A road course is a type of track with lots of turns, not just one big oval. Cars have to brake and turn differently, so the driving style and setup matter a lot.
Concept
winning strategy
A “winning strategy” in NASCAR road-course racing usually means the planned approach to tires, pit timing, and on-track decision-making to maximize position and speed over the whole event—not just one fast lap. The hosts are crediting both the drive and the strategy working together.
SMT is a kind of performance data system. It helps teams track what the driver is doing—like how they steer and apply throttle and brakes—so they can see patterns from lap to lap.
A tire “cut down” means the tire was damaged—often by debris or contact—so it loses pressure and traction. That typically forces a driver to slow, pit, or change their driving line, which can derail a strong run even if the car was fast earlier.
Term
delayed
“Delayed” here means his race got slowed down by something that interrupted his momentum. Even if he was fast, that kind of problem can keep him from finishing strong.
The Alpine A106 is an older sports car made by Alpine. It was designed to be light and fun to drive. It may be mentioned because it’s part of the brand’s early racing and sports-car history.
The Dodge Ram is a large pickup truck made for work and towing. It’s the kind of vehicle people use for hauling things like tools, equipment, or trailers. It may be mentioned in racing talk because the brand is involved in motorsports and marketing.
A “super speedway” is one of NASCAR’s biggest, fastest tracks. Winning there is a big deal because the racing is more about high-speed strategy and car setup than just short-track driving.
“Truck wins” means wins in NASCAR’s Truck Series. It’s a step below the Cup Series, so the discussion is about whether someone has proven they can win at the top level.
They’re talking about going from sprint cars to NASCAR’s top-level Cup cars. Even though both are race cars, they handle very differently, so it’s hard to succeed right away.
It means she gets a guaranteed spot in the race without having to fight for it at the last minute. That can make the weekend less stressful and more predictable.
The Oldsmobile Intrigue is a mid-size sedan, meaning it’s a family-sized car meant for comfortable driving. It’s not a race car by design, but its name can come up in stories about teams and entries. In the podcast, it likely refers to how often something shows up or performs.
Here, “miles” means how much of the race distance she actually gets through. Finishing more of the total distance usually means the car stayed healthy and the driver kept going strong.
The Indy 500 is a famous IndyCar race run over 500 miles at Indianapolis. It’s a long, tough race, so finishing well and completing lots of laps are big indicators of performance.
This is comparing how much of the race each driver actually finished, lap by lap. Completing more laps usually means fewer problems and better staying power over the whole event.
The AMC Pacer is an older compact car made by AMC. It’s known for its unusual, boxy shape and the fact that it tried to fit a lot of space inside. The podcast likely mentioned it because the name sounds like something being referenced in the moment.
The Ford Mustang is a popular sports car from Ford. It’s known for being fun to drive and for having a strong racing history. The podcast mentioned it because it’s a well-known car that could be a surprise contender.
Telemetry is race-car data that gets sent out while the car is running. “Live” means it’s updated in real time, so teams can adjust strategy quickly—but sharing it widely can give rivals an advantage.
In NASCAR, “the chase” is the part of the season where the championship is decided. Points and race results matter most there, so the hosts are talking about how NASCAR wants the title race to stay exciting.
LIVE
Drivers! Start your engines!
That was an absolute bullsh**t.
Not clear.
Awesome.
I tell you, I'm on my way to the f***** with this s**t.
What the f**k are you doing out here?
Before you say this great f*****g idiot?
I don't care.
Let me your guy.
What the f***** is this s**t doing?
Did you ever think you would see that?
How the f***** did that just happen?
Holy cow, where'd the s**t go?
What the f***** is this s**t doing?
What the f***** is this s**t doing?
Let's go!
Let's go!
StreamYard for it to put the flag up.
So it just puts the initial of the flag.
So like when everyone's chanting USA in the chat,
it's just a bunch of US's instead of flags.
But no, it is NWP time.
We are a third of the way through the NASCAR Cup series season.
And we've still got one more week of f*****s left.
I want to just roll right into talking about Watkins Glen.
And I'm just going to start out, let's start out hot with it.
Is SVG the greatest ever road course racer in NASCAR?
I think I said yes last time you won.
Maybe I said this two or three wins ago.
I think he is.
Now I like to, I always differentiate between,
when I hear greatest,
I think of this larger than life figure
that looms over the entire industry.
I'm not sure he's there right now actively,
but I still think Jeff Gordon having the nine,
his dominance in the late 90s into the 2000s,
having the most wins.
Greatest maybe is a different discussion.
Most talented, best, most dynamic,
instantly impactful.
Yes, Shane Vankeisberg is all of those things.
I think he is the most talented.
I think it's a mix of his skill, his experience also.
He's not having to adjust as much as one Pablo Montoya had to
in the 2000s coming from like F1 and Indy car to a certain,
what's it called, a COT, a car of tomorrow.
Whereas SVG is going from supercars to kind of a sports car still.
But I think he's incredible, obviously.
I think he's got to be the best we've seen.
Definitely was a lot more of a better transition
because those cars I race, the Australian supercars are so,
I don't want to say identical, they are very similar
to what today's modern NASCAR product is.
So he definitely had an easier transition,
like Eric said, than a one Pablo Montoya,
than a Marcus Ambrose at the time that he come over to race.
But with that being said, you mentioned Jeff Gordon and a nine.
Well, now he's at seven.
He's now tied Chase Elliott for the most road course wins
by an active Cup Series driver.
That's no longer something that Chase could hold on to himself.
And we might want to talk about Chase later
because he does not look like the same guy at all on a road course.
I don't know what's happened there.
But anyways, the nine is the nine wins.
I should just specify for SVG is still doable this season.
He wins the next two road courses, San Diego and Sonoma.
And he's right there with Jeff Gordon.
Todd, he can't take it this year because his kryptonite
is circuit to America's apparently,
but he's going to, he's probably, I'm just going to say,
he's going to tie Jeff Gordon this year.
I don't see a scenario where he doesn't this year.
So I think last time we had this conversation,
I was in the wait and see camp.
Like I wanted to see something more or like maybe get more wins add to it.
I might have even said surpass Gordon.
I think to me that that run to the finish 29 seconds and 17 laps
and then he made up another almost seven and a half seconds.
So I mean, he made up 36 seconds on the pack.
That is insane to watch.
It was, it was really fun to watch.
Say what you will about the rest of the race that run to the finish
and watching it happen.
I felt like was like watching one of those amazing moments.
You'll talk about 20 years from now happening in real time.
Like I was genuinely impressed.
And what really impresses me overall about him in NASCAR,
I think is one, he has like, I think a 50% win percentage at the road courses.
So far, something like that.
It's very greater than 50% honestly.
I think, I think it like in cup, it's 50.
If you add in O'Reilly, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah.
It still struggles to go in and win the trucks and extended all the time for some reason.
I don't know why.
But what impresses me is that this era isn't like the one that Gordon and Tony won theirs in.
One, we have more road courses, which definitely helps Shane,
but when Gordon and Tony were winning their road courses,
there were definitely good threats in the field like a Robbie Gordon,
Boris said would come in, Rusty Wallace was pretty good at times at road courses.
And there were a couple others that were good.
I think you genuinely have a bunch of really good drivers and some really great drivers at road courses.
And he's still making them look like JV team drivers, which is just that that's what's impressive to me is that like,
it's not like it was back in the day where a lot of drivers just took two weeks off.
They're like, we're going to put her around in 20th, get through the race and we'll get him at Daytona or wherever the next race was at.
Like, no, these guys are all going all out and he still keeps doing this.
And they're, I mean, we could debate if they're getting closer, but at least in the finish, not really.
Yeah, because that's the thing like Michael McDowell.
I think Michael McDowell is we focus a lot on the Zillich versus SVG because they drive for the same team.
They both won a lot of O'Reilly series road races at least.
But Michael McDowell, I feel like has taken this SVG challenge the most personally.
He was very adamant.
He had the best cart Chicago a year ago until it broke while he was out front.
He was the guy running second to Shane through most of the, I mean, for as incredible as Shane's run was at the end of this walk in Glenrace.
Michael McDowell's wasn't far off.
I mean, it was seven seconds off, but it was within the ballpark relative to the rest of the field.
I think they just wound up on the winning strategy as much as it was an impressive drive.
But Michael McDowell is a great road course racer and we see him get close from time to time.
We see Connor Zillich get close from time to time.
But what I think what impresses me most about Shane, and this is sort of piggybacking out for what you were just saying, Jared is not only doing a lot of great road racers in the field today,
but the technology, namely things like SMT being able to see exactly what Shane is doing with his inputs lap after lap corner after corner.
And no one up to this point has been able to perfectly replicate that with the same level of consistency.
You know, I just think that's that's part of it that makes it even more impressive what Shane has been able to do.
So now he's unbelievable.
It was a tremendous run at the end of this race.
It is weird that Koda is like the one road course he looks human at.
I will say his car was certainly better at walk in Glen, all of the track house cars where I remember Koda, I think Ross qualified on the front row,
but then like Connor and Shane were 13th, 20 something like they were mid-pack.
They all qualified top five here at walk in Glen.
So all three track house cars brought speed and you give Shane a top five car, even a top, you give him a top 12 car at a road course.
He's probably going to win.
So yeah, it goes to show they just haven't figured out their Koda set up just yet, I guess.
I do think Connor was, I don't know how I don't think he was like close in the sense that like he could straight up beat him.
But I do think that when he was right there in Shane's tired tracks for about 20 laps there, neither of them were going all out,
which I don't know if McDowell may have been going all out to stay with him because after the race, you know, they were trying to like tell him like, oh, you're getting closer.
And he's like, he kicked everyone's butts.
Like I saw that.
Yeah.
Fair play to him.
McDowell's supremacy can be beat by Shane Van Goatsburg.
But Connor definitely, I think he's already entered that tier of like the next one down.
And I do think he's going to be the one that long term challenges Shane.
I got to say that I was, picked him.
I was still a little bit impressed though, especially after Kodo and all the times he had to go up through the pack multiple times.
Like I think the finish obviously doesn't show the way he ran, but Connor definitely, I think he's definitely showing that he belongs when they go to road courses like this.
If they can just have some good luck, this dude's going to be a lock for top five picks every time we go to a road course.
The fact that he was even there at the end of it, you know, ultimately most delayed, most derailed by the, by the tire that got cut down when he was, was he battling Todd Gibbs?
Is that who he's battling with?
Yes.
Yeah.
Shout out to Todd Gibbs.
Again, the great season continues that, you know, he's still up there proving that it's not a super speedway.
He's up there contending it.
We can wake up.
Well, I think we look at the results of this race and Zillich, aside from Zillich, who wound up 20th because of the flat tire, but he would have been top five.
Like you look at the top five at Shane, who's in his own class.
And then to your point, Jarrett, Zillich is in that second tier of drivers who can occasionally play spoiler.
And that's who ran top five.
Michael McDowell finished second.
Ty Gibbs finished third.
Chase Briscoe finished fourth.
I don't know if I'd put him in that tier yet.
Good run here, but Tyler Redick fifth.
Like when I think of that next tier, I think of McDowell, Gibbs, Redick and Zillich.
And then A.J. Elmendinger finished seventh.
I guess I think if he was in a better car, he'd be in that second tier.
Lately he hasn't been.
It was a good run this weekend.
But I think you just saw Watkins Glen, the best road course racers all bubbled to the front, even with two very different strategies happening in that final stint.
But even though there were four or five great road racers in the top five, Shane once again showed he is well above the rest of the field.
He is clearly in a league of his own.
Well, in credit to RCR, sixth for Dylan and eighth for Kyle Busch.
I believe Bush ran out of gas in the last lap and would have finished higher still.
Good run.
And then Nima check top 10 as well.
But I got to say, man, two weeks in a row where Kyle Busch is running top 10 at the end of these races, gets to actually capitalize on it this time.
The monk still got it.
I won't say everything's going to turn around by any means because I don't believe at RCR it's going to anytime soon.
But there's signs of life.
And that's the first step in my opinion at this point.
Like, I know it's a lot.
It's still a good ways out.
But man, imagine if they, they dial Kyle Busch into that Austin Dylan Richmond set up and we get there, give Kyle Busch a chance to feel alive again.
It's the setup that Kyle himself may have helped work on a few years ago.
I don't know.
Just saying allegedly.
I don't know.
Is it alleged at this point?
I don't know.
It may or may not have happened.
I don't know.
I did want to also say a spotlight a couple of other guys.
You mentioned Nima check.
Yeah. Good top 10 for John.
Although he did wipe the shit out of bubble wall.
A few laps to go.
I don't know what that was about.
Yeah.
Austin Cindrick night.
I wanted to spotlight Cindrick just because I don't have the number in front of me, but I want to say over the last like five or six races, his average finishes like 10th.
Penske's been holy moly a roller coaster, but Cindrick lately has been pretty steady.
If you take out those bad finishes to start the year at the super speedways and such like Austin Cinder could be safely in a chase spot.
It looks like as it is, he's kind of on the bubble as we'll see in a minute.
But I wanted to mention him on your Kyle Busch point.
Yeah.
I can't imagine a simple crew chief change.
Someone who was already in house supposedly involved in the setups and the prep.
I can't imagine that's that's flipped the switch this quickly, but you're right.
I mean, he's qualified.
He qualified good at Texas ran good before the last lap.
And then he ran great at Walkins Glen.
And actually he didn't.
I think he qualified like in the 20s at Walkins Glen and that with this car could be a death sentence.
They finished up 10.
That's impressive.
So, I mean, yeah, I don't think he's going to win a race on speed anytime soon, but I'm getting excited by the consistent performance.
