Jeff Gordon & Ryan Blaney LIVE from Daytona

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The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media.

This is like super professional.

You're kind of surprised, aren't you?

No, but this is for real.

Oh, we're live.

All right, all right.

Let's take a seat.

Yeah, we just walked up here.

Does that mean you get as started as I did?

I said, I popped on the headphones.

I'm like, all right, somebody's gonna tell us what's going on here.

So much for super professional.

We thought we were gonna do a better job the second year, but it ain't looking like it.

Dirty Mode Media and Series XM right now teaming up here for the stage

and the fans on with Daytona.

Hey, crowd.

Good to see everybody.

Got Jeff Gluck here.

Freddie and Jeff Gordon has joined us today.

Jeff Gordon.

Hey, there.

What is your title?

You're a part owner.

What other titles do you have?

Vice chairman.

Yeah.

All right.

I don't know what that means.

Well, it means you guys are fast this weekend and I'm experiencing some of that

with the car that we have, the 40 car with that hinder horsepower and meet the hood.

A lot of work's been done.

Congratulations.

By the way, we get to be a part of this and I can tell you the stress that all of us at HMS

went through along with you last year.

Right up to the very last corner, last lap of the duels and to get that thing locked in,

had to feel good last night.

I know it felt good for us.

It really did.

You know, last year was a struggle and you've got to practice in the morning

and then you have all day to wait around to see what kind of lap you're going to run and qualify

and there's a lot of tech and everything that you've got to go through.

It's super, super fun to be a part of it and very, very educational.

I mean, I've been around this for a long time, but I learned so much being in that

garage yesterday, going through that whole process with the team.

And so, you know, you get the car out of the trailer and you put it out on the

racetrack.

The driver's going to get a couple of runs in the 50 minute practice session.

Very brief.

It's either good or it's not.

There's not a whole lot you can do at that point.

Everything that, you know, everything that the car's got has been done at the shop.

There's really not a lot of speed.

You can really find it at the racetrack.

And but fortunately this year, the car come off the trailer fast and we go out there last night

and the lap times that we started seeing, our car was going to run about a 20.

That's what it ran.

And I walked up down Pit Road asking other crew chiefs and drivers what they could run.

And once I sort of understood after about three or four cars, I thought,

man, we actually got a pretty good lap on the board.

I wasn't really sure where that was going to dance out.

And funniest part, Jeff, we get going through qualifying pretty deep.

And I'm thinking, damn, we're going to make the top 10 maybe and have to rerun and have

to run again to try to beat Corey.

But you thought that was a good thing.

I wasn't really sure.

So there we were towards the end of qualifying hoping to get beat so we could get bumped

out of the top 10.

So we didn't have to run again.

It was the weirdest thing.

The same thing happened to us, by the way.

Jeff Andrews came over and he's like, man, that's a good enough lap.

I think they'll be in the top 10.

Only four thousands faster than Corey LaJoy.

Yeah.

And you have to understand, folks, like, like first of all, right,

Mr. H, buddies with Dale Jr. used to be a teammate at Hendrick.

Mr. H and his partnership with him and JRM and a great friend at Chris Stapleton.

So this whole project came to HMS and all that does is add additional pressure

to all of us in the engine shop and all of us at HMS.

Not just for our four cars, but for that car to get in the Daytona 500 is important, too.

So, you know, we find out, you know, your four thousands up on Corey and then the,

you know, looking like you might be in the top 10 and then somebody comes over and says,

hey, that means that they might have to rerun second round.

I was like, not Corey LaJoy out.

Please like, not Corey LaJoy or both.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was pretty interesting.

I've never been in that scenario before, but it was a lot of fun.

Was anybody surprised to see Noah be the only person to break the rule?

Was anybody surprised about that at all?

Yeah.

What's funny is an email went out from NASCAR a couple hours before practice

that reiterated, here are the rules.

I'm sure that was not in his inbox or he didn't look at his emails, but I saw it.

I don't believe, he said that he forgot.

I do not believe that he forgot.

I believe that he said, I know Noah.

He's worked with us at Junior Motorsports before.

We had a ton of fun, but he is that kind of guy.

I put a tweet out today.

He's the guy that if you say the stove is hot, don't touch it.

He is going to touch the stove and he is going to get burnt.

And he's going to turn, he's going to turn around.

He's going to turn around and go, yep, yep, it's hot.

I thought maybe he looked around the car and he's like,

there's no cameras in here.

There's no way they're going to know if I put my hand up there in the window.

Yeah.

I noticed he'd run and then I'm looking on the app

because I was standing on pit road with the app open

and I was like, where the hell's Noah's time at?

It was pretty, it was pretty interesting.

Look, I mean, what was, what was the reaction in the media center

when y'all learned that he had made?

Yeah, it was one of those, of course kind of things,

but I'm kind of with you like,

I think that's one of those things where you kind of try to get

away with something and then you got caught and you're like,

oh yeah, I just messed that up.

Like he, come on, Mike.

You don't just be like, I'm going to put my hand up here.

That's very conscious.

You know, Noah, the thing about Noah

is he's actually a lot smarter than he lets on too.

But like, I think he kind of plays dumb.

No, I really do.

Part of it, yeah, part of it's an act.

Part of it's an act.

Part of it, you know, might be true, I'm saying,

but like, how much fun he has is not an act.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

But I'm with Dale.

I think he knew.

You think he did not burn me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's possible.

Well, there's a lot of changes this year coming into the season.

One of those that I think a lot of us are really excited about

is the change, the points format.

Call it what you want.

The chase is back or I'll be honest with you,

the way that the numbers kind of line up

and how this is all going to be added up

throughout the season.

It's as close to going back to full season points

as you can get without actually doing that.

And so I'm very excited about it.

I know that, you know, Jeff talking to a lot of the drivers,

Jeff Glick and Jeff Gordon,

both of y'all have talked to your drivers,

drivers in the media center.

Freddie, you've heard drivers as well,

that there's a lot of excitement, I think,

and how they feel they can approach this season

and go out there.

And they kind of know this path a little bit more,

you know, because this is kind of the system

or similar system to what they've grown up doing

over the years.

So I'm seeing a lot of excitement to drivers.

Yeah, for sure.

And it seems, for me, like, you know,

obviously everybody wanted a 36 race.

You know, that was the big outcry.

This was the best compromise by far.

You know what I mean?

I feel like, because you still have that 26 race playoff

season where you can still have a couple of hiccups

and throughout the year, but you make that playoff

and now you've tightened the window.

I was talking about on DVC a couple weeks ago,

like you'd go, the guy that was 10th in points of the color,

you know, 16th in points of the cutoff last year

was 200 points out.

Well, now he's going to be 70 points out of the lead

or 100 points out of the lead, whatever it was.

