.
I know.
I got so.
Wait, who got you that one?
Well, so Piper is still, you know, manufacturing my real one.
But while I was on the Virgin Voyager cruise,
they gave me one during one of the party nights.
I'm like, oh, that's coming home.
That came all the way from the cruise.
Don't don't tell me you were dressed in like some sort of
Toga.
White Toga.
No.
No.
That was Halloween a few years ago.
Okay.
I meant on the cruise.
Yeah.
What were you dressed up as?
On the cruise.
Yeah.
I was just looking good, Kev.
You had a stylist helping you with the face.
I had a couple of buttons down, letting the chain hang out.
No, you didn't keep the top button?
No, no, no.
Are you a hairy-chested kind of guy?
I'm not.
I'm like in the middle.
I almost need to like.
It has a whole tattoo, right?
Yeah.
Well, it goes over here, but I almost need it.
It's like.
Big tack guy.
Tack guy.
You got a tack?
No.
No tack.
Is he tatted?
Oh, man.
I'd be mad.
You'd be mad?
Yeah, I mean.
So if I beat you in our little points thing for our show
he is never going to get a test here.
That's okay.
That won't matter.
It's worth it.
What would I tattoo?
Like just put slapstick on my cheek?
No, you just got to put my face on your butt cheek.
Tyler's telling me to move on to the burnout.
I think he's sick of this conversation.
All right.
Let's take a look at it.
Uh, Denny Hamlin.
He took his time with this one.
And we know he does listen to the show.
So maybe he was hoping that he could.
Well, it wasn't going good right here.
You see the front tires are locked up.
Back wheels are spinning.
So we got it.
He's got to have to reset.
The front tires are not moving.
So I don't know if we made some adjustments.
I should have asked him about this.
We had a good victory lap interview,
but from that point forward,
after we do this burnout in a circle here,
burnout turns pretty good.
He gets the wheels,
gets the wheels spinning right there.
Big smoke goes on for quite some time.
So I was pretty impressed with,
with this burnout.
So we're going to give it a,
we're going to give it,
we're going to give it a high remarks here.
I'd say somewhere bottom of the top five.
There you go.
Bottom of the top.
Yeah.
Because so realistically this is like a,
that was like a miniature SVG one
because SVG would have been high five.
You know what I mean?
So just the added little elements.
It was just the burnout.
No, no added elements.
No added elements.
You know, it's like we're looking,
I don't know how we scored gymnastics,
but I guess you're looking for those little details.
The detail.
How far your toes were spread apart or.
Is that a thing?
I don't know.
I just made that up.
I can tell.
I can tell it.
You don't watch gymnastics at all.
Cause that's, I don't think that's a thing.
Oh well.
Toe spread.
Toe spread.
Point two points.
Point two tenths.
That's about what my score is right now.
Two tenths.
In the picks.
Point.
Oh, yeah.
You suck.
Yes.
I am aware.
Let's see.
Kevin got plus six for picking Ryan Blaney.
The two of you both picked Ryan.
So you gained.
Yeah.
I picked Tyler Reddick,
which I truly believed in.
I don't know what happened.
I believe in all your picks.
I do.
I want the best for everybody.
Do you put any thought into him?
Or do you just kind of.
I actually do.
You go back and look at some old stats and things like that.
I do.
You know me.
Of course I look at stats.
You need to throw those Reddick stats away.
I think she just needs to change her methodology.
Yeah.
So what's your,
what's your pick this week?
It was Joey Logano.
You're going to pick Joey Logano?
I am.
Okay.
Brittany told me,
Brittany Logano told me never to not,
never to count out Joey Logano.
I agree.
But I would never count him out.
To win Bristol,
I don't know if that's true.
I would love to stay right once.
I'm not picking first.
Are you not?
No.
You're in second.
So I have to pick last.
Okay.
Cool.
I think we're going to get our first winner from outside of the playoffs.
I think he is going to get his first win of his Cup Series career.
Give me 54 tie gifts.
Interesting.
That's an interesting pick.
Yeah.
I was not expecting that.
Yeah.
And you know,
I think you guys left all the winners on the table there.
Larson and Hamlin.
Yeah.
Which one are you going with Larson and Hamlin?
Or Bell.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, I think that,
I think that the,
the five popped up last week with some speed that I hadn't seen in Bristol has always been his place.