Now we've seen two weeks in a row.
Now, kind of before we get to the points side of it, and we'll kind of lead in later about that.
I did want to touch on the TV side FS one.
This is their last points race of the year.
They still have the all star race.
A lot of people talking about what they missed and then conveniently enough, the one thing they caught.
We had a caution at one point for a tent flying out and I got it.
It was, it was great camera work that Fox had.
And it was a really funny shot.
We're going to, we're going to remember it.
Like, like we're not going to remember the conversation.
We're probably about to have 10 years from now, but like everyone bring up the tent.
They'll be like, Oh yeah, I remember that race.
That was funny as hell.
Unfortunately, that was the best camera work of the day.
I was catching the tent to get on track.
The entire honesty of that tent flying from the infield next to the fence and then on to the track.
They missed a lot.
So much.
Goodness gracious.
You could tell this was Fox's first Walkins Glen race in years, maybe ever.
I don't know.
It's usually an NBC race.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Usual.
And I know, you know, what was the thing that really stood out to me is that we didn't, maybe we had it once, but we didn't have that.
I can remember that shot that tracks them down the back stretch into the bus stop.
I love that shot.
It's my favorite shot.
Whenever they go there.
But I think that you see specialty.
Yeah.
I think I can share screen really quick.
I'm going to have to move a few things off the screen.
We got here and pop us over here.
I was, um, there was a specific rack with like three to go that they miss.
I think it was three.
It might have been nine.
I keep hearing.
Oh, was this the Cody where wreck?
Yeah.
And when they definitely probably should have for a caution, the HBO Max feed showed like nine laps to go.
So I'm going to trust that.
That's usually pretty accurate.
Yeah.
Let me let's see.
I think I have it here.
All right.
You guys see it?
Yes.
Show and tell.
We got highlights.
Oh boy.
Ouch.
Oh, damn.
Oh, and like he's back on the track.
Like look how close the field is to glancing off his bumper right in middle of the pack.
And you saw how much that destroyed the barrier over there.
I just other images later that showed even some damage on the like they would have needed to all literally bent.
Like at least before next season, they'll need to obviously repair that.
Yeah.
It's everyone missed it.
I don't know.
I don't know if this vindicates either side, but the fact that both race control and Fox missed it maybe says something about that spot on the track.
That's obviously a blind spot.
But goodness gracious, you shouldn't have a blind spot when there's a wrecked car.
Six feet from the racing groove.
Like there's that should never be a missed call.
Where did that happen?
And that was like the last turn basically, right?
And we know that they have a camera right there because it obviously caught the finish of the O'Reilly race.
We'll talk about later.
So how did that get missed?
Well, it wasn't one of the things they talked about is even in some of the cuts, they have like less people now that are watching those cameras and race control.
And there's like 50 of them.
Oh, I'm sure it's they've replaced a lot of track workers, I'm sure with cameras.
And then they probably have a couple of people sitting in there, either their production facility in Charlotte or they're in the tower.
I don't know where they are situated, but I imagine they have at least a couple of people, you know, like the like the Monkey and Toy Story 3 watching all the security cameras.
Yeah.
They probably got a couple guys doing that.
Yeah.
I don't know how you missed this.
And again, Fox missed it too.
But that's pretty bad.
Even though Spencer Purcell is joking when he says this, he said Fox officials.
Man, it's Cody Ware.
No one cares about him.
I mean, in a way, is that kind of serious?
I mean, sometimes it feels that way.
That's how NASCAR and Fox, you know, feels that some of the other drivers in the field.
Well, it's like, if you watch the race on TV and that's it, like a lot of people do.
I mean, up until about five years ago, that's how I watched every race.
You wouldn't have known it happened.
You had to go on Twitter.
And the fact that I have to supplement my viewing experience by Twitter or by paying a bunch of money to go on HBO Max on onboard cameras to see basic things that happen in the race.
That's on the broadcast.
I gotta say, the race control has been, I think, much better this year and they've been more consistent.
This is the first blemish slip up, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah.
So it's like, I'm not, it's the severity of the wreck.
I think that's why people are pissed and rightfully so.
I don't want to necessarily crucify them for it just because it could just be a one off and I'm hoping that's it.
But I do think like someone's feet need to be held fire on this because that's just, I mean, what, what if he's hurt and we're having cars go past for another 10, 15 seconds.
Like what happens if two people are going too wide and somebody smashes into a compromised race car?
Like you just, you can't let that happen.
Luckily he was able to get it going again.
And then, and then the team sent him out there with a broke car.
So it's like the, is that the Tommy Baldwin special lately send Cody Ware out there with a car that is not really needing to be out there and the condition it's in.
Look at this.
Look at Kansas.
There's been a few others.
Denny brought up.
It's just the whole thing is just, I don't know.
I don't know how to really explain it at this point, you know.
Yeah.
I think it was just a miss.
I did see, I think Brad Moran was on serious today.
I didn't hear what he had to say, but I hope he basically said, yeah, we missed it.
We'll try to get more cameras and more eyes like that.
That's all you can say.
And then you just hope they follow through on it.
I was going to say though on the, I'm more offended by Fox's coverage.
So shocker.
I just, I mean, they missed so many key beats, especially down the stretch.
And they were so quick to get off the air for UFL football that we didn't get a, you know, we never got closure on the weird bell Bubba discussion.
We never got closure.
Yeah, it seems to be basically nothing as far as I can tell, but again, had to go to Twitter and HBO Max to try and piece together everything.
We didn't get any closure on the berry host of our wipeout spin on the final lap, which I mean, I don't know.
I would look like Carson.
I don't know if he turned right.
If Barry just cleared himself a little bit of both.
They clearly don't like each other.
They've had history, but we didn't get any, we barely got any coverage of that.
I could go on.
There's others.
They got together.
Nothing.
I don't think we got a good replay of the, the first berry spin, berry spun before the host of our incident with a few laps to go.
I don't think we ever got a replay of that that I'm aware of.
I don't think we ever got shown the Nima check wrecking bubble Wallace spin.
We only saw the aftermath.
Again, all of these things people fans are using their HBO Max logins to clip these 10 second onboard angles and post them to Twitter.
Fox isn't showing us any of this.
It's, it's absolutely disgusting how horrible Fox has been in key moments this year.
Like I just compared to other major sports leagues compared to where Fox was a few years ago, compared to the other NASCAR partners or broadcast partners.
We're about to start watching like Amazon.
Fox has fallen off a cliff and I just, it's got to be budget cuts.
It's, you know, they spent money on, you know, purchasing a steak of Indie cars.
Now that's their, their little child.
That's their precious and that NASCAR is an afterthought, but goodness gracious.
I hope somebody in Concord or somebody in Daytona Beach steps in and, and can take ownership of some of these Fox broadcasts because they are doing the process.
They're making budget cuts.
We still weekend week out, whether something small or big.
I keep seeing stuff that I can tell like, okay, you're, you're, you're saving money by having AI do some stuff.
And I, it becomes a little more clear when you start to recognize AI better, but you know, they're sometimes they do hiding it.
Has anyone noticed on their YouTube channels this week, how all of their videos have been dark and shadowy and like rendered incorrectly?
Harvick show.
I went and watched some of like first things first.
A bunch of Fox's YouTube clips this week have all been rendered poorly and are all like lit badly on YouTube.
Like they just have no quality control over there.
There's another one.
For the number one NASCAR podcast in a world in America, they couldn't get the audio correct for three weeks on the promo and it sounded like he was going through a tunnel.
Like we've had audio issues on this show that sound better than the promos they put on the damn broadcast for happy hour.
I thought it was my TV at one point.
I want to give credit by the way to the guy on Instagram.
I think it's multigrid mashup.
He does like reactions and stuff.
And he was, I saw this clip that he put and it was at the truck race, but it was a Fox.
Where they're going up the hill and it's like the sun is starting to kind of get a little lower.
So that it's just that perfect kind of right before golden hour look.
And he goes, this shot is beautiful.
And then before you can even finish the sentence, they go to side by side commercial.
And he's like, this is what I'm talking about with Fox.
Like they have a beautiful shot and they choose just to go to side by side.
And like, I just, what I wish is that somebody that actually had some like saying power in the sport, like maybe somebody in the media,
maybe somebody like a driver or like a Dale Jr.
Someone could actually start saying the things that we're saying because they all see it.
I saw somebody called in a moody show and he basically like told them like to shut up.
It's not bad.
And I'm like, dude, you were at the track.
You saw the things we didn't see.
Of course it wasn't bad for you.
You know, it's like, I want somebody to say something because the fans can complain all we want.
But as Fox producers proved earlier this year, they will just go attack people and make fun of them for their appearance and other things like that for the last year and a half,
rather than address the issues we all see.
And it's not just us.
MOB is seeing it.
NFL is seeing it.
Indy cars, we're all seeing it.
Moody.
Moody and his company can't say too much because he could walk his back.
I think it's more of an issue if you were trying to listen to it online or on the NASCAR app.
When I was coming back home from a fishing trip and I was just trying to listen to Talladega.
Yeah, the glitch.
I kept hearing like, Cody where?
Bubba Wallace, just skipping nonstop.
Like back and forth, you hear the same words.
That was actually, they just hired a porky pig for that race and he was, he was a little nervous.
That was all, that's all it was.
But at least with that, that's a one off.
Like they're usually better than that with their quality.
And I just, oh, one more week, one more week.
We just got to get through an all star race that nobody wants to watch apparently even the drivers.
But stay tuned to the end of the show.
We're going to have a great Dover segment.
Yeah, maybe more people watch our Dover segment than the race itself.
Yeah.
You know, kind of looking towards the points and we can kind of put up the points while we're, while we're talking about it as I have a cut line.
We got new tickers now cut line battles down on the bottom.
We can pop on the points.
Let me see.
I got, I think I should take a line pop on on.
All right.
So we take your time.
I will read it still leads by yes.
Denny Hamlin minus 129, then Elliott 145 back 162 back to Blaney.
Those four have separated themselves.
Got another 30 back to Busher and Gibbs is right behind him in sixth.
About another 30 points down to host of our where then it starts to become the scrum host of our seventh Larson eighth in the point standings.
Then Brad keselowski and bubble Wallace, the top 10.
What happened to Hendrick motor sports in this race?
And I know Danny alluded to it earlier with chase Elliott.
I pulled the numbers.
It was more than just chase Elliott because three of them finished together.
Larson, Elliott Bowman 232425.
And then we don't have the points that far down, which is sad because Byron used to be in this top 10.
And now he keeps falling because he finished 36 in this one.
Yeah.
What I was going to say was I looked at chase Elliott's numbers and from 20, I want to say 2019 to 2022.
So it's four races at Watkins Glen.
He had a 2.0 average finish in four races in the four races since he has a 26th place average finish.
Is it the car not resonating with him?
I don't know.
I mean, it's that obviously because he used to win a lot of road races.
He hasn't won any in the next gen.
So he's definitely not getting a good feel for this car.
Maybe it's the Hendrick road course program a little as well.
So here's what I think.
I think Watkins Glen.
This is my theory.
This is my game theory here.
We know back in the era of Jimmy and Chad, they would after they'd built a good points lead, get into a good chase spot.
They experiment.
They take some weeks.
I won't say they took them off, but they took some weeks to sort of try new things to prepare for the 10 race chase where they were always on it.
Lightning fast.
Perfect.
My theory is no road courses in the chase this year.
Not one.
Not a single one.
I think Hendrick put absolutely zero dollars and zero cents into their road course R&D and prep.
That's fair.
Like who cares basically?
I bet they did no sim work.
Let me know.
I mean, obviously it did some.
I'm saying I bet comparatively they put my theory is they put no effort into the road courses this year.
They essentially know that even though yes, they are the premier Chevy team.
They can pretty much know track health, SVG, let them be the premier guys of road courses.
Don't take the rest.
I don't know how far I'll go with that just because Larson on down is, you know, the eighth.
Byron will see in a moment or we might not.
He might be in that middle ground, but like they're not in championship contention.
They need to gain points.
So if they're doing that, that is a really dumb risk.
If you're trying to like build up, but I don't understand why they would do that outside of maybe chase.
Like because, you know, you're not going to win, but you can still get stage points.
You can still get a good amount of points.
I just think whatever time maybe they would have spent on road course stuff.
They're like, Hey, we have a new Chevy body this year.
Let's spend some extra time on the mile and a half.
Let's spend some extra time on something.
You know, like that's, that's my theory.
I don't know.
I'm just winging it because yeah, how else do you explain all four cars having 20 to 25th place speed?
Like, I mean, I guess Byron was like 12th when he spun.
So maybe he was a little better.
But I mean, how else do you explain it unless they just didn't just didn't put any work into there?
Just, I don't know.
Just took a week off is how it felt.
It's how it looked.
Well, you know, it was bad.
And to be fair, I had, I believe I had actually picked Larson as my suck pick this past week.
So I mean, they'd been pretty bad for a while now looking at the cut line at the moment.
11th is Bell plus 34, 32 up to Byron.
Breece plus 19.
What a difference that'll make.
He would have been ninth in points without the penalty.
We'll see if that gets rescinded at any point.
Plus 18 for Suarez who's still impressing plus 10 for Cintrick or Condrick as many in the chat now know a mess.
Shane Van Gisburg and now up to 16th currently in the chase plus six.
I'd been hammering on this that this was a must win for him.
And look at the difference it made that those six are over Brisco still is is floundering around that cut line.
And then Joey Logano minus 38.
There is more of a gap from SVG to Joey Logano 16 to 18.
Then there is Brisco and 17 to 11th place Christopher Bell.
Yeah, that last at Watkins Glen.
