First Time Winner, Photo Finish, Kyle Busch Tension, Superspeedway Changes, and More!!! (ft. Auto Racing Analytics)

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Well, we're not in Kansas anymore, except we actually are headed to Kansas.

I saw the chat.

I saw those Ruby slippers in the pre-race chat.

Pre-show chat.

How's it going, y'all?

My name is Eric E. Step.

I am your host this week of NASCAR Weekly Podcast.

Joined as always by Jared Lundberg, The Iceberg, and Danny B.

Daniel Baldwin.

Good to see you.

How are the two of you doing this weekend?

Danny, I'm glad you made it home.

I was worried your late night Dallas flight, it could have been perilous.

A lot could have gone wrong, but I was happy to see you made it home.

How are you doing, my friend?

I'm doing good.

It's back in the box, but I got to see you tower two feet over me this weekend in person.

Lovely.

I'm doing good, too.

How about you?

I'm doing good.

I'm doing pretty good.

And I'm just excited, you know, best track on the circuit coming up.

Yeah, go from Bristol, which has historically been one of my favorites,

to Kansas, which is quickly becoming a new favorite.

We're also joined, as you can see, by Grant, auto racing analytics,

as you may know him on social media.

Grant, it's great to see you, man.

How are you doing this fine evening?

Thank you all for having me back.

I appreciate it.

I look forward to this every year.

It's a great time.

You know, hopefully we can avoid the marathons.

We've had the last couple of times, but we'll see what we can do.

Either way, it'll be fun.

Going to be sharing all the stats with you guys that I always do.

If you want to follow along again, I'm doing the same thing I always do.

If you want to sign up for the website and see the data support me

that I'm going to talk about in the show, I'm going to do a discount.

NWP 26 will be the code and you can just see everything for one dollar.

So go ahead, it's on there.

I meant to get the Xfinity stuff on there for you guys, too.

But last night, my website crashed and I totally forgot

that I was going to be on this show until Eric posted it on Twitter.

And I saw that.

I'm like, oh, no, I got to get everything put together.

And of course, when I go to put it all together, everything broke.

So I'm going to try and get the Xfinity is what I said, the O'Reilly stuff

on the website over the weekend.

But cups on there for you guys now.

And then obviously all the last year or whatever is all up there, too.

So, but we're going to do our best to try and predict

what's going to happen in the coming weeks.

Thanks for having me.

Hey, appreciate you being on.

And yeah, I think last year when you were on, it was like our longest

episode of the season, so we will limit ourselves tonight.

I want to ask you to believe you, but that's that's kind.

We were sticking around the two hour, two hour, 15 window this year,

much better than the years past.

All right, I want to ask you, Grant, because a few weeks back,

it was early in the season, Corey Day, you know, he was, he was getting

into some guys, getting into some stuff.

I saw one of your tweets went a little viral, got a little bit of attention

because you, you stuck with him.

You said, Hey, this guy's talented.

I don't know what to tell you, make him, but he's talented.

You got to see it.

And I mean, you got to feel pretty vindicated now.

He's finished, I think top 10 every race since he's knocking on the door

that first win, he's limiting the mistakes.

So, I mean, you can take a little victory lap, at least for now on

Corey Day, I think you've, I think you've been vindicated.

That one was really funny to me.

Cause when I, when I tweeted that, I thought nothing of it.

I'm like, this, my live tweets during the race, never do anything.

I, I, I, I just typed it out.

I said something along the lines of like, people are going to go crazy

with the Corey Day hate, but he give him time.

He's going to be a top cusp cup series prospect.

And I opened my phone 20 minutes later, boom, I'm like, Oh no.

And I didn't even think that was that hot of a take.

Like the guy is incredibly young.

I think is 19 or 20.

Just, he just turned 20.

Okay.

Yeah.

He has under a hundred asphalt starts like he has, he doesn't know

where the corners of the car are.

And then I've seen what he's done on dirt.

I watch a little, I dabble in a little sprint car racing myself and looking at

his, and I got made fun of for this because I said looking at his metrics.

And that became a meme for like four days and then he started doing good.

But, um, looking at his metrics, cause I went and looked through myself.

I, I parsed out just his starts and you, you can't take it all at face value

because he was splitting time between a struggling spire truck and then 17 team,

which was a cup program that he was getting some odd starts in.

Like it wasn't a hundred percent comparable, but he had a top, he had top 15

restart numbers.

He had top 15 passing numbers and defending numbers.

And I'm like, for a guy with under a hundred asphalt starts, who's 20 years old,

who comes from sprint cars and isn't in the car consistently, I think this is

going to pan out.

All right.

And as we stand today, Corey day, well, he's on that top 10 streak, which I

think is really funny given what everybody was saying about him wrecking.

Um, he's got the third fastest car on intermediate tracks.

He's got the eighth fastest car on short tracks.

Those are pretty good numbers.

The one that I'm interested in, he has the third best lap time consistency on

intermediate tracks.

Interesting.

He's going to be, he's going to be awfully similar to Kyle Larson.

If I had to take a guess, we're not done yet.

And I've, I've got plenty of predictions about him later to come in this show.

Um, but yeah, I do feel vindicated in that one.

And I'm going to take my victory lap, but I'm going to hold on to it because I

think the victory lap is going to be way bigger in like October than it is right

now.

That's one last thing on that.

And then I'll let you guys keep going.

I also, because of my talk about Corey day and Kyle Larson catch so much stuff

about, Oh, this guy's like a Hendrick fan or something.

Guys, you forget, I spent some time with legacy motor club when they were a Chevy

team, I cannot stand.

They are not my squad whatsoever.

It just so happens that they have two incredibly talented drivers and I'm a

sucker for a good talent.

Like what are you going to say?

They're good.

Let's get on with the show.

Enough for me.

Jeff Gordon, Kyle Larson can't all be wrong.

No, but you, I wanted you to get it, have a chance to at least relish in the

recent success of Corey day, but we can get into it because there were some other

young drivers making huge moves this past weekend at Bristol.

We'll start there.

We'll start with Ty Gibbs, 23 years old, making his 131st cup series start.

Finally, Ty Gibbs is a NASCAR cup series winner.

Had a great car, top five most of the day.

Well, if you slow out the gates, got back up into the top five, uh, was running

down Ryan Blaney before that final sequence of cautions, a pit call to stay

out when others pick, get that track position proved to be the turning point.

Gibbs gets the win.

Jarrett, what does this say?

How, what was your reaction to Ty finally breaking through?

Cause it was pretty cool to see the whole family, uh, I mean, brought to tears

practically by that win.

I deferred to Danny.

He nailed this shit weeks ago.

Yeah, I'm like him first.

I, uh, I remember I have somewhat of an idea that my predictions segment this

week is going to be all over the board, but I'm really regretting not doubling

down on a prediction and just saying that Ty gets would win Bristol because I

should have, um, yeah, I, we saw him lead multiple laps in years past.

Um, he's, this is even when in the years he's not been good.

This has been his best racetrack in top and overall in cup.

And then this year, the momentum's been there.

I mean, outside of super speedways, the man has what finished in top five.

And if he didn't, it was what sixth, I mean, he's better.

He's been right, right there all season.

You know, he's, he's in the same equipment that any Hamlin's in that,

that chase Briscoe was normally better than this.

And Christopher Bell's normally better than the Christopher Bell started off

very fast in his race and then it just went downhill from there.

It felt like, I know Eric kind of regretted that, that, that one a little bit.

But I don't know, Ty Gibbs, you know, for what it's worth, whatever the

Gabe Hart stuff come out, it's like the Michael Jordan beam.

And I took that personally.

I mean, it's, it's truly been like that this year.

We've literally seen nothing but good results out of him and his team this season.

And the kid always had talent.

We knew that from his days in the Xfinity series.

There was always some talent there, but it was also one of the things that,

you know, for what it's worth going into the cup series after winning championship

and next day losing your father does a lot to a person for sure.

And now he's, you know, how many years are we now?

Four years of him or three.

I'm kind of blanking now.

He's in his fourth year now.

Okay.

So he's reaching the point where, you know, Chase Elliott started winning year three.

Kyle Larson started winning year three.

We're, we're hitting that point where some of, you know, even today's better drivers.

When they were a younger driver, we're hitting the point where they started

to show consistency and they become winners again.

So we may be getting into that period with Ty Gibbs.

And I know there's a lot of people who love to hate on the, you know, the, the

Nepo baby, if you will, but for what it's worth, he's, he's shutting me up

cause I was starting to give up on him.

And then the season he's really, he's really shown what he can do.

Well, and, and that's what's so needed about this win, like on just the driver

side, but the family side too.

I mean, I, I had said it on Sunday night that, you know, say, you know, say

what you want about the driver.

There's plenty of reasons that he's given to, to dislike him, um, you know, on

that side of it.

But when you just take the human factor of it, of like, what a big deal this,

this really is, cause you have to think at some point, no matter how much, you

know, the belief was there before that, that, that some of the low lows he's had

in the last year had to have shaken that kind of belief a little bit, at least

maybe him personally, maybe it's within the company.

Um, certainly with Chris Capehart, that's for sure.

Um, but I mean, just the, the, the, you know, crashing the interview of his

grandpa, having his mom ride in the car with him and, and talk about his dad

and, and how much the team means and everything.

I get just on a human level.

Like I, that's the stuff I love about NASCAR.

I just wish that we knew more about Ty Gibbs.

Yeah.

Hopefully this is the beginning of Ty being more comfortable and confident to

let folks in.

Uh, but yeah, that was a special moment.

Ty Gibbs, to your point about, you know, maybe the confidence was shaken.

He was on his, I mean, he's already on his third crew chief in the cup series.

Technically, if we include Gabe Hart, you know, he started with Chris Gale.

They brought in Tyler Allen briefly brought in Chris Gabbard now back to

Tyler and like there was, it was clearly not always working, not progressing

the way everyone wanted it to the last few years.

And he's been streaky.

He's has good streaks, like when he won the end season challenge and then he's

had some really bad streaks at times.

I think it was the end of 2024.

I recall he ended here with like four or five straight DNFs or something terrible.

So he's always been streaky.

He's on one of the hottest streaks we've seen anyone go on in recent years right now.

And we'll see how long he can ride it.

Grant, I want to ask you, do you feel like this is the first of several for

Ty this year?

Like he's fourth in points.

Like I, at this point, if he keeps running something like this the rest of

the year, he's a championship contender, whether folks want to admit it or not.

Are you ready to say that yet?

I, we got to pump the brakes a little bit on that one here.

That's, that's a little wild.

Um, first of all, I want to commend Danny a little bit because good pick and,

and more than that, it wasn't exactly a layup because I, the reason it's a good

pick, he did have the fastest car at Bristol the last time we visited there.

And then his, his speed has been a lot better this year, obviously.

So you had to think that that was going to, that was going to carry over, but

it's not like he was very good on all the other short tracks the end of the year

last year, this team in the short, on the short tracks in the second half of

2025 were outside the top 15 for speed.

Um, so that there was that, that was not as easy of a pick as, as some may now

think it is after the fact that was, that was a pretty good call.

Um, as far as Gibbs in my preseason predictions, I completely wrote him off.

I don't even know if I had him in the, I don't even know if I had him in the

chase, honestly, I did not.

I'd have to go back and look, but I don't think I did.

Now that said, I'm still a bit concerned about where he is going to go eventually.

Um, because the numbers are very confusing.

They were, they have not been getting better since his rookie year.

If anything, they've been getting a little bit worse.

I don't have them all in front of me because I didn't, I wasn't prepared for

the tie Gibbs segment.

Um, but I, I can tell you that one thing I've noticed with Gibbs is his numbers

are exceptionally good when he has a fast car and when he doesn't, they are not.

I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but anecdotally, I've noticed

this in the past.

And I wonder if there's a bit of a confidence issue there, um, of just that

if there or some kind of an effort issue of if the car is not there, he's not.

And I don't, I don't know how you get past that, but that is one thing that

I've, I've noticed with him before.

And I think that that's part of why we see such a huge jump in performance

from him this year is they got the cars off to a really hot start.

And I mean, all of a sudden it's, he's back.

It's like he, it's like kind of what we expected of him year two when he came

out of the Xfinity series, O'Reilly series, whatever.

Um, yeah, I, I, I, I'd pump the brakes.

I need to see more.

We're going to have to see how the season develops.

Hey, he is streaky.

This is a good streak, but maybe it is just that for the time being.

I did just ask the chat.

We got a 83 votes.

51% say no, he is not a legit championship contender this year.

49% said yes, he is.

So it's essentially, this is a debate.

This is a debate that's going to, if he keeps running while it's going to get

it more and more interesting over the coming weeks and one is first race this

year, that's great.

I Brad, I was a lot of speed ways, which is, you know, what can some

call the flukiest tracks he's done great.

I'm think Casey Keynes, maybe best year was his, one of his first years in cup,

Brian Newman, one of his, it was his second or third year.

I'm in the pump, the brakes crowd, but I'm more, I want to see this over the summer.

Like cause that's when you start seeing the shift of which teams were kind of

pretenders early on and which ones are starting to get more serious as it goes.

Um, but, but I will say that the fact that that we're now eight races in and he

is fourth in point, which again, it's funny.

The, uh, the top five and points are all the winners.

Uh, it's like nothing changed.

Quick pause.

We spent so much time on this the last time I was here.

Isn't it fun that the point standings matter now?

And this is great.

Yeah.

Life is so good.

We don't have to have this conversation again.

This is great.

Anyway, but so he's, he's fourth in points granite way behind Tyler Reddick, but

that is, I would think would be kind of an anomaly of a start of a season.

We don't see this very often.

Uh, but you know, five top five, six top 10s in an eight race span, it's almost

as long as the span of time we're using for the championship at the end of the

year with the chase.

So the fact that they can put together that strong of a run all strung up.

What, you know, and especially not counting the super speedways, those being

the weakest, uh, that, that does at least give me interest.

Like to me, there's, there's a definitive, like probably six or seven,

maybe eight guys that, that I would look at as championship guys.

Ty is like the first one on the outside for me right now, this foreign just

because of how good this team has been.

I can't say that I can see it yet, but again, if he's, if he's good, like through

Chicago land, Indianapolis, and we're, we're getting there like four to six

races for the chase, I'm like, all right, like we might, we might have a star on

our hands here when it comes to at least on the racetrack.

I think that's a reasonable take for now.

He is on the fringe of being a title contender, but he's looked really good

the last six weeks.

Uh, Jerry, if you want to flip the little bottom ticker back to the

finishing results from Bristol, I want to run through a few other notable

finishers from this race.

There we go.

Perfect.

Uh, Ryan Blaney, second Kyle Larson, third Larson, and then Blaney in that

order led the most laps, uh, Sunday afternoon Larson won both of the stages

and actually earned one more point on the day than Ryan Blaney did, despite

Blaney finishing second.

Great run for those two.

We saw, you know, Blaney's pit crew, while they didn't have any blowup, you

know, loose wheels or anything, lost a few spots here, a few spots there.

It ultimately didn't cost him.

Ultimately, the race was decided by, by tires or no tires, track position, no

track position, but the pit crew's still a concern.

Uh, Danny, any thoughts on, on Blaney Larson, any of these top finishers?

Reddick came back to finish fourth, Briscoe, a much needed top five.