And then like, I said, the guy that was second in points

is the one that almost gets a little bit burned

because you have that tight gap.

You know, usually we've come down,

we've seen one or two point gaps

at the end of the regular season.

Now that gap grows to 25.

So I think it's just a good balance.

So if you got to perform during the regular season,

it makes the regular season championship mean that much

more and you could also have a couple of hiccups

along the way and not ruin your whole season.

Yeah, I mean, here's where I weigh.

I always, even though I'm closer to the competition side of things,

I always try to give NASCAR the benefit of the doubt

of the decision making, right, that goes into it

because you've got the fans that, you know,

there's a lot of drama in what we've had cut off

and, you know, who's going to advance to the next round.

But then I know fans feel the same way

that all the competitors do.

A one race, you go into it even

and one guy's going to come out as a championship.

While it's exciting, there's drama.

I don't know if that really set well with a lot of people.

So now we give up a little bit of that drama in the rounds,

but I think what we're going to do is crown a champion

that people are going to look at and say,

man, there's not just a bunch of luck involved with that.

Not that there was, you know,

it's just sometimes there were like with Denny Hamlin.

I mean, that was a very unfortunate situation.

If he built up a lead and had a points gap

going into that final race, he had some margin there.

That's what we're going to see now.

And I do like that.

I joked in our first team owner council meeting

that we had with NASCAR because, you know,

while I think it's a good move to go to the chase,

I also got my butt kicked every year

by Jimmy Johnson with that format when they went to it.

But I do think it fits well.

If I go back to come to some,

for Hendrick, we feel really good about, you know,

we just, we pride ourselves on being consistent

throughout the season.

We think Homestead's a great track for us to end the season.

You know, we look at those 10 tracks

and, you know, even the regular season,

what can we do to get, you know,

maybe that advantage or win in the regular season?

Our four guys, I think it plays out very well

for them and for our race teams.

And yeah, I'm excited to see how it all unfolds this year.

Yeah, I'm excited too.

So, Gluck, you might have some inside information on this.

And I'm not, you know,

I'm not sure what everybody might know,

but when they started to talk about announcing this,

and we were actually in the middle of the announcement itself,

and I was talking to some of the guys,

I know personally the people that,

and we all know personally the people

that created the system, right,

and adjusted on the old chase to deliver

what we had today in terms of points,

and how much you get when you win a race

and all those things.

And what they were trying to do was maintain some,

some semblance of a playoff format,

but they wanted it to really come down

to somebody who had done very well

throughout the entire season or the regular season.

And so they didn't want me to say this,

but, you know, now that we're kind of far removed

from that announcement, I think it's kind of okay,

but, you know, in most, they ran tons of models,

they ran thousands and thousands of models

with this format to try to make, try to break it,

to try to see if it would actually spit out

some fluke winter, and it never would.

And so, you know, while we do have,

and a lot of people here ask us,

you know, 16 too many, should it be 10, 12?

It doesn't matter. It really doesn't,

because the guy who's in 10th, 11th, 12th,

ain't got a shot in hell. He don't.

I mean, they'll have to have an incredibly

miraculous playoff to be able to out point

and make up the difference on those guys

that are sitting in first, second, third.

And so in all of the models that they ran,

it was really always coming down

to that first, second, third, maybe the fourth,

the fifth every now and then.

So being in that top five,

being in that top six is critical.

So that's why the good thing about that, I think,

is that it really makes that regular season

as important as the postseason.

And let's be honest, going even back

to the format we just came out of, the playoffs,

if you were 10th to 16th,

you really didn't have a chance either.

I don't know when the last time,

Jeff could probably tell us,

when the last time that was done, if ever,

but I don't think you ever came into it

and won the championship from that far back.

Yeah, and I think the thing is like,

if somebody wins it in the miraculous way

from 7th in a 10-week thing, you go,

holy crap, that's unbelievable.

You deserved it.

Tony Stewart.

All those guys.

Yeah, you would have to have that kind of run.

You'd have to win five out of 10 races.

You know, otherwise,

I don't think anybody wants to see that anyway.

Like that's the whole reason

that everybody was complaining about this whole format.

Like the idea that somebody could come out of nowhere

and it didn't reflect the rest of the season.

People want to see something

where they get to the end of the season and they go,

all right, that was the driver of the year.

Like that went with what we saw the rest of the season.

So I think there's going to be a great race,

like you said, for those top four or five seats.

And that's going to be as important

as getting that number one seat in a way,

because if you're too far down,

there's a 25-point gap between the first seat

and the second seat,

and then it kind of goes down five points

or something like that.

But there's 100 points between first and 16th.

So you've got to be up somewhere in the top five, six

to have a shot at it.

And I think everybody's going to be fine with that.

Yeah, and not that I had a vote on it,

but I just, I felt like the whole season,

I know Mark Martin was adamant, right?

He's going to be a 36 race.

And I was fortunate to be a part of those.

And I can remember the championship being crowned

two, three races before the season was over, too.

And I don't think that would work.

I really don't.

So this really prevents that from happening

over those 10 races, I believe.

Well, even in the old Chase format,

nobody ever clinched it before Homestead, anyway.

That's right.

And I don't think it'll,

with the next gen car as close as everything is,

I don't think it'll happen.

Nobody's going to, and if they do,

if somebody clinches it at Martin's bill,

people are going to be like, wow, that's unbelievable.

So one of the things I wanted to talk about

with 30-mode media is this year,

Jeff, I don't know if you heard about this yet.

Oh, man.

But we, I'm the edge of my seat.

Every year we do a replica hood in the studio.

Oh, I'm aware of this one.

All right.

Yeah.

And so every year we do this replica hood,

and it's life-size and it's a mock-up hood

that we kind of have a lot of fun with

and it's going to have the 30-mode media logo on it.

We did different ones over the years,

like Bobby Allison's Miller High Life

and different ones.

Last year we did like a Budweiser hood.

And I said, you know what?

This year I'm going to let TJ, my co-host, pick the hood.

And I've known TJ since 2000.

I've known him for a long, long time.

And I said, TJ, you get to pick the hood.

Any hood you want.

He goes, all right, I got it.

My favorite driver.

And I was like, favorite driver?

He goes, yeah, Jeff Gordon.

I was like, I didn't know you.

Jeff Gordon was your favorite driver?

I didn't know that either, by the way.

You yelled at him too much.

I don't think he told me because he thought maybe it

would have.

He moved down here from Buffalo.

We helped him get a job over at MB2 and all that stuff.

Maybe that might not happen if he tells me he's a Jeff Gordon man.

So I think that was what he was worried about.

So we got this beautiful hood in the studio.