He got stage points at least.
He did.
He made it.
But I think I saw Joseph Strigley.
I'll give him a shout out.
I think he pointed out this is the first time Joey Logano has had four straight 30th place or worse finishes since his rookie season.
Which we all know he eventually got fired from GGR.
So he's going to get fired here.
Oh my gosh.
I will now not.
But you know, that's still just goes to show how how terrible this last month has been.
Well, and the year on a hole for Joey.
So he has two top fives and three top 10.
So he has many top 10s as he has DNFs.
But I mean, like looking at a season though, I can't say it's like all that.
Inspiring.
It's not like awful when it doesn't that go.
I mean, he got his top 10s and top fives.
He got two third place finishes Daytona, Martinsville and then a top 10 at Bristol.
Other than that, he got an 18th Atlanta.
It's Atlanta.
We know that 15th at Kota 31st in a crash at Phoenix.
Since that race at Phoenix though, he has only led six total laps.
Like he has led 114 on the year.
Six of those have come after Phoenix.
And I mean, he finished 33rd at Darlington off of speed.
He has had six of his 12 race finishes this year, 30th or worse.
And I know he'll regress or ascend to the mean.
I think he's not going to finish 30th or worse every other week.
But I mean, it's been awful.
Joey's got to get that hair back or something because this is not going well.
You're saying he's Samson can do another wind tunnel test.
Yeah, I don't know.
Hard to watch.
It's unusual.
It's just Penske as a whole.
Like up until the last couple of weeks, Ryan Blaney was the one guy you could
count on to still go run top five.
And even here at a Walkins Glen, he got damaged and still finished 11th.
So all things considered, it was a pretty good day still for Blaney.
That's what's so weird is if I recall all three Penske guys qualified top 10
at Walkins Glen again, track position is key.
And so for Lugano to, I mean, I guess it was a tire issue really that knocked him out.
I don't know where he was running, but I think he might have still been in the top
10 when that happened.
So I'm not going to say he was just way off, but it is.
It's like, they don't have the dominant speed to your point, Jared.
They're not leading the laps to make up for all these bad luck, bad days.
So that's the part that's problematic.
And even if he makes it in, like he's not going to be higher than like what?
Fourteen?
I would bet the house that I don't own that Joey Lugano does not win the
championship this year.
I'm comfortable making that prediction.
Let's play a fun game with this real quick.
And you guys should say yes or no or, you know, if you stutter on it, I get it.
Do they make the chase?
Like, do you think they will make the chase at this point?
Daniel Suarez, 14th.
Okay.
Too many good cars behind him.
I agree.
No.
Austin Cindrick.
I think he will.
And I did not have him getting in to start the season.
So I've changed my tune.
I'm impressed with their consistency.
He might be the last one in.
Shane Van Gizbergen.
Yes.
I bet I predicted it in the off season.
I'm sticking with it because I agree with you, Jared.
This was a must win.
He did it.
I'm riding with, with SVG for the time being.
Yeah.
Say the difference at one win, Mike.
He gets two more.
Chase Briscoe.
My guess right now is he's the one to replace Suarez.
But we'll see.
I'm going to know.
I think someone else could still sneak up if they get hot.
Joey Logano.
I tune change.
I say no.
I was saying yes, but I say no now.
I'm leaning no right now, but that's, that's a, I feel like,
I feel like it's going to come down to Joey versus Shane.
And Shane needs to have a great San Diego and Sonoma.
And then from there.
So again, this is where Joe is 38 back, not even on the,
the chart here, 47 back Ross Chastain.
I don't think so, man.
Even when he had a good day, like at Texas, he sped on pit road and
threw away a top 10.
Like that's kind of like Joey, like he's not fast enough to have
those bad days.
You know,
I'm just going to say maybe on him cause he's that one that I
think could just get hot at the right time as a season progresses
that he could sneak up there and replace the Suarez.
So let me see if I have this.
If I, I think I have it on my end here.
Ross's season so far is one top five and two top 10.
So I think, I think he will get better than that as the year goes.
His two top 10s were Atlanta and Talladega.
Oh, you see the thing is of Ross just saying he's been good for a
win a year.
I feel like that can still happen.
I think it could too.
It's just, I mean, like Shane was I think 26 out coming in.
I want to say it was somewhere around that range.
26 or 27 is one of those.
If he can get a win and then start to put together a few more top
fives, top 10s, I'll feel good about him.
That's why I just have him as a maybe he's in a spot where it's
possible.
But as he's done the last few seasons, it feels like by time
summer hits is when he gets better.
And if he gets better when summer hits, then I'm, I feel a little
bit more confident with him.
Yeah.
If, if he can get a few more finishes, I'll feel comfortable about
him, but it's just like when you're that far back, even Joey,
if you're that far back, a win might not even be enough to make
up that many points, which is kind of crazy to say, but do y'all,
do y'all think host of ours safe?
I know he's seventh, but he's only plus 65 at this point.
Do you consider him a lock to at least make the chase?
Yes.
Yes.
I would say yes.
And only because I'm not saying enough falling off in that team
like I did last year.
Well, he's not.
This could change, but he's not making as many over aggressive
or dumb mistakes either.
And they're not.
Yeah.
They don't have parts failures.
Last year, a lot of McDowell had dealt with it to a lot of
mechanical issues.
They've really knocked on wood.
Had had very few or any of those really this year.
So yeah, we'll see.
We've not talked enough about him, but I just got to point out
and say shout out to Chris Busher being fifth right now.
Yeah.
Probably the quietest fifth you can be when you are still ahead
of two guys that have wins and he only has two top fives this
season.
But when you're, when you're a bad day is finishing 12th at
Watkins Glen, that's going to, that's going to keep you right
at the top all year long.
If you can just keep it like that.
I don't mean he's got six top 10s too.
He's got as many top 10s as total as Kyle Larson this year.
Yeah.
Larson's not been horrible.
That is the definition of being a just a quiet, you know,
person.
It's, it's, it's what Byron was doing until they decided they
wanted to fall off the cliff.
So I mean,
all the Roush cars are kind of the same in that regard though.
Like they're all just 10 top 15s.
They're all in the chase right now.
Paris would be a little more comfortable if not for that
penalty.
Yeah.
So I mean, I'll ask, could busher just,
I don't think he'd be necessarily in the thick of it,
but could busher be somebody that just sort of sticks around at
the end edge of the championship line?
Cause I mean,
top five is around that cut line where you're like,
that's where you need to be points wise going in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't see why not.
I think, I mean,
we've run 12 races and he's fifth in points.
So he's 10 races.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a large enough sample size.
He could,
he could do it.
If they could figure out how to start winning races as towards
the end of this regular season,
he's someone I would watch out for to come in and keep winning
races in the,
in the chase and,
and spoil some people's shows.
So,
let's head on and talk about the last bit of the weekend here
when it comes to ratings and the poll.
The cup race scored a 1.06 rating and 1.9 to 8 million viewers,
not a direct comp with last year,
but from Mother's Day weekend's race last year down 17%
and about 400,000 viewers.
There have been people that pointed out rightfully so that
there has been a change in metric.
And I think it's a Manny Salloway on Twitter had posted this
up, the,
the big data change that they had this race last year,
even when you include that still would have had just about
2 million flat.
So it still would be majorly down from last year,
not a good showing for the cup guys overall,
no matter what metric you go about looking at it with.
Though the O'Reilly series scored 1.013 million viewers peaking
at just under 1.2 million at the finish 13th straight race
over a million.
So still riding high, riding strong on that side of it on the
trucks, basically while everyone is at work in school,
still got 329,000 viewers on FS one.
So not to be the ratings.
Apologist, I will mention though, again,
Walkins Glen, not usually a ratings winner.
This was the most viewed Walkins Glen race in three years
compared to previous races on USA Network.
So that's also worth noting to some degree.
As for the poll, I asked what everyone thought of this race,
10,000 plus of you voted 17% of you said it was a great race.
53% said good 70% net positivity on that 24% average,
6% negative looking at the overall metrics on it.
This was fifth of seven polled Walkins Glen races.
It was over 2023 and 2025.
Last year's race, I think was the lowest, I want to say.
Sixth of 13 polled Cup races this year and 25th of 38 road
courses.
So yeah, it's about where I put it.
Tank slapper with the first comment, positive, negative or
meme.
That's a meme I feel like.
That's positive.
It's going to be some SVG glaze.
That was nice to see the strategies play out without a
late race caution.
I mean, you know, race control helped you with that.
Yeah.
Top comment was combat.
It was the most natural or was the most unnatural natural
finish.
Combat racer with the top comment said there needs to be a
movie made about the last 40 laps that was truly unbelievable
to witness in real time.
There's the SVG glaze.
I knew it was going to be someone's delayed on real thick.
Noah said watching SVG on road courses is like watching Bob
Ross paint.
It's not necessarily exciting, but it's entertaining and
thralling knowing you were watching a master make art.
That is a very interesting and I think quite fair comparison.
Right here.
We're going to make up 29 seconds and no pun intended.
That was a very colorful comparison.
I liked it.
I mean, I remember my dad used to put on Bob Ross when I was a
kid.
So, uh, Lauren said, I love this type of racing personally.
Tires matter.
Excellent.
Rewarded.
Tires did matter a ton and I think the field may even
underestimated that before that final run.
Uh, something unprofessional 69 guys, this is Reddick's longest
winless streak of the year.
Is he cooked?
I saw a tweet the other day.
Y'all know Paul Skeens, the, the pirates pitcher who's like
really, really good.
Someone's like, Hey, one thing you need to note about Paul
Skeens, he's, his numbers are getting worse every year and
it was like ERA 1.96 then 1.97 then 1.98.
That's Tyler Reddick on a four race winless streak or whatever
it is.
Kevin can't say it was good.
It went exactly as expected.
I mean, that's, that's fair.
It's just a little bit more dramatic than it usually is.
Uh, Roy had the gutter comment this week saying ban SVG from
road courses in all caps.
36 races in 2027 may zero beyond road courses.
It gives me the same vibes as the people in bass fishing who
get all hated and say, I hate live scope.
It's just cheating, ban it, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, it reminds me, apparently I had a few Facebook
comments in my in the poll this week.
Uh, that'll do it for the poll.
The O'Reilly race.
Let's be honest.
It was highlighted by Conor Zilch and Jesse Love at the end.
Yeah, there was a fine race before that, but yeah, it was
definitely the, the finish.
It was the best finish of the weekend.
I thought, I mean, I was watching.
It was like identical from, well, it wasn't even that many
years ago when we saw a one car path, the two car, different
drivers.
Yeah.
And or you could almost compare it to a couple of years ago,
the Arco race, which was roles reversed.
It was Zilch out front with damage, trying to nurse it to the
finish and love making a pass in turn seven on the file.
It was different.
Zilch didn't miss the corner.
Love kind of had to push him up off the bottom a bit, but it
was crazy.
How many times in recent years we have seen a very similar
last lap turn seven pass for the win at Walken's Glen.
But yeah, this, this is the latest chapter in the rivalry
between best buddies, Jesse Love and Conor Zilch.
It's a, yeah, I talked to Conor yesterday and you know, it
sounds like they're cool with that.
They're already like making jokes with each other.
But like they've kind of moved on.
It's, you know, it's what it is on the next race, but it is
like, I sit here and wonder, I don't know that in's announced
the depths of their relationship obviously, but I think it would
be hard if Jared, if you and I were, you know, in a, in a
multi-million dollar sport with high stakes and we were racing
each other really hard every single week and you'd taken
things from me.
You'd crushed my dreams a couple of times and I'd crushed
your dreams a couple of times.
Like at some point, would it get a little harder for us to
just go out and get a beer afterward?
At some point, would there, would, would, is there a world
where that competition would come between us on a personal
level?
Like I don't, how much longer can Connor and Jesse keep up
this friendship?
I hope they can.
I hope, you know, blood is thicker than water.
Well, they're not related.
So that's not an accurate comparison.
But like, it's just, I think that dynamic is so fascinating
because I just don't know like if they're racing and be
competing on Sundays in a few years, like how, that's just
crazy, man.
That seems like always the two of them.
I feel like it bugged me at times, but the thing is, it's
like, I think Connor has gotten more races from Jesse.
Jesse got a championship from Connor.
And how it's evened out.
Yeah.
I feel like that's where like, you definitely need some kind
of like sports psychologist or some mentor in your corner
telling you like, you need to compartmentalize.
Like this is here in this box.
This is here in this box and they, it is oil and water.
They do not mix.
Put it aside and it sounds like that's the way they did.
I got to say Jesse love, I know he was damn near tears because
it probably does bug him at least in the moment that Connor
seems to get the best of them a lot.
There's nothing to be ashamed about that finish.
Like, sure.
He choked it away over driving it, maybe not wanting to get
bumped direct.
I know Connor said he wouldn't hit him.
Press X for doubt.
But I'm just going to say, apparently he saved so much fuel,
ran a great pace at the end to the point that Connor made a
mistake that blew up the splitter underneath his car and he
still somehow caught up.
But his teammate, Austin Hill, saving the same amount of
fuel behind them, not racing for the win, ran out of gas on
the last lap and he didn't.
I think he is genuinely underrated by a lot of this fan base
and he has nothing to be ashamed about finishing second in
this race.
I mean, I think there is shame in blowing the last corner.
I won't go at that quite as far.
I would say, though, the way he handled it after the race showed
some emotion, proves he cares.
He's not a robot that's endearing to fans.
I think it's endearing to, you know, prospective owners as
well.
You see a guy that cares this much.
I thought all the statements, all the comments I heard, read,
watched from him after the race.