Reddick, for what it's for, just continuing to prove why I feel like he

has definitely D championship favorite this year, started second, finished

fourth, pulled that out of his butt.

If you look at his history at Bristol, his last finishes before this have been

15th, 18th, 20th, 30th, 15th, 25th, 12th.

Gonna go all the way back to the 2020 night race where he finished fourth to

match, you know, this week and he matched his best finish at Bristol so far.

So Bristol has not been a, a favorite to Tyler Reddick so far in his career, but

this one, you know, starting on the front row, finishing fourth, um, that's,

that's a feel good continuing to cement any season that he has.

Um, but, uh, of course, Todd Gillin getting six is impressed.

I just kept seeing him all day long.

And that one, that was good to see, um, Ryan Priest known via short track guide.

So good to see him cars and hosts of our continuing to prove why he is a, he's

a sleeper guy to make the, make the, the chase this year.

Um, you know, a lot, a lot of good things, but, um, you know, ultimately just goes

back to, you know, Ty Gibbs, you know, it was not, I say it was an definitely

an earned win because they did fall back a lot.

They had to overcome a lot, uh, from where they fell, keep making adjustments,

keep making moves, keep passing guys when they could and hopefully got themselves

right where they need to be.

So overall, um, just a, you know, not a, not a great attended Bristol race, not a

great watched Bristol race, but it was a solid Bristol race.

It didn't have the cheese grater tires that we expect that we would want maybe

now these days.

Yeah, I'll pause there because I don't want to get to that just yet.

I want to still talk about the finishers from a, we'll get to the, the, the, the

poll in a moment, Jared, and I'll start with you on this.

Jared Hendrick was night and day, like I Larson leading laps per usual, winning

stages up front, top five, William Byron, meanwhile, had mechanical problems all

weekend, started last, essentially finished last chase.

Ellie, it wasn't very good.

Bowman, we never really got a chance to see what Alex could do in his.

He might have all been out again this week.

He got swept up in a wreck.

But what did you make of Larson Hendrick in particular, Jared?

Well, for Larson, I mean, it's, it to me shows he's not as far off as people

think he is, which I think I've been banging that drum all last year.

He's not winning every race, but like this idea that Kyle Larson has fallen off

the map is ludicrous to me.

The, the Byron side of it, I'm not super concerned just because with the next gen

we've seen were guys that should be really good, just completely miss a setup.

Look at Joey Logano at Darlington a couple of weeks back.

But it is one of those things where you look at where he's at and the points,

we're going to look at that in a bit and he's in that scrum that's going to be that

basically cut line of who's going to be seated well enough to compete.

And I think William Byron can compete for a championship.

I honestly think, sorry, Danny, outside of Bowman, any of the Hendrick guys can

compete for a championship this year.

So I'm, I was surprised every race from here on out.

But like, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I was surprised, but I'm not worried just yet.

If they like are missing the setup every other week like this, like that, yeah,

then I'd be worried, but I do, I do want to go back though.

And I know I harped on it.

I believe the last time we had a cup race, Ryan Blaney's pit crew is going to cost him

a championship if they don't get this shit figured out.

That's what the 2311 guys word in the last few years.

Can I cut you off right there?

Go for it.

It's, it's time that this conversation has been had.

So I'm going to be honest for a while.

I've, I've been real patient on the Penske pit crew situation because I think the media

has made it out to be a bigger deal than it really has.

It hasn't been very good, but it hasn't been catastrophic because at least it wasn't

like a management issue.

It was just a, their pit crews weren't as good issue.

I made a YouTube video a while back about the track house pit crew situation of why do you

have three pit crews and your worst pit crew is the fastest car.

All right.

Thank God.

You're ready for this conversation again.

Yep.

Now Penske's doing the same thing and I don't understand it.

It wasn't the case last year, last year all their crews were just mediocre.

Now we have, so I measure pit, I measure pit data.

I don't really care about plus minus on pit road.

The only thing I care about is average of like a handful of best stop times.

And I just feed it to you guys and you can use whichever one you want.

My favorite is the average of the 10 best pit stops because I just think that

gives a good enough room there.

Later in the years, we get more stops.

You can start using more to get a better number, but right now I'm using average of

10 best pit stops.

Ryan Blaney's crew ranks 22nd in the series, little below mid-pack,

which people have already said this before.

So I'm just reiterating Denny Hamlin at this point.

It's not that that's atrocious.

It's that he's running second with the 22nd best pit crew

and everybody around him has a top five pit crew.

That's going to be a problem.

Here's where the real thing gets confusing though.

I want you to take a guess.

If you had to make a wild guess, where do Joey Logano and Austin

Syndrome's pit crews rank in the average of the 10 best pit stops?

Strictly four tire pit stops, obviously.

I should clarify that this is best four tire pit stops.

Where do you think?

I reckon they might be near the top 10, if I had to guess.

I reckon that that's a really intelligent guess.

Joey Logano's pit crew ranks 12th, but it gets worse.

Austin Syndrome has the second fastest pit crew per the average of 10 fastest tops.

Why?

Why do we have a championship level pit crew on Austin Syndrome?

Not on your championship car.

What are we doing?

I'll bring a sports ball reference.

This is worse than what Trackhouse was doing with Chastain.

And I didn't think that was possible.

I'll bring a sports ball reference into this.

Blaney's team is in win now mode.

They really are.

We hear that a lot in stick and ball sports, but that's where I'm just baffled is that,

yeah, I get you want to feel it out and everything, but if we're getting into

May and June and things are still not figured out.

And Syndrome, who is fringe chase contender, even with the second best pit crew under that metric,

I just don't understand not trying to swap things up a bit or if not, like if it gets

laid enough into the season, just fully swapping the two because even if Syndrome makes it,

he's going to be probably 90 to 100 points back at the points lead going in.

It just, it makes no sense to me.

And Ryan Blaney, I think is at least this year is showing the best version of Ryan Blaney we've

seen yet.

And I'm just afraid it's going to get wasted by a bad pit stop at Martinsville or Homestead

that completely costs him a championship because it can be that close.

I mean, if he loses, if he finishes one spot, let's say on average, because he can swing

either way, but if you finish this, let's say one spot lower than he should with a mediocre

pit crew or even semi-good one for each chase race, that's 10 points.

That's a difference.

Now add in stages and stage points they could lose.

I just, I, I, I want to see the best of the best compete.

And I feel like this is just a giant anchor on the 12 team.

I mean, Jared, I, Jared, I think it's going to be worse than that.

I think it's going to be worse than one point because the time difference between

Austin Syndrick and Ryan Blaney's pit crew is about roughly four, five, 10, five, half a second.

And I mean, that's, that's a full position or two.

And if you're giving that up every single stop, that, that gets really bad really quick.

Like, I mean, you just can't afford that.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

If this, the more I talk about this, this is literally just the trackhouse situation

all over again, except worse because they have winning race cars as opposed to top 10 race cars.

I might have to just make the same video twice.

Well, and your numbers aren't even including the fact that Blaney's team has left, I think,

at least four loose wheels already.

No, I don't have that in there at all.

That's even worse.

Like you, they're slow when they execute.

And then the problem is they also don't execute consistently as consistently as others.

So it's, yeah, that, that really paints the picture.

At least, at least it shows you that they have some competent folks at Penske.

They just may need to do some reshuffling.

They did, they swapped out Blaney's front tire changer last year.

Remember it was Skip Flores and they replaced him with somebody else last year.

And I saw Flores was on stack and pennies this week saying, Hey man,

something might need to change.

He's kind of like, Hey, well, what are we doing?

You know, you know, it's kind of the, you know, the equivalent of it's like,

if you had a quarterback who could win a Super Bowl, but instead you have a MOOC

that calls himself nine play quarterback instead.

Like that's what it's like to me.

That's a very targeted Jared reference right there.

Well, I don't get it.

Blaney, despite the disaster on pit road week in week out,

Ryan Blaney has a win this year.

Second at Bristol is second in points.

Kudos to Blaney.

We'll take another look at the points in just a moment.

But I do want to, I do want to talk about Kyle Bush for just a moment.

It was another not so banner day for, for Bush and, and I do feel bad.

I want to start by saying I genuinely at this point,

I think I've felt this way for over a year now.

I genuinely feel bad for Kyle Bush fans.

Like this has been a miserable few years.

The win, the win list streak is over a hundred races now

and things are getting worse.

They're not getting better.

25th at one of his best tracks historically, the crew chief is

yelling at the spotter and vice versa during green flag racing on channel two.

Everyone's frustrated.

He's reckoned Riley Herbst late in the race.

He's beefing with Riley Herbst at Bristol.

That is where we've gotten to with Kyle Bush.

Who was it? Was it Jared?

I think Jared, with one of his early season bold predictions,

came on this show and said,

I'm not sure Kyle Bush makes it to the end of the year with our CR.

That, that may still be a bold take, but it's still bold.

But goodness gracious at this point,

I think a lot of Bush fans would be happy to be put out of their misery at this point.

It's just, what do you guys make of this?

You know, the meme where it's like you hear the song,

I used to roll the world.

That is literally Kyle Bush all say, especially going into Bristol.

I have to count the number of times I have been there

and seen him win there on two hands.

Like it's, it's, it's that many at this point.

I have seen that many.

He knows that track like the back of his hand.

He, you know, as good as Daryl Waldrop was at Bristol back in the day,

as good as Rusty Wallace was there back in the day.

This is his, this is basically his track.

It's one of his tracks.

And to see him go in there,

and it didn't even look good in the truck race for that matter.

You know, like he was in contention for the win at the end.

He had to, I mean, it felt like a strategy.

They got him there though.

It was, it was good for out it and for the majority of it.

It's just, this is, this is not, you know, the Kyle Bush we know.

And, and then again, I'm like, I don't know what he needs to do

because I don't know if it's necessarily going to get better at Spire.

I don't know if disliking his career, if it makes sense for Hendrick to even take him.

Like, I don't know what you do with a Kyle Bush at this stage

because I want him to, I want him to keep staying in the sport.

He is good for the sport because I want to see a day where he does run some races,

probably truck races with his son, Brixton.

But man, it's just getting sad to see Kyle Bush these days.

He posted something on Twitter about all, how many Bristol trophies he had.

And I said something along the lines of the kid version of me hated being there and seeing you,

Wendy's, the 30 year old version of me just wants to see you do it again.

Well, I mean, with the Kyle Bush part too, about if it can get better,

the other part outside of the team, like we have beaten the RCR talking point to death a bit

about just how off they are. And I mean, I think a member of his Napa race advantage

is put on screen or who it was that said RCR hasn't got a top 10 yet this year.

But the other part of it is next year, if he does go elsewhere,

Kyle Bush will be entering his age 42 season.

So it's not like he's even going to be getting better as a driver.

That age clip can get anywhere in your 40s.

Once it's your 40s, we've seen for these high caliber guys that it's a roll of the dice.

You can be Kevin Harvick and be amazing basically till the end and carry a dying team.

Or you can be, you know, Jimmy or, or junior or Kenseth or whoever,

where it's just at some point, it's just nosedive.

And at some point it's going to be nosedive and it won't matter if he goes to Spire,

all these people like, oh, he's going to go to Hendrick next year.

It's like, do you think Hendrick is going to like do much more than like a one year stop

gap, even if he were to go to the 48 and I don't think he's going to?

At this stage, what would Hendrick be seeing looking at him and the RCR equipment say,

yeah, that's better than Bowman.

That's what I want.

Exactly.

And that's the question you, Denny Hamlin on his show sort of pulled,

poured some cold water on the situation and was honest like, like,

where would Kyle Bush go?

That's even a lateral move to what he's doing now.

There's openings.

He's a big name, sells merchandise, sells some sponsorship.

Like there are teams out there that would take a shot at him.

But yeah, the, this idea that Kyle Bush is this top free agent,

like he would have been at age 35 in the gen six car.

I don't think that image of Kyle Bush still exists.

I think with Kyle Bush now there's, there's risk associated with hiring him because

he's going to come in.

He has a gravity about him.

Everyone knows that's Kyle Bush.

He has a way of doing things.

You feel obligated to build the team around him, but at age 42 in the next gen car,

it just seems like Kyle Bush really isn't that effective anymore.

If I can be completely honest, I, I hate to say, I think, I think add a good team

in a comfortable spot.

He could be a top 10 driver still, but I kind of agree with Danny.

Even in an, even in the 48 next year, I think the days of Kyle Bush winning

four or five races and being a late season championship that those days are,

are probably done as long as this car is what it is.

I mean, there are the gen seven at least is going to last another three or four years.

So you're telling me that like if, if, even if it swings back to his driving style,

that a 47, 48 year old Kyle Bush is going to pull a Mark Martin.

Like I don't know, Mark Martin was still competitive even part time.

At this point, just salvage your career, Kyle.

Go get that truck series championship that you need to win there.

Just got to say is guys.

So I just looking at my metrics, I'm looking at seven, seven things.

I'm looking at intermediate speed, short track speed, restarts, passing, defending,

lap time consistency on short tracks and intermediate tracks split across those seven

metrics.

Austin Dillon ranks higher than Kyle Bush and six of them so far this year.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

And I, I'm afraid I mentioned this in my preseason preview.

I'm afraid that we may have found the age cliff on, on Kyle Bush because I've, I, I'm,

I'm not convinced of that.

And I really wish that he would go get like a Ram truck ride or something to try and like

salvage some publicity and like do something fun.

Like, I mean, it'd be really cool to see Bush go win a truck championship.

I think that'd be pretty sick, but I'm afraid that the cup series winning Kyle Bush is gone,

especially when the metrics look like how they do.

I don't know why anybody would take a chance on him.

Like he's the 30th best restarter in the series and 25th best passer.

Like it's not much, there's not much there.

I mean, speed wise, I don't know how much you can attribute to the car versus the driver,

but like that's the 25th fastest car in intermediates and the 32nd on short tracks.

That's really bad.

So it's like at some point, I just started a research project actually on this for school

of I'm looking into my metrics and I'm trying to redefine what the peak age is for drivers,

specifically in the next gen, because David Smith had classified it as age 39.

Yeah, I think it's a good bit younger than that now in the next gen,

both with the way that driver health is trending and also with the specific skills it takes to

drive the next gen car.

If I had to estimate it today, I'm thinking closer to 35, 36.

So I'm afraid.

How old is Joey Logano now?

That's a great question.

I don't remember.

I feel like Joey is kind of plateaued.

I don't, well, it just, that just, I agreed.

My eye test, I suggest the same.

35, 36 in May.

Yeah.

Well, well, it's an even year, maybe some even year magic one last time.

No, but it makes what Denny Hamlin's continued to do even more impressive.

I'd argue he continues to be a modern marvel in that regard.

He's confusing all of the observations that I'm trying to make.

I'm like, I mean, when he's your gauge of age, it's like, I don't know what the peak age is

because he doesn't apply.

I'll end this on a positive note for Kyle Busch fans or a hopeful note at some point.

Like Grant, you kind of mentioned there, not quite sure how much of a speed car.

I think it's clear that those cars don't have a ton of speed.

The other ECR cars like Trackhouse are also struggling.

So I think it's definitely a speed deficit that's not on the driver.

I'll give KFB fans something to sink their teeth into.