Really good there.
So I'm going to go with Larson.
Let the diffuser flap stay down.
Like up.
Yeah.
That's what I meant.
Yeah.
The Larson thing,
it's hard not to go with him with how dominant he was there in the spring.
Last couple.
The last couple.
But,
and Danny's been,
Danny's been really good there throughout his career.
So I'm just like tied.
And it's time for tie to get a win.
It is.
There's one on the schedule right now.
Those cars are fast.
I mean, he finished all four of those JGR cars were in the top 10 last week.
He finished 10.
This is Gabe Hart's favorite racetrack and obviously he's been a little bit more entrenched
with what's going on.
Very much entrenched.
Gabe Hart.
A little bit interesting.
I think I'm gaining points this week.
I don't think you are.
Tell us about your Thursday interview.
Well, we had our friend Rodney Childers back to get an update.
Friend of the show.
We've seen,
we've seen a lot of his comments on social media.
And it's that time of year where people are starting to look around,
look around,
try to make their situations better.
So it'll be interesting to see where he lands.
But I just wanted to see where his head is,
talk about late model racing,
talk about what he's been doing and what this time has been like with him.
So it was an interesting conversation.
I look forward to that.
I was like Tim.
I truly believe,
I tweeted this out over the weekend.
I saw your tweet.
Yeah.
If X.
What do you call an X?
What do you call an X post?
Exactly.
It's an X post.
That's why I like tweets better.
Yeah.
Like I truly believe if you were,
if you were a Xfinity or like a truck team,
because those are the type of cars I think Rodney loved the most,
like our last generation of car,
to not ask him to come in and try to give you a good honest opinion
of where your organization is and help with some processes to make
like a competition director.
Not even that.
Just like as a consultant.
Yeah.
But what does that get you?
I don't know what it gets.
I mean, for him personally,
what would that get you?
I don't, I'm not sure.
It depends on the deal you make, right?
Like in my brain, you get more,
you have more freedom.
You get to still be a part of a process.
Yeah.
Like you're not married to anything,
but you're married to making things better.
I think that if you're going to cup race,
you're going to have to get into it.
Oh yeah.
If you're going to cup race,
if you're going to cup race,
you're going to have to get into it immediately.
Yeah.
And move forward with that because it just,
the progression of the garage and the way that all the information
flows and how fast everything changes,
it'll leave you quickly.
If you don't stay involved in it on a weekly basis.
Do you think that'd be a good,
a good pairing with Connor Zilich?
I think that the experience in youth would,
would, would definitely be an interesting pairing.
I think that somebody like Brad Kozlowski,
I mean, I mean,
they're going to have to look at changing that team around.
In my opinion, I think they got to run better.
I don't know if it's engineers or crew chief who knows,
but I think that when you look at teams that,
that need a change,
I think you look at the six and you look at the 48
and you look at the Zilich situation.
You can make a long list of the 41 car.
I mean, there's a long list.
Half the garage needs, needs to make a change.
But when you got a guy that's won a championship
and been there, done that,
it's just a matter of, you know, who,
who is going to make a change.
Yeah.
All right.
Wait.
You have another note.
Yeah.
I have a little note.
Hey,
closers,
the world,
make your picks.
We have our QR code.
There's a link.
Go to it.
Come try to beat.
I mean,
Kevin, you have to try to beat Katelyn.
Yeah.
But you can try to beat me and Kevin.
One of us is going to win this whole thing.
I think we should give something away.
What do you think?
We should start coming up with a prize or something
or something to give away for.
Yes.
Like weekly or just at the end of this thing?
Maybe.
I don't know.
You know a lot of stuff.
Weekly.
I think weekly.
Yeah.
Scan the QR code
or there is a link in the podcast description
for you to get in on the action
and submit your picks for the weekend.
All right.
You can wear them or tie them.
You wear them or tie them.
One or the other.
There you go.
Or just frame them.
Yeah.
Frame them.
That's worthy of a frame, my friend.
Okay.
Thanks for your shoes.
You're welcome.
For us here.
All right.
Make sure you keep subscribing on YouTube
wherever you get your podcast.
Leave five star review.
Send in fan questions
and make sure you select your race picks as well.
We'll see you guys after Bristol.
Bye.
Bye.
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