It was the same thing I said after the Raja dispute a few weeks
ago where he pulled Raja aside, got him away from Danny Stockman
who was about to go ballistic and seemed like Jesse Love has a
really good head on his shoulders.
I think a really strong perspective.
He's extremely self aware and I think he has enough self
confidence.
He may have some doubts sometimes, sometimes he's lost to
Connor and others, but I think he has enough self confidence
to overcome that.
I think we talked last year about, hey, Connor Zillich is 1819.
He's clearly talented.
Is it too soon to put him in the Cup Series?
And I think all three of us at a certain point were like,
well, I think he's got the mental toughness to withstand the
highs and lows of Cup.
I think Jesse Love is there as well.
There are other drivers who like, I'm not like Ty Gibbs.
I still don't know that Ty Gibbs is mentally tough enough to
handle the highs and lows of Cup.
But I think Jesse Love now I'm convinced that he has the
mindset, the approach to be a successful Cup Series driver.
The talent, I think he's very talented.
That was a mistake.
I mean, he did great up until that moment, but that was a big
mistake at the end that he's going to learn from.
And he'll try not to make that mistake in the future.
I think he's talented, but I think really what Saturday showed me
once again is that he has the right, he's in the right mental
space to go do big things one day.
So yeah, there's a lot of rumblings that he could get a Cup
seat as soon as next year.
If he does, I think he's ready.
I think he's ready for it.
We'll see.
We'll see what he can do.
A few other notes to Brent Cruz, I thought was pretty impressive
during this race.
And then Sheldon Creed, of course, went flying higher.
We had to make, we had to make the Creed jokes.
I mean, we all had to points wise.
We got the cut line down on the bottom, or at least, you know,
the eight or so that are within a race of it.
I was looking at this.
Justin Allgaier is plus 335 on the cut line, which means at this
time he is four and a half races worth of points, max points
that you could make up on someone over the chase cut line.
Holy hell, it's insane.
But Brent Cruz jumps up into the chase now.
Plus 20 over William Swalich, who is out.
Raja now up to 14th.
I feel like the battle right now for the last chase spots,
it's pretty much 11th through 15th.
Brent Cruz is plus 20.
I have a feeling he's going to drive away from this battle
pretty quickly.
Sam Mayer plus 17 over Swalich.
21 back to Raja and 29 to Ryan Sieg, who's kind of the underdog
this year in this battle.
Yeah, I think 15th is kind of the cutout because like, you know,
I love Brandon Poole, but he's a distant 16th.
I doubt he's going to break into that top 15.
You know, he can get to 15th if all goes well, but I think he's
going to have a hard time pointing his way in.
And then everyone behind him, Jeb Burton, Dean Thompson, Jeremy
Klein, like, you know, they're not, they're not making the chase.
But I would, I would extend your list further up.
Like as if people watching the ticker, I agree.
I think it starts at ninth.
I think it starts with Parker Retzloff.
I'd consider him a bubble driver, partially because he's one of
the younger guys, more unproven.
I think that team really is the most unproven.
Viking Motorsports has never made the chase to my knowledge.
They've only been around like three years, but did they make it?
They did not make it with DiBenedetto.
No, so, you know, I would look at Retzloff as someone who,
hey, he's been really solid to start this year.
Is that sustainable?
We'll see.
Taylor Gray.
I think at this point, I can't wait for Retzloff to fall off.
He doesn't.
Yeah.
I think, I think he'll make it.
He's 60-something points of the good, I believe.
I think he will make it, but I'd say I'd still 58.
58 to the good.
I'd just say he's, he's in that like conversation of guys who you
just don't know just yet.
We're 13 races in, which means we only have 11 to go.
So the O'Reilly chase.
And I mean, it's pretty good sample size.
He's put up so far.
I mean, looking, looking at the numbers too, it's just an all
guys, just on another level this year, man, three wins, nine
top.
It should be.
He's the veteran at this point.
I feel like we had the system a while back.
He's still based in similar place.
I'm just like outside of Sheldon greed.
It's like everyone has five or less top fives.
And then there's Justin with 99 out of 13 races.
And even though Sheldon Creed rightfully should be the second
one, because how long has he now been in this series?
You've got two veterans of this series, right?
Where they should be.
And, you know,
Love's right there too.
Brandon Jones is fourth.
And he's a veteran now this series.
Um, you know, thinking of a friend, Jones, I didn't work out
for him at junior motors forwards, but he's back of, he's back
of Joe gets racing right where I feel like he belongs and he's
doing, he's doing good.
But, you know, junior motors sports, they're, they're great
with Justin Allgaier, but man, something I just got to say,
as much as I, I love junior motors sports, man,
they got to figure out what to do funding wise to get guys
like Carson and Raja more secure to drive their equipment
on a more full time basis next year.
If this means that the, that the, uh, the all star car has to be
just the one car, um, bring back an old number like the five
they used to run, do something, you know, the nine as an all
start, they have a couple of different all star options.
Why are we booting guys that, you know, I feel like Raja could
be a chase driver, but having to dip down to Jordan Anderson
has killed his season.
Yeah.
I don't think he's Raja is going to be able to make it personally
just cause 21 back.
Well, the thing is he's going to go down, he's 21 back and then
he has to go down to the Jordan Anderson car at least a few
more times.
The margin for error.
When now Brent Cruz is up there, the level you have to get
with Cruz getting in went from here to here.
I'm just saying, I don't trust 12th or 13th at all.
Sam Mayer and William Swatch.
I do not.
They could both have three straight DNFs.
Like that's very realistic.
I won't rule out Raja.
I'm with you though.
I'd love to see Raja and Carson quap will get more full time
stuff.
I know the funding is difficult.
I will say like, you know, I think part of why, I do think
part of why Raja is not in the 88 full time, just part of the
reason is cause they need someone who's going to win races.
So they put Kyle Larson in the seat.
They put William Byron in the seat and like, you know, that 88
won 11, 10, 11 races last year.
Raja is great.
I think if he was full time, he could win a couple in that car,
but I think he still has ways to develop it.
How long did it take Connor to start winning consistently last
year?
And that's Raja having to say, bye bye.
See you in a few weeks.
You know, it's not good to keep momentum, keep consistency then.
You know, you can't, you can't start becoming a winning driver
if you're, you know, having to dip, dip in and out of him.
And we've, we've seen this historically before of drivers
who you think have deals worked out JRM and then things changed
like it happened to Kelly Byers back in 2010.
He was the guy who was supposed to replace Brad keselowski
in first race of the year.
They said, oh, actually Kelly Jr.
is going to drive this car at Daytona and then you'll hop in and
then his full, he was supposed to have a full season with him and
that went away very fast.
He ended up getting let go of my team because it wasn't going to
work out.
What is Raja?
We love Raja here.
I think Raja is a talented driver, hardworking, good guy.
But what's his, what is his path?
Cause he's not the, we, as we'll talk about a little later,
Corey Day is the Hendrick development driver who's next in line
for a cup seat.
And I don't think anything unless Raja goes on a generational run
out of nowhere.
I don't think Raja is, you know, leapfrogging him in the pecking
order anytime soon.
So it's like, you know, is Raja in the Hendrick system?
Cause I don't think Chase, William or Kyle Larson are going
anywhere anytime soon.
So like where, what is, like, what is Raja's standing with Hendrick
with junior motorsports?
Like, I just don't know.
I don't know.
But I just don't know.
For a little bit in the trucks here, we were seeing Ally on his
truck and, you know, I love he'll start thinking, Oh, is he like a,
he wanted that they're watching four to 48 at some point, but he's
not, he's not ready for that.
Maybe Spire, maybe Spire.
I mean, he drove for them lower Chevy team that's ascending.
I still think, you know, as much as like, I think he's over, you know,
I think he's over accomplished compared to what a lot of us thought
he'd do after what he kind of didn't do in the truck series.
I think he's got a long way to go before he's cup ready by any means.
Like if he went up to the cups here, say he'd get eaten alive.
Yeah.
No, I think so too.
I think I actually think Raja and trucks was by the end of his truck
tenure at Spire was pretty good.
Like I like, I've known, we've known Roger since he was still like 16
years old.
Like we've known him for seven years now or something.
And I remember when we first met him and he was just starting like
legends cars and late models, I'm like, Hey, we'll see where this kid
goes.
Maybe he'll make it one day when he got to like Arca and was running.
All right.
I remember thinking, Hey, this is cool, but maybe this is it.
I'm like, this might be it for him.
And then he got to trucks and kept getting better.
And then he got to where he was winning a race a year with Spire.
And last year, Spire wasn't that great in trucks.
They were good.
Honestly.
And he was a chase kid.
He wasn't last year.
He was like a, he got wrecked by honey cut at Martinsville or would
have been in the championship for.
Yeah.
Yes.
So like he was 13th, I think, or 14th in points heading into the chase
though.
It wasn't like your playoffs though.
He wasn't exactly.
But I would say he had a, he had a good last year.
He had a very good season in trucks.
And that's when I was like, wow, okay.
Roger's taken a leap and then junior motors.
What can he, so we'll see how the rest of this year plays out.
I just, I'm looking at his future.
And I guess you're right.
There's the Spire connection, you know, with McDowell.
Who knows how many years he'll race.
Suarez is kind of year to year.
Like, we don't know.
Maybe there is an opening at Spire in the next couple of years.
I just, I just wonder, I just wonder where, where he's really at.
What's his funding?
What's his, who believes in him?
Everyone likes him.
Everyone I hear from is like, yeah, we like Roger, but like,
who believes in him enough to give him a full time competitive seat
until you can take that next level.
That next leap.
Well, like that's my question.
I mean, speaking of Tristan McKee with Spire, he's,
that's their kid and develop in the wings.
So yeah, even then, I don't know if he's top dog at Spire.
Like, thank you.
Yeah.
Bracing fabric about Tristan.
I think that we can lead into talking about the truck race real quick
before we sort of run this baby out.
Hey, in itself just got me.
Billy Hill vineyards.
Uh, Caden honey cut finally gets a W gets to crack open a beer on
the front stretch.
Uh, this, I think this one's a long time coming.
We all kind of knew going in.
He's got arguably the best truck, probably the best truck out there.
Really talented driver done really well done everything, but when leading
the points, now he finally breaks through.
I feel like this is the moment the floodgates can really start to open up
because.
Oh yeah.
I think the winds will come a lot more frequent now.
Yeah.
He's just, he's, he's, he went from an underrated driver to now.
I think everybody really knows with how well he started this season.
Like this, this, this kid's for real.
Yeah.
No, yeah.
I mean, we've seen, even when he was at Nice, I feel like a couple of
years ago, you just, you'd see him showing up places you wouldn't
expect and he was doing it consistently.
And then last year having a great season, making the chase and then
switching into that Friesen truck and getting all the way to Phoenix,
being a part of the championship for like, he's just steadily getting better
and better and better.
He's not perfect by any means, but he was damn near perfect this weekend
because he won the Arca race, the, the truck race.
And then he turned around and, and won back to back late model races the
next day.
He won like four races in two or three days, like four for four.
Call him Wendy's.
I don't know.
Like this, this guy.
Yeah.
I'm with you.
I think everyone's now finally realizing, Hey, he's legit.
It could be one of those next prospects.
It seems like Toyota likes him.
So we'll see where he goes from there.
But yeah, I think, I think he'll win.
I think I, one of my predictions I think I made on this show is like four
or five wins for honey cut this year.
So yeah, got the first one a little later than I thought a few races later
than I thought, but I am agreeing with Danny.
I hope this means the floodgates are about to open.
It was definitely a sloppier race.
I think they got like 11 of the restart violations was definitely
for sure with Chastain.
And then there was the other one.
I think was it, was it Geo?
I want to say got it.
And he got up to 15th at the end there afterwards.
Yeah, that was a question.
In fact, I think they said later they actually rescinded it.
And there's a miscommunication or something.
Yeah.
Honestly, the whole weekend was kind of sloppy from, from the
officiating front, but no, I mean, it was probably, it was pretty much
what I expected.
And I think a lot of people expected from a walk-ins clen truck race.
It's just, this is the, the truck series has these races every now and
that's not as bad as it used to be, but they still, it rears its head every
now and then chase wise though, you know, again, I have it rolling down in
the bottom, you know, there's all these are, are within one race of the
cut line.
But I got to say Stuart Friesen 10th place in the chase plus one currently
over Jake Garcia, but this is after he comes off a horrific injury last
year racing this year.
Honestly.
That exactly.
Yeah.
Like I, I think we were all like, man, if he just enjoys the rest, you know,
of his, you know, his retirement rest of his life with his family, like
that's fine.
That's what you want to have.
He's not done any dirt stuff though.
This year.
Has he?
I don't know.
I haven't followed that that close.
But I mean, he's somebody who's, who's impressed me.
And I got to say Butterbean still within 10 points of that cut line Ram.
I think got three of their trucks in the top 10 in this race.
Multiple top 10s.
Justin Haley is not far out either.
I still think there's room for a queen and Haley to sneak their way up there
if they keep getting better.
Haley is just one of those prospects.
I was thinking about having a racing life.
Like what, what, what's, you know, what's, what's really happened to him at
this point?
Everyone felt like at this point in his career, he'd be more established
and cut.
Felt like he, he went back and forth between being the, the, the college guy,
the being the, uh, being the spire guy and now back as a college guy.
This is kind of a overall weird situation to him, but you would think
at this point it'd be established enough to be in a better place than this.
Well, I mean, he's at least, at least in that position that if Ram and then,
and you know, with Dodge and this goes for any of them gets to improve year
over year, gets the cup side and, and a Riley side going that at least there's
a pathway on that side of it.