It is a rookie crew chief who seems to lose his composure quickly in the heat of the moment.

Maybe Kyle really is in a situation and thinks we'll get better in due time.

I'll give maybe he is in a really bad spot right now and it's not all on him.

I'll give Busch fans some hope there.

Hopefully I'm not steering folks astray on that one.

A few final thoughts before we wrap up the cup race.

Just overall thoughts on the racing.

And I know I think Danny brought up earlier.

He started on this thread.

The attendance place looked maybe half full, which Bristol, that's at least 60,000 fans,

which would sell out a lot of other tracks on the schedule, but it doesn't look great on TV

because Bristol is so big cavernous.

It's a Coliseum.

I thought the racing was okay.

I'll say that.

It wasn't extreme tire wear.

It was actually pretty little tire wear, but we still saw passing.

We still saw strategy.

I mean, in all the races, track position was more valuable than tires.

I mean, that's how the O'Reilly race was won as well.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of passing there was.

I mean, Christopher Bell in stage one drove from 14th to 2nd.

And so there were things happening, things to watch.

I thought it was a pretty good race overall.

What did you think, Jared?

I'd argue, and I'm going to say now, people are going to view the night race

more than likely way better.

And I'd argue it's because of the TV coverage.

There was a lot of movement through the pack you would see,

except for about the leader and maybe second at different points.

But there was passing.

There were guys who were good on short runs and long runs.

I don't know.

It's not necessarily to the level that it was of like 2019 and 20 and 21.

But with that being said, this to me felt more like a Gen 6 Bristol race

than a next gen Bristol race, which is a massive improvement.

Agree.

Agree there.

Danny, what did you think?

Four of this race goes.

I think it felt like a, I don't know, a sweet spot to me.

I see a lot of people saying their ratings are like seven and a half.

Some one person said eight and a half.

I feel like that's a little strong.

Seven feels about right.

It definitely made up for, I think, a lackluster overall race with the better run there

at the end of third stage, the entertaining aspect of it.

There was some passing, but nothing substantial, I feel like.

We didn't see the tire fall off, which I think has made it very entertaining

over the last few years, but that's conditional.

It really is.

You're only going to get that if the temperatures are what,

like the sixties, I think we've kind of figured that out.

They got to be perfect.

And even in the old car, Bristol, like Jared mentioned like 2019, 2020, 2021.

For the most part, you're right.

Except for that all-star race in 2020, that was terrible.

Out of nowhere, randomly mixed in between all these great Bristol races

was a terrible one for no reason at all.

So it's just, you never really know what to expect.

Bristol's not, you know, in the greatest place in terms of how that spring race feels.

But at the same time, since the fairgrounds

doesn't look like it's in the greatest spot to be a viable option,

I think for now, Bristol Spring just stays.

Because it's an SMI's date to do what they please.

And unless they want to give it to Dover and go up there this summer year,

I don't think that it's a viable option for anything else right now.

So here's an interesting thought for you.

Are we sure that it's all the car?

And not for Bristol.

I think Bristol's been off for a while.

And here's where I'm going with this one.

Eric, you bring up that all-star race of that was really bad.

Well, my theory is that the reason that all-star race was bad

is the small number of cars on the track.

And in the next gen era, the field is getting closer than ever before.

Meaning that lap traffic is not the same beast that it used to be.

Like it takes longer to get to it.

And when you do get to it, it's much similar speed to the leader.

And then the leaders get stuck in lap traffic

as opposed to catching it weird and having these odd run-ins and moments.

Like I think that there may actually be some of just the field tightening up that's hurting it.

Not to say that we shouldn't fix the tire

and we shouldn't fix the car and whatever, and that wouldn't make it better.

But I wonder if some of it is just a strength of field tightening up situation

that's hurting our running into lap traffic that used to create really interesting battles.

That's probably true to some degree.

It was interesting.

I talked to Tyler.

Regardless, though, we should pave it.

We should get rid of the car.

Honestly, yeah, I think so, too.

The progressive banking has also been a factor for a number of years now.

I'm fine with that.

We just, I mean, it's the concrete.

I like the idea of going back to 36-degree banked corners and asphalt on the track.

So I do like that idea.

Might as well.

I was going to say Tyler Allen, the crew chief for Ty Gibbs, when I talked to him,

you know, and I think Hamlin made this comment as well.

But like, you know, the tires would heat up and then under caution,

they would cool down enough that even though they're old, like,

they still had some life in them when they went back to restart.

And that's partially what helped Ty hold his track position.

So yeah, it's just, you know, maybe the 750 horsepower, you know, that increase,

the different arrow made a difference.

Even though the tires didn't wear, they could still pass.

Cars were slipping.

We did see a lot of guys twitch slide.

So it was, it was, it was a charming Bristol race.

I agree with Jared.

It reminded me of some of those decent gen six races, not the best of the best, but decent.

Quick look at the points.

Let's just run through this real quick.

I'll just go down the line.

You're right now on our screen.

I know our listening audience can't see this, but for our YouTube viewers,

I'll go down the line and start with you, Danny.

We're looking at the top 12 right here.

Who jumps out to you?

Anyone jumps out to you nine, eight races in?

I mean, outside of tight gas because no one, no one saw that one come in at a start of the season,

honestly.

I think someone that does stand out to me is Joey Logano.

I would expect him to be a lot higher than this, honestly.

But likewise, I feel like bubble Wallace is alarming because he was second in the early

stages.

Now he's, he's been sliding, he's now found himself in eight.

Those are the names that really stand out.

William Byron is silently in seventh.

Yes, he's seventh, but you could have fooled me otherwise.

I mean, we're not really seeing him as a, you know, a favorite weekend week at it feels like.

Those are names that kind of stand out the most to me.

Yeah.

I think Bubba cementing himself in eighth this week.

Remember last week he was technically like 11th via tiebreaker.

That was big.

And Joey Logano actually was lower in the standings after that abysmal Darlington race

and it's starting to inch his way back forward.

Jared, what were you going to say?

Brad Kozolowski, there's a lot of worry before the season about that injury and that yeah,

we'd perform with his leg and that he'd get better as year goes on.

Well, if he gets better as year goes on, 11th in points, he's in that scrum I was talking

about before of like fifth to about where Joey is at, which is separated by 46 points.

If you go down just from Chase Elliott in fifth to Brad Kozolowski, he's 35 points back,

which can be made up.

I mean, any of those guys from fifth to 12th could realistically be top five in points

after a week or two at this point.

And now we're getting to the section of the season where we kind of know our guys that

are going to be in that battle.

Jared, flip it over to the cut line.

I want to look a little further back.

So Chase Briscoe, top five is now only one point out, one point behind Shane Van Gisberg.

Shout out hosts of our priests, Suarez.

They're holding strong for the time being.

Grant, I want to ask you, is there a name on this side of the bracket?

I guess this part of the list that jumps out to you that you're surprised by their performance

thus far.

Yeah.

Can I just, I'm just going to go ahead and reveal my suck pick early for this week.

Sure.

I'm taking Trackhouse as an organization.

What is happening?

Yeah, Ross 21st.

No, this is really bad.

Like, in my preseason.

Or in person on the way out the door and look at him in the chase.

In my preseason picks, I really thought that Trackhouse is going to take a step forward this

year because I'm like, they have rookie Connor Zillich.

How can Chevy not pay attention to them?

And I'm afraid I was mistaken because on short run speed so far this year,

Trackhouse cars rank 14th, 33rd, and 30th.

And on long run speed, they rank 17th, 26th, and 27th.

That is terrible.

You're not going to get more.

I mean, you're going to struggle to get Ross in the playoffs.

You're not going to think about getting the other two.

I mean, that's terrible.

I expect them to be in the same vicinity as RFK.

As far as good surprises go, Daniel Suarez.

I had completely written him off.

I, yeah, I could go on a whole rant about that one, but I'll spare you the time.

I'm shocked.

Yeah.

I mean, it's Ryan Sparks who's been on that seven for years with LeJoy.

He's been there for good, bad, a lot of mediocre.

This is the best that seven cars looked, I guess, since Spire took it over.

I mean, so now that's good for them.

Anything else before we move on?

I will say SVG being plus one, which we kind of knew he was going to be around this line

just because of, we would assume improvements.

I feel like at this point with Briscoe, having made this up with Cindrick starting to run better,

and if Ross can get his act together, to me, I feel like Watkins Glenn in a couple of weeks

for SVG is a must win.

He has to win that race.

He has to get the extra points or, you know, and he might,

they might need to do their best to try and sweep the stages and get the

win because they're probably going to get the fastest lap.

Like I feel like they need to max points that just to build that buffer.

And I would argue the same thing with San Diego and Sonoma too.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I'm going to throw one more quick shout out before we leave to Zane Smith.

Sneaky could be a chase contender by the end of the season.

Right now that car is top 15 on speed on both intermediates and short tracks.

He's looked really solid to start the year and he looked really good at the end of last year too.

I could see him surprising a few people.

I don't know if he'll make it, but he might give it a run.

And Almond Dinger 20th with no technical support from Chevrolet.

I want to give AJ his credit speaking of Watkins Glenn coming up, circle that one.

Let's talk TV ratings real quick before we get off the cup race.

So you may have seen headlines going around today.

I saw awful announcing that Twitter account even tweeted about NASCAR's ratings.

That's usually not a good sign.

Cup series at Bristol averaged a 1.09 rating and 1.94 million viewers.

They were plus 3% year over year in the rating, but slightly down 5% in actual viewership.

Now keep in mind both years, they went head to head with the final round of the Masters,

Rory McElroy going back to back.

So a lot of fans tuning in to see that history.

The O'Reilly series, meanwhile, on Saturday averaged 1.22 million viewers,

which was up 22% year over year.

I saw the CW noted that they beat the NHL on NBC by over 20% head to head.

So the O'Reilly series, I mean, they're on big network TV, the same station every week.

So there's a consistency there that's certainly contributing to their viewership.

But I mean, you want to talk about waves, we want to talk about streaks,

their viewership numbers right now are good, good, good.

Whereas the cup series seems to be floundering.

Any thoughts from the panel here on that before we move on?

Yeah.

I think one of the biggest problems is, and it goes past point format changes and even,

you know, driver changes or who's up front or when is NASCAR, especially the cup series,

and a lot of ways isn't giving people outside of diehards a reason really to watch.

And I note this because people are saying that it might not even be a channel problem.

Like cable is more difficult to get numbers on.

But FS1, for instance, got 7 million watching for the world baseball classic semifinals.

Like if there's a reason to watch people will now grant the masters again is a huge draw.

And it's only been growing, especially among men 18 to 35, which is the base that NASCAR is really

trying to build more of. But I mean, it's just in general, it matches with the way the ratings

have gone all year, for the most part, if they're not up.

And one of the ones that was up was the Daytona 500, which was only up because last year's race

got a rain delay in the middle of it. They're down anywhere from like one to 5% every week.

So it's frustrating because we clearly can see with IndyCar and the O'Reilly series what the

formula should be. We see it with the NFL. We're seeing it with the MLB in a lot of aspects with

their bigger games, with the NBA, with their deal with NBC. We're seeing the formula right in front

of us, but the industry needed the money in a lot of ways, and they went after the money.

And for the next five and a half years, they will be paying for it.

Yeah, it was a, the TV deal was a short-term win for NASCAR because it allowed them to get

those charter at charter deal done, because it's not just NASCAR, you know, the folks in

Daytona Beach ringing their hands like, yes, money. No, the team owners wanted this too.

Every team owner in the Cup Series garage, every charter holder, every track owner,

every quote unquote stakeholder wanted the bag. They wanted those assurances, that security,

NASCAR, led at the time, I think by Steve Phelps, went and got the bag. In fact,

after I recall, they were hoping for 1.2 billion annually. They ended up with 1.1.

They thought they'd get more. They didn't quite get all they wanted. They still got the bag.

IndyCar gives away their rights for free, essentially. F1 for years was giving their

rights away for free. So it's just a different, it's short-term, you get the money, the sports

funded, but long-term, you're probably going to hurt your viewership. You're going to hurt

your growth over the next few years. So just what it is.

I'll add in one other fact about that, and then we can move on. The amount of money that the CW

pays for O'Reilly Series races, the whole season equates to four Cup Races, because they pay 115

mil a year for the O'Reilly Series. And NASCAR handles all of the production on that, by the way.

CW really just broadcast it. Whereas the Cup Series is 1.1 billion, which about equates to

about four races. So even if the CW wants to go all in, they might not have the cash on hand to

do so in the future, unless the O'Reilly Series and college football really pay off and they get

a lot more money from advertisers. Eric, I got a question for you that maybe you may know. You

said that NASCAR does the production of the CW broadcast. Do they do the Truck Series as well?

No, I do not know. No, they don't. Do they do any of the Cup Races?

I don't believe so. I believe the... So that's very interesting, because I'm not convinced

that the ratings is strictly a channel thing. And I'm not convinced that it's a car problem either.

I think it's largely a TV product. When the O'Reilly Series has a phenomenal finish,

Exhibit A, Atlanta this year, that booth goes nuts. And not in like a cringy way, but like a

way that gets you excited and your heart going too. Mike Joy doesn't do that anymore. Kevin

Harvick, he knows a lot, but he's kind of bland. And I don't think Boyer's Humor hits the way it

used to for some reason. We got a clean house on that. I don't see it anymore. And I don't think

it's also just the channel consistency, because the Truck Series ain't drawn those ratings.

And I mean, people say a lot of things about the Truck Series broadcast, and

they're right. I mean, yeah. And I think you're on to it. I think it is the TV product is not

just what does the racing look like. How is it covered? And I think it's safe to say the CW.

It's really the booth. The camera direction, all that's pretty similar. CW, I believe, was the first

recently to start doing the double box commercials instead of interrupting the race with commercials,

which now Fox does double box for Cup as well, which is great. But CW was the first,

their booth is the most enthusiastic and engaged. Mike Joy has a great voice, great historian,

but he sounds like he's reading a teleprompter. And Kevin Harvick, I said this in my show today,

he speaks in the same tone of voice no matter what is happening on the racetrack. He's just

not a TV guy, not at all. In hindsight, why the hell was Kevin Harvick brought on to do TV?

At what point in his career did we think, oh, yeah, Kevin Harvick, definitely the guy you

want in front of the camera, definitely a big TV guy. Because Jeff Gordon wanted out.

I think that was it. I think it was just Harvick. I mean, yeah. And Harvick, he did well in some of

his fill in Xfinity stuff back in the day. He did okay, but there was no, but like Boyer,

I get why they tried it. Clint Boyer, I'm like, yeah, I get they're going to go for the next

DW. But yeah, now he has like two podcasts. And he's a commentator. This is the sad part,

by the way. Number one rated podcast, Danny.

Yeah, but this is true. This is common is true. Jacks for Fett, who does those like vulgar

parody voices of them, they do. They have more enthusiasm and energy than the current Fox broadcast

does. Like it's sad, but true. No, but I think Grant is on to it. I agree with Grant that it's

beyond just what you're seeing on the racetrack. It's how it's covered as well. And right now,

I mean, Fox and FS one for trucks, it's just they're not even close to the level CW and

prime video and some of the other broadcast teams are. So it's just hopefully that,

hopefully that changes. I'm not trying to retire Mike Joy here, but like,

I mean, dude's a legend. He's had a great run. It might be time to

try something different. We got to move on. We do have to move on. We got,

we're not trying to keep Grant here for three hours again. This is my fault at this point.

