Is NASCAR Evolving In The Right Direction?

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your ride ready to get out and drive. John welcome back to another great

episode of get out and drive fueled by AMD you know who I am you know who this

is. I remember who I am. It's a battle every day. You know instead of just kind

of jumping in somebody should just wave the green flag anything. Yeah I mean I

gotta know when to boogity boogity boogity. If you guys are lucky enough to

have witnessed the Daytona 500 this year 2026 there's some controversy and

there was some in my opinion there was some great racing but we're gonna talk

a little bit about NASCAR in this episode John and we're gonna kind of go back

to free what it is today that people have been complaining about for the last

15 years or so. I'm gonna go back to like day learn heart times and kind of work

our way yes through what NASCAR is today and where some of those changes have

gone and you know where do we see NASCAR going in the future but I know

that you were a NASCAR fan back in the 90s. Very much so I was always watching

from the 90s to I think Dale's death so I I don't know why but I think all the

air kind of went out of my sails after that. Well I think that a lot of people

feel the same way like I when I was when I first started watching coincidentally

was right around the time that Richard Petty had stopped racing and about the

time that you know Jeff Gordon kind of came on the scene that nobody really

knew who this kid was. I became a Jeff Gordon fan and yeah I'm gonna get heckled

for that because we all know he was a little bit of a cry baby. Probably by

me. Maybe so but when when when NASCAR was actually running what we would call

stock cars you know back in the 80s you had your your Pontiac Grand Prix and

your Buick Regals and your Chevy Monte Carlo's Ford had their what were they

racing back then Thunderbirds and Mercury. Now you have to figure out are

you talking chrome bumper cars? Yeah yeah like that's because if my opinion

chrome bumper cars Chevrolet stopped in excuse me GM stopped all the GM stuff

stopped let me see chrome bumper cars would have been 82 yeah because after

that they got rubber bumper covers you know and the Grand National stuff and

aero cars and I think between 84 and the epitome my opinion the epitome of

G-Body NASCAR 1987 aero Grand Prix Grand Prix aero. Oh man so I mean that's

that's my pinnacle of it there's a lot of 50 a lot of 60s and 70s cars that I

like a lot of Jimmy Johnson cars stuff like that Kale Yarbrough but chrome

bumper NASCAR is like the epitome of my opinion NASCAR. Raw NASCAR as I would

look. Oh right yeah and yeah pull pull up with an open trailer and run what you

brung. Yeah.

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dotfoundation. Yeah and and your pit crew consisted of how many people you

could fit in the car hauler that you were hauling your race car with. Yeah

right you showed up you had four four tires on your car. Right. You had four

spare tires on your trailer like we're going back to what movie was that six pack.

Kenny Rogers. Well six pack and Kenny Rogers is fantastic because it's just

nothing but bad news bears. Yeah NASCAR. Right. And you know and and that's the

epitome is that and you know fastest chicken in the south chicken's pit

special. That's 1984. Yep and like NASCAR has evolved so much from that and I

guess where I was going with that was talking about you know the chrome

bumper NASCAR's and stock I use stock loosely because they were still stock

ish cars. Yeah and when they moved away from that generation of car they moved

into all basically tin panels man-made panels where you had a fiberglass nose

of the car you were driving and maybe a fiberglass tail ish right. Yeah and

back when they transitioned from the chrome bumper up to the next generation

of car into the nineties the only prerequisite for a stock car

air quotes was that the floor pan had to be made basically out of a stamped

sheet from the main okay so if you were running a g-body a Monte Carlo Regal or

Grand Prix then you had that was your base that was your floor right and then

they built around that and you built around it and that's the end but excuse

me that to me it's not hard line of sand but that's the beginning of the end of

NASCAR for me and when you went to front wheel drive base cars in 1988 I saw the

writing on the wall. Yeah because you're stepping away from the grass roots of

NASCAR which was literally stock cars that were modified to go fast safety became a

thing so you know roll cages and you know impact bumpers in behind all that thin

sheet metal and you know safety harnesses and belts and all this stuff and

like we look today I'm gonna jump ahead to modern times very very quickly the

safety that's in these cars today is far none like there's there's you can take

an impact head on into a wall and the guy is dropping his window net and and

climbing himself out of the car long before the AMR safety crew even gets

there right now rewind to the Daytona 525 years ago when Dale senior passed away

he took a right hook incidentally by Kenny Schrader hit the turn four wall

at the time for a split second or two nobody thought anything of it

they expected him to climb out yeah I mean he he went down the back stretch upside down

backwards sideways at Talladega yep and he goes straightened his jacket out yeah and got out

yeah and remember the time Michael Waldschrupp hit the barrier at I forget what track it was