And it's replica of your DuPont scheme

when you had the flames on it.

So I'm going to have to get you to come onto the show

as a guest so that you get your autograph on that thing,

man.

But you're going to be in that studio,

represented the entire season.

And it's, you know, fans had such fun reactions to it.

A lot of people thought it was awesome.

Some people are like, what the hell?

Earn hard, earn hard, earn hard, earn hard, earn hard.

Yeah, exactly.

But a lot of people, I was like, you know, we were teammates.

That was one thing.

But some other people brought up some great things

that I thought would be fun for you to talk about,

is even though you and Dad were really, really

competitive and fierce competitors on the racetrack,

y'all did a lot of things behind the scenes

that I think people either don't know about

or they tend to forget about.

A lot of business deals y'all had together,

y'all owned properties together, business properties

and literal property.

Talk about how all that happened.

I mean, I remember when we were at Wilkesboro in 94,

I was there for a late-mall sock race

and he was taking you around the track in a pace car

just talking about the track.

And he walked you over and said,

I want to introduce you to Jeff Gort.

This guy is going to be a big deal.

And so, I mean, y'all kind of had a friendship

right out of the gate.

But how do you become business partners?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, who didn't respect your dad, right?

I mean, just absolute legend.

And every time I was on the track,

I felt like I was learning something,

especially at this place, from him.

And he was so hard to beat at these places.

But, you know, so I, of course,

no matter what was happening on the racetrack,

even when he was, you know, they all had,

your dad had a love-hate relationship

with every competitor, by the way, you know, like,

he would put his arm around him.

Hey, buddy, let's go hunting and fishing and let's do this.

And then the next week,

spending them out wrecking them on the track.

So, you know, you just kind of,

you became aware and familiar with that.

That was the kind of relationship

that you could potentially have

if you got into that inner circle.

And I just always looked up to him, had the most respect.

And then, you know, as my career started taking off,

the business side started taking off.

And, you know, back then,

we used to fly on planes together to tracks.

And you just, you spent more time,

you go up in the hauler, you know, the NASCAR hauler,

and you just spent more time together as drivers

than I feel like they do today.

And you get to know one another,

whether you like it or not.

And so, you know, just created some conversations

with, you know, him and myself about your,

I remember, he's the first one told me,

you gotta own your rights to your likeness.

He's like, if you don't have that,

you gotta go get that.

You know, in your next driver contract,

you need to, you know, control the licensing.

And, you know, like he was the one

that really led me down that path.

And then, of course, when Action Performance came along

and the die-cast market just blew up,

he was, you know, leaving that charge and writing.

And he knew that, hey, it's not just a one-man show.

It was, this thing's gonna be bigger

and the sports gonna be bigger

and the fans are gonna get more access to things

if all of us come together.

And so he came to me and said,

now, of course, his way of coming together

and throwing an idea, hey, here's what you're gonna do.

You,

a contract's gonna come to you.

There's no email, right?

Contracts are gonna come over.

You're gonna look it over.

If you wanna have a lawyer look at it, that's fine,

but you're still gonna sign it one way or another.

That'll happen on Tuesday.

You know, like that.

And you just go, okay.

And listen, every one of the deals

worked out really well.

So I'm glad it happened the way it did.

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

I always enjoy knowing that how you guys were able to,

like y'all, he and you and him

and all these other guys like Schrader, Rick Mastin,

they all have stories about, you know,

running is on the racetrack with that.

But off the racetrack, y'all all figured out a way to,

you know, put that aside till next Sunday

and do business and do things

that were successful together.

And then you get out on the racetrack

and run into each other or flip each other often.

Be as bad as you could be, you know?

Yeah, there were two times

that I don't think I've gotten over it yet.

I can remember the first time.

And I looked, this was such a huge life lesson for me

as a driver.

It was my rookie year in 93.

And I think it was last or maybe second or third.

No, it wasn't last race

it was in Phoenix.

The last race back then was in Atlanta.

So second or third to the end of the season.

And he was, as he always was in the hunt,

you know, for the championship.

He didn't win at 93, did he?

I don't think he won 93.

I know he won at 94.

Anyway, so I'm racing like, I'm in seventh,

something like that.

And he and I are battling for that position.

We had about equal cars

and somehow I got ahead of him

maybe on a pit sequence or something.

And he, you know, he's just right on me.

And I gave him the inside.

And we race side by side for about two laps.

And that was one and a half, two, many.

Oh, and we went down to turn three

and I thought I gave him enough room

and boom, round I go pow in the wall.

And I was like, man, I didn't know

I came down on crowd and like that.

I realized later I didn't.

Yeah.

It was just his way of saying, hey kid, yeah.

That's not gonna get done, especially with me.

So I never, you know, I made sure

that I was always understanding the situation.

It was situational awareness was what the lesson was.

And he had more on the line than I did that day.

And I didn't need to be racing that hard.

And then what was the other one?

Oh, shoot.

Gosh darn it.

I'm gonna think about it here in a second.

It sounds like you're over it.

Yeah.

I'm definitely not.

Oh, oh no.

No, it was, we were at Michigan

practice on a Saturday.

Okay.

And we were about to take off pit road

and right over him comes over, he's like, listen.

Just you got a good race car.

We're just trying to get this thing,

you know, for the later practice, right?

Get a ride.

Don't worry too much about right now.

And he's like, just let Dale go.

Cause Dale, like when in practice,

but he would run a practice like it was a race.

He wanted to race you as hard as he could in practice.

So we always kind of knew just stay away from,

from racing anybody really.

And so, so I remember I come off pit road

and let him, he yarded, you know,

he was way out there, over straightaway head.

And then I start running and my car was really good.

And so I'm, I'm, I'm closing in on him.

And then all of a sudden he starts really slowing down.

And so I'm like, okay, he's gonna let me go

and he'll get him behind me.

And I remember I come off of turn two.

Yeah.

Come off of two.

And I mean, he's checked up on the outside.

I get a big run.

And all of a sudden he gets right to my quarter panel

just enough where I can't clear him.

And we go down three and I'm just like,

surely he's gonna let me go.

So I'm just gonna drive in real deep.

No, no, he drove in deeper right on my door

and sucked me right around.

I backed that thing in the wall, destroyed the car.

And he was unscathed as usual.

And, and so I mean, I got, and Ray was pissed at me.

He wasn't mad at them.

He's like, what did I tell you?

Stay, I said, he was letting me go.

I thought he was letting me go.

So that was another life lesson.

Is there been moments that you remember being

on the other side of that

where you were teaching a young driver

on the racetracks how it's done?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, definitely.

I mean, that's why later, you know,

I realized, especially the 90, the 93 thing,

like as a rookie, every rookie that came in,

you had to teach them that lesson.