But I mean, looking at the cut line, um, there is a clear drop off after
Tyler, Anchorman eight where you go like plus 60 plus 44, 47 and it's like plus
eight plus one minus one.
And then there's like, you start seeing again, like it's sort of gradual
of how far out different guys are, but who, okay.
We got 10 races until the truck chase.
Which of these ones falls out and who falls in?
Do you guys think?
Cause I think Jake Garcia could be one that gets in.
I want to say freeze in falls out, but I keep looking at Hemric too is
just struggling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I don't know.
I would, if I'm going to pick one to fall out, it's probably going to be
freezing.
I think I like Brendan Queen more than Jake Garcia.
Garcia was the guy at Texas, right?
Who cleared himself across three lanes to come to pit road.
I don't know that left a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm like, nah, I'll go, I'll go with the, the ARCA champ.
Maybe pretty far out now, but never doubt Grant and finger.
He always just kind of comes out of nowhere.
Yeah.
He's far down this year.
I don't really pay attention to what's happened to him.
Yeah.
42 out.
Yeah.
He's had some DNFs, but I mean, if you include Heim, he's 17th in
points this year and he's 42 out.
I mean, 42 is not good, but again, like I said, he's kind of got to just come
out of nowhere and just get, you know, hot out of nowhere.
So many, I mean, this year, if you look at the people who he's around,
like from 12 on back, he's the only one who has a top five this season.
That is true.
And he has had a lot of bad luck.
It's just, I feel like if there's anyone that can make a surprising jump,
it's going to be Grant and finger cause he's just known to do that.
Again, I think he could.
It's just, he's got to start getting some points now.
Like this, this stretch of races and I just, I don't know.
I don't know yet, but that'll pretty much cover the walk-ins Glenn weekend.
There's a lot of stuff to talk about from this past weekend for sure,
which I guess we can look at some super chats, super chat stage break.
I think, let's see, did we get, how many have we get before we went live?
We got a few, I think.
I don't know if Eric, if you're able to pop them on screen or not.
I think so, but I don't know if this is where you want to start.
I had the first one I see is Joshua Boston, but I don't know if this is the
earliest one.
Yeah, the first five.
It says, I wish Catherine liked the best, but it would be an absolute miracle
if she can pull off all 1100 miles given the car she will have at Charlotte.
Yeah, I don't think anyone's expecting her to get all 1100, but if she's
finishing at the finish of each one, obviously not hitting the same laps.
I think that would be a win for her.
Yeah, I'd be impressive.
We'll talk about that in a bit.
I think Joshua Boston left another one here.
Also having Chicago street course back should not be at the expense of
Jordan Bianchi as a professional leaker whistleblower for NASCAR.
He's a journalist.
Have Bianchi said anything about killing Chicago land and do this?
Just the messenger.
No, he hasn't said anything.
A host of our has.
Nor do I think, we've said for years, the Nashville situation, we think there's
a world where the fairgrounds and the super speedway could coexist.
I think those two could coexist as well.
Yeah, we'll go over that more in a bit too.
Another one from Josh.
And finally, the Fox portion of the 2026 season is averaging a low mid 60s
range on the electric e-bikes groovy cage.
This is probably the lowest rating average yet this early in a season at a D.
Damn.
Yeah, there haven't been a lot of like 100.
There haven't been a lot of like just pure bangers.
A lot of just like good to decent races anyway.
Yeah, I'd say so.
And Alex, I don't think that I'd be tired of SVG dominated road courses.
He has a cheerful attitude and a good work ethic.
I love that being rewarded like this.
I love being rewarded with his epic burnout skills afterwards.
He's low key, you know, as good as Harvick was back in the day.
Yeah.
I mean, and he's super likable too.
Thank you, Zenith, for the 19 month member chat.
Diane.
Calypso.
Fox couldn't catch the 51 crash per my command.
There we go.
That's why that's why there it is.
Rowdy eight.
This was my second time going to Walkins Glen.
Super fun track.
Might have to wait a little longer with it being moved, but nice.
Let's see.
Hey, NWP.
I appreciate your feedback every week with all of the amazing paint
schemes coming out every year.
Is it safe to say that the Coke 600 has a clips?
The Daytona 500 is a number one crown jewel.
I won't say that.
I'd say no.
Because most teams want to have their primary scheme be in the Daytona
500 and the primary sponsor wants that.
So I'd say no.
The Coke 600 isn't even the biggest race of that day, let alone
being the biggest race in NASCAR.
True.
True.
I do think like I think it takes more skill.
I think it's more impressive to win the Coke 600 than the Daytona
500.
I will say that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's get three more here.
Actual zillionaire.
Look at that profile pic, man.
Oh, that's crazy.
I was the NWP 1000 subscriber and have screenshots to prove it.
Congrats.
Cheers.
Using YouTube earnings to pay for this.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you zillionaire.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, good.
Pac-Man saying, welcome to the Glenn turn one tire pack location
of the new and improved Chris Wright talent memorial East Coast
location.
We can step to all the locations becoming a nationwide chain.
Last one.
A 50 from mofo product.
Wow.
As far as SVG versus Jeff Gordon, Jeff Gordon raced on less road
courses yearly.
And if Jeff Gordon raced four road courses a year in the road
courses a year in the nineties, he may have 15 wins.
Also, Jeff Gordon raced in an era where mechanical failures took
out the leaders.
Jeff Gordon lost at least two to three wins due to mechanical
failure.
And I think that's a, it's a good point to the argument too.
If he had more races in that time, he would, he would have one
more just cause that team was damn near unstoppable at the
time.
So it's a good argument to have.
I like it.
All right.
Do you hear that?
Can you hear it?
I think no.
I can't.
Oh, jump scare.
Oh, there it is.
Snuck up on me.
The lightning round on the NASCAR weekly podcast.
Yeah.
And like we talked about before, we hit one K on that channel.
We'll let you know probably next week what we plan to do to
celebrate.
So thank you.
Which by the way, at NWP clips also for the August NWP 400.
If you want to cosponsor the event on certain things like the
pre-race show or the restart zone or whatnot, contact us at the
weekly podcast guest at gmail.com.
Email.
And we will get you more info and get you connected with John
who, who runs it all.
So that, that we will, you know, get all figured out.
Walkins.
And by the way, we'll remind you guys through the year too.
So there's plenty of time.
Once we get the full date to you, you can know for sure.
Walkins Glen has moved back to September in the chase for 2027.
And Ricky Stenhouse is not moving anywhere.
He has signed an extension with Hayek to stay in the 47 long term.
The next week will be on Danny's channel May 20th.
It should be a lot of fun getting you ready for the Coke 600.
Talking about the all-star race.
Maybe all the guys will see.
But that'll do it for the lightning round.
And then really quick, before we jump on into the headlines,
I wanted to pop this on screen really quick.
I know Eric, you talked about it, I think in one of your recent
videos, the victory junction gears and guitars event Friday,
May 29th, heading into the Nashville super speedway weekend.
They got a car show from 10am to 3pm with Ricky Stenhouse.
Who's going to be there?
Mr. Resigned with Hayek.
And then a concert six to 9pm that night as well.
I believe Kyle Petty is going to be there.
Is Richard going to be there that day?
It says featuring Richard and Kyle Petty down there.
It says featuring their signed memorabilia.
I don't know if Richard will be there.
That's where to get you today.
Featuring Richard and Kyle Petty and then signed memorabilia.
Yeah, it sounds cool though, because they're going to have
like an old NASCAR cars like just parked out on Broadway
out in front of me.
I think starting in front of Tootsies.
I don't know how many they'll have.
Like it sounds like they'll have at least a few.
So I think that's pretty cool.
It's fun. It's always fun to see like.
I'll give Nashville credit.
The few years cup has been there now.
Like they've done a pretty good job of like adopting the race weekend,
even though the track is 40 minutes away from the city.
Like you go into the city and you often see NASCAR stuff.
It'll still never be Burnouts on Broadway.
I'm so glad I got to say that you go to the event.
Yeah, but still this is still pretty cool.
And I think it'll be say afternoon portion.
I might be down there.
Yeah.
I don't know yet if we'll bring mini burger not for that one.
We'll see.
That might be fun.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Who gets to say they met their first NASCAR driver at one year old.
Right.
That would be a video of Connor Zillich holding a baby this weekend.
I saw that.
He's not that much older than that kid.
But, but I hope to see as many of you that are in the area as possible
down there for that one.
I'm more than likely going to be there as long as schedule permits
as an AKA mini Burke and her nap schedule.
It all goes back to mini Burke.
It really does.
She runs my life right now.
But that, yeah, I can't wait to see how that all goes.
Let's jump on into the headlines guys.
Starting out here with a little bit, not
a lot of bit of reckless speculation.
This is like the lightning round continued.
We've got so many little things to touch on.
So Jordan Bianchi had two of them.
And I think there's some pretty big ones honestly with the schedule
side of things.
So we'll start with the one he talked about on the tear down on Sunday
saying that there is genuine concern in the garage area over the
future of Dover motor speedway.
I saw the speed freaks today who have a pretty good podcast and are
pretty well connected.
Talking about there is worry of Dover just being completely axed
next year, not even in an all star race.
Whether or not that happens or not, we'll see.
But what do you guys take of the fact that it's not just the fans
who are now worried and feeling like a little antsy, not a little
a lot of antsy about where Dover is.
But people in the industry and garage area.
What does SMI get out of this is my my biggest question because they've
already had to sacrifice one track and took the speedway.
Are they really going to sacrifice another track?
Yeah, I think that's a fair question.
Yeah, I just be like, yeah, how does SMI get on board with this?
I'd be surprised.
I don't know.
I mean, I did the industry knows more than I guess we do sitting here.
But like Dover, did it need two dates?
No, the crowd support, the excitement, the energy was not there
for two dates at this point.
I think a lot of tracks have had to, you know, eat a slice of humble pie.
My home track Texas Motor Speedway included.
And there was a ton of energy at Texas a couple weeks ago now that
they're down to one date.
So I think one Dover date is great.
I think losing Dover completely doesn't really make sense to me.
I still think there's a decent turnout there.
The racing's not amazing, but it's solid.
I don't know what the next speculation we'll talk about, you know,
Chicago and reshuffling there, maybe there's, I'm hopeful maybe there's
if Chicago land ends up being a one and done this year and is not back on
the schedule, I would hope Dover is the one to like slide back into maybe
they're the fourth of July race next year.
I don't know.
We'll just, we'll see about it.
Dover losing Dover completely would be very surprising to me.
I'm just trying to think like what gets even swapped out of the
All-Star race for this, because everyone talks about Bowman Gray.
And if that happens, Bowman Gray is run by NASCAR.
Whereas the All-Star race.
Well, and so what would be swapped out then?
Would it be the ISC race with Chicago land?
I mean, the Kansas deal with, I want to say they had to deal with
like the casinos to have two races.
I don't know if that's, I want to say that one might be out in 27.
So it's like, I feel like we could sacrifice two Darlington races
because the Southern 500, I feel like can be fine as their only race.
I'm going to be honest.
And I think I said this at the time, Dale Jr. cover your ears,
but North Wilkesboro was the perfect All-Star race venue.
I don't really see why it needed a point state.
If I can be completely honest.
Cause Dale pushed for it.
I mean, that's probably it over there.
I'm sure that's a big reason why also, you know, SMI did invest a lot of money into it.
Maybe they wanted to see a point,
but like, do they sell more tickets to a points race than an All-Star race?
I don't know.
They seem to sell that place out pretty well, you know, the last couple of years.
So I don't know.
I just, I think it's a little silly that that, that that being a points race
essentially pushed Dover into the All-Star slot.
Like I could, if North Wilkesboro was this weekend,
I'd at least be a little excited for it.
As it is, I have absolutely zero interest in Dover compared to most other races.
And I'm not any more excited for North Wilkesboro this summer.
The stars are going to shine bright as Derek at one PM in the afternoon.
That's like the one race I'm okay being a night race.
And they put that one as the noon central time start.
The stars will shine under the sun of Dover.
If it wasn't for the fact that they have such good funding and commitment from food city each year.
I feel like I could see Bristol sacrificing their spring race to beat the All-Star race.
Again, they've had it before, but it's been since 2020 since they held it.
They're one only time, but I don't know that people at food city would like that idea.
Nor do I think NASCAR would like calling it the NASCAR food city All-Star race.
I mean, I know that the NASCAR itself values it,
but can we stop pretending the All-Star race means anything anymore?
Like the clash has outshined it the last couple of years anyway.
I mean, a Wednesday night clash is probably going to get remembered more this year than the All-Star races.
Like make it a 37th points race.
I honestly forgot the clash was pushed three days late this year.
I've already forgotten that happened.
What a cluster that was, but you remember the race.
There's a similar conversation is being had in the world of college football.
We're debating if they even need like the end of the year like conference championship games.
Probably don't not anymore.
So same thing.
Do you need the All-Star race and Eric, I'm not much of a NBA person,
but wasn't there a similar conversation to NBA All-Star game?
I mean, I feel like every All-Star game outside of like baseballs is kind of in flux right now.
Like I'm trying to think I may be hockey.
Even NFL Pro Bowl makes no sense these days.
Nobody really cares about the Pro Bowl.
The NBA All-Star game is not nowhere near as exciting as it used to be baseball.
I still enjoy baseballs home run Derby's fun, all that.
But other than that, yeah, this does just sort of feel like it disrupts the momentum of what's been a pretty compelling season thus far.
So I don't know.
But if it I just I still just think it's absurd that they swapped over in North Wilkesboro essentially.
I don't understand why there was such a strong push to make North Wilkesboro like a hundred laps longer.
Like I don't know.