Bristol I think the gate was open he hit it during qualifying ripped his car literally in half

and he had you know Bristol Bristol or Darlington I can't remember yeah it was Darlington anyways

he literally yeah yeah undid his straps and sat up out of the seat and he was out of the car

yeah part yeah you can see him yeah um safety certainly has come a long way

but back then like I said you had grassroots racers you had guys that not necessarily were

coming out of go-karts and legends cars and bandoleros they didn't have that stuff back then

and they're jumping there most of them were in their early to mid 20s before they even had a break

that's why you saw the Bobby Allison's racing well into their 50s you know Richard Petty racing

for as long as he did Dale Earnhardt was 51 I believe when he died I'm 50 now right and when

I go back I look at that I see Dale Earnhardt as a much older person than I am obviously time passes

but um he was he was nearing the end of his career statistically but he was still there he was still

contending for wins I mean Cale Yarborough he looked like he was a freaking old timer

yeah there's there's so many names um that we can go back and look at from from all the years past

of people who raced well into their 50s and now it seems like if you're getting close to 50 you're

an old timer right yes Denny Hamlin Kyle Bush uh Kevin Harvick just retired there a few years back

and right we're in their 40s why because they started racing in the series at a very young age

Kevin Harvick taking over from Dale Dale Earnhardt when Dale died literally that very next weekend

yes so when we when we think back to NASCAR John what's like what is the what comes to mind like

what for someone who was watching up until that point I've been watching it kind of

at that point and still like what comes to mind when you hear the term NASCAR what's the first

thing that you think of I don't know how to answer that question because are you talking NASCAR in

general as a yeah commercialized sport yeah are you talking about evolution of NASCAR or I mean

there's a broad spectrum of okay I just want to see where your mind goes when I say NASCAR what's

the first thing that comes to mind advertising right period it's a rolling because uh correct

because I I'm sure somebody out there is going to correct me but April or June of 1977 was the

first time it was on wild world of sports uh national television uh prime time yep um and that

brought hillbillies pulling up making a left into America's living room and along with that came

advertising for everything because prior to that people are like well what's NASCAR

and only the diehard southern and I'm going to keep saying hillbillies because that's where they

came from the diehard southern states southern us states you know uh old timer hillbilly stuff

before that the world did not have NASCAR in their living room no that's that's my opinion

evolution of NASCAR came from that point in time and had in my opinion had heyday for 10 years

because from 77 to 87 was the pinnacle because it became a promotional powerhouse I'm on board

with what you're saying but I will disagree with pinnacle because I believe that once NASCAR got

in front it wasn't until NASCAR got in front of everybody who wanted to watch it on tv every

sunday because back then it was all over the place oh very much whether it was it was in

infancy of advertising but yeah but it was it was on espn it was on tnn it was on a few cbs

races were done so you couldn't catch every race and it wasn't until it became mainstream on things

like uh tnn or uh fox cbs whatever they were doing and they were getting you were getting

every weekend every race but what you're saying is post 1984 you know is is 1984 and afterwards

because cable and and cnn and all that stuff they didn't pick up that no immediately they waited

in the background see what was going to happen emotionally promotional money wise yeah because

they weren't and they were not making money until they finally decided it's absolutely incredible

and and it's stupid but i think stroker ace movie really really really helped NASCAR in 84

yeah and then later on in 87 or nine i can't remember days of thunder

well that would have been longer than that i thought it was 90 91 but anyway go ahead still

you start going we talked about earlier uh yeah kenny rogers six pack and uh stroker ace and then

days of thunder and all these movies started coming out some of them were actual i don't want to say

mockeries but more of a mockumentary story of what they were doing so it was meant to be funny

it was meant to be whatever when days of thunder came along it was almost the seriousness of what

racing was with some humor mixed in oh it did it did i mean they took the evolution and the seriousness

of top gun and it was top gun on wheels yeah same show same people same everything and it was

just brought to the theaters and it was that grandiose it put you in the driver's seat

and you could see all that and it was amazing and if you guys for the time and if you guys