Like it was, it was your duty.

When they came, if they thought they were too good

or they were running up front

and you know, using up a little too much track

or whatever, you're like, yep,

here comes that Dale senior moment.

Man, we can stop here.

I might not wreck them,

but I definitely moved them in.

Oh, I'm sure.

I learned a lot being around you on the racetrack

and in the office as well.

It's been a lot of fun over the years.

And I appreciate you giving us some time today.

It's awesome to sit up here

and just listen to some of these stories.

You're a great icon in the sport, man.

And it's awesome to see you as involved as you are

and hope you have a good weekend this weekend

with your guys.

Hopefully you run one, two, three, four, five

with that 40 out front.

Yeah.

Listen, listen, you say you got a better car this year.

You finished 10th last year.

So, you know, you got some big shoes to fill now,

but now it's gonna be great.

We're excited.

We, you know, just excited about this year,

the Daytona 500.

And we got a great car, great chance,

you know, for all of our guys

and can't wait to work with you

and Justin, the 40 team out there as well

as like an extension of Hendrick motorsports.

Really cool to be a part of that.

And thanks for not calling me a pioneer.

You call me an icon instead.

I think I like that.

You're not a pioneer yet.

I think when you retire,

you're when you retire, you're gold.

Carl Edwards called me a pioneer at the time.

Yeah.

I laughed at that.

But I'm honored that my hood is at the studio.

That's amazing.

And I can't wait to get up there and see it in person.

Awesome.

Jeff Gord.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff Gord.

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So we got a little bit of an announcement to make.

I don't, Jeff, you wanna do this?

It's your deal.

Well, I've been jealous, you know,

I have this podcast, The Teardown,

that we do after the race.

Yeah.

But I have to tell everybody a secret, I guess,

because, you know, when you do a podcast

right after the race, you haven't heard

what anybody else thinks.

So like, I haven't heard actions

that your mental or DBC or DEDGE or download.

So sometimes you're just kind of like,

I'm like, man, this just happened.

We got off the pit road.

We come to do the podcast

and I'm like talking about stuff.

I'm like, God, I think this is right.

I think this is what people are gonna think about this.

I love it because I just got a buddy in here

because you say what you say,

I listen to what the fans say

and then I decide what I'm gonna say.

It works out great for us, right, Freddie?

Yeah, it was perfect.

I just disagree with anything Luke says.

I'm gonna have a good show on Monday.

Well then, so then it gets to Monday

and I start listening to all the podcasts.

You know how the, you guys follow the sport,

you know how the discourse works

on social media and the podcast world and all that stuff.

And you're like, man, I don't know.

Maybe I was wrong about that.

Or you have a different opinion

or you have something else you wanna say.

Anyway, but my show is just after the race.

So I don't have anything else to say.

So I'm gonna be doing a Thursday show now.

It's gonna be on the teardown feed

and it's gonna be on my YouTube channel.

And I'm not.

Is this the name of it?

The name of it is The Gluckcast.

Is it?

The Gluckcast.

I love it.

You picked that name yourself, didn't you?

They said that I had to have a name.

Because it's on the teardown feed,

it has to have my name in it.

And I was like, I don't know about The Gluckcast.

I don't think anybody's gonna forget it.

Well, that's a good thing.

They said you have 24 hours to come up

with a better name than The Gluckcast.

And I thought about it and I,

I couldn't.

This sounds like-

There's a lot of things that-

Cast-Card negotiations.

Yeah.

You better sign this right now.

You got 24 hours.

There's a lot of things that Gluck could be in with that.

Shouldn't be in the-

Is it too soon?

Was that too soon?

No, I thought that thing worked out great.

I thought that was amazing.

Anyway, so, yeah.

The things that I love about this,

so what I love about this idea

is obviously, so you and Jordan

and many, many, many other people

in that room, in that press room,

there's no one has a better understanding

of what's being talked about,

what's being discussed,

what's going on in the sport

than the people in that room.

And the fact that y'all come,

the reason why you can do the teardown

is because of that very fact.

So y'all come right off the race

and you react.

And I think that's why it works so well.

And what we do kind of lack in our little bubble

is that preview of that race, right?

The preview of that race from the same mindset.

So I'm pretty excited about it.

I love listening to y'all's content.

I learned so much about things

that are being discussed in the sport from y'all.

I think you keep all of us sort of up to speed

on really truthfully what the big conversations

are in the garage and in the industry.

And so I'm pretty excited about this show

and look forward to it.

I mean, it'll be interesting to see kind of how,

what your perspective is going in

and then how you may change what you say and do

all the teardown after the race, right?

Because you've got this preview and this post reaction now.

Yeah, I mean, it's so weird how like

the conversation just weaves and flows throughout the week.

You, we all follow it, right?

Like it's, I think we're all in this community,

this NASCAR community and you can see,

okay, this is the topic of the week

and it kind of flares up

and everybody kind of hops on it

and every podcast is talking about it

and every writer's talking about it

and everybody's talking about social media.

And then it kind of just goes another way

and then the next thing pops up.

And it's like, it's not like one person or something,

it's just like collectively we all just said,

all right, I guess we're gonna be talking about this this week.

All right, everybody's talking about it.

So I'm happy to have a chance to weigh in again

if people aren't tired of listening to me.

So thank you.

I'm looking forward to it.

So teardown, the Gluckcast, all right?

That's a weekly spin-off of the teardown.

Yeah, so it's debuting February 19th,

new episodes dropping every Thursday.

And there'll be an audio version

as well as a YouTube version.

We'll all be checking that out.

Our next guest wasn't gonna be,

wasn't supposed to be here till 3.45, but I see.

I see.

It's very emotional.

We should just bring him on up here.

Brian Blaney, driving number 12 for Piskey.

Mike Davis won't let him up here.

Mike Davis, leave Brian alone, come on up here.

Mike, let our guests alone.

Mike, can you leave Brian alone?

Thank you, Mike.

Did you spot the mustache?

Mike had him himmed up over trying to give him to do a podcast

about what he was doing with Jeff Gordon when I walked up.

Mike's trying to sign them all up.

The Blaney cast?

Yeah, there he is.

The mustache himself has arrived.

This guy ruined the playoff announcement for me,

by the way.

They're in a playoff announcement,

all I could look at is this guy's mustache.

He's in the back row and I'm like,

this is the only thing I'm focused

on the mustache.

Can't you shave it now?

No, I can't.

I can't.

You can't get rid of it.

Unless my boss tells me to shave it, I will.

Which one's the boss?

Which one is the boss again?

You know who it is.

The one boss likes it, the other boss, I don't know.

My wife likes it, but my main boss who pays my bills,

I don't know, but he hasn't said anything about it yet.