It should have stayed the All-Star race.
All-Star race became similar to the Pro Bowl.
Like at the end of after the championship, we have a we give it like two or three weeks and say,
Hey, one of these like a five-flag Speedway or for Werner or something like that.
We're going to run an All-Star race and the warm weather down here just to send you off one last time.
I just don't know what what purpose any of it serves.
Like now they're like I say like Dale Jr.
And like Elijah and them are talking on Twitter about multi-class racing for the All-Star race.
And I'm like, maybe that'd be fun for a year.
But that's the thing is we just we keep throwing shit at the wall for this thing.
And none of it sticks.
Like all that was sticking.
That's my thing is like North Wilkesboro had a vibe that was fun.
I don't know why we that felt like it was becoming a real tradition.
It's close to Charlotte.
It was promoting the 600.
What really set it apart like as the like what made it special is the All-Star race other than Wilkesboro.
It's like everything that made the All-Star race special.
NASCAR has adopted double file restarts, special paint schemes, you know, more races under the lights.
They adopted all of those things that made the All-Star race special.
The purses have went up to that.
A lot of races hit the similar points of where I went.
Let's just make it a points race.
Let's keep them in mind.
Yeah, I'm totally with you this point.
Make it a points race.
The only part that I push back there is something about my OCD hates the idea of 37 points races.
Doesn't sound wrong.
17 NFL games, you know.
Yeah.
That just hasn't I still remember.
Yeah.
But anyway, we can we can move on to Chicago.
So Jordan Bianchi had brought up this morning, basically not not many details on it yet, but that there's more positivity growing at the option and likelihood of the Chicago Street race coming back in 2027.
It's worth noting when they gave their we're not coming back next year thing, they basically said we're putting it on pause.
So we kind of all knew that this was an option.
I will say there's been nothing really talked about.
So if like they got if they've gotten far on this, good on them for keeping it a secret for so long before schedule sleuth Bianchi found it because he's the guy for that.
Yeah.
So that's I made a video is going in depth on this today.
And I think there's three options that you can have with this.
There is the Chicago Axis Chicago land, which would be a damn shame.
No bias at all there.
That's fair.
That's fair.
Yeah.
And I honestly no bias, I think it would be a shame.
But so there's there's that side of it.
There's there's the coexist side of it where they both are on the schedule and then there's like the of every other year side of it.
And I had said that I think the every other year makes the least amount of sense because you get no momentum for either event.
It's not like F1 where you have a worldwide audience watching your every other year thing.
The coexist one I think is a naive approach, but I'm willing to have that naivety proven right.
I feel like I think I might be in the minority for a lot of fans on this now.
I don't think Chicago's area can hold the more than one cup race successfully long term.
I just don't see it personally.
I tend to agree.
I don't think the straight race would keep coming back long term.
So that's why I'm more like I think it would eventually win out the Chicago land.
I think I think there's a chance they could coexist only because I think the audiences for both are quite different.
You know, like I think you're getting more just those folks in the city or people who want to travel for the street race.
Whereas the Joliet race is more, you know, folks like you, Jared, who grew up going there who maybe live in the surrounding areas,
maybe live up in Wisconsin or willing to go drive camp out for the weekend.
They are still maybe speaking to two slightly different audiences.
So I won't rule that out, that possibility out completely, but it would be tough because they're probably going to run the street race assuming it happens,
which is not finalized yet, but assuming the street race comes back, it's probably going to be in June or early July.
I think they'll try to get it off July 4th weekend.
I know the city wanted them to do that.
So I view it as replacing San Diego is the way I look at it.
I think San Diego most likely a one and done for America's 250th all that stuff.
So, you know, we know Amazon and TNT want to have street races or a big event every year.
San Diego is the big event for Amazon this year.
Next year it'll be Chicago.
That's the way I see it kind of being a one for one swap there.
So then the question is, what do you do with Chicago land?
Do you move it back to August or September?
I don't know.
Do you swap it out with Dover?
Like there's an option.
I maybe or hold on because right now how this year schedule plays out.
They do San Diego, then they do Sonoma, Chicago land.
Well, if we're going to replace, if we're going to replace San Diego with Chicago straight course, why don't we then go Sonoma being this year?
It's June 21st in San Diego.
So that weekend it's Sonoma followed up by Chicago straight course and then Chicago land.
We have back to back weekends in the Chicago area and we kind of just enjoy Chicago for a little bit, you know?
So my that's bold.
I like that before where it's in the same way to do also racing cook 600 back to back in Charlotte.
And they had a lot of Southeast tracks close.
See, I'm on the opposite end with this is I think you have, if you're going to coexist because I want, you know what knock on wood, man.
I would want to go this direction with it.
I would want to have Chicago street race the week after the 600 carry the momentum from the first prime race.
The biggest audience are going to have into what will be probably the biggest event that gives you enough time to get the track cleaned up by July 4th and not be a nuisance to the city on what I'm going to be honest is a nightmare traffic.
Week, not just weekend week in Chicago living in that area.
Anytime you'd go near there.
It was a mad house.
I wouldn't put Chicago land in the chase for the simple reason that it was not very popular for a lot of us that attended at the time.
Illinois, you hit you especially Northern Illinois.
You hit this like it's a razor thin part of the season where if you hit like September 10th to 14th, it's going to be like summer still.
If you hit closer to like September 19th, you're going to have nights getting down into the 20s.
It's going to be freezing and raining.
Nobody's happy.
So I say do it the week or two before Daytona.
So you have plenty of space and and and where I'm where I would say you could even double down on like using Chicago street race to get new fans to go to the Chicago land race.
Is that you got two to two and a half months between the races, literally have a Chicago land booth selling tickets on site.
You're like, do you like what you see?
Do you want to see more of what NASCAR is?
We got another track like 40 minutes away.
It's as far away from you as the new bear stadium will be.
So it's not like you're not going to make the drive.
All right.
And that way you build up both events.
You have them separate.
Maybe they can coexist.
Here is a proposal that I have.
If you're going to put Chicago land back into the into the chase, put it in the date that worldwide technology is right now.
That second race of the chase and you move gateway.
If you don't put Chicago street course as for July weekend, maybe maybe do a night race at that gateway.
I mean, you go to, if it's July 4th, weekend, go to the one that shoots off the biggest firework every year before the race even starts.
That would be pretty cool.
I'm going to lie.
They did.
I mean, they ran two Pocono races about a month and a half apart for a while.
So I think the idea of there being two Chicago area races isn't crazy based on Carson host of ours.
Reply that is landing, but yeah, I don't know.
I'm excited about the street race potentially coming back.
That was one of the most fun.
I mean, I went two years in a row and even the year it was a frickin flood.
That was such a fun race.
Like it was such a cool experience.
You know, I would be bummed if it cost Chicago land when Chicago land just came back, but I know you we've talked about.
We've talked about on and off the air Jarrett like the Joliet area.
There's it's warehouses.
It's a new data center.
It's like, I don't like that's it just kind of sucks.
It's in just such a rough location, Chicago land speedway.
It's just not a good location.
So if we're talking about long-term future, I'm not sure.
And I think we would all agree.
Like nobody's really sure if that track has a great long-term future, just where it's located.
There you go.
Eric said he wants to kill off Chicago land long-term.
We just say second home track of mine to get killed off for the record.
I went to the Chicago street course because I was like, Hey, if I'm going to talk about this thing and have a strong opinion, I want to experience it.
I'm going to Chicago land this year because I've never been and I know it's back and it's a big thing this year and who knows what the future holds.
I want to go see it for myself, watch a race so I can have a little more of an idea of, okay, what's the area really got?
How difficult is it to get all the way out there?
All those things.
I want to be informed.
I hope it survives.
You guys just let Alex Bowman win a third time in Chicago and we'll see what happens.
Some of the other ones kind of probably pick up pace a little on this one because we kind of doubled down on this.
But Chris Myers and Fox have doubled down on the possibility of a Monday night clash in Daytona.
I think we talked about this a few weeks ago.
It's probably going to happen at this rate.
I mean, it promotes the 500.
That part of it is good.
It's prime time.
Day after the Super Bowl.
Day after the Super Bowl.
That part's all good.
It still makes it more like a speed week, not speed weeks.
But I'll take what I can get.
At least it is a full week.
It would be a full week then, but I'm just not excited about another Daytona race until they change the cars.
That's all I can say.
Well, I would be cool with it at least being like an extension of preseason testing if you have to as well.
Plus there'll be less guys out there.
So maybe people will make moves because they won't have to fall back to.
Yeah.
What would be the format to qualify?
Don't we go back to pull winners?
What would we do?
Probably pull.
We don't need a ton of cars in the clash or the off story.
So I'd say if you really want to get back to our roots, let's just do pole sitters and former clash winners.
If you really need to add a few extra cars in there, we don't need to.
And a chase.
No, no, no, don't add the chasers.
Make it special.
Make it hard to get into.
And whatever it takes to get Danica in.
Whatever we got a loopholes, we got it.
Wasn't that the year they added Daytona 500 pole winners one year for Danica?
Yeah, they did.
And I can't say much because then they made different loopholes for Junior to get in after his 10 year all-star race deal.
So yeah, whatever gets, whatever gets.
Chase, I don't even know the criteria this year.
I don't even know the criteria.
I didn't even know the criteria for this year's all-star race.
I should say, like, because I looked at the entry list and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, Brad's locked in.
When did he win?
Kyle Bush is locked in.
All charter teams.
Yes.
No, Colman, Danica, Patrick and Jesse, who would you get the fan votes when the, when the United States military suddenly steps in for Jesse.
They still have past champions are automatically in the final stage of the all-star race, which I didn't know that was.
I don't, I've lost track of who's eligible for what at this point.
So anyway,
Do any of us really care that much?
Looking at some of the other stuff.
Corey Day could possibly be in the 48 according to Freddie Kraft.
That's a possibility.
I think we all had talked about a few weeks ago and Eric is brought up and we kind of laugh like, yeah, that may be not.
I mean, he's got a little ways to go.
And that's like, well, I guess we're going to full Kyle Larson this and just throw him off the deep end.
The only issue is Kyle, Kyle Larson, he had some cup experience the year before.
So they're going to get like spired or on a fourth car for him since Hendrick can't.
Honestly, at this point, if they put him in that, but makes Bowman get spire equipment, it might be a good thing for him at this point.
I'm seeing better stuff out of spire here lately.
I really, I don't know.
I don't think he's ready.
I like, I don't think he's, I think he's still at the point where he's trying to figure out, you know, how to ramp up and tone down the aggression.
Like, I think he's extremely raw behind the wheel of stock car still.
Very talented.
He'll get there one day.
He's not there yet.
But I also can see from Hendrick's perspective, you're like, well, hey, you know, the next gen is so different.
He's going to struggle no matter what, when we put him in there.
Why is we'll get him in there now?
Get him some reps.
Yeah, he'll struggle for a couple of years.
But, you know, even if we wait three years, he's probably still going to struggle for a couple of years.
I get that perspective as well.
You know, and also like if you're Hendrick, okay, we could re-sign Alex Bowman for a year, but then that's a lame duck season from the get go.
Everyone knows he's gone.
We're replacing with Corey Dale.
It could create a toxic environment for whoever they put in there for 2027.
If you know it's a one and done.
So I get, I get why Hendrick might just be like screw it.
Let's this kids the future.
Let's just sink or swim.
Let's see what he's got.
Let him start learning, you know, but I call me a traditionalist on this front.
I think you should spend at least, I think you need to have more than just one super speedway win in any of now.
He doesn't have any Arco wins.
He doesn't have any truck wins.
He's got one O'Reilly win and it was Talladega.
Like at least Connor Zillich, he was 18 years old when they announced he's going cup racing.
He had like 10 O'Reilly wins and like 10 Arco wins at that point.
Like at least he'd won like 20 pavement races.
He had a Rolex watch.
Corey Day's won a lot of dirt races.
That's great, but you're not jumping straight from a sprint car to a cup car at 20 years old and having any sort of success.
So I hope, I hope they know what they're doing.
I'm rooting for the kid.
If they do it this next year, I think he's, I think he's in over his head.
We'll see if he can figure it out quick on the back of my truck.
I've got, I've got three stickers in the back of my truck and three different places in the top of it.
I've got a Tennessee power T and orange text says the University of Tennessee bottom right.
I had the old Titans flame logo on there and I replaced it for the new logo.
I have a feeling that my bottom left 48 Alex Bowman decal will probably have to change next year to a new number.
What one do you think it'll be seven or 71?
I don't know.
Michael McDowell made a sound this week.
Like he has a long-term contract.
So I don't know that he's going anywhere.
Maybe it's anyone.
Maybe, maybe makes sense.
Go to wood, wood brothers even.
Yeah.
Actually, I don't.
Barry's been one more bit of reckless speculation.
So I heard about this.
No granite.
These are trusted like beat writers and former writers on the podcast purple daily that I listened to.
And this is about the NFL, but it can maybe possibly affect NASCAR.
Apparently NBC might actually lose their rights to the NFL and Sunday night football because of streaming services like Netflix and prime who have been offering billions more possibly.
What do you think this means for NASCAR?
Do you think, you know, because you got to think that time of the year, there's what maybe I think what the, what, when's the NBA start like October?
Yeah.
So around the time that NASCAR is winding down, what does NBC sports wise really have September and like outside of the NFL?
That's huge.
Now there's probably some things they have, but maybe Saturday night.
Yeah.
What do they got on Sundays?
You know, let's see.
There's no, I don't even know if they still have a hockey contract.
There's no hockey in September.
Do they have any baseball, any deal with MLB?
I know baseball shuffled some of their rights.