follow us on instagram you'll know that on the weekend we posted uh about the uh the death

of robert duvall who played the character harry hide in days of thunder 95 years old great actor

uh plenty of credits to his name uh in my opinion of course on that from the godfather

days of thunder was one of his best just because i'm a nascar guy but yeah huge credits huge credits

and that movie again helped put nascar on the map for people who either may have been on the fence

or maybe they were just tom cruise fans wanting to see the latest movie sure and now all the sudden

they liked the movie i i want to see more of that right becomes a fan um well sure you know so

everybody was nascar fans uh and they became even more with jeff gordon documentary which is

called the legend of ricky bobby talladega night that wasn't jeff gordon

oh it wasn't no he was in the movie he was in the movie i thought the whole thing was a

mockumentary about jeff gordon i think it was a mockumentary about everything nascar oh see i

missed that part yeah no they i mean jeff gordon i think dale jr those guys were all because they

were had small little bit parts in the in that movie i thought that's who he was trying to play

me me me me me i thought she was playing jeff gordon you're just saying that because you know

i'm a jeff gordon fan maybe you're hurting my feelings my one feeling johnny you heard it

daily gap oh hey kids this is jason with amd you're watching the get out and drive podcast check this out

so

that's where hollywood played their part in nascar was helping bring that around

the heyday of nascar was late 90s into the 2000s probably 2005 to 10 maybe was kind of that

pinnacle because it was so accessible yeah the tracks were packed every race right um

sponsorships were plastered everywhere you recognize a racer on the track by the color

of the car by the decals not so much always the number you knew what the number was sure when

you saw that orange car go by you knew that was a home depot tony stewart car he sold the windshield

right but that's what it was it was all about advertising and that that brings us to the next

point of sponsors so you're going right up to interest right up to second gen cars

oh well the evolution yeah evolution cars the next gen cars yeah and i think that by this time

we're probably even into the third gem if we're talking like into the into the late 90s and 2000s

okay um but as we look at the whole sponsorship side of things sponsorships came and for the

most part they stayed for the whole season why because it was less expensive to be a part of

nascar in those days right right to be a primary sponsor for du pot to be plastered on jeff gordon's

car lows to be plastered on jimmy johnson's car bud on dale jr gm good wrench like those guys paid

big money to help these guys travel and get to where they needed to go because they're

they're branding right with everywhere and it it affected more people back then

there's a reason why people drink bud beer because their nascar driver drank it there's a reason why

shop at lows versus home depot or the other way around there's a reason why i get my gas

at this gas station or by this oil or by that product or whatever because it was implanted in

our brains as the one of the only sports alive everywhere that you saw so much branding right

you go to the track the track had a brand name in some cases right you go to a race the race was

named after a brand are we even going to get off on uh joe camel and winston

yeah i mean political correctness played apart why that was a big deal in the 90s yep yep

political correctness played apart in why uh winston is not the winston cup anymore right

because it promoted tobacco and although they play a they still play a big part

they said we need to get away from this that was part in my opinion that was part of some of the

those first stepping stones of the decline do you and and i didn't really follow it a ton do you think

marketing us government or nascar were the one step promoted getting rid of winston

yes there you go see you know my answers right um there was they they were there was too much

pressure right from all those parts well a cartoon trying to sell somebody's cigarettes

joe camel right right um and the the other problem was is they didn't want kids

wearing t-shirts yep promoting smoking well that's why they wouldn't have hot wheels that had

uh alcohol on them yep and here we are today where there's a few energy drinks beers

soda pop that's all advertising in nascar still they are they going to get to a point where

they say oh you can't advertise something that's not healthy well there you go that where where

does the bubble wrap stop yeah we're speaking of evolution in advertising and sponsorship

nascar in my opinion was forced away from the winston cup the winston brand um of their primary

league the the cup series was the winston cup they were kind of forced away from that and

well how about this john when cellular phones were becoming some of the biggest things on the

market and everybody was getting cell phones yes let's get next tell on board next tell became

a sponsor of the cup series for a few short years which then turned into the sprint cup right

later the monster energy cup series and now they don't even have a name sponsor it's just the cup

series right um so did we get away from that under pressure or was it all about the almighty dollar

it had to have been about the almighty dollar this is a touchy subject i mean we may have to call

our buddy a j where yep um he was promotions director for petty petty gms petty gms for a

long time yeah and uh i don't know he's he's got a lot of uh opinions on the subject yeah and and