I keep sending you on tangent. You're good. You're good. Let's get to the poll, the famous

iceberg poll. We had over 10,000 votes this week was Bristol, a good race. 18% of voters said it

was great. Actually 62% said, yeah, it was good. We agree. 15% sat on the fence as an average race.

Only 5% said it was a bad race, though. So that's an 80% positivity rating. Real quick, Jared,

where does that rank this Bristol race among previous iceberg poll Bristol races? If you

have that, I got a couple of things. So it's eighth out of 13 Bristol races, third of the

six next gen pulled ones that doesn't count the Bristol dirt race. I just counted that as its own

track fourth of nine this year when you include Bowman Gray. And then of short track, 17th of

41 all time since we started polling it. First comments from Akshay talks, positive,

negative or meme. What are your guys's guesses? It was definitely a negative comment.

It's a meme. It's a meme. Battle of mid Kyle Bush versus Riley Herbst. Yeah, that's how it's like

that's a meme. That's a meme. I haven't gotten that right at all this year. I'm over a million.

Spencer at the top comment said at this point, Ryan Blaney's pit crew is becoming a meme of how

many spots Blaney loses on pit road each week. Yeah. Erding boys says we got a tie Gibbs win

before GTA six. Ian says that was a great Bristol race eight out of 10 combat racer says not a fan

of Gibbs, but you can't argue that he's objectively the best driver this season outside of Reddick,

obviously. And cars boy 95 says we finally got gen six Bristol back and now to the gunner

from DJ DJ midnight. No, DJ midnight says this. This is why NASCAR continues to dig deeper

into its own grave. Hard to believe people still watch the WWE on wheels. The scripted sports

entertainment circus ain't leaving anytime soon and racing fans will suffer because of it.

Who in the right mind thinks NASCAR is scripting races for tie Gibbs, the least media friendly

driver in the NASCAR Cup Series garage with far more haters than fans. Let's be real. All right.

I love the unhinged rants of the gutter comments because it's always people,

either the same people we always see, or it's somebody who obviously has not watched a race

in like the last five years that just hate watches. And your poll landed on their like

algorithm somehow. And so like, I got to say something. I got to speak to it. Anyway,

thank you everyone who voted on the famous iceberg poll. How's everyone doing tonight?

We're nearing the halfway point. I see the chat's been lit up all night. Everyone's chill and

everyone's having a good time. We got to talk about the O'Reilly and truck races real quick.

We'll keep this pretty short. The O'Reilly series race Saturday, Connor Zillich,

Unks still got it. He tweeted after the race gets the win similar method to how Ty was able

to get the win. I mean, Zillich, I think was running second before the final caution. And

there's a few cautions late, but you know, they took track position over tires and was able to

hold off Kyle Larson Larson led a bunch of laps, but couldn't get by Zillich Brent Cruz though.

I want to throw him in there. Brent Cruz briefly had the lead, then slipped, got into the fence

and lost it right back to Zillich and Larson. But that was a heck of a battle. You have to see

that the present versus the future there, Larson versus Zillich and Cruz. That was a lot of fun.

What do you guys think Brent Cruz was worth the price of admission? Like that dude is fun to watch

drive. But yeah, it's just so we get a heartbreak for Larson fans.

Yeah, man, done in twice similar style. Yeah, no, Brent Cruz, I believe he ended up third,

but he was, he was the show for sure. Yeah, Zillich still got, he talked after the race about

how he kind of needed this to rebuild his confidence. I don't know if y'all were all surprised to

hear that. I mean, he's only been in cup for eight weeks and it's already beaten him down

that much that he was starting to let the doubt creep in. I mean, that just shows how hard

Sunday racing is. I also just go back to what Grant was saying about Trackhouse Racing.

There's not much to be happy about there. Yeah. Well, I saw that they even put, they've already

put like two job openings for like aerodynamic specialists for Trackhouse. Like they are not

they are not content in any way of continuing to suck. But

no, I mean, I felt like each race kind of got progressively better as the weekend went on,

not like all time great weekend by any means, but I thought that this race was better. It was

better than last year's and not just cause Oh, Larson didn't win or yada, yada, yada,

but just cause like it did feel more competitive through the field. There was seemingly more

passing. I'm just, it surprises me because I was not expecting that from basically a

new Bristol night race. Like I just didn't think it changed anything.

It was interesting seeing the O'Reilly cars there at night, but it made for, you know,

different flavors throughout the weekend, which was nice, enjoyable.

We can move on to the truck race real quick. Might have a little more of a debate on this one.

Christopher Bell first off gets the win. Good for him. I think he said it was his first win

since 2017 in the trucks, which is pretty wild. He, he, yes, he won a truck championship back

in the day with KBM. So back to his old stomping grounds. Wasn't easy though. I mean, he almost

lost the truck a few times had a few near, near misses some, some close calls. But the way Bell

got to the lead was Christian Eccles and Corey Heim got together. Corey Heim was close to

not only winning his third race in a row, but also sweeping the triple truck challenge and

getting a $500,000 bonus came up just short though, after contact with Christian Eccles.

Heim sort of bumped Eccles sort of out of the way, little Bristol bump and run to get the lead.

The very next corner, Eccles, you know, turned left and hooked Heim into the outside wall,

collected a few more trucks. It looked real ugly. Both drivers though chalked it up to

an accident. Eccles apologized and said, Hey, I was just trying to slide in and get in line

behind Heim and misjudged it. Heim said, Hey, I don't think it was on purpose either. I think

he was just trying to get behind me to ship me out of the way, which would have been fair.

So both drivers wrote it off as, Hey, sucks, but that was hard racing. Two guys going at it.

Just a mistake. Danny, do you agree that it was just a mistake? Or do you think Heim did some,

sorry, Eccles did something intentionally malicious there?

Christian Eccles doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would do anything like that. I think

for the most part he's been pretty good. So I'm going to go to us as a mistake, honestly.

Jared, what about you?

Yeah, I feel like we're going to kind of be parrots on this mistake. It just

probably looked terrible in the moment. It looked really awful. And even if he was trying

to get back at him and it just went terribly wrong kind of thing, like Heim did use him up a

couple of times too. So it's not like Heim was, you know, necessarily, I don't have innocence

or right word or what, but I do think it was an accident. And I think that no penalty is the

right call now after watching it back. But in the moment and after the race, I was on my stream

and I'm like, Oh man, that didn't look good. And now like having watched it back a bit more,

heard what every party has said. I mean, if everyone's agreeing that was involved,

that it wasn't intentional. I don't see pushing the issue on it.

And I think it's Wednesday night now. I believe the penalty report already came out that the

cars at the R&D were good. So I don't think there will be any penalty for this. I believe

unless I'm mistaken. Grant, what do you think? Only the drivers know what happens in those cars.

I firmly believe that even when I get even no matter what the drivers say, they both know

exactly what happened. And I feel like both of their interviews sounded pretty truthful.

So it seems like it was just a mistake. Yeah, I think we all agree. It was less of a debate

than I thought. I set this up more dramatically than I should have. Sounds like we're all really

consistent. What else is consistent is the chat making comments about how bad FS1 is.

Oh, yes. They told Chandler Smith after he finished second, I believe on track that he had won the

$50,000 triple truck challenge bonus, but that's not how this works. FS1, it's not how any of this

works. You got to win the damn race to be eligible for any of those bonuses. So poor Chandler Smith,

man, probably felt like he had the rug pulled out from under him. Might as well have been out there

like waving a check. Here it is. Brutal. Brutal. Come on. FS1 covers every single truck series race.

You guys can't, you can't get these things wrong. That's just, that's embarrassing.

Before we do move on, I do want to note down on the bottom. Now, granted, I put Hyman there,

so it's technically through seventh of the chase grid. Top seven eligible drivers to make it in

are within 27 points of each other, six races in. We are now a third of the way through the

truck regular season. I mean, that is, I have a feeling some, I would think maybe like Chandler

Smith, Honeycutt, Lane Riggs gets better as year goes on. Like some people are going to

distance themselves, but you keep that close together. The truck chase is going to be just

basically throw a blanket on them and see where they end up, like roll the dice and see.

This is going to be really fun in, you know, July and August getting towards the end of the regular

season. Cause yeah, for our listening audience, Chandler Smith now leads the points. One point

back is Caden Honeycutt and only four points back is Lane Riggs. So those three are separated by

marginal differences on the racetrack. Go ahead, Grant. One thing that's really going to suck

about this is when we get to the chase and the points actually get further apart all of a sudden.

Seventh place is not going to be very close anymore. Like we're going to cut this thing down

to a four truck chase, a four truck competition, but yeah, the gap, the gap to seventh is about

the gap first and second we'll have. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I say July and August will be

really exciting because that could really make a difference. Winning the regular season championship

by two points is actually a 25 point gap when they reset. So that'll do it for Bristol folks.

I think we finally wrapped up the world's fastest half mile. We'll see it, see him again in September,

I suppose. Let's do our first Super Chat stage break. How's that sound? Really appreciate

everyone showing up tonight hanging out. We got a lot of Super Chats early in the show.

We're going to bank through a few right here before we get into our next segments. We'll

start with Hunter Nixon Fishing says, was this the best Bristol race ever? No,

but I will die on this hill. Bristol is still better than Martinsville and always has been

next gen or not. I mean, I don't, I don't hate to take shot against Martinsville. I know Jared,

that's your baby. I would agree. I've always preferred Bristol to Martinsville. Joshua Boston

sent a few right here. I'll just read through them. It says, I predict Larson will finally

break his win list streak at Kansas. If there's anything negative to say from this weekend,

it's that he didn't win and Ty Gibbs did. So big Larson fan disappointed with the result.

Also said, I think we struck a pretty good balance of a Bristol should be. I think most of us agree

there being I see a little more tire wear, but at least they got heat in them and that made some

sort of difference. Then says, finally, do we see a driver swap with Kyle Bush and RCR? If so,

where does he go? Who would replace him in the eight? It's complicated. I mean,

yeah, I don't know. Cause they're like, the last time we saw a trade midseason was with

our Rick, we're racing and call it no, Spire, Rick, we're racing in Spire. And that was cause I

don't know, LeJoy, Haley, I feel like they were mutually beneficial to their respective new teams.

I don't know. Like Kyle Bush is such a commanding force. Like, think about like, if you're going

to trade prime LeBron James, how on earth are you going to get enough assets back in return

that it makes that trade feel even? You know what I mean? Maybe that's, I guess I just compared,

you know, washed Kyle Bush to prime LeBron James. That's probably not accurate, but

anyway, sorry, moving on. Joshua also says PS Hendrick engines need to be the only engine

supplied to the Chevy's ECR may be cheaper, but they're slower and unreliable. I mean,

there might be something there. The ECR cars do seem slower than the Hendrick cars.

Justin Drake says, uh, we will try to limit it tonight as far as the link to the show

and then says, is that a challenge? Yeah, we'll see. We're going to do our best.

Calypso says, Hey, Grant, what are the odds my sons from hell, Joey and Cody where

get their first wins this season? What do you think Cody wears a zero?

Fair enough. Um, Joey Logano, um, 50, 50.

I think he won't come back to that clip of Cody where it looks out on Tadega or something like

that. Below the apron with a tense as if Kyle Bush resigns with our CR, which seems highly likely.

I don't know if that seems, I don't know if I agree with that. Maybe. What does Jesse love do?

I can see him in the next year or two wanting to join his friend Connor and cup. I mean,

I think Jesse, I talked to him briefly at Daytona. He said, Hey, the plan is to go.

I asked him, Hey, you're going to be, you're going to be in the, I was at Daytona. I was

asking, are you going to be in this race next year? And he said, that's the plan. So, uh,

he wants to be in the cup series. He feels ready. I think if he does go to RCR, he's like a

toleratic. He's too good for them. It's like a stepping stone. Could be. I know there are early

on people were trying to link him to legacy, but I think, you know, there's a chance you never know,

but just we'll see. Work on his timing. I'm going to be interested when the silly seasons

dominoes start falling. They're going to fall fast. And the question is who falls first?

That's the real question. Uh, Jay, appreciate the five. This season has not only been dominated

by Toyota, but also drivers who combine the four and five and are or were a monster sponsored.

That's true. 54, 45. Uh, they've been rock stars this year. That's a red might have

another energy drink coming here soon. That was a play on words. I was attempting there.

What the, right? Anyway, Justin Drake, I'll do a few more here. Justin Drake says,

I can chase briscoe get his car back now that Ty Gibbs won.

Goal achieved grandpa Joe. Ty won a race hang the banner. At least golden boy Elliott caused

overtime. So he actually had to earn that instead of a cheap seal. I mean, even if they don't get

overtime, he was wheeling that thing to keep Blaney, Blaney Larson and, uh, and, uh, Reddick

behind him. Gavin adcock off topic. I miss rain racing and NASCAR road courses. I watched the 2020

O'Reilly roval race. And it was awesome. That was a little far. That was a little much racing

through like six inch puddles. Everyone was just over in 2020 at that point. Honestly. I remember

sitting at my then girl friend, now wife, Reese's house, and we just drank beer and laughed our

asses off that entire race. It was hilarious in the worst way. Urban Alvarado says Suarez finishing

well over track house thus far. Uh, maybe it's not him. Maybe it's the organization itself.

Either way, the battle continues. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Calypso says careful NWP. I'm the manager of the

12th pit crew. I don't know what Calypso would impact that. And then Justin Drake says Blaney's

pit crew has been studying the Yankees fifth ending game five tapes from the 2024 world series.

We'll wrap up with this one because it fits. Uh, 98 doom says the 12th pit crew is the 2025

Chargers offensive line. F you spados. So, uh, I like this. We'll end with this. Actually,

Ryan Idias says my theory is the loss of practice post COVID is the main reason Kyle Bush fell

off a cliff around that time. I think there could, there's, there could be something there.

He always wanted, he was, he liked to be, he liked seat time, I guess. And, uh, doesn't get

quite as much of it nowadays. That was our first super chat stage break. Appreciate y'all sending

those. And if we didn't get to your super chat yet, we will get to it at the end of the show.

Please stay tuned. Really appreciate your support. Uh, before we get to, um, some reckless speculation,

a few headlines and the fun segments. Jared, I sent something in the air tonight.

That's you too. What would it be? It's a chill if you will. It's time for the NWP

lightning round. Dang it. That always goes away so fast. I'm still making goofy faces.

It's the lightning round. Jared, what do we got?

It's literally as fast as lightning. Uh, well, first, of course, is the NWP clips channel. We'll

share each episode on there. Maybe do some fun stuff over now. And then I know we have the

entire 16 minute segment of the NWP wives, uh, hijacking the show on there this past week. So

if, if you missed that, definitely check it out. We're like, I think 81 away from a 1k.

Um, fan vote is now open for both the all star race and for the NASCAR hall of fame.

So if you want your voice to be heard or at least the feeling of it being heard,

go for it. Uh, the Talladega stages will be 98, 45, 45. Uh, so that's the official

change when it comes to how long those stages will be. And then, uh, next week

shows on my channel, uh, April 22nd, 8pm Eastern time. So should be pretty good time. And, uh,

yeah, you felt a little bit in the air, but that was just a short lightning round.