I think that's more like a Fox and a Turner and stuff like that.
Historically and ESPN here and there.
I don't know if they lost any of their stuff.
I know Apple TV has a random game every now and then it's kind of silly.
And I see, I see this right here.
Like I don't think NBC is losing Sunday night football.
Yeah.
I didn't think that all these streaming services were going to get Christmas games on Netflix and YouTube was going to get games.
It's just about who has money.
It doesn't get.
It's a tradition.
Don't matter because people have proven in this country, they'll still watch.
It doesn't matter where it's on.
Like they, it could be on at midnight.
And if, if I found oil in the backyard of my house and military fortune, that too.
And if I something coming to oil fortune and NWP decided we wanted to air a football game, they would let us.
They would.
Yeah.
I mean, they would.
I mean, if we, if we had billions of dollars, they'd be like, I don't care.
People will find it.
They'll find a way to watch it.
So it's going to be, you know, it's going to be interesting because I feel like the NFL is already renegotiating their current contract, let alone their next one.
And like it or not, what the big bad wolf does with the NFL affects every other little peon of a sports league that is around us.
That's right.
You folks, we're peons in this sports landscape compared to the NFL peons.
I like that was country.
I mean, you know, I have a surprising vocabulary from time to time.
One thing that was a surprise peon that sounds like way, way bad.
Well, one thing that was a surprise when it comes to news at midnight was Catherine leg is attempting the double.
What the hell?
What the hell?
Where did this come from?
I mean, if anyone was going to do it, she's the only active driver besides Lars and I guess Jimmy, I guess you could say Jimmy's active still.
She's, they're the only active drivers house of our recent.
He's there.
Yeah.
Right now.
I want Carson to wait until he's done a little more in cup.
You know what I'm saying?
Like Larson, we Larson didn't attempt it to lead one a cup championship, one, a bunch of races.
Like I want to see how smart doesn't have to win a championship try, but I don't want him to do it too soon.
You know, I want to put up the money.
Chillies would love having their brand seen in two races.
I think maybe I don't know.
I mean, if you did it this, if you did it this year, I'd be excited for him.
I'm just saying, like, I don't want to like, I don't want to jump the gun too quick.
You know, let's let's let things brew sizzle a little bit.
In the next three years, he will do it.
This is a great point though.
Elf is on both the cars.
They're getting great promotion out of this.
Yeah.
It was probably them.
Oh, sure.
Of course.
Yeah.
You can't do this without funding and they've been behind her since her NASCAR return.
I don't know what their deal was with if they had to deal with her before then.
Like, I don't know what she was racing immediately before she came to NASCAR.
But I'm excited for her.
I like, you know, we know the NASCAR car she's going to be in is going to be a 30th place car.
So I don't expect much from her in the 600, but it's cool.
She's, I think she's probably going to automatically qualify for both races because there's no bump day for Indy car.
Cup series.
They mainly get 40 entries.
So, you know, that intrigue is not going to be there like it was for Larson and for many others in the past.
But even her just doing both races, traveling between the two cities, day of like that's a huge undertaking, you know, weather permitting, of course.
So I hope she does well.
I hope she's able to complete most, if not all the miles.
That would be really special.
I was looking her Indy 500.
She's made four Indy 500 starts before her best career finishes 20 seconds.
So, you know, I hope that she can improve on that on in the 500 as well.
The real question, will she complete more laps total than Guy Larson?
Honestly, that won't be that hard.
Yeah.
Have you seen the advanced Indianapolis forecast grants 11 days out, but it's.
Oh, I don't.
Yeah.
How many laps?
How many laps did Larson complete in the Cup race two years ago?
I can't remember.
Because he wrecked out early last year.
What happened in 2024?
Again, I'm eight years ago.
He never made it.
Yeah.
He never made it.
Yeah.
That's what he didn't make.
So he's got it.
So Kyle Larson, how many?
What's it?
How many laps has he completed?
Or miles has he done?
Like 500 total?
Like 500.
Is this max?
I think he's completed the memorial day like.
He did.
I think he flew more miles than he's driven.
That's probably true.
He did all 500 at Indy and then zero at Charlotte in 24.
And then he did like most of them at Indy,
but then wrecked and then did not that many.
So he's probably the most miles he's done in a day at this point.
He's probably like a little over 500.
So I'm going to, I'm going to do math here.
You guys talk a little bit.
I'm going to do math behind the scenes.
So it's, it's a low bar to clear.
I hope, I mean, I hope she gets,
I hope she does that and more, that'd be cool.
I hope she gets as many done as possible.
I think they said, said that it was,
that she's going to be the oldest driver to attempt this.
And the first one that is not American, I believe too,
on top of being the first woman to attempt this.
So it's like, there's, there's plenty of firsts on this one.
And I would not be surprised on this one.
Cause with Larson,
you knew he was going to be in the cup race.
He didn't have to worry about it.
I would not be surprised if like Steve O'Donnell or even if Jim
France had to come down from the tower and basically like nudge
one of the teams like, Hey,
I know you want to be that 41st car to enter in just like step
off or like, Jim, you got the open exemption here.
Use it.
They're going to march right on down to car along and pick on
MBM motor sports again and say, y'all get out of here.
We'll give you 250 grand if you just pack up and go home.
Yeah.
We need this story to happen.
How big is Indianapolis?
Two and a half miles.
Yep.
All right.
Hold on.
Now let me.
I'll say, I'll say and never finish this and never did a
single lap in the 2024.
So that means in 2024, his number is 500 and so far just the
Indy 500.
He only completed 91 laps.
That's 227.5 miles.
So I'm going to be a Charlotte cup race is going to have to
really carry here, but I'm trying to get to that one right now.
Yeah.
Crash Dane said he did about 600 last year, 600 miles.
Good God, man.
Yeah.
I think, I think as long as weather permits, she should be
able to pretty easily beat that as long as weather permits and
she stays in the race.
I just, I like that after so long, like we had like Kurt Busch
do the double, but like there was that long ass dry spell.
And now there's all these drivers from both sides that want to do
it.
And you know, yeah, we saw like the, the double header with
Phoenix and stuff, but we, we don't see motor sports mix that
much other series and to see this keep, you know, swelling up
again, like host of our wants to do it.
And I'm sure there's a few Indy car drivers that'll try it at
some point because like they're, they definitely seem open to
like, I just, I'm happy that we have this as motorsport fans
because we, we didn't for a long time.
I've got the, I've got the math here. Kyle Larson last year
completed 595 miles.
And then plus, so he was supposed to do 1,100 miles between
two races each year.
Combined years, he did not even reach 1,100.
He hit 1,095, almost 1,100.
I feel so bad.
I, you know, everyone talked about that documentary that, that's
about to come out or maybe just came out.
It felt like he kept getting delayed.
I'll bet it's cause behind the scenes are like, damn, what's
the story here?
Yeah, it's like, you build all this up and like, what's the
finale? He failed twice.
It's such a microcosm of like NASCAR the last 20 years.
Every time we have an awesome story, something comes in.
It's like, you have this 800 pound gorilla come in with a
damn sludge hammer and say, not this time, baby.
It's like Netflix just announced their, their quarterback
show. They're doing it, I guess from this past season and
cam wards, one of them, but like all four quarterbacks they
chose, none of them made the playoffs.
So it's like, why, why watch this?
Cause, hey, do you think you're a failure?
We are too.
Just at a higher level.
Speaking of higher levels, let's talk about the Hall of Fame
guys.
Next week we're going to be getting our next class of the
NASCAR Hall of Fame.
So we figured we would actually come on here and go ahead and
try and give our picks for them.
So for the modern era ballot, these are the eligible nominees
Greg Biffle, Neil Bonnet, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Randy
Dorton, Ray Elder, Ernie Elliott, Kevin Harvick, Randy LeJoy
and Jack Sprague.
As for the pioneer ballot, Ray Fox, Harry Hyde, Banjoom
Matthews, Herb Nab and Larry Phillips are your options.
Danny, start us off.
Who are your picks to make the NASCAR Hall of Fame?
Like who do you think should?
All right.
Now, obviously I think my modern era one is probably, I'm
heavily biased by what happened this year, but I'm going to
have to put Greg Biffle in mine just because this has been a
big tribute for him and it just feels like the right thing to do
in my opinion.
But the one that's a lot easier to do is Kevin Harvick.
He is very clearly a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Put into a situation, nobody wanted to be put into having
to step up and take over for Dale Earnhardt when he passed
away.
For who did he's not just some guy who's not up to the
challenge.
He instantly won three weeks into his time with the team, went
on to win multiple upon multiple races was a championship
winning car owner with Kevin Harvick Incorporated, Ron
Hornaday winning him a truck series championship won many races
and owner driver in the O'Reilly series, in the truck series
accomplished a lot as a team owner and then accomplished even
more of the driver 2014 champion, 2007 Daytona 500 winner.
So much contributed to Kevin Harvick.
He is very clearly a first ballot Hall of Famer, in my
opinion, the pioneer ballot.
I got to go.
Harry Hyde on this one.
Okay.
Who you got?
As for me, Kevin Harvick's the obvious choice first ballot Hall of
Famer champion 60 wins all that good stuff.
Just think if he hadn't been in Richard Childress racing
equipment the first 12 years or so 13 years.
I mean, I was maybe a little better back then than they are
now.
He won his 500 for him.
Yeah.
But sort of Austin Dillon and you know, it's the Daytona 500
see earlier conversation.
Although Austin Dillon also in the Coke 600.
So I guess what do I know?
Harvick's the obvious choice.
So when it comes to Greg Biffle, I think the question because
Biffle has been on the ballot for a few years now and every
year I feel like we all talk about Biffle as one of those
guys who's very borderline who are like, yeah, maybe not quite
this.
He's not getting in over Jimmy or Chad.
He wasn't getting in ahead of Kenseth.
He wasn't getting in ahead of Truex or I Truex has not been on
the ballot yet, but he won't get it.
You know, like there's a lot of guys that have been retiring the
past few years where you're like, you know, he's not ahead of
those guys.
So he keeps having to wait, wait, wait, wait.
But I think we all agree he is borderline.
And so my take is if you think Greg Biffle is ever going to
reach the threshold necessary to be a Hall of Famer.
If you ever think that's going to happen, then you should probably
vote for him this year for all the reasons Danny said, you know,
that the tragedy is a champion of two series.
So let's not forget that.
Oh, I think again, I think his resume is bored.
I think for just looking at resume, not factoring in anything
else, I think he's borderline.
Like I would not have voted him in.
I even now I might.
I think you could argue Jeff Burton has a stronger resume.
Neil Bonnet is a legend himself.
I think even now, if you take away the off track stuff for Biffle,
it's very, very, very competitive, very, very close.
But I think when you factor in what happened this year, you factor
in the just the temperature of the industry.
I think this is probably the year to vote Greg Biffle in because I
think he is going to get in one year and knowing that it might as
well be this year.
So I would go Biffle and Harvick on them.
I like I like what one person in our chat to that Biffle should be
in the Hall of Fame for all of his humanitarian work too.
And that's another factor.
You mentioned the off the track, not just not just the tragedy,
but the other off the track stuff.
I think, you know, has it's definitely swaying my decision
that this is this is appropriate.
This is the year for it.
I feel like we have awards for that, you know, and we like we
have awards for off track stuff that doesn't have to do with your
career in NASCAR.
I'm not saying that it's, you know, shouldn't be commended.
I think he does have a Hall of Fame career.
Don't get me wrong.
And if he makes it in this year, he will be deserving Hall of
Famer, regardless of the circumstances.
I just, I've never been a fan of giving people awards that they
weren't really close to.
I think Jeff Glock put in that he wasn't even top five in voting
for last year.
Which surprises me because I've had him like third or fourth for
like the last three years in a row.
I have to, but it would definitely be clear as to why
he's being put in.
And I think he deserves it.
I just, I don't know.
That's just a me thing.
I've never been a fan of, of awarding people for a career
because they died.
And that would be a large part be what puts him over at the top.
And I don't know if that's necessarily honoring as much as
people might think that that's, again, I might have a different
take than everybody else on that though.
But who's your pioneer ballot?
I'd go Banjo Matthews.
I think I'd had him on there for like two or three years in a row
now.
I mean, none of us were alive for any of these guys at their
heights, at their doing their thing.
I just go off the pioneer ballot.
I will say when I went in toward the Georgia racing hall of fame
a couple of years ago and spoke to Bill Elliott and David
Sozby and folks that are very in tune with the Georgia, you know,
racing history, Ernie Elliott came up a lot.
And so when Chase brought up Ernie in one of his press
conferences recently, I thought that was kind of cool because Ernie
was a, you know, key engine builder, key part of some of Bill's
success in the 80s.
I don't think he's Hall of Fame.
I don't know that he's Hall of Fame material, but he's in the
Georgia racing hall of fame and deserves that with 100% certainty.
So a lot of cool names on this, but I go Banjo Matthews because
based on everything I've read and seen, you know, he was, I
think there was a year in the 70s, he built every single car that
won.
Like every cup winner that year, he built that car.
I think it was 78, 1978, all 30 races.
The empire he had, he had built.
I just, I'd go Banjo Matthews also has a sick name.
And so I'll roll into mine.
So I agree with obviously Kevin Harvick.
I think we're across the board Harvick.
I agree on Banjo Matthews because basically you wouldn't have
most of the field in the 70s without him.
I saw it was an estimated, it was estimated that his cars won
262 of 362 races in between 74 and 84.
He built an estimated half of the cars that were fielded in the
1970s.
Like that's just unmatched and that kind of contribution to the
sport.
I mean, you literally can say NASCAR would not be the same if
not for him.
And I think that is Hall of Fame right there.