in hopes that he would be able to speak freely i wonder if he if he would be interested in coming

back and talk to talking to us now but as we again we were talking about the evolution and

sponsorships how mass cars you they were they were completely recognizable right every once

in a while you would have a different sponsor on a big name for for one race yeah maybe two

maybe a third one somewhere along the way but it was always you knew that car you knew who you

knew who was driving that car your whole branding your whole merchandise sales everything was around

yeah that budweiser car number eight dale junior and and you have to understand that it is uh

create let me see curated rivalry yep like wrestling because the rainbow car was always racing

against orange car against the black car against the red car and i didn't name a driver yep and

you know what's what knew exactly what you were talking about and um that is created rivalry

uh by promotions and if you root for hulk hogan you know you're wearing yellow

you root for this this other guy you know in wrestling you're wearing different colors

same thing goes for a NASCAR and it's all soap opera marketing money driven promotions rivalry

and back then you could ask anybody who was a NASCAR fan who drives the number two car

depending on the era sure sure right you're gonna say rusty wallace right or kurt bush

if we're talking about this late 90s early 2000s but i know what sponsor was primarily on that car

miller white miller like period period right and we go and we say who was the who was the primary

sponsor of the number 20 car we knew what it was shoot why did i say jeff i was looking at you

that's terrible that's terrible that's blasphemy wow but we all know it was tony stewart yeah everybody

you know my brain right now yeah and we know it was the home depot car but today those two

car numbers are still around you might be able to tell me the sponsor might but can you tell

me the driver i think one of them is leah pruitt's husband well not now

i get where you're going with that but my point is is that if i ask somebody today

in NASCAR who drives the number two car no no one would know right who drives the 20 car

nobody knows that and nobody even knows who the sponsor is of the 20

right because it changes every friggin week yeah i mean i know that the number 20 is driven by

christopher bell joe gibbs racing i don't know who that is same car that car owner that own tony

stewart's car okay home depot car but it's a cross between the wall dollar general wriggly's

excite batteries when all these used to be a specific sponsor on a completely different car

at some point or another but now they're chopping it up and that number 20 car is sponsored by one

of those four or five that i just labeled every other like every race every race is a different one

wow but is that marketing genius oh i've got to have christopher bell's number 20 home depot car

or i've got to have the interstate batteries car or i've got to have the dollar general car

you're selling four or five t-shirts versus one and diecast diecast shirts oh my god

everything socks underwear you name it if you're if you're in the NASCAR they will put a logo

a brand and a number literally on anything yeah by your uh by your excite batteries diapers

right that's like when in the 90s i i used a lot of jeff gordon cleanex tissues

they were they were branded

oh you're an ass i'll have you know we used crying towels oh okay i see

and it's saving trying to save the planet

recycle it one rainbow at a time yeah we just throw them in the wash nice good job um

yeah so that's that's the big thing is that the car has evolved the racing sponsorship has evolved

what about the drivers it seems as though drivers do not stay with a team

for a really like for an extended period of time that long contract yep tony stewart long contract

with home depot before he went out on his own jeff gordon only had one team and one major sponsor

for his whole career right right uh dale urnhart drove for richard children's yeah for the longest

time and i can go through several different names of back then of people who had long term contracts

that from year to year you weren't sitting there thinking oh well who's going to be driving that

car next year and the names change i left nascar for about seven or eight years and when i came back

i'm like who are these people i don't know these kids right and they were literally 18 years old

coming up through the truck series arca uh it's now the o'reilly auto parts series the middle series

and they're coming out of nowhere well sure like they did nobody knew who jeff gordon was when he

first came on the scene well he was driving a dirt car right so the the names they're they're

getting switched around um so much so that even sometimes their car numbers are staying with the

same team but their car numbers are changing right so again is that merchandise you know

i just bought that number two car now he's driving the number three i don't know whatever