I was surprised that the real boss liked it,

because Amy's pretty opinionated about my facial hair.

She prefer I don't have any.

But she likes me to keep it kind of short.

I like her really long in the winter time.

If I got real man, I got going hot every day,

but she's not a big fan of it.

Yeah, I'm surprised my wife likes it as much as she does.

But so I got lucky on that.

But she told you to do it, right?

She did tell me to do it.

So I do the big beard and the playoffs and then the winter.

She just said, leave that.

Well, then I always like for a week straight,

I play with it.

So I'll do like mutton chops and then like a goatee

and then like so I'm like a different person for like a week.

And then I got to my mustache and I had big handlebars

and she was like, I don't like that one.

So I shortened it up a little bit

and she was like, I actually like it.

Hal, who have you been told you look like?

I get Ned Flanders a lot.

I get Kurt Russell from Tombstone.

Yep.

What about the dudes from the games of New York?

The Butcher?

Yeah, Bill the Butcher.

Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't got that one yet.

But that's a pretty good one for me.

Yeah.

I get one of the Ned Flanders.

Yeah.

Yeah, someone, Flanders is the,

I got it for the first time down here.

Someone just came up to me and showed me a picture

of Ned Flanders.

They're like, you look like this.

I was like, man, that sucks.

Like that sucks.

There's a lot of cooler people with mustaches

and you know, Flanders was always a weird guy, I thought.

But yeah, that person thought I looked like Ned Flanders.

Well, I also heard you got a llama.

Yeah.

Like a real life llama.

Yes, he did.

Yeah, I got a llama.

I got a lot of questions about him.

The main reason we got him, we have three little goats.

They're great like livestock guardians for small animals.

Really?

Yeah, not a lot of people know that,

but they like will destroy a coyote or a fox

if they want to.

I did not know that.

Dad had a couple of llamas and all I got told was

they'll spit on you.

Don't go over, brother.

They'll spit on you.

So they do spit, mine doesn't.

And they're breath, they're spits really right.

Their spit is actually they regurgitate, throw up

and then they spit it at you.

So it's not just like saliva, it's like vomit

that they spit at you.

But the only ones that spit are like ones

that are in petting zoos and they get hand-fed all the time.

But this one, he was raised on like a llama farm

with like a hundred other llamas

and they never like hand-fed them or nothing.

So like he never spits.

But it does get a little weird

if he like will get right in your face

and I'm like, please don't do it, not today.

Is he nice?

He's very nice.

Yeah, very nice.

He hasn't done anything bad yet.

Not to get your personal stuff,

but are you starting a farm?

What are we gonna get, a barn?

We build a barn.

I know you're next to it.

Yeah, my, that's my wife's project.

And I just say, yeah.

I mean, what are you gonna say?

So, I got a fun story.

Amy's gonna be mad, but we got a tiny barn

that was on my property when I bought it.

And it's got three stables in it and it's real small.

And we getting into rescuing

cause Amy likes to do that kind of stuff.

And so we've had some other,

we got all kinds of animals over the years,

but right now we've got four donkey,

one mule and a horse and a mini horse.

And so we got too many for our barn, right?

And Amy's, we got the Carolina Carports

people on the Xfinity program.

And they're like, hey,

we're really having fun with y'all sponsoring your race cars.

We want to give you a free bill.

I was like, damn, all right.

So I told Amy, I said, they want to give us a free bill.

You know, you want to, what do you think?

And she goes, we'll do it, we'll make it a barn.

You know, if we'll get more stalls

and be able to have all these,

all these rescues will have room

to get out of the rain and all that stuff.

And you know, we got to thinking about

how we wanted to build it and we were gonna build

this barn and she, so she starts designing it

out of wood and starts building this thing.

And it's going to have, you know,

we're going to get some help from the Carport folks

to sort of cover it.

But it looks like an Ark.

Like I looked at it, people are like, hey,

I take pictures of it and I send it to my friends.

I'm like, we're building an Ark.

Yeah.

Cause that's what it looks like.

It's crazy. Wow.

And I just kind of got to step out of the way.

I got two little girls and Amy

and it's like, it's what they want to do.

I know what you should get next.

Oh, you should get two llamas next.

I might, well, if you want to, only,

I think I'm a rescuer.

So only if you're, all right.

Well, if you're llama needs rescue

and I'm your guy.

Okay. We'll just open the gate one time.

He's out.

He needs a rescue rescue.

If it becomes a problem, you know,

these are harassing the goats.

All right.

If I tell you that me and him got in the fist fight,

then you're going to come rescue.

You probably have to rest on me.

Spits on you and you sucky boy.

Yeah.

Anyhow, yeah.

I think that's that.

That's in your future.

The barn.

Yeah.

Go ahead and start staking the ground, bud.

That's next.

Yeah.

Yeah, really it's.

And I tell you, I saw.

So it's the, it's the Thunderbirds are flying overhead

and I saw a picture from village.

He's took a ride with him boys today.

Did he?

Have you ever done anything like that?

I did it my rookie year.

Did you fly with him?

Well, it must be a rookie thing.

I think it is a rookie thing.

Mine was 20, I was 10 years ago.

And that was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life.

He's the only rookie.

He just must be getting multiple rats today.

No.

So the thing about Thunderbirds, you only get one.

You only get one ever.

Yeah, one, one ever.

You can't like do it every year.

Like it's a very strict process.

Yeah.

But it was the coolest thing ever.

The guy made me throw up.

I threw up everywhere.

Yeah.

I did.

Blackout?

I didn't blackout.

I puked though.

I don't know which one's worse.

You have a G-suit on.

I did and I still puked.

Yeah.

I did the Blue Angels.

No, they don't do as many Gs, but they don't do the suit either.

I passed out.

Yeah.

This is what happens when you get Ryan Blaney on the stage.

America, baby.

That is the coolest thing.

What other place does this?

Let me tell you something.

When you're on that roof pre-race,

it feels like they are going to hit you in the head.

You feel like you can reach up and touch them.

It's insane.

Some of the videos we get.

So we had Jeff Gordon up here and everybody,

we're going to talk to everybody about this.

And we're going to talk about it all year long.

I think by the end of the year, people will be sick of it.

But the chase is back.

The points, the way you guys will decide who the champion is.

You were part of the announcement.

You've had time to really kind of think about this

and soak it all in.

You've had time to sit in rooms with engineers

and crew chiefs and your team organization

to talk about how you'll approach the year based

off of the new poor man.

So how's that all going and what are your thoughts?

Because I think it's a massive mental shift for a driver.

I believe it is.

Yeah, I think it's a massive shift.

I've always been a huge believer in don't overthink things.

I think it's going to be easier for people

to overthink this stuff.