So if you will, guess what the headlines, let's do it. Uh, headlines, more like some

rumors, some speculation. So you just mentioned the, uh, Talladega stage lengths changing. Um,

we also learned recently that a form of preseason thunder is coming back, uh, next year. It sounds

like testing, changing up the cars, perhaps before the Daytona 500. Uh, Bozy Tatariewicz

mentioned that he's heard there's a chance the clash could return to Daytona. That was backed

up seemingly by NASCAR president, Steve O'Donnell, who also alluded to that being a possibility on

DBC. Uh, Chris Myers of Fox Sports tweeted that, you know, maybe a Monday night clash at Daytona

could be on the docket. Just hypothetically, Monday night clash. Let's assume it's the Monday

night after the Super Bowl. So the week of the Daytona 500, let's just assume it's February.

That'd be like February 15th or something next year. How do you feel about that, Jared?

Um, okay. I feel a little bit better if it's on big Fox and here's why. I still think that

midweek racing can work if it's on network television. I think that putting it on cable

is a death sentence because, you know, nobody listens to techno. No one cares about cable anymore.

But the other part of that is that it is president's day because however, yes, it's a holiday. A lot

of people might have that time off. I am of the idea of this too, is that the clash needs to be

more of a piece and a stepping stone rather than everyone wanting to make it a giant thing

just on its own. Like if it is, it's awesome. But uh, to me, we've really gotten to the point

where the buildup for the Daytona 500 just is not fitting enough for it. You know, you have two weeks

that you build up a million things in the media for the Super Bowl. You have buildup for the World

Series plus it takes time, you know, like big sporting events the month of May for the Indy 500.

We can get at least speed week or weeks if we have maybe a practice session on Saturday for

the clash just to spread it out a little bit more. So if it can be on big Fox, maybe you use it as

that test session or if they find something in the test session in January, make that your,

your big start and hype up for Daytona for the Daytona 500. Carry that momentum because right

now it doesn't matter if you go to LA and get 5 million people to watch the clash. No one's going

to remember after the Super Bowl week later and then a week later to Daytona. I do think having

two weeks between the clash and Daytona does little to nothing to promote the Daytona 500.

My take with the clash is it either needs to be a big spectacle that boosts the sport into

markets into a mainstream conversation. It doesn't typically get to be a part of,

or it needs to, what you said, support the Daytona 500. Now I would have, I would have been more

anti clash at Daytona until I heard about preseason thunder and testing and they might change the

arrow and horsepower. So if they make the racing at Daytona a little better, I'm happy to see the

clash return, especially if it's like a Monday night prime time slot on president's day. That

sounds kind of appealing to me. So I'm, I'm all ears. I hope it does well if they do this. Could

be fun. What do you think, Grant or Danny? Go ahead, Danny. I was going to say my ideal scenario

for this would be try to make it, you know, a little bit of a weekend deal also on Saturday,

you know, before the Super Bowl, you can, if we want to give them some, some clash practice,

go ahead and send them out there. But if we're going back to Daytona, I feel like

how we set the fields got to go back to being like your poll winners and your race winners and

people who are in a chase. I think that's the field that you get. There's no need to do

hate at Daytona. That just sounds like a bad idea. Go back to doing it like that, run some practice

on Saturday, but then even if it's just something that NASCAR has got a stream online or something

like that, what was the clash sponsored by this year? Cookout? That what it was this year? Yeah.

Well, traditionally when it's been at Daytona, we've had Budweiser or Bush. Bush is an active,

you know, big sponsor with NASCAR right now. Try to get them back involved in the Bush clash.

My favorite style of determining the starting lineup for these races, I know where you're

going. I love it, was when they came up and pull out a Budweiser bottle and whatever number they

got in the bottom of it, that's where they're starting. Do it that way. Do it up on the big

fan stage. They have outside of Daytona or Indianville, whatever they want to get set up.

Just do like a good like hour and a half stream on YouTube. It would get me hyped up enough to

tune into it on the Saturday before the Super Bowl bottle can whatever they need to do and just,

you know, draw out their beer starting lineup. Or if you do like Cookout, you have like a

chicken box and you open it up to find out you're starting like something cool. Just do something

cool either way. Like pull out a drumstick, take a bite, and it's like inside the chicken is the

number. Choking hazard, maybe. I mean, I would love if Bush did it. And the catch up is in the

shape of your number. If they could make that work, that actually would be pretty fun. Oh my

God, I just napped a racing fan. Just made me realize. No. No. Oh, that's funny. Daytona 500

might have better production than the Super Bowl next year. But if there was, if Fox was hosting

the Super Bowl, then I would about say something like, Hey, why don't we set up a stage outside

the Super Bowl and before that just host like a set the set the clash lineup or something like

that. But then they got to get them guys back to Daytona. So yeah, that'd be tough. Maybe a year

that it's like in Tampa or something. Oh, yeah, that's down the road. Yeah, I'd like that.

We're getting your idea for the clash. How do you feel about this possibility?

My ideas for the clash are pretty small. Bring the identity back. It was always meant to be a

promotion for the 500 and it's supposed to be poll winners. Period. End of story. Poll winners.

Keep it simple. 500. But honestly, I don't think any of that matters. I think the important part is

personally, I think part of the reason that the Daytona 500 has lost some of its prestige

isn't just that the racing isn't great, but it's actually that the racing isn't great and it's

random. Like our recent 500 winners are wacky. I want to feel like super speedway racing

at Daytona. I want to feel like the guy who wins Daytona had to earn it and it was really freaking

hard. I want those cars fully out of control. Like I think that like, I mean, the Indy 500,

like the draft is a big deal, but like it's hard to drive an Indy car around Indianapolis in the

draft. It's less hard by yourself, but it's hard in the draft. And I think that Daytona should behave

somewhat similarly to that if we want to bring back the prestige.

I agree. Make it look like Atlanta does now. And that's easier said than done.

Maybe spread it out a little bit even more. You know, if it gets a little harder, that's okay.

So 2000, say 2002, 2001 to 2009 Daytona basically. No, no, that's gross.

Those summer races got spread out a bit. No, I 100% agree. I'd be, I'd be, I mean,

that's what Atlanta feels like to me, but there's more super speedway stuff we should probably

talk about. Yeah, we'll keep these next couple of topics a bit quicker. O'Donnell also suggested

Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR president. He's got that new title now, so I need to like fully remind folks.

Suggested that NASCAR could consider mandatory four tire pit stops while fueling at Daytona

and Talladega in the future to mitigate the need to conserve fuel in the pack. I mean,

we keep this quick. I don't know. I feel like you, you fix the fuel saving issue,

you're going to go back to stretches where it's single file. Like at the end of the day,

they just need to make the racing at the super speedways better. They do stuff to the cars,

the air of the tires, whatever, to like what we just said, build more gaps in the pack,

allow drivers to build their own runs. Because otherwise, like if they're just going to be

two by two gridlock or single file, I don't really want to watch that either. Like I rather

them say fuel three wide. This feels like brake glass in case of emergency. Like if all else fails

and we can't find a damn thing with this Fubar car, then do this. That's what it feels like to me.

Yeah. So we'll see. I wanted to bring that up at least. This might be a little more interesting.

Jimmy Johnson, we're switching gears here. Jimmy Johnson posted a photo on Instagram this weekend.

Jimmy co owner, owner, well, he's majority owner now of Legacy Motor Club. The first photo of this

post was him and Harrison Burton. And I saw a lot of folks were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Jimmy and

Harrison Burton, like the second photo was Nemechek. Third photo was Jones. It's like, oh,

is Harrison part of the team? Is he alluding to Harrison Burton being Legacy's third full-time

driver next year? Legacy's got a third charter. They're planning to use it. Is Harrison Burton

going to Legacy? That was the chatter on the internet. Harrison Burton is connected to Legacy

Motor Club. He is their reserve driver. I believe that was announced sort of quietly at the start

of the season. I went back and found a Bob Hocker's tweet from like week two that indicated

Burton is in that role. So there is a connection there. We know Harrison rejoined Toyota this

year in the O'Reilly series driving for Sam Hunt. Danny, it's obviously speculation at this point,

but would Harrison Burton to Legacy Motor Club make sense to you next year?

I mean, is he also like their simulator driver? I'm assuming too or something like that along

those lines. I'm assuming probably, I guess. Yeah. So I mean, would it make sense? Yeah,

he has a cup of experience, but at the same time, I don't know if going back is going to be good

because it's kind of like Cole Custer. You know, we saw Cole Custer come in, went back down to

Xfending. It's like, oh, yeah, there he goes again. He's doing it. It's like, comes back. I don't

know about it. I'm really, I'm really worried. Harrison Burton has been getting something like

a Cole Custer situation where it's like, yeah, get back and I don't know about that, you know.

But hey, to their credit, they both have a win in Cup Series. So I mean, who am I to argue

about eater of those guys? You know, I don't know. I also saying randomly just yesterday,

just keep on Burton's Jeff Burton and post the picture, he went to the Charlotte Hornets game

with Harrison Burton. And I'm assuming that I think it's Harrison's wife,

or if I'm not as like a sure on his relationship situation. But yeah, I think yeah,

but I'm wondering now it's like, were they just out to the game or is that like celebrating, you

know, a little bit of something they know up their sleeves of it? I don't know. Just celebrate at the

basketball game. It was the play in game. That was a big game. Crazy game went down to the wire.

Happy for all the Hornets fans watching out there. Not enough basketball fan to know what the

current situation is. It was ugly early, but there's a questionable play that injured one of the

star players. But I was rooting for Charlotte down the stretch and they did get the win. That

was big, needed that. Jared, I'll go to you next. Harrison Burton, if he does go to Legacy, because

I think it's very realistic. I don't think this is a guarantee, a lock or anything,

but I think it's very realistic. He could go to Legacy. How would you feel about that move?

I feel like this is the safe option. You know, sponsorship would be built in. You have Cup

experience already. Like, you know, you got somebody that can at least hold his own and maybe

just needs that second chance compared to the other two that we had heard where I think Jesse

Love is the one that would be the higher ceiling for sure. But again, but the equipment, how high

is that ceiling? And then Riley Herp springs in sponsorship, but we clearly know even with what

is some of the best equipment. NASCAR right now is like a ceiling of 15th. Maybe he can run top 10

every now and then. So this feels like a safe option. I don't know necessarily if it's like

a smart long-term player, if it's just get the sponsor money.

Grant, what would you, what do you think about this? Because I know you've, you know, some of the

folks at Legacy, I know it's been a couple of years, but what would your take on this be?

I was really excited about the Jesse Love thing. Here's where I'm at with it. I'm growing really

frustrated with Cup Series management and their choices of young drivers sometimes because

all due respect to Harrison Burton, we've kind of already done this experiment. Like we kind of

already tried this. It just kind of went okay. And there's, it's no disrespect to him, but there's a

lot of guys down there that are really good, that haven't gotten shot yet. And I really like to see

one of them instead. Like I planned on making a prospect list this year and I haven't done it yet,

but he doesn't make the top 10. Like there's just not much excitement there. Like off the top of my

head, like Corey Day, Chandler Smith, Lane Riggs, Corey Heim. Like there's four guys that we know

are Christian Echis. I mean, Jesse Love I think is the top prospect excluding Heim. And I completely

forgot to mention him. Like there's just a lot of guys. I'm missing like a double that. Like there's

just a lot of guys that I think could potentially go into that seat that would be really interesting

to at least try, but instead we're just going to kind of do another thing we've already seen.

Yeah, it's there's not a lot of juice behind this pick. But then the question becomes,

this is Legacy Motor Club. They got better last year. So far this season, I haven't seen a big

step. Jones, I don't know if your underlying data might suggest, but Eric Jones has looked a little

sportier this year. He got wrecked at Bristol. That was a tough deal. Got caught up in a wreck,

I should say at Bristol. But like Legacy, it still looks like they're mid-20s in the points,

most likely. So if you're a Jesse Love, do you take that? Or do you continue to survey the

landscape? Can you get a better option elsewhere? Do you have to wait a year? Like that's the

thing is it gets to the point where it's like, this isn't, we're not talking about, you know,

a Hendrick car or a Gibbs car. We're talking about probably a 20 to 25th place car on an average day.

And so, you know, the Jesse Love, like Jesse Love might be too good for that. Same with Corey

Heim, for example. But and I think Jesse Love probably is too good for that. But what seats are

available to him? He's stuck in the RCR pipeline. You don't want to go to RCR. That's not an option.

Don't go there. So if you don't do that, then what are you going to do? Are you going to wait

for Ram to open their cup team eventually? That doesn't seem like a great option, because that's

going to be a disaster to get started. If I had to guess, do you want to test the waters of Spire,

if you could even get in there? But if you could, if you could get in there, you probably get one

shot. Yeah, that's true. You're probably not getting that Hendrick car. That's too highly a

contested seat. I mean, there just aren't very many options. And I think that legacy, it's at

least like they seem to have potential and momentum and they might go places someday. And

even if they don't, if you can just beat the other two guys and consistently look really good,

you might get another shot someday because Neema check and Jones are not slouches. Those are two

quality drivers. So I mean, I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot of variables still, but I'm with

you. Harrison Burton, if he goes to legacy, makes sense. Everything about it makes sense on paper,

but there's not a lot of juice behind it. So we'll see. Like we said earlier,

there's going to be dominoes that need to fall. Don't know what will fall first, but we'll have

to wait and see. Jared, I'm going to refer to you on this next one, let you kind of go off for a

minute on you putting our itinerary. And I've seen, I've seen the banter on socials. I don't

know what the latest news is, but that's why I want to turn things over to you. What's going on

with Nashville Fairground Speedway? I know you and Danny, you're our Nashville locals. We got some

Nashville locals watching every week. So what's going on with one of NASCAR's most

historic tracks? I saw Dale Jr ran, okay, ran 12, 11. So there's a lot that's been actually going

on about that one. And there's some backstory I can give. And plus, I even have a little personal

side of some stuff going on and I'm willing to talk about. So Steve O'Donnell was on DBC and did

say that they have weekly meetings about the fairgrounds. It has always brought up the France

family is heavily in, you know, I don't know, involved, but very interested in what's going on

there. Dale Jr has said as much of the push for the fairgrounds with Marcus Smith, especially,

is still heavily on. It is not dead. So that's another part of it. The car's tour was a huge

success. Now the number going around is 12k. The number I heard was 13.2k, which is about where

the SRX race was. I get the Dale Jr factor, but the SRX when it came to town with the Elliott's

was a huge freaking deal. So to be around that level, traffic from what I heard from a few people,

I know, was actually pretty good. They got the traffic flow down to granted. If it were an NASCAR

race, it'd be probably three times that crowd. Here's the interesting part, though, that I had

heard. I had heard from a few people on this that apparently before the last mayor got voted out,

that they were actually like right there on the deal. They had almost, it just ran out of time,

basically, and that it's kind of still right there and that the higher up politicians have

interest in it, it's just more the worry back and forth. There's been the opposition kind of

pushing back large and small, and yeah, they're basically, they're just really fun cannon fodder

on social media. Like if you want to just like pile on people, they have some of the dumbest

comebacks for it. Heck, I told you guys, I even got hit with a false copyright claim

on one of my streams when I talked about it by the MLS, which makes me think that we might be

getting a little more on the inroads behind the scenes than many may think. Now that also got

resolved very quickly, but there's a lot more going on with this racetrack than the public knows

and that reporters are willing to say yet. I'll just say that much. I don't know how much I

necessarily can say of what I know. I know it's not necessarily close by any means. It needs a lot

of TLC and it needs to be expanded. Yeah, yeah. It needs a lot. It'll need a lot of expansion

and such. I'll say this to you, it is not anywhere close to even truck ready. If they got everything

done, and I've said this all week last week, because they got everything done in this moment

that whoever is listening or watching sees or hears this, that it'd be two or three years

before the trucks would be on track, the lone cop. But do they have safer barriers there? Can you

remind me? Nope, they do not. Okay. Yeah, that would take a minute. It needs safer barriers.