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t-shirts today so so many things have changed compared to what they were 25 you know well

let's say 15 to 25 years ago compared to what it is today today they're all racing the same car

yeah oh they have they have no ability to uh be creative or race the rule book

nope because i know they had templates that's super cool but everybody has the same car this is

iraq all over again yeah i mean yeah it might have chevrolet or ford or toyota but it's the same bar

so as an ascar fan i get where they were going with that i like the aspect of the car is so much

more safe right i like the fact that the car is bigger than they used to be i like the fact that

even from last year to this year with this new gen 7 car is the car has more flaps on it

than ever before to slow it down when it's not going forward well exactly because what was

happening is now the complete underbelly of these cars is got panels on their flat even the exhaust

is covered right everything if air gets underneath that car what happens up in the air becomes a sale

over right so this year they implemented implemented a couple of new flaps on the a pillars

okay so that if you get caught in the wind going backwards the a pillars pop out like this like a

the gills on one of those lizards you know i mean sure sure sure and the same thing in the back

underneath what would be the center of your diffuser right has a little trap door if the if the

top flaps on the roof come up they're pulling a cable which releases a flap like this makes everything

open well so that it catches air yeah yeah on the ground instead of being on the track yeah i mean

i've i've seen several pictures uh video i can't remember what it was last year whatever there was

a camaro on the back stretch and it was standing up on the back wheels 180 miles an hour halfway down

the back stretch yep that's an amazing video that was uh that was the number 60 car i believe

ryan priest last year yes yes yep and he was like just he was off the ground oh he was he was flying

and uh that wasn't even with a tiny little touch yep and he again he survived it yeah so the cars

of today are safe i do like that aspect i like that we're not losing drivers to racing accidents

anymore and they're modular yeah you know i do i do like that but and again i'm not even i'm not

able to put the ability in the in the driver's hands okay if you're driving the same car that

i'm driving there shouldn't be any advantage except now it comes down to skill how do you handle

yourself in traffic how do you handle your shifting your braking points well they already did that

they already did that long long long ago with ira sure everybody got the same car yep but

here we are i don't know i um i i have to ask because i didn't really watch the whole race i

watched the the the two or three laps that matter this past sunday and one controversy was anyway

right one lap you have to lead one lap um but do you think and i know it's controversy do you

think they got everybody together and said mat this bitch and make people watch because it's

and i'm and i'm being a jackass i'm sorry it's too safe you pull up and turn left everybody's

got the same tires everybody's got the same everything um there's no variables and how

sleepy is it that you pull up and turn left 500 times you know and and and how do you

keep everybody involved but this sunday oh my god they wrecked the whole the whole field

well we talk about the cars being the same so everybody has basically given the same car

sure so you can still set them up differently as far as how the suspension responds you can

still set up your brake bias you can still set up your air pressures stuff like that

but yes for the most part they are all the same one thing that was a little bit of a

controversy was the fact that for i think that i think the math on that is 160 laps

yeah two and a half miles hundred sixty five or miles right so basically for 150 laps they were

just running around and they were being cautious and not much was happening every once in a while

somebody would get a little bit loose and don't wreck the car yeah exactly it's a multi million

dollar sport for everybody involved the drivers are getting paid big bucks the sponsors are paying

big bucks these teams have huge overheads with staffing and equipment and haulers and everything

right for them to go and play bumper cars at 195 miles an hour in a car that probably costs a

million bucks or more to me that's a little bit ridiculous they've given them the ability

to bump draft hard i'm not against bump drafting but what i'm against is you see them coming up

and it's just a it's a smash and the car just slingshots ahead of you right and the although

the cars are safe there is a fine line there to it's so safe i can now use that chrome horn

aggressively to bump draft and push that guy in front of me because if i push him

he's going to be dragging me behind them and the bump drafting was probably some of the most

aggressive yesterday in that race but i have ever seen i saw a lot i saw a lot of shaking

bake yep exactly i did i saw it i saw so much of it yep and there was so much of that going on

that a slight miscalculation was catastrophe well sure you run into the car in front of you

you hang high get out in the wind and the rest of the pack is crashed yeah i mean that was that

was the last lap and a half and tyler reddick the winner of the day tonal 500 2026 who was like

who was like fourth or eighth to begin oh he was back there even further away back there i didn't

even count but yeah if it you guys all know you know how this race ended if you listen to us you've

watched the race right but a lap and a half coming out of turn four there's a little mishap

and a bunch of cars scramble get crashed and they're they're self-cleaning down to the bottom

of the track and they take the white flag those who those of you who know once the white flag is out

the next flag whether it's a caution or the checker flag ends the race so first starters

i'm giving kudos to nascar for allowing everybody to continue to race back to the checker i thought

they were going to go to yellow i thought they were too but that whole map was self-cleaning it

i understand off the back stretch or off of the turn four and they weren't going to come through