Like if you're just trying to figure out, like, oh,

strategy here and there, the goal of every week

is to run the best you can every week.

But I think with this thing, I

feel like you have some people thinking twice about,

you know, hey, I might make this low percentage move,

you know, that I would probably make in the previous format

that maybe I don't want to make in this one

because bad days are going to really suck.

And good days are going to be celebrated even more

just because of the way the points format is.

So I don't know.

I think just consistency is going to matter even more.

And there's going to be a lot of pressure

on these teams and drivers to have no mistakes

because it's going to be someone really,

Joey Logano actually said this earlier today

and it stuck with me is this points new points format

is an elevator down and a staircase back up.

Like so it's just it's it'll be really tough

to limit your mistakes.

Yes.

And it'd be hard to crawl your way out of it.

Yes.

But I like it.

I think it's it's where the sport needed to go.

I remember I've said this before,

but I remember starting the year.

You know, 20, 25 years ago, starting the season

and thinking, man, these these first four or five races

really have to go good because if I have four bad races,

I'm going to be 30th, 28th, 22nd points.

And it's going to be a hard staircase up

to try to even get close to where these guys are going to be.

And in the past format, you know, you could you could

eliminate that issue by going out and winning a few races.

Right.

And you don't have that luxury, I suppose,

or that opportunity this time.

So, you know, I think as a driver to your point,

you'll have to really, you know, start to season out.

Even in Daytona to 500 going, I got to be smart.

I got to be I got to be correct in every every decision I make.

Yeah.

And I feel like, you know, we would come down here

at the 500 and it's a speedway.

You could get tore up, you know, easy.

And, you know, you wouldn't really think about it like,

oh, you know, I have faith we're going to win a race.

We get in the playoffs and all that stuff.

But yeah, like you said, I mean,

starting your season off on the right foot

and starting the first month of the year off

on the right foot is going to be really important

because if you find yourself in that hole,

let's say you have a terrible first month

and you're 30th and points

and then you're kind of getting stressed out

like I got to run good now.

And then you're like spiraling out of control.

So it'll be it'll be crazy.

It'll be wild.

But I love how they where they went.

And I think it's going to make for an even better way

to kind of crown our champion

and better races in general, I think.

Yeah. I mean, you said at the announcement

that it's going to get back to the beautiful art form

that you grew up loving.

And I think there's a couple of things of that, right?

Cause like number one, you had the guys

that were so desperate to try to win their way in.

And, you know, of course they're going to make

crazy moves, but then you also had the guys

that had already won and it didn't matter

if they were going to finish fifth or second

or whatever they all it mattered

if they want to get more playoff points

or they're going to do stupid stuff too.

And it really like some of the end of these races

was kind of shit show.

And I hated that side of it.

Like, you know, like you mentioned,

the guys who needed to like win a race to get in

and whether it was a speedway

or maybe they have an opportunity, you know

to win a certain race, but they would make some moves

that are just like, it took a lot of the purity

out of racing to me.

You know, you saw a lot of stuff

and they'd get out of the car and be like,

well, I didn't want to do that, but I had to.

And I hated that excuse so bad,

but the points format made it.

You have to run that way.

And I think now it's going to be a pure art form,

which is what racing is and should be.

So I think we're going to get a lot of that back,

which is good.

One of the things I'd love to talk to you about,

you've had the experience and opportunity

to race at Bowman Gray the last couple of years

with the Clash.

How much fun is it to go to that racetrack

with these cars?

It's just, it's an odd couple sort of thing,

but it's also as nostalgic

and as vintage as throwback as you could possibly get.

What's the future of Bowman Gray?

I hope we go there for at least another year.

I mean, I think you can move that Clash around,

just kind of like the All-Star race and stuff like that.

I grew up the town over from Winston-Salem,

where Bowman Gray is.

So that was kind of a special place for me.

I went there a lot as a kid and ran there

when I was nine or 10 years old.

I raced a little bandolero there,

but I have a blast there.

I think it puts on a great race.

Like you see comers and goers

and tire fall off and stuff like that.

And take out of that second half of that race

the other week is just what it turned into.

It was really sloppy with the weather

and there's not anything you can do about that.

But I think it's good to fans, I think really enjoy it.

So we'll see where it goes,

but I hope it gets another year at least

and then rotate it

and then maybe you'll work its way back.

It hasn't really been,

I don't think this rumor has been discussed

by the people that truly make the decisions,

but could you imagine seeing an All-Star race there

racing for a million dollars?

I can imagine, I can see it.

We've gone to all these different types of places.

We've gone to all these different,

they didn't have the afterburners on on that one.

That was a little wider,

because that was five of them.

But yeah, I mean, I can definitely see

the All-Star race being there.

And that would be a big show.

Did you think Bubba was actually mad at you last week?

I didn't think he was, but I know how he gets.

So Ryan, tell him what it means.

So Ryan dumps him, right?

I mean, typical Ryan movie just runs for the back of us.

Like he always does.

So in the moment I tell, this is actually happening.

I go, that one to 12, it was the one guy shot into him.

And Bubba comes, we go to the pits,

picks the car, we come out

and Bubba starts like door slamming Ryan

and flipping him off.

And I'm like, you know it wasn't him, right?

He's like, yeah, I know it wasn't him.

But don't tell him.

I know.

Sorry, dude.

I don't know what you want me to do.

Yeah, I secretly hate Bubba.

Yeah, I really do.

Oh, me too.

Actually.

I'd like to get your guys' reaction

to something that Denny threw out

yesterday on during media day.

He said, what if you took the clash to homestead

and you gave everybody sort of like the preseason test

in a way and then the second day of it.

So you gave everybody day to practice

because everybody wants to be good at homestead now.

You're already kind of down in Florida anyway.

Then the end of the practice basically was the clash.

And then so everybody kind of got like data

and then you kind of waited like 10 months all year

come back there and be like, man,

how's this, is this who's gonna be the champion this year?

You know, like that kind of thing.

I think any idea Denny has is amazing, honestly.

Yeah, you're not gonna get that bonus, Freddie.

You're not getting that bonus.

That's an interesting idea.

You know what I've always thought would be cool

for a clash or an all-star race is

like if we brought the clash down here

and you just open the rules up,

like do whatever you want.

We're on whatever spoiler you wanna run.

Like if you wanna run a one inch blade,

go at it and good luck to the guy holding onto it.

If you wanna run like a four inch blade, go ahead.

Like I thought that would always be kind of cool.

Do you think you could set up an X-Gen car

that could run a Daytona without a spoiler?

Or maybe- Probably, I mean, it could run.

Drivers would be pretty sketchy.

I mean, you'd be going so fast, you'd be hauling ass.

Let's say we figured out how to make it run 95 to 200.