They have, of course, they've got Jodas Park right behind it. They've got that

apartment complex that's right behind it. Right behind it, too. Last time I was there,

last time I was there was the first time I saw it. That could help. It actually has,

it actually has been found that it actually is working as a sound barrier for the track. So

it's actually helping our case and they have it written into the, so I looked at all this stuff.

It's written into their lease agreements that they have to understand there's racing there and

can't make a big fuss about it. So that's just something you know, you know, going into it,

hey, I'm getting an apartment right by a race track. I need to be aware of that. And it's

right by a soccer stadium. You're by two loud things. You need to, the soccer stadium is just

on a home game. I haven't had a chance to go to the national one yet, but from what I know,

it can be just as loud as a race when they really get going with the crowd over there,

those games. But all I was really trying to say is they've also built, I see a garage there,

which I'm assuming is probably a lot, it's for the 445 park commons, it's for people who live in

those apartments there. But it would have really helped if they could build another parking garage,

just kind of in that area. One, just for soccer games, but two, it could benefit the race track

as well. The only thing that this track doesn't have room for, and it really sucks if they were

bringing NASCAR, there's no room for a fan zone. There just really is not at the national fairground

Spadeway. So if they ever did get NASCAR back there in some capacity, if they wanted any kind of

fan zone experience, it likely has to be away from the track most likely. Fan zone on Broadway.

Or maybe they could do like sort of an open area, maybe if they built up the stands or

something, but yeah, it does seem impossible for sure on that. There's some things working against it.

But I will definitely say that the interesting part is that everything surrounding it leads

back to one person. I believe it's John Ingram, who owns the Nashville soccer team. And what's

interesting about him is that the Ingram family has a lot of ties to Vanderbilt. Now I'm going to

tie this all in. Like they donated like 20 million to them. He donated 10 million hat and they write

puff pieces and all this. Well, the leading poll that is used by anti-fairgrounds people to tear

down the racetrack is from Vanderbilt and from the areas that the money that has been donated has

went to, including the lead, one of the lead people against. I can't remember the girl's name, but I

mean, it's fitting that everyone sees the care people because it's a Karen is also from Vanderbilt

on that side of it. So it's like, it's just, it's very interesting to see how it's just, it's one

person leading the way. And he's also holding, withholding funds for affordable housing until

the fairground stuff goes this way. And I might get something up, but I see something that someone

had tracked them, one of the people who was allegedly involved in one of these accounts

that you're seeing online raising all the fuss about that actually doesn't even live in a Nashville

area anymore. Yeah, they admitted it. They're like, oh yeah, we live across town. I'm like,

so I'd be like, that'd be like me here in, you know, the next county over fussing about it.

But yeah, that's the funny part is like, I almost, I know it's not, but it almost some of the points

being brought up against NASCAR, it feels like a racing fan who is trying to poison the well for

the anti racing side. Cause the arguments are grasping at straws. They've, they're rebranding

your burner. Is this your burner, Jared? Are you like talking to yourself right now?

I wish, I wish, I wish, I could make up for the makeup, but it's real.

Like they claim there were 26,000 people at, uh, at Bristol and their source was

Grock. Their source was Grock, you know, the AI on X. Yeah. Grock said there were 26,000. Grock's

source was from like a parody account. Oh, lovely. Grock. Wait, Grock, can you confirm that Grock

said that? Yeah. Well, that's, that's interesting. Well, I know there's a lot of fans in the Tennessee

area, many in the Nashville area that watch them listen to this show that I'm sure still

eagerly anticipating what may or may not happen over at that racetrack. Good stuff. Appreciate

the update. Uh, I think it's time to have some fun folks. For that time of the show, our fun

segments, making decent time. We're doing okay. We're doing all right. Let's start with our

accountability session for was not having much fun Sunday. Hopefully it begins a little better

for our boy, bell accountability session. Uh, this is where we also make our prediction each

week. Let's hold ourselves accountable first. I am on fire. The large will lead the most laps

at Bristol. That's gonna be awful. In hindsight, that maybe was a layup because he has led the

most laps here a few times in recent years, but I'll take it. Who's next? Who's next? Who's next?

Jared went for two. Not bad. Said the Bristol spring race will not be a tire lottery. You're

correct there. Bristol spring would be up in viewership. Nope. More folks tuned in to see

God forbid I expect the bare minimum. Yeah. Oh, Danny, Daniel, geez. Wow. All right. You

correctly said you're, you're, you're owing me a corrected one on here. I already, I already

corrected it in the, in the percentages. We didn't have enough room with all the other ones to fit

it on. So, so for those who don't want to know what the corrected one is, we had pre, we had

preemptively counted one of Bowman returning by Bristol wrong when it was originally announced

that all guy would be in the 48 until Bristol and then that one was proven to be correct.

Danny defending his honor. I am dying at these first two. I know these were made like months

apart, but I'm dying that they just contradict each other. Well, your big prediction that Gibbs

wins his first race here before the Coke 600, that ended up being right. But you at some point

also predicted he would not win a race this year. So that's wrong. I haven't said that last year. I

well, I got on the hype train after, after bashing him, Danny, I take back all the kind

things about your, about your predictions. What is happening on this?

Got one wrong about Fox's ratings. I said, Dale Jr. finished top 10. I think he finished 11th or

12th. We were watching this the other night on like a dinner or whatever. And it was, it was tough.

Toyota will lead the most laps at Bristol. They did not. And he said that Glenn Jacobs,

who was the grand marshal would say go vols. I think he said, Danny, he said it later on,

but not in the, no, he did not say that we were all around this one.

Michael Wall trip was doing the grid walk talking to Bubba Wallace and Glenn Jacob at the same time.

And then Michael Wall trip said something long lines of, I didn't know there was a county

mayor. And then, and then Bubba said, yeah, Knox County own Knoxville, you know, go vols.

So I was like, we were real close to it. Very close. Adjacent on that one.

Man, my season's prediction percentage is great. 64% Jarrett solid at 45, Danny, 33.3% percent.

All time though, Jarrett still holding strong. I'm in second though, comfortably into second now,

Danny and third, still very close, very tight, very close. We each, we each have new predictions

this week. As always, we make one, two predictions each. We'll go one at a time. Who goes first?

Do I go first? Yes. I'll start with this one. ARCA is a racing this weekend. We aren't going

to talk too much about the ARCA race. This is the main ARCA race. So you got all the good cars,

the big track, mile and a half Kansas, but I predict Cletus McFarland will finish eighth or better.

So my, my first prediction, I had kind of hinted it to you, Eric, before the show, I had said it

would be controversial 10 years ago. And maybe it might piss off some Kyle Busch fans now and

they'll call me a Salty Earn Heart fan. Kyle Busch's longest winless streak of his cup career

will be longer than Dale Jr.'s, which is 143. Kyle is at 101. I don't think Kyle wins in the next

42 starts. That's a good, I mean, I'm not, they're going to call me a Salty Earn Heart fan. I know

that, but I have no confidence in, in, I don't know, I'm going to call them rowdy or even KFB.

Like this is just like, you know, midi. That's a good, that's a good prediction. That's a good

fodder for this segment. Danny, what's your first prediction? Corey Hime will finish the top 10 on

Sunday. Oh, in the cup race. Oh yeah. Okay. I like it. I like it. Grant, what about you? What's your

first one? Give me top two in the Xfinity Championship by the end of the year. Justin

Allgaier, Corey Day. Oh, I like it. Do you want to go in a specific order? I don't want to go

in a specific order. I just want those two in top two. We can make that off the record, you know.

Doubling down on his Corey Day take. I like it. All right. Second prediction. This one's,

this one's a little meta. Bear with me here. I wanted to make a, the NBA playoffs are starting.

My Rockets are playing my arch rival Lakers, short-handed Lakers. First game is Saturday night.

I'll be flipping between. I'll probably have two screens up. O'Reilly race on one,

Rockets, Lakers on the other. I predict Joe Gibbs racing, this is complicated. Bear with

me, Jared. Joe Gibbs racing will lead more laps Saturday in the O'Reilly race than the Lakers

will score points in game one against my Rockets. Is LeBron's son still on the Lakers?

I actually do not know. I don't think he's in the rotation, but maybe.

And that answered my question. Does he still ask?

He's good in the G league. He's good. I don't think he's much of an NBA player,

but basically, yeah. So the Lakers will probably score like 110 points. So I'm predicting JGR cars

combined will lead more than 110 laps. That's, let's hope the Lakers don't put 150 or something,

then I'm screwed on both cases. I just wonder if my boy Dalton connects still there at the Lakers.

So my next one's going to be one I'm going to follow day over day,

but I'm going to say Toyota leads the most total laps of the Kansas weekend. So for the top two

series, I'm not counting Arca because that might be cheating. I'm going to go with Toyota combined.

So if it ends up being like 500 laps, they lead, they'll lead the most of the OEMs.

Okay. My next one, Tyler Redick will be a cover athlete of the next NASCAR video game.

Oh, I like that one. I'm not saying he'll be the cover athlete because they might be on the cover,

but he will be a cover athlete. So off the record of the prediction,

do you think somehow they sneak Michael Jordan onto the cover with them?

Oh, that would be nice. Probably definitely like at least like a celebration or something like that,

you know, like a light color.

Something that like some like normie that doesn't know NASCAR is like, oh, Michael Jordan.

You know, just noticeable enough.

Could be.

Yeah. If Redick's on there, at least Michael Jordan celebrating is like at the 500, that makes a lot

of sense. Let's say the picture of Redick and Jordan holding up the Harley J. Earl trophy,

and it's like MJ ends up being bigger on the cover than Redick.

I mean, that would make a lot of sense.

All right, Grant, what's your last prediction?

Well, this gets real awkward now because I'm going to go with Redick will not finish inside

the top three in the final standings.

Oh, you're going to collapse in the, you're going to collapse in the chase.

A little bit, a little bit.

All right. I respect.

These are good. This is a good prediction segment this week.

Some very different, very thoughtful takes here.

We'll keep track every week.

And Grant, next time you're on the show, we'll check in on, on how you did with your,

your all-guyer day prediction for sure.

We will.

Sure.

Now it's time for our other fun segment.

Before we get in our Kansas preview, it's time for random driver of the week.

Grant, I'm pretty sure you've played this with us.

I'm not certain.

Jared, give us a squeeze.

What's your record?

We're over.

Jared, I'll let you tee us off here.

Why do you got one?

Sorry.

Yeah. Sorry. I cut you off on that one.

Um, but yeah, so hide the chat.

Oh yeah. Got it.

You can look at the chat.

Scouts honor.

Uh, so last week, Eric sniped it early with David star.

Like that's what I'm to see.

He's got him in the first clue.

We're going to make a compilation of that.

So he leaves 39 38.

He also got Tony Stewart and Brad sweet in the last five.

Danny, you have one of those with Nelson P K Jr.

And then I got y'all stumped on speedy Thompson random cars in the cars universe.

All right.

This random driver is a native of Wasall, Wisconsin.

I don't think I know it, but I go for it.

I'm not doing it.

I don't want to ruin it.

If there's a chance I'm right.

I'm not ruining the chat.

So give us another time.

I thought we did him already.

This random driver is fourth all time in career cup starts like most starts.

Oh, that's not who I was thinking.

Never mind them.

Glad I didn't guess it.

I didn't embarrass myself.

This random driver holds the record for most Daytona 500 starts at 33.

Wow.

Let me make sure the chat.

Damn, they already got it.

This random driver holds the record for most consecutive Daytona 500 starts at 32.

Dave Marcus.

Wow, Danny.

Well, he's fat.

I was quick.

Well played.

I remember the stat of him making a ton of starts.

That's a good job.

Oh, well played.

And Chad got it quick, too.

Good job.

There was a lot of Daytona 500 ones, by the way.

His first race was the 1968 Daytona 500.

His last one was the 2002 Daytona 500.

I don't think I realized that he was from Wisconsin.

Is Wausau the same place Scott Wimmers from?

Ah, I'd have to check.

I know he's from Wisconsin.

I don't know.

I'd have to check.

Because initially, that's what came to my mind.

But then all the consecutive starts made a thing Marcus.

Damn, I got to get better on these clues, man.

Yeah, wow.

Well, making good time, at least.

Grant, you did win in the sense that I think we'll get done under three hours at this, right?

Because sometimes random driver, random driver sometimes goes on really long.

He's not talking right now.

We are not there yet.

We're almost there.

Don't put that even on me, Ricky Bobby.

We are almost there.

It's time now for our weekend preview.

Let's talk Kansas Speedway.

A couple of notes real quick.

We mentioned earlier.

Corey Heim is in the Cup race in the 67.

As far as the O'Reilly series, the 88 will be William Byron this week.

And the one is Carson Quaple once again.

Let's start with the O'Reilly series race.

The Kansas Lottery 300 Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on the CW.

It's a 200 lap race.

45, 45, 110 are the stage breakdowns on the CW MRN.

Brandon Jones is the defending race winner.

Well, actually, this race was run in the fall last year, right?

I don't think it will be.

It ran in the fall last four years, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, I don't think so.

Yeah, no, never mind.

Brandon Jones won last year.

That's all I know.

Yeah.

Cup race is the Advent Health 400.

It is a 267 lap race.

80, 85, 102 are the stage breakdowns.

It starts at 2 o'clock Eastern, a little earlier, about an hour earlier than usual,

2 p.m. Eastern on Big Fox.

This race was added to the Big Fox lineup.

All our Hemen and Hawn about FS1 cable.

This race is on Big Fox.

And so is Talladega the week after.

So Fox Sunday.

It's totally, totally not used to promote IndyCar, which is right after.

Honestly, keep doing it.

I'm happy if they would do that every week.

I'm cool with it.

Kyle Larson is the defending winner.

Was this his last?

Was this the track?

Last win.

Yes.

But it was slightly later in the year.

So he's not at a full season win this streak yet, but he's getting pretty close.

That's the cup race.

All right.

Let's look at the pick point.

I know weather report.

Actually, what's the weather look like?

Danny, sorry.

Jump scare.

My bad.

Eric's off for a second.

I can go back.

Sorry about that, Danny.

What is the weather looking like?

So our meteorologist friend of the show, Jeff Bork,

he did send me his detailed forecast for this weekend.

Kansas weekend forecast.

We are in good shape for most of the weekend,

but fan safety matters just as much as race day impacts.