it again right so nascar is looking at that and they're also looking up here and they're saying okay

well they've got they've got a whole lap they got two and a half miles if they if they're coming up

on some wreckage we'll throw the flag yeah that's where the controversy begins i give them kudos for

for holding out and not giving a caution yeah and as a as a jeff gordon fan i transitioned into a

chase elliot fan who took over for jeff gordon sure and once that wreck was wrecking back there

guess who was out front chase elliot chase elliot and i mean man it it would have been

different if they would have gone to yellow and then they would have had a scramble start

well if they'd have gone to yellow they had already taken no they didn't at that point if

they'd have gone if they just flagged the yellow it would have been a green white checker two more

laps green white checker yep anybody's game yeah um everybody starts even and in my eyes it'd

been like a scramble start if you get what you get yeah mat it and go and then

nascar didn't wave the flag for that first wreck they're coming into the tri oval to catch that

white flag right and cars are wrecking or sort of catch the checkered flag cars are waving again

well they're just going everywhere it and from what i saw and maybe my numbers are wrong uh i think

position four or five got together and that took out the middle and then it was it was ridiculous

and then uh roddock just kind of boops down avoids the wreck yeah he stayed he stayed on he stayed

on the apron he stayed at the bottom and and he just stayed in it he could see the line so there's

there's a lot of controversy over those last couple of laps but to some degree

that's what makes nascar is the the unknown is not knowing that the one guy who led every lap

from the green flag to the checker wins the race those are boring races i will admit right and

that was my biggest question to you was do you think back backstage everybody said let's make

this one fun see i think i think nascar does a little bit of you know make it make it entertaining

bring people back yeah you know i forget what year it is but we're going probably back into the 2000s

the term boys have at it came about oh yeah which meant if you got to get up there and and rub a

little bit yeah to get by do it because it creates controversy creates villains yes it creates animosity

between fans okay we we want to see that's what creates fans is the controversy so i mean i

yesterday yeah go ahead go ahead i'm sorry i think that yesterday's race created some new fans

well i think if you were on the fence about uh tyler reddick you're probably a pretty

pretty hot to trot now knowing that he's just won that right if you're a denny hamlin fan

who got wrecked caught up in that wreck who was on his way leading uh like we're talking about a

guy here who missed out on championship last year lost his father a few months ago

there's a there's a hard luck story there with denny hamlin babba wallas

right babba wallas like something like 40 laps right he was a favorite to win that race

but there's the i'll get him next time attitude and then butts in the seats yeah to see if it

happens that's right so do i think nascar has weight on a race outcome again a lot of people

will argue that they do but you can't control what happens on the track no but but yesterday was the

most um exciting race that i've seen in i don't know five years or or more i think

if we go back to the lawsuit that nascar went through the antitrust lawsuit from last year

okay michael jordan denny hamlin's team 2311 and front row motorsports were suing nascar

because of they didn't think that the the the funds the purses were being distributed properly

the tv ratings and the way you the way that those were distributed the not the ratings the uh

the tv money coming in sure and so they wouldn't sign the charter they felt like they were pressured

to sign the charter as did a lot of nascar teams right but they just signed anyways they fought it

some will say that they won there was no winning and losing because it was settled

before the judge made a call but i believe that the teams won by being able to get more money out

of nascar to help keep things going i believe the fans won because now you've got more opportunity

for the teams to do better and the networks is the only place that i've got a bonus contention with

is because if you don't have a package that gives you every nascar race on one channel

like we do here in canada right you've got to chase your channels from fox to mbc to the cw

to prime all over the place costing the fans more money to go find their nascar

wow but i think it's a step in the right direction um i think this year will tell a lot they changed

the playoff format they no longer call it the playoffs they're back to a 10 race chase

where it's all points based just like it was for the winston cup but they've changed a few

things there meaning if you get into the chase then your points kind of do reset right but

i think this year 2026 will be the year to be said of what is nascar doing to help make things

better we talked about it before we went live um cletus mcfarlane most people don't know who he is

but if you do he's a big youtuber right that does a lot of stupid shit on youtube but he's got like

a four million people following him right um he's huge in drag racing and with some help from

folks like greg biffle god rest his soul who helped cletus get into nascar cletus raced in the

arca series he's this year in the truck series granted he only raced like what four five six laps

in the truck before he wrecked himself yeah he was cutting the law in there for a little bit but