How would you do that without,

you'd have to put like a 200 horsepower motor in it?

I don't know.

I mean, I would just, I would make it run that speed.

Could you drive it?

Could I fix it?

Could I set it up?

Yeah, you can.

I mean, you can fix up anything to drive

with no roof spoiler.

At some regard, right?

No roof spoiler on.

Yeah, you could drive it.

It just, you wouldn't be a lot off throttle time,

for sure.

But that'd be kind of cool.

Yeah, because I know in the PNCJ

we're talking about this on the podcast this week.

I know that- Incoming.

That's pretty serious.

That was, that was the afterburners.

Yeah.

I know in the 70s, Dave Markison and them guys

were qualifying the Dodgers in Talladega

with like a little 1 1 eighth inch wicker on the back.

And they come down here in the 90s

and had the spoilers lay down to 15, 20 degrees.

And you're thinking, man, what, what, what,

how much do we really need, you know?

Yeah, like-

Because it was, I remember racing it, you know,

in 04 here in the dual, you know,

you know, in 04 here in the dual, lifting,

lifting all the way out of the gas.

Yeah.

Blowing into the corner.

I would love that.

Yeah.

That'd be more fun to me as a driver

than running around there wide open

or next to wide open, you know.

Like, have you ever seen the spoiler on Bill LA?

It's like world record car in Talladega.

Like the thing is got like five degrees

of spoiler angle on it.

It's not even there.

It's just there because the rulebook said

you had to have a spoiler on the car.

Like that's, I just think opening that up

would be pretty neat.

But back then was super cool because

there was no data or anything like no engineering.

They just did it.

That's why you needed eight hours of practice.

Yeah.

They were like, well, let's try this, you know, lay it back.

Good luck, like, you know?

I think that's so cool though,

that ingenuity back then was just something

you can't even match.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, Daytona has always been a special place to me.

I know every driver has their own,

you know, their tracks that they love,

but how does it feel for you, I suppose,

when you get ready to come to the Daytona 500

first race of the year?

You'd love to be able to put your car in Victor Lane

and over at the Daytona USA there for an entire season.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that would be the dream.

I came down here, watched my dad run this race

for a long time.

And as a kid, that was super neat

to just see the whole week.

And then Sunday morning was unlike anything else.

And now to, you know, be able to compete in it

for as long as I have.

And my family is now coming to watch me.

I think that would be the coolest thing for me

if we're able to do it is having the family that I grew up

with and my dad, who I used to watch,

now they're watching me to share that in Victor Lane

together for my family.

And you know, if my son's three months old,

he wouldn't remember it if we did it.

But it'd be a cool picture to show them in like 10 years.

Like, hey, bud, you remember.

I know you don't remember this, but look at you.

So yeah, it'd be cool.

And yeah, the staple of leaving your car in the museum

for the whole year is really neat.

So hopefully we can do it.

Yeah.

You've almost won one of the most infamous 500s.

Yeah, 2012.

Yeah, we're here.

No, so there's a quick story about that one.

So that was actually when you and my dad

kind of started talking a little bit.

Yeah.

I remember 2012, because you were all on the back stretch

with that.

Yeah.

Juan Pablo hit the jet dryer, if y'all don't forget,

remember, into three and dad was running for Tommy Baldwin

and they stayed out like they have damage.

So they just stayed out.

Juan Pablo hits the jet dryer.

So there's lead in the race and the track's on fire.

And so I was down here all week with my dad for speed weeks.

Like, this is when we were here for like 10 days.

So I got out of school for enough days

and that race was run on Monday, Monday night.

So I had to go back home to school on Monday

because my mom was like, you can't miss any school.

So I remember sitting at the house

watching the tracks on fire, dad's leading.

And I was so mad because I was like,

they're going to call this race

and I'm not going to be there

after I was there all week, 10 days.

And I was like, it was weird because I was wanting him

wanted him to call the race and dad win

but I would have been so mad

because I wouldn't have been here to do it.

But somehow they got the track cleaned up.

I didn't think it was ever ready.

I thought the track was dangerous.

I think they could have called it.

But it's funny when my dad talks about that race

and people ask him like, do you wish you would have,

you know, they would have called it

and you would have won it.

And he's like, no.

He's like, cause I would have been

the biggest asterisk in motorsports.

You would have never heard the end of it.

And my dad, just to how he is,

he would have hated, he would have hated.

Even though he won the 500,

he would have been like, did it matter?

Yeah.

Well, Ryan, I appreciate you giving us some time today

coming here, you know,

giving the fans an opportunity to hear from you.

A lot of work left to do before you get ready for Sunday,

but I'm wishing you well, man.

It's awesome to see you going out there

doing well and doing good things.

Yeah, thank you guys for being here.

Hi, buddy.

Yeah, have a good one.

Ryan Blaney, we,

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We're gonna pivot a little bit to some things that,

one of the things that Mr. Gluck put together

and I wanted to debate.

All right, some of the things that you,

you had a top 10 most anticipated,

you had a top 10 most anticipated races of 2026.

Freddie, have you seen this list?

I have not seen this list.

All right, well here's the list.

Number one, San Diego.

Yeah, listen, I heard you on the download last week.

How'd that go?

TJ, you guys, you know, I get, you don't think,

you said San Diego should be like number five or something.

Like way down.

I mean, it's not, I'm not saying it's the most prestigious

or something, I mean, it's the most anticipated.

Like it's a new race, it's on a military base.

We've never seen this before.

Like, you know, that's, how is it gonna go, you know?

I don't know, I mean, I guess I'm curious.

Most curious.

We're at the most anticipated race of the season.

Every year. I agree with you.

That's what he's, yeah.

I mean, I could not put the Daytona 500 at the top of that.

Yeah, I don't even think Daytona was number two.

So like, I think homestead, I had homestead above.

You did.

You got, yeah, it's San Diego, homestead, Chicago land,

and then Daytona.

Is Daytona on the list?

Has it made the list?

It's fourth, sadly.

I get it.

You know, it's just like,

I think that Daytona's gotta get back to some,

some series of clean finishes, a series of, you know,

look, nothing against William Byron, but, you know,

does he run 10th on the last lap and direct and,

What if that happens in San Diego?

Are you gonna be disappointed?

I don't think that will happen in San Diego, but,

We have no clue.

We're never in there.

We don't know.

SVG's gonna like drive through the smoke in the end of,

you know, it's just like, when, when you guys,

when we felt like, at least from speaking

from my standpoint, we felt like, I could see you,

you were doing magical things at this racetrack.

Denny, when he won a couple of the 500, you're like,

wow, I can't believe the move he just made,

the way he set that up, the way he slowed down

in the back stretch, let those guys catch up.