Friday practice and qualifying for the NASCAR Rally Auto Part Series

will be impacted by a vigorous area of showers and thunderstorms

with the potential of severe thunderstorms as a line of storms

initiates in the vicinity of Kansas City.

This is not related to what he has sent me,

but I'm just checking in that general area right now.

Earlier in the day, they were actually under,

they still are under tornado watches just east of Kansas City area now.

So that whole area is definitely one of those areas

that when thunderstorms get going, you've got to watch out for.

Bring, go back to that.

This could bring the potential for damaging wind

and quick QLCS Dixie style tornadoes.

So kind of what I just said,

meaning you're not typical twisters, photogenic supercells.

This along with frequent lightening and torrential rain

means that a safety plan will need to be acted on

and anyone in campus will need to be able to find quick shelter

in a sturdy building if anything was to happen.

When a warning is issued, act on it.

Treat it as if one is coming right towards you.

Slinger rain is possible through sunrise on Saturday,

but the weekend becomes cool and beautiful.

Otherwise, for Saturday and Sunday,

expect chilly mornings in the upper 30s to lower 40s.

Sunday skies were available both days.

Wind will be higher Saturday, but highs will reach the 50s.

Sunday brings wider winds and highs near 70.

Good deal.

All right.

Let's survive Friday and Saturday, Sunday sound quite pleasant.

If you ask me.

All right.

Now it's time for the pick points.

Damn it.

What happened?

Chat, you've taken the lead.

This is not okay.

I'm getting zillish to win instead of Larson.

That was me from being the points later.

Yeah.

Danny and I are tied minus two.

Jared, though, in the basement, minus 11 points after this week.

I've got the title picture on Eric

because of my five total wins to your team.

I stayed minus 11 and I still lost a spot.

Yeah.

So it's tight.

The chat picks on you close.

Chat picks fifth.

Yeah, that does mean I get second pick this week, though.

Heck yeah.

Oh, third pick.

No, we have a guest.

That's right.

Third pick.

Guest always picks first.

Oh, shoot.

I probably didn't write down enough.

Oh, no, I'm third.

Let's start then with Grant.

You're going to lead us off with your O'Reilly series win pick.

Okay.

Who do you got?

I really wanted to do it.

Like the temptation for the Corey Day pick was so bad.

But I mean, I'm going first.

I can't do it.

Give me Justin Allgaier.

That's so boring, but he's the fastest car in intermediates this year.

And he had the fastest car in his last year.

Have you looked at his average finish at this track?

He had the fastest car here last year per optimal lap model,

so I don't care.

I didn't look.

All right.

Well, I've actually nailed two of this guy's predictions

correct when I predict him to win here.

So I am going to push my luck

and I'm going to try and go three for three with Brandon Jones.

It's a solid pick.

I honestly thought he was going to fall into me.

I thought he was going to fall to me.

I thought he'd be like everyone's third fourth pick.

I feel like with who's left on the board,

I feel like it could be negligent for me to not take William Byron.

So I think I'm going to take William Byron in the 88.

Snip the chat.

Sorry, chat.

Who do you got?

Pivot.

Well, Danny goes first.

And then I go.

So Brandon Jones and the last four races

have the best average finish here.

So that was my number one, but Jared took him.

So my next one is the next guy with the best average finish

in the last four races.

Shockingly, it's Sheldon Creed.

So we're going to go Sheldon Creed this week.

He's had a good season this show.

It's not a bad pick at all.

Guys, I'm making friends in the chat.

They want Corey.

A lot of the teams in the chat chat.

You're getting Corey Day.

They think he might get his first career.

They're like, listen to that, man.

Listen to him.

I've steered them wrong.

This is bad.

Well, let's see.

Everyone has another shot, though,

because we've got the Cup race on deck.

Let's start with the suck pick, though.

This one's not for points.

We can pick whoever we want.

We don't have to.

We can all agree if we want.

Jared, who's going to suck?

No, Grant.

Sorry, Grant.

No, Grant already gave this.

I already said to that, Cal.

I already piled on, but I'm not done piling on, dang it.

Uh-oh.

That I already talked about their pit crews being garbage.

Their drivers aren't doing great either, honestly.

I won't read off the stats.

I want to commend them, actually.

I wasn't going to do this before.

We were just going to go to the speed,

but since I have a second,

they fixed their pit crew problem this year.

The one car has the 15th fastest pit crew,

and the other two cars are 18th and 19th, which is not bad.

Now, if only they could have cars that weren't tractors.

Cabotos, if you will.

Carry on.

I think that I might add that the chat is making a heavy push for Fox.

I'm going to say Joey Legano.

That Penske has, like, especially Legano,

Cindrick, haven't been great.

So, oh my God.

This isn't like, this is-

Scats getting real close between Fox and Blaney's pick.

And Kyle Bush.

Both that, all valid choices, all very, very, very valid.

Can we start putting Kyle Bush in the corner with, like,

the custers and the Cody wares of, like, just,

that's an obvious suck-bick.

I'm not ready to go there yet.

I can't do this, Kyle.

That's not yet.

I'll go Cindrick.

I like where you're thinking.

Penske does not seem special here at this track type

or at this track in particular.

And Cindrick, I don't know.

I think he'll be outside the top 20.

I like that Cindrick because average finisher has been bad.

Someone has just been just as bad.

Despite it seeming like a track he should be fine at,

and he's had some good runs this year,

I'm going to have to put a host of R down as my suck-pick for this one.

He'll probably be fast.

He'll be fast, but some people probably go wrong.

I mean, four R's is in.

It's ever finished at, like, 27.

So, I mean, I can't lie, he doesn't get it done here.

Chat.

Yeah, we'll just give them all of the above.

We can move on to dark horse picks.

Are we going to do that?

We're going to give them three suck-picks.

I mean, this isn't for points.

Give them Fox.

So, they seem to agree to give me Fox.

I'm going to put Fox, 12 crew, and then what was that one

that they put in there instead of rowdy?

It was just, like, midi or something.

It was mild thing.

Mild thing, I'll put that.

I saw that earlier.

I saw the people in the chat are like,

you're kind of enjoying this too much.

I'm just going along with y'all.

I'm beating off your energy.

Dark horse pick.

Now we can be a little more positive.

Jerry, who you got?

Well, Grant.

I'm sorry.

Grant, I keep starting with Jerry.

It's all good.

Yeah, sorry.

Go ahead.

I feel a little cheap about this one.

I don't even know if it counts as a dark horse,

but give me Chris Busher.

No, I'm still counting.

Seven.

One fastest car on intermediate tracks this year.

Last year's sixth fastest car at Kansas in the fall.

Sneaky good here.

I mean, yes, he's lost that photo finish

and everybody remembers that, but that's not an outlier.

This team's pretty good on intermediate tracks.

I'll say for a top 20, I'll go SVG, just out of probably attrition.

He sniped me.

I was about to have a big reveal plan.

I'm going to fly right in the face of all of the propaganda

that Grant is pushing out.

I really hope that works out for you, but I have no faith.

He's the best trackhouse driver this year.

I mean, that was what I was going to say is I agree with that.

I mean, trackhouse isn't doing great right now,

but SVG did finish 10th here last year.

And the only other race this season with this package,

this track type was Las Vegas.

And Shane, remember spun out almost on lap one.

I think damaged his car and was never a factor.

So we don't, he's a total wild card.

So I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt

and make Grant blush over there, but Jared beat me to the punch.

So well played.

Well played on that one.

Danny, who's your underdog?

Well, while Bristol did not give him the return that he hoped for,

Alex Bowman actually does have the seventh best average finish here since 2024.

So I'll go with him to hopefully get a better reintroduction

to NASCAR Cup Series racing this weekend at Kansas.

It's a good choice.

And chat, I think they're going to Heim.

I think Heim looks like what they want for underdog.

We'll give him Heim.

It's not for points.

This next one is though, it's time to pick our winners for the Cup race at Kansas.

Grant, I got to write this time.

Grant, you lead us off.

Who are you going to, who are you going to steal?

Who are you taking?

I fear not the jinx.

Give me Denny Hamlin.

Fastest, fastest long run speed car this year.

Second fastest on the intermediate tracks this year.

He had the fastest car here last year in the fall.

It's kind of a layup as long as he doesn't shoot himself on the foot.

It's going to be a really easy weekend for me to keep track of because I'm just going

to keep track of the 20 car in both races.

Give me C-Bell.

Oh, I have a decision to make now because I was really split on three guys for this exact spot.

I'm going to take Chase Briscoe.

I was one over.

My buddy Ryan pulled out some interesting numbers the other day when I was talking to him.

He's like, Hey, you know, chase Briscoe.

If you look at mile and a half's conventional mile and a half's the last two years,

Martin Truex Jr. has the best average running position in the series in that span.

Grant, he only has run about half the races because he didn't race in 2025.

And then last year in the 19 Briscoe had the best average finish.

So the 19 at intermediate tracks has been really fast the past two years, apparently,

or at least they're getting the results.

So I like Chase Briscoe.

Just finished top five at Briscoe.

I think I might have gotten those stats slightly wrong.

I'd have to go back and check my notes.

But I know he was able to point out how the 19 with two different drivers has been near the top

at this track type in recent years.

And so that won me over and has me thinking Chase Briscoe might shock some folks on Sunday.

So I'll go Briscoe.

Sorry, that was long winded.

Danny, who you got?

Guy I'm going with hasn't won here in a little bit.

But at one time he was one of three guys who got a win in this car.

And the momentum has definitely been on the side this season.

I'm going Tyler Redick to get win number six of the season.

And I will be one away from getting a prediction right, seven before Chase.

I thought he had four so far.

Oh, yeah.

So I'll be two away in the number five.

He almost got it at Bristol this week.

I thought for a moment, I'm like, oh my God, Danny's a genius.

He's going to get Ty Gibbs or he's going to get Tyler Redick.

I still, I still think that this is very likely to happen at Braddock.

There's still so many good tracks for him.

We just handed the chat the five.

What I saw either he's going to dominate and lead 200 laps and win

or blow an engine on lap five.

See, that's why I had Larsen as my number one.

I pivoted to Redick and I'm thinking myself, you know, it's been a,

it's, it's a reason he hasn't won since this race last year.

You had Larsen at one.

He felt you at four and you didn't take him.

I want to go up the Redick train.

I just go with your gut.

I get it.

I'm looking at our picks.

So Grant just goes after the old guard of all guy are in Hamlin.

I go after the 20 car.

Eric, you mix it up a little bit.

Oh, yeah.

Danny, I think you did too.

And then, and then chat has to follow the Hendrick cars.

Like com.

Dot com cars.

Well, Jay, who's placing Hendrick these days?

Huh, chat?

That was fun.

Everyone hope you enjoy Kansas this weekend before we get into our final

super chat stage break.

Grant, I want to give you the opportunity to shout out what you're working on.

If there's any new stuff coming down the pipeline with the auto racing analytics,

we appreciate you hanging out with us tonight.

So, so what's going on?

Thanks for having me.

It's always a good time.

I mentioned it briefly just a minute ago, but working on a study in my classes at

college actually taken some data science classes and got the opportunity to do a

little bit of research into the peak age for cup series drivers in the next gen era.

Probably going to either turn that into a video or some kind of like simplified paper

that I can post.

Maybe it'll go on YouTube.

Maybe it'll, if it's a paper, it'll probably go on auto racing analytics.com.

Maybe mid season sometime.

So stand and look out for that.

That won't be complete yet because honestly, there just isn't enough seasons worth the

data to make any strong predictions, but it's definitely going to go lower.

So go look at that.

Um, YouTube, I don't know if I'm going to do anything more with that in the near future.

I said I was going to commit to doing a podcast every week and that made it like two weeks.

So we'll see.

I don't know if any of that comes back or not, but keep an eye out for it.

Maybe it will.

The main place you can find me, I try to post on Twitter most every day of the week.

Just a stat tidbit.

It's ar underscore analytics.

And if you appreciate my work there, you want to see me continue in this community.

I'd appreciate your support on auto racing analytics.com.

I already mentioned you can try it for one month for a dollar.

Code NWP 26.

You can see all the stats on there.

If you want to message me on Twitter and talk about them,

I'm always down for an interesting discussion on those.

But yeah, create conversations with this stuff because that's really what it's for.

It's interesting stuff and I like discussing it.

And I think it, I think it generates some interesting conversations of like

what drivers could do if they got in other cars and what the car versus the driver is.

That's kind of the goal of auto racing analytics.

But thanks y'all for having me and I look forward to seeing it all in the fall.

Yeah.

No, we really appreciate it.

And I also just linked your, your ex, your Twitter in the, in the chat.

So people be sure to check that out.

Give him a follow.

You've probably seen his stuff pop up on your timeline from time to time.

But for sure, we appreciate you being here.

Grant, let's get to our final.

Super chat cool down lap.

Where did we leave off?

I believe we left off here with Steven Gibson saying,

Bush is in the spot mark.

Martin was in in 2007.

Do we see a 2009 resurgence coming for Kyle Busch?

Time will tell.

Scott McNew says, great to see y'all.

Might be a hot take, but I think Bush should leave cup.

Take a full-time truck ride with Spire and try to become the first driver to complete

the championship trifecta.

I think we talked about that a bit earlier.

Yeah. Danny said it.

I think it'll happen at some point.

If it's next year, it's next year, but I think it'll be a few years from now.

Another one from Steven says, Dover is the one that needs to go back to asphalt.

That race at 500 laps when I had asphalt, I also feel the track would take rubber better again.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm just at this point, concrete tracks are so temperamental.

I don't, I'm sure there's a practical reason some tracks are concrete,

but I prefer traditional pavement at this point.

I feel like at least then the product is a little more predictable.

Freddog 81.

Have we heard anything new on Adam Alexander?

I hope he's okay.

Nothing against the substitute, but the O'Reilly broadcast wasn't the same without him.

I did think Dylan Welsh did a fine job substituting and no, I do not think we know,

at least I do not know what's what the situation is with Adam, but hope he and everyone is doing

all right there for sure.

Hope to have him back in the booth soon.

Jeffrey King.

Elliot has to improve.

23rd, 2nd, 15th, 1st, 22nd.

Those are his last five finishes.

I talked about that today.

Very up and down, at least they have winning speed here and there,

but it's here and there.

It's not consistent.

So still room to improve.

They're in that, they're in that top five, top six.

What like Jared said earlier, that kind of fringe championship contention mix, no doubt.

Beast of metal.

Thank you for the generous super chat says it's too bad.

There wasn't a major league that picked the bag up front over long term exposure

and suffered dearly for it for a decade and a half.

NASCAR could have learned from it.

I wonder why the NHL logo is waving at me.

Hockey fans can fill us in.

I know a little bit.

I don't know the hockey situation quite as detailed.

Look at the MLS.

Look at Formula One.

I mean, you're seeing a lot of them.

But you're a Justin Drake.

I feel like I have a few more before then.

That one doesn't show up for me.

Okay.

Ever missed the truck series, Austin?

No, Jamie.

But I bet he's missing that Nyquil in his trailer,

so he doesn't have to listen to you anymore.

Jamie could have not raced.

Damn.

I got the fox.

I got sex.

Dang, Justin.

That one didn't show up for me.

It's spicy as always.

Is that one for you, Mason?

Yes.