people like cletus i think are what's going to bring a lot of these younger fans back into the

sport right and nascar recognizes that to say we're going to get cletus into nascar we're going to

nascar fans before right maybe they will be now because he's racing in nascar and cletus's ultimate

goal is to race in the Daytona 500 one day granted you just can't do that well you see all the stuff

that cletus does you know owning uh uh freedom factory and driving in in nascar super truck and

and in truck series and all that stuff imagine being wealthy and choosing to play golf

yep and not do what he's doing yeah people got to be busted up here well he's certainly doing

something right he has awesome his channel is has a huge following he's bringing that following to

nascar for those who aren't already nascar fans that is good for the sport of nascar yeah so kudos

not just to cletus and and his fan base but to nascar um if you guys don't follow cletus

what rock are you living under go back and watch some of his racing that he's uh he does a lot of

big crown vic stuff john you and i caught a crown vic race in uh india there last year and it was

awesome it was excellent tony stewart raced in that race and who'd have thought a bunch of slow

poke crown vicks racing around irp would be fun it was hilarious it was a blast who'd have thought

in the middle of uh in the middle of summer yep at a tiny little racetrack indianapolis

raceway park yep that secretly tony stewart would be out there in a busted ass police car

driving in circle yeah if you told me that was happening i wouldn't believe yeah so i think

there was an episode that cletus put out where they took uh four crown vicks to datona and race

them on the track and hinted around at doing a special event of crown vicks on the datona

international speedway wow and having having a cletus event there that would be big for nascar

i've got a name for uh a race if they do it in india it's the crown vic yard

yeah instead of the brickyard yes make sure i get make sure get out and drive gets the money

from cletus when we talk to him yeah that that i i named crown vic yard at the crown vic yard 400

yes i'll i'll email them when i get off of here i think uh john i think we were all over the

place with this uh with this episode but the the long and short of it is that i believe that

nascar had its heyday i believe that they took a a dip uh things went way way by the way side

for a long time covet certainly didn't help when fans couldn't physically go to the races

but now that we're outside of that we're inside of a new chase playoff style format

we've got these in my opinion we got these great new cars these safe cars and a shitload of talent

oh i think we're on the uptick man i believe so so if you uh if you guys aren't nascar fans and

you're tuning in to us to listen to what we have to say give it a chance check it out some really

good upcoming races are happening road courses uh for those of you who think just turning left is

stupid well they've got a bunch of road courses and to celebrate the us's 250th birthday this year

they're going to be racing at uh naval base coronado uh you know in uh what is it san diego

i think it's san diego yeah and so they'll be doing a road course race on the naval base how

freaking cool is that that's awesome i know this i i think all three series are going to be racing

there wow so big to do big celebration for for usa 250 or whatever they're calling it

but uh nascar i do believe is taking a step in the right direction finally

as a lifelong nascar fan i can't wait to see what 2026 uh has to offer any final thoughts

that we may or may not have covered i think i'm good i'm i'm definitely one who has fallen off of

nascar uh fan popularity i may tune in a little bit well and i think that's what nascar is hoping

for is that our generation uh the gen x and whatever generation it was after us

i forget what they're called but uh gen y maybe they'll start getting back into it again

and seeing what nascar has to offer they play their cards right they could be big again they

could be you know the biggest motorsport out there um i had fun talking about it john i know

there's a lot of information in there that we handed out um there's going to be people in

the comments of this video or wherever they can get ahold of us talking we're going to do a few

i'll do a few promo bumps too uh on instagram and facebook so that you guys can get in those

comments and tell us what you think uh of the 500 this year and what you think of nascar the

direction that's going where it came from and if you have any future ideas for episodes of the

screen get out and drive dot com scroll all the way to the bottom to the list of hotline

and look just tell us what you feel and we'll see what we can do to make an episode out of that

also don't forget national get out and drive day is happening on october 4th 2026 first sunday

in october make sure you head over to the website and register you want to get these stickers out

early so that we're not fumbling at the very end like we ran out last year hopefully we can make it

happen make it bigger with the help of amd who jumped on board again for sponsorship for the

episode or for the podcast this year and uh they'll be helping us out with uh with everything that

they do over there i can't wait man looking forward to do it for dale do it for dale be like

biff and do it for dale i guess is how we will end that so thanks guys for tuning in we'll see you

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Is NASCAR Evolving In The Right Direction?

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AMD

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