You know, it was like, oh my gosh, like there's,

you know, there was less of the lottery ball aspect

that felt like, and recently it's felt like,

oh my gosh, you know, they're all coming down,

these guys dominate the race, they all wreck,

somebody that's running, you know,

seventh, 10th, whatever, ends up winning it.

You're like, okay, how do I,

how do I wrap my head around this?

You know what I'm saying?

What we used to see.

I went to San Diego a couple of weeks ago

for a completely unrelated function,

but I stayed in a hotel and was able to look out over

this area where they're gonna have the racetrack.

It is going to be incredible.

That is gonna be a lot of fun.

I am looking forward to that race.

Luckily, I'll be part of the broadcast team

that point of the year.

I'm also excited about Wilkes-Burl's point race.

Yeah.

You know, that place, I think we all,

we all have such short-term memory

and we've kind of forgotten like how unlikely

that was at one time.

Yeah.

Even myself, I thought there's no way

this place is ever coming back.

Well, that's why I thought you were gonna get mad

that I had it at number 11.

I thought it was great, you had it at 11.

It was like a, you know, kind of a,

you know, one of the few you mentioned

that didn't make the list, but it's,

I thought that was a high ranking at 11.

It's first race back and it made the list

and it's actually in the top 15.

I think that's pretty good.

I thought you were gonna be like,

this needs to be number like three.

You had me wrong, Jeff.

I know.

You had me wrong, Jeff.

You brought it back.

You were the one that did the weed whackers

and, you know, like you saved it.

I was so, I'm back thankful and grateful

that it's even on your list.

Okay.

Right?

And so, you know, I was,

there's a couple other ones here.

Talonega 2, Charlotte 2, Martinsville 2.

I agree with all those.

You had the 600, the Coke 609.

Yeah.

That race arguably is,

has been the best race of the year.

Yeah.

For two, for two years.

I know, but I'm so anticipating

like the fall oval race for instance now that,

now the rovel's gone.

It's going to be that time of year again.

That freshness is going to be back

for the Charlotte oval race.

Are you worried that you're over hyping

or over anticipating?

You often find yourself being a little bit

over anticipating everything.

Over hyping, over anticipating everything.

Old expectations.

Yes.

Every week I do that.

It's like how I lived my life over hyping myself.

Yeah.

What was the brickyard on the list at all?

It was like number 10.

Number 10.

That was, that, I think that should,

that should have been a little lower actually, I think.

I like, I'm a big fan of the race.

You like that.

I'm a big fan of that one these days.

I don't know why.

It's just one of my highlights.

I like the brickyard.

I do, but.

I mean, when it came back from the road course,

I had it way higher.

Cause it was like, oh, finally it's back.

You know, it's just like, it's just like

with Bowman Gray, I think I had,

I mean, no, I think I have Bowman Gray number 38 or something.

I mean, how long was this list?

To 38 races.

38 races.

38 is last.

Cause I was like, well, I was,

I was also really cranky cause I did that list

when I was sitting snowed in.

I couldn't tell you were.

And I'm like, I'm not anticipating this.

Why am I still here on a Tuesday waiting for a Wednesday?

You know, I was grumpy.

That's not fair to Bowman Gray.

You made the list after all the weather they went through.

Yeah, it's true.

Chicago land at number three.

I'm really excited about that one.

That would say very worn out racetrack.

I mean, imagine it's extremely abrasive now

that it's been sitting there with no racing.

There's a massive bump in the middle of three or four

that's probably going to be bone rattling

when these guys go over it.

We're going to have cars all over that racetrack

trying to find grip.

That is going to be must see,

can't miss racing in the NASCAR season.

Yeah, I mean, it's a sister track to Kansas.

And we've seen what Kansas put out there with this car.

So I mean, I, it's, I'm so glad we're going back there.

Actually, I started to enjoy the Chicago street course

and like down that area,

but I'm not glad we're going back to Oval Rickson over there.

I thought the street course was fun for a couple of years

and I'm fine with like going around

and doing things like that,

like the San Diego deal.

I'm cool with like trying out some things like that

and to know that there'll be probably two,

three year deals that it's not going to be something

that we're stuck with forever is good.

I'm good with that.

And we heard Ben Kennedy say recently

there are some ideas or conversations

around some new venues.

Is there any rumor to where we might be going next

beyond San Diego?

I was kind of surprised because I mean,

you know, you heard the Brazil thing for a while

for the clash and I don't know if that kind of petered out,

but I haven't really heard recently.

I, I, that's why I was kind of putting up, you know,

for a while we were doing, you know,

really outside the box stuff.

Every, you know, we had the Mexico thing.

We had the Cali Coliseum.

Now we have the San Diego thing.

That's why I put Chicago up high on the list

because I was like, man, the next gen car there.

I mean, you thought the slide job thing was great

with like, you don't even, you don't like that kind of racing.

Don't even watch.

Like with, that was free next gen car, right?

So now we're going to see the next gen there.

Like that's awesome.

Like, so I think that's, you can,

you can actually make some of these,

these North Wilkesboro type decisions

where you bring back these old tracks.

And I'm pretty stoked about that.

I don't even think you have to like create, like

if they can, I wish they could bring Fontana back

and now it's warehouses, but you know,

if they brought, if they had magically brought Fontana

back, like, you know, can they bring Kentucky back?

I don't know.

Why would you want to bring Kentucky back?

No.

I don't know.

I mean, with the next gen, never racing.

The guy that wants to go to San Diego, I don't know.

We tried to put good races on there.

It was hard.

It was tough.

Give the next gen a chance, that's all I'm saying.

All right, we got one minute left.

We're, we're going back to Homestead

at the end of the year.

Where do we take that race next?

They talked about it moving around.

What are the other options outside of Homestead?

I mean, Homestead seems to be a race favorite.

I mean, okay, here's the thing.

We talked about it moving around

when it was the one race championship.

Now that it's just the end of the chase, do we have to?

Can we just keep it there?

Like, I'm fine.

That was such a great championship venue

for all the, all those years.

We all got used to it.

And then it moves to Phoenix and you're like, all right,

you know, okay.

And, and, you know, now they finally agreed

to move it around because it was the one race,

but now it's not.

So just, just keep it there.

It's fine.

Everybody liked that.

I think.

Have you got our Key West show approved yet?

No, not yet.

We'll talk about that.

We've had a lot of fun sitting here talking with you guys.

It's been a lot of fun.

We got a crossover show coming up next.

Dirty Mo Media, Sirius XM.

All right, after that, we're going to have

Sirius XM Speedway with Dave Moody.

Stick around.

Thank y'all.

Thanks guys.

Thank you.

Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook,

X and TikTok.

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Jeff Gordon & Ryan Blaney LIVE from Daytona

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