Mason is next says Clint treats the broadcast like soapbox races with his jokes.

Some of them land.

Some of them don't.

Chris John says, what's worse?

What's worse?

Ferrari pit strategy or Ryan Blaney's pit crew?

I feel like Blaney's pit crew hasn't actually cost him that many races.

Like, you know, Phoenix, he was able to overcome the pit crew and still win.

Whereas, I feel like Ferrari ends up losing a lot.

Rowdy 8 diecast is next.

I've been a KB fan since 09 when I was 9 years old.

Never thought I'd see the day where I'm embarrassed to watch him race.

I watch and go to races for my love of NASCAR as a sport at this point.

I'm glad you're still able to find some enjoyment.

I hope better days are in the near future.

But yeah, it's just, man, did any of us see this coming when he got off to that hot start in 2023?

I don't think so.

I predicted he'd have six wins that year.

I felt like a genius after that third win.

I was like, we're well on track.

And then it all went to hell.

It's fallen hard, sadly.

Steven Gibson, if the rumors of the clash to Daytona are true,

I don't think they'll run the big track.

Teams complain enough about six speedways.

NASCAR has some temporary wallings from LA.

What if they do the backstretch bullring?

Problem is, I don't think they got no backstretch grandstands.

Yeah, I think those have been torn down long gone.

But they have paved the areas out of turn four and into turn one.

So you might be able to do it there.

Just, just, just bite the bull and run the big track.

I agree.

Jeffrey King says, Hey, Ty Gibbs got some coal pern speed magic.

Yeah, we didn't mention that.

But Joe Gibbs, a couple of times post-race mentioned that coal pern casually seems to be doing some work at JGR.

That is a difference maker for sure.

Yeah.

Indy Carson.

Good to see you.

Hey, NWP Bristol.

Part one trucks.

Finally, Chris Bell was rung instead of boring Heim time.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, Riley.

Zillich can have the win this time since Cup is awful for him so far in 2026.

I love that Carson here has this vendetta against Zillich,

but he's starting to feel bad for Connor.

How Connor, he's coming around.

I can't wait to say the opinion on Ty Gibbs.

Yeah.

I want to do his part two real quick says that's to Ty on beating Blaney and Larson.

Champions last five years.

Happy for the Gibbs family.

Now run one race at Bristol and make sure it's in August, not during the NFL season.

And we'll see the night race will be fun.

Justin Drake says Fox waved that check in front of Chandler like, oh, you almost had it.

You got to be quicker than that.

That's a cruel man.

Just like that was a Geico commercial.

Yeah.

Eric, I believe his next.

Yes.

How do you think Almond Dinger will do at Kansas?

That's a race last year he blew an engine at and was really mad.

Or was that homestead?

I'm thinking this is a great question.

How do you think Almond Dinger will do at Kansas?

He should have been somebody's on underdog pick for sure.

Good to know.

Well, that's encouraging.

Van Boney sports.

Good day today.

Got a lot of changes on my NASCAR analytics website made not as good as grants, but I like,

but I like it and I get to listen to NWP on the Zamboni.

Glad you're having fun on the Zamboni Van Boney sports.

Appreciate you tuning in.

Mom, thanks for the super chat.

Mom, 90, 98.

I enjoyed meeting you last year.

I'm not going to make the spring race at Kansas, but I wondered if you and Brennan

are doing a live podcast this weekend.

We are not.

I will not be at Kansas this week.

And I am planning to be there for the fall race come chase time.

But hopefully Brennan and I are able to do some more live shows later this year.

I'm still reeling from my dramatic pizza cookoff defeat at Daytona in February.

That was, that was very unfortunate.

Where are we at here?

A few more from Indy Carson.

Hey, Iceberg.

Thanks for all your mom does in the medical field.

Sorry.

She lost by hope.

It showed how much we fans care about you and your family.

Well, are the results in Jarrett?

They wouldn't give the full results, but she didn't win.

Unfortunately, but she was in the top 10 late.

That's a shame.

She was like before the big surge we had was up to eighth.

So she was right there.

She's second then since we don't know the full result.

She's second.

Congratulations.

Wow.

But yeah, the second doesn't get anything.

But I appreciate it.

And she appreciated it on everybody.

So thanks to everybody that voted.

Yeah, it was cool to see the support.

Shame it didn't get all the way there.

But any Carson continues.

Have fun in Kansas.

Whoever's going.

I like that NASCAR.

What NASCAR is doing for day yet.

Never hurts to try something different to improve the racing on bigger tracks.

For sure.

Hopefully it makes difference and adds.

I think the class should not go back to Daytona.

NASCAR should return clash at Daytona and all stories at Charlotte on their 80th anniversary

in 2028, including the 70th Daytona 500.

Likes his round numbers.

Carson is two years away from the 80th.

I thought it just feels like we're just in the 75th.

80 is not really a big.

I mean, it is a milestone, but it's not as like celebrated.

Knock on wood here.

Like we are going to be seeing the 100th anniversary of NASCAR in our 50th.

No, I think that's appropriate to say.

Unks still got it when we're in our 50s.

Not when we're like in our early 20s.

Yeah.

Fred dog 81.

How many races until Bush gets punched out by his crew chief?

Don't forget to post your weekly Fs in honor of that cry baby bum has been loser.

Wow, God, and with the profile picture of him getting decked there.

Yeah, man, Fred dog, not a Kyle Bush fan.

Sorry that Bush fans had to see that.

Next one's from Nick.

Speaking of the 2020 roval race, that was the last race I ever watched with my grandpa before he passed.

He had been following the sport since the early 60s.

He was blown away.

Cars could race in that.

That's, I mean, first off, very sorry for your loss, but that is pretty remarkable that

he got to see the early days of NASCAR ultimately culminate in them racing through a monsoon.

That had to be like kind of surreal for someone who'd been watching the sport for decades like that.

That I can't imagine.

Justin Drake.

Thank you for the generous super chat.

I mean, who's he?

I'm feeling he's going to take a shot at someone here.

He usually does.

Fun fact for the first time since 97.

Hickory is getting a much needed repayment.

The owners are spending money on the facility.

How would you feel about trucks going there?

He didn't take a shot at anyone.

Wow, not a spicy Justin post for trucks.

What do you think?

Not as unrealistic as people might think.

That's all I'll say.

I've not been to Hickory, but is it a decent enough for some?

I mean, they've, I haven't either.

I'm just, it might not be unrealistic.

Same with like maybe.

There are enough people in the industry that like that track.

And it's true.

I'll just, another thing that might be an interesting truck current to remember is that

Bowman Gray has a deal to run any national series through 2030.

And if they're not the clash, they're not going to be a points race.

Maybe it'll be the all-star race, but then we don't know what to over.

But it could be a truck race.

Just, I'm just saying, there's a few things that are being swirled around here.

One, one, one say, one say who it is.

We know someone who got a job of one of them places here recently.

Go snake man.

Back to back super chats here.

Says reduce their stricter plate and up the speed for super speedway.

Super speedway tracks need to age a little bit.

No more repaving.

Agreed there.

And then adds, I'm a professional class A driver.

Can I try out?

No, Riley in trucks.

Can I get an opportunity to drive JK?

LOL.

I wouldn't mind being a hauler driver.

They always need hauler drivers.

So yeah, send your resume to Morrisville and someone will maybe pick it up.

Jonah, thanks for the five.

Grock, tell me how many people were at Bristol and Puttmark?

LOL.

That's funny, Jonah.

Next from a flying cactus.

My prediction, Rhett Slough will win his first race at a super speedway later this year.

I like that.

He's got the Rhett Slough profile picture.

That's not a bad prediction.

I can see him winning Talladega.

If you won Talladega, would that points wise,

do you guys think would that like ensure him to make the chase at that point?

He's already 55 up.

If I were to just say that, I would think.

That's what I'm saying.

He's 55 points up.

He has four top 10s already.

If he got to win, I mean, he'd have to be around 80 above the cut line or so.

Like, I think he's going to make it regardless on if that really do.

I won't go down this rabbit hole fully,

but I almost made this one of my predictions of I think he,

I wasn't confident enough in it to make it the prediction,

but I think he could win an O'Reilly short track race.

Not just a speedway race, but I think there's potential there.

He's got the second best lap time consistency on short tracks,

which is pretty impressive.

So if Jesse Love moves up away from RCR,

I wouldn't mind seeing him be a candidate to go take the RCR too.

I really wonder what he could do in a better car.

Mitchell, it's next up.

Jenner Super Chat.

Appreciate that, Mitchell.

I get the history and appeal and history of the clash going back to Daytona,

but if someone not close to the Southeast,

I hope we don't lose the option to go to new markets

and try fun things with little to no stakes.

That's what I said earlier.

I feel like you either got to promote Daytona, commit to that,

or you got to go do something crazy.

And I love Bowman Gray.

I think it could be a great all-star race venue.

I don't think that's crazy enough for this kind of an exhibition slot.

So I don't know where Mitchell lives or where they're based at,

but maybe we could race in their backyard at some point in the clash,

but we'll see.

Next up, we're in the final few here, folks.

From C-Batha, I guess.

We might get GTA VI before a good Blaney pit stop.

I saw that's why I was laughing.

Then from Justin Drake.

The Bush 2023 to 2026 theme song, Wild Thing Parody.

Mild thing, you make my heart sink.

You make everything gloomy.

Come on, mild thing.

Wow, you could cut.

You have such a way with words.

I'm not going to blame Kyle Bush fans at all when, if he, you know,

if he gets a win at some point of just rubbing it in everybody's faces,

because honestly, they'll deserve to do so.

He's back.

No, they can celebrate that.

They can shout that one from the rooftops.

Kyle Bush, I'm sure they will on DB.

Marks that are a mile long with people.

Yeah.

Final four here.

Triple P productions clash back to the Daytona road course,

multi-class race chase drivers from all three national series.

I mean, that would be, that sounds super fun.

I don't know if it's feasible.

So yeah, but we can fantasize.

Crash travels out of curiosity.

Do you guys notice increases slash decreases in your YouTube views

in line with NASCAR TV ratings or is it completely independent?

Question.

So if it depends, honestly, video wise, I've found it's unless it's a huge,

huge drop, it's pretty consistent.

But for me, it's streams.

Like when I do post-race streams, that's way more temperamental.

Generally, like if it's going to be a big Fox like this week,

probably be more people.

But it can swing other times though.

It just depends on what you're talking about too.

I don't know about specific races,

slash how they relate to ratings and stuff.

But I know Eric, you might have kind of been said something before we got started.

There's certain drivers that kind of don't push the needle for stuff.

So if a driver like that was to win, does it kind of impact out of the groove a little bit?

I think out of the groove is more like my post-race show

is more dictated by just how good the race was.

Like I feel like my show and probably your streams, Jared,

are largely speaking to hardcore fans who watch most weeks,

regardless of what network it's on or what the ratings are.

So that's why I don't see a lot of fluctuation.

It's more fluctuates based on, hey, was it an exciting race?

Was it a controversial race?

You know, and I think that tends to drive viewership.

I will say, I think this week's post-race out of the groove

was my lowest viewed of the year,

which is why to Danny's point, I made a comment before the show.

Ty Gibbs does not move the needle unless he's doing something dumb.

That is what I've seen on social media.

I don't know.

I don't know if he's on me, but that's what surprised me.

It's like my post-race concurrent,

like it didn't show up on the public end from like what my dad was saying

and other people are saying, but like it hit about the,

a little under or at the thousand mark in my analytics.

And I was surprised because I'm like, damn, you know, like of concurrent.

Because it wasn't the lowest one this year.

I think the lowest one I had was, was it Vegas or Coda?

I'm not sure which one it was, but it wasn't the lowest.

And that surprised me.

But yeah, I think that's more of what it is.

Unless the only time there's a huge swing is if it's something big,

like the Daytona 500 or like a rain out,

then it can affect it sometimes.

But it's more exciting race, finish stuff like that.

If it's a boring ass race, but a bunch of people watch,

they're not really going to seek out stuff afterwards.

But if it's like a 2024 Kansas, everybody wants to talk about it, you know?

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I slightly maybe, but I don't think it's really dictated by ratings.

It's more by actually what's the quality of the content.

Is there stuff going on?

Is there stuff to talk about?

That's more drives it.

Final few here.

We're getting there.

Fred dog says a body's still warm.

Kicking, silence please.

Oh, goodness.

Greatest.

Damn.

Go snake man says I vote for Rocky.

Ham is an all-star race.

I could see that down the line being realistic.

Collipso says say hello to the manager of ECR's engine program.

Someone needs to, someone's, someone's to blame.

And finally from Seabat the grandpa.

Can you give me the 19 car and set up?

That is kind of how it's felt.

Briscoe's been, it's been a little rocky.

Whereas we got one more.

I get really sad.

Oh, and there's our buddy Jensen coming in right at the wire here says,

just found out during the podcast,

and my friends and I will be flying out to Vegas.

We just got tickets to the fall race.

Any recommendations?

First NASCAR race we'll be seeing in person.

Aloha, Aloha to you Jensen.

That's going to be a long flight,

but I think it will be worth it.

You see a chase race.

There's a lot of wild and wacky things to do in Vegas.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know what, what is, what, what do I do?

If I'm planning to go to the fall race and I need to look into it,

I might get tickets to see Metallica and the sphere.

They're playing that weekend.

Tickets are quite expensive,

but it might be worth it to see, to see one of the big boys.

So maybe you can join me there.

Come to the sphere and see Metallica Thursday or Friday night,

whatever it is before the race.

Maybe you can also look into like the Saturday before,

if you didn't want to go to just races, like maybe go see,

I think UNLV college football plays out there,

where the writers play or something like that.

I don't know.

There could be some other things to do while you're out there.

The Raiders do have a nice looking stadium.

There's a lot of stuff to do in Vegas.

I just, you know, careful out on the strip, you know,

explore the sewer system.

They have a whole community down there.

There's like literally an entire community down there.

I think I've viced a documentary on it when they were still good.

I'm not too interested in exploring the sewers of Las Vegas.

I'm just saying it's interesting if people are going to do it.

All right.

We're at the end.

Justin Drake, mild thing.

You make my heart sink.

You make the podium a dream.

Eric, Eric, Andrea, Eric, Eric, and Raid.

Eric Andre.

I keep thinking like the Eric Andre.

Eric Andre.

Yeah.

Eric Andre.

Disappointment.

Kind of disappointed those fans didn't scream grandpa

in the front stretch when Ty won.

That was a good moment.

Do you guys think Malcolm Roots got blocked by Ty Gibbs?

Yeah, I did see that.

And finally, Chris John, under three hours.

Yes, we are done under two and a half hours.

Wow.

We appreciate you sticking it out with us.

Good to see you again.

No, please, please don't.

We're good.

Thank you all for watching.

We do appreciate the super chats.

Very generous.

It helps keep the show going week in, week out, all year long.

Appreciate you all hanging out tonight.

This was a fun show cover a lot of ground grant.

You brought the numbers.

You brought the data.

You brought the insight that us jokers don't usually provide on our own.

So we appreciate that.

Thank you ever for tuning in.

Enjoy Kansas Speedway this weekend.

We'll be back in one week, April 22nd, 8 p.m. Eastern on the iceberg.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you then.

Take care, y'all.

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About this episode

Original notes