I'm going to put Randy Dorton, the engine builder from Hendrick
Motorsports.
And I've been pounding the table for him.
I think for, for basically as long as, as he's been eligible.
I know he talked about this, but I mean championship winning
three times in trucks and cup.
Once in O'Reilly, won three Daytona 500, 66 hundreds,
which for engine builder, 66 hundreds.
I mean, just think about that.
Four brick yards, seven Southern 500s, one with engines built
by him, 136 wins before his, his passing in 2004.
I think that like we talked about with Banjo Matthews, I think
a lot of those people behind the scenes get overlooked too often
for their contributions.
I think he's one of them.
Hendrick Motorsports would not be Hendrick Motorsports without
Randy Dorton.
Yeah.
So.
Strong take.
I like that you went different.
I like that you went very good.
No mention for Jeff Burton.
No, Jeff Burton was the guy I was borderline on just cause he's
got, you know, I can say the borderline O'Reilly wins.
I think his TV work and stuff beyond, you know, he's the head
of the driver advisory council.
Like I would have considered Burton the mayor, but yeah,
we'll see what happens.
Let me ask you all this random question.
Do you, when you think of Jeff Burton, do you, do you think
more from his Roush time or his RCR time?
I mean, I didn't watch for his Roush time.
So I'll say RCR, but he had more success at Roush.
I feel like he was very front loaded on Roush at success.
He did win some races at RCR, but I will say this, my favorite
Jeff Burton paint scheme.
I'm actually about to tweet a picture of it just cause I feel
like it's such a underrated, underrated car.
We saw this sponsor with a few different teams, few different
drivers, but man, what's a rolled out and like, I can't remember
if they were there in 09, but in 2010, I know they had that
caterpillar car with the exposed like bulldozer treads on it.
Like that was such a very cool paint scheme.
I have the, the Exide one over here and I can't grab it.
It's across the room, but I feel like had Biffle's tragedy
not happened, Jeff Burton, I think would be the one that would
get in with Kevin Harvick.
Is he third last year?
Something like he was up there.
If he's there next year, I think it's a lot easier unless
another name comes in.
I'm not expecting.
Yeah.
Who would be, who would be eligible next year would be, would
Truex be eligible?
Truex might be.
I do think it's a little quick how fast people become eligible.
I think it should be like five years.
Three seems a little fast.
And even then like Truex is one of those, I'm probably going to
be skeptical because much as I say, Jeff Burton was front loaded.
Well, he was kind of back loaded.
You know, the success came at the end.
But Truex won a championship and I would argue Truex's season
could be argued as one of the greatest, if not like top five
greatest seasons.
Truex's season that he won his championship is the only season
I look back on like in the modern era that would have won a
championship in every single system NASCAR ever ran.
That is unparalleled.
I mean, he would, I looked back and granted, I know they would
have graced differently.
So, you know, you take that with the grain of salt that is taken,
but had they run the original chase, he would have clinched
a week early.
Like that, that is no one has ever done that.
If you look back at those last 10 races that season, I think it's
literally that's like 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 5th, 3rd.
Like he was just unleashed a machine down the stretch.
Yeah, he's, that championship season just puts him over the edge
in a lot of ways for me.
All right, so we looked back.
Let's look forward.
Let's go to our prediction segment, guys.
Let's have a little fun.
Yeah.
Where's the graphic?
There's the graphic.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I got that one somewhere.
I don't know where any of this stuff is because I added a million
different things this week, but each host will in this segment,
we still have kept in and not added in.
Two NASCAR motorsports are show related predictions and we'll keep
track of them in our accountability sessions and we'll try and keep
them concise within a few years.
So, Eric, your first, one of these ones, I'm going to change if like
the spirit of the prediction.
So you got the Connor Zillich one, right?
Two for three.
I had an SVG at the Glen.
I think you set off the record, the correct ones as well.
Nice.
The tire barrier one.
The tire barrier one.
So there were ones that were like the ones at the bottom at turn one
were moved, but nothing was like super repaired or replaced.
I don't think unless there was like a wall during the truck race.
You should have just said a wall in general because then Cody
where would have done your favor?
Yeah, I was too.
I'll take the L because I was a little too vague, I think on that
prediction.
I think I was really just trying to get at someone was going to hit
the barrier and they were going to need to like pause to like go put
it back.
And that did happen.
That big one out after the care.
So far what you were thinking of.
I was thinking of turn one because I was thinking like a restart.
I was thinking basically exactly what happened with the trucks,
but I didn't really word it very well.
And I think in hindsight that was kind of a layup that someone was
going to hit those things.
There's some point this weekend.
So I'll take the, I think that that's fine for me.
Nothing though.
I think a few might come off the board this week.
Danny said SVG would lead the most laps and all three walk-ins
Glenn races.
The truck race.
Did he even lead a lap in that one?
He did not.
Brad Kosolowski getting a top 10 at Watkins Glen.
He did not as well.
So for this year, Eric leads at 60.87.
I'm at 52 flat.
Danny at 29.17 all time.
I'm at 38.32 still Eric at 35.11.
So up into the 35s now and Danny at 31.98.
All right.
So Eric kick us off.
What's your first prediction?
I'll start with a road course prediction since we just wrapped up there.
Michael McDowell finished fifth at Kota.
Second at Watkins Glen.
We've got two more road courses coming up next month.
I predict Michael McDowell will sweep.
Top fives at road courses this year.
I talked about how far had Justin Allgaier was earlier.
I'm going to double down on it.
Justin Allgaier will clinch for the O'Reilly chase by
Chicago land by the end of June.
And random driver.
I'm going to say Jarrett will reach 10 drivers.
He has stumped us on before Danny and or Eric reach 50.
Correct.
Right.
I have no idea which ones I set up,
but I actually set them all up before the season just so that I wouldn't be
biased into changing any for predictions like this.
Right now where Eric and I are,
we're about a decent way away.
I'm like 41, Eric's 39.
So we're getting close to 50, but Jarrett's at eight.
So that means he's going to get there.
He's going to stump us at least two more times before one of us will hit 50.
I hope I do.
Eric, what do you got?
Oh, me again.
Yes.
I think the fan vote winner this week will score a top 15 in the All-Star race.
Alex Bowman, Alex Bowman, please come on.
I mean, because I'm kind of, I'm still kind of confused by the way they race in.
He might even race his way in.
I'm very confused by how this all works again.
Oh, that's true.
That's true.
He could just race his way in.
Okay.
Connor Zillich.
Let's just, I just hope it's not Noah Gregson.
If it's Noah again, he is not scoring a top 15 and I am screwed.
All right.
I'm going to make this one and it's going to be very specific.
Even if we have the same track, the 2027 All-Star race will not be 350 laps.
We can come back to Dover and have it scheduled at 350.
We could have it rained out in the middle.
We could have it go to overtime.
We could have a whole new track altogether.
I'm going to say it's not going to be 350 laps next year.
I think that's a reasonable prediction, especially now.
We know Dover's future is weird and Chicago's weird and schedule is weird and
Watch it.
Everything's weird.
350 laps at Bowman Gray.
Yeah, I guess you never know.
Caution laps don't count.
Danny, what you got?
This weekend, Friday for Sunday, I'm fishing in the big bass tour.
I'm like Chickamauga and I'm going to say that I will catch at least one bass,
five plus pounds in the big bass tour this weekend.
Damn, son.
Me and Claudia both caught one over five last year and I think I can do it again.
I hope you do honestly.
Give us the picture and let us pop it on screen and everything.
And you can track the tournament results live on the big bass tours website.
Careful how you type that.
BigBass.com or whatever it is.
Just be careful how you type that.
Yes.
It's bigbasstour.com and they will have the live leaderboard every day, Friday for you Sunday.
So hopefully you see me pop up.
They always show the top that they wait.
They pay they pay the top 10 heaviest per hour.
So if you see my name pop up in the top 10s per hour, then that's a good thing.
But hopefully it's hopefully says something starts with five for me to get a prediction right.
Damn, this way as much my kid did when she was born.
All right.
Well, I like these.
These would be some fun ones to follow this week.
Mine were all show related like host related this week.
I like those ones though.
We don't have as many of them.
So they're, they're fun when they pop up.
But what else was really fun when it pops up is random driver of the week.
So I'm going to have to have you guys hide the chat so much fun when it pops up.
All right.
Bye chat.
I'll see you in a minute.
I can see the chat release.
So that's nice.
All right.
So in the last five, actually a while ago, Eric had one of them with David Star.
He's been on a bit of a drive spell.
Danny has three of the last four with Dave Marcus, David Rudiment and Brian Scott.
And I got you all in buddy Errington.
All right.
Danny leads 41 39 over Eric.
I have stumped them eight times in like what?
What are we on?
Like two and a half, three years now.
It's been a long ass time.
All right.
This random driver is as old as NASCAR.
Well, we're not in there to stump us then.
Yep.
Okay.
This random, the same age born in like 78 or 58, 48.
Yes.
I think you get your numbers mixed up on there.
They are 70 or 80 something.
I like how the chats all, all these like, Oh, it's going to be the C.
Cascarola.
And I'm like, I certainly hope that Benjamin Buttonham.
I'm going to try to guess what I'm the first on the first clue because I never did it.
Is it Darryl Waltrip?
Darryl Waltrip.
Good guess.
Good guess.
This random driver is from Jackson, Mississippi.
We got married.
I figured Eric does that all the time.
I might as well try that.
It's a good shot.
No, that was a good, good shot.
Let's see.
This random driver made six O'Reilly starts.
Okay.
And 402 cup starts.
All right.
We have a shot at this one boys.
This random driver is a six time US carding champion.
Okay.
So like actual go carts, not, not cart.
This random driver in 1978 beat Ayrton Senna for a carding championship.
It's pretty cool.
Like looking at the chat.
Ah, chat's got it.
Damn, chat's got it.
Okay.
Good for y'all chat.
Sorry, we're sticking.
Yeah, we're not.
Yeah.
Actually in 2006, the International Cart Federation established an achievement of excellence award
for this random driver.
Like an honor.
Jackson, Mississippi.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
Jackson.
Jackson, Jackson.
This random driver was in the same rookie class as Jody Ridley and Kyle Petty.
That's incredible.
I'm going to tell you something.
This random driver in spirit of this week raced in three all star races.
So they must have won some races probably, but not a ton.
Just random driver spent three races in the Yates number 28 car.
Three races.
That's so specific.
Oh, that should be a dead giveaway.
I love this.
This random driver has one career cup win.
Just one.
Just one.
Okay.
Maybe won the fan vote to get in that all star race a couple of times.
This random driver's only cup win was at Darlington.
How old is Regan Smith?
That's a Regan Smith beating Ayrton Senna for a championship.
This random driver also won the 1981 Daytona 500 consolation race.
Which is like basically an LCQ back then.
I forgot they even did something like that.
I have numbers and manufacturers.
So if you want to take notes, go for it.
Let's do these numbers.
All right.
14679 15, 17, 24, 28, 66, 75, and 83.
Nope, I got nothing.
Do you guys want the manufacturers to?
Sure.
I don't think it's going to help much, but yeah.
Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick.
That's not as many as I was expecting.
This random driver was sponsored by the likes of Uno, Kmart, Havelin, Motorcraft, and Cartoon Network.
Oh, the Cartoon Network, I feel like I should give it away.
The 20, wait, that was the 20.
What car number would that have been?
That should give it away, but that somehow makes it more confusing.
I'll give one that I haven't had written down as a clue before I go to a more obvious one or one.
This random driver was talked about in particular by SlapShoes in a video about being one of his favorite drivers.
Oh, Lake Speed.
Yeah, that's the one.
I got it first.
Everything I know about Lake Speed, I know from Slap's video, but literally, I forgot much of it.
The last clue was just spam.
And I was just going to go spam car.
Spam, spam, spam.
Number nine.
That should have been, yep.
We both got whose names ever.
We both got it like the same time.
Yeah, you just said it first.
So I got you squared away at 40 now.
All right.
Well, we've been pushing it off for all night now.
Let's go and actually go to Dover for the all-star race, shall we?
All right.
If we must.
If we have to.
Mike Joy will be waving the green flag for the all-star race, which is the last Fox race of the year.
Make of that what you will.
So I have it.
Let me see if I can find the, I have the photos of the format.
Oh, I don't even, I don't want to give a shit.
Let's see.
Just tell me, just show me who's out front.
I don't, I got it.
Hold on.
I got to move all this stuff out of the way and pop us over here, move that back down and then pop this sucker on screen.
There are three fricking pages for it.
They had to split the first one up into two.
The full field starts the first two segments of 75.
Oh, fuck me.
That sounds like the start of the Pacer test.
The fitness brand Pacer test will begin with 26 drivers.
Oh my God.
26 when the first segment are inverted in segment two.
The remaining drivers line up for their finish for segment two.
And then the lowest finishers behind the top 26 or 25.
I don't freaking know.
They make it to the next one.
They consist of winners from last year and this year, a fan vote winner.
Hang the banner and pass series champion and all star winners competing full time and then whatever remaining drivers are left.
They also will include any driver with a consonant in their last name.
Let's see.
God, there's some, the fact that I have to add a second page.
This is, how did we make NASCAR complicated?
He says, cool graphic.
Yeah.
And so they're qualified the day before with the pit crew challenge, I believe.
And then they have their practice.
That'll be fun to watch.
I'm looking forward to that because it's the best part of the cup weekend.
Yeah.
This is the all star race brought to you by.
That's when they were in a stadium battling each other, but.
Basically, all you need to know is the first two stages.
It's like you want to be in the top 26 to get inverted and the best average finish of the open cars get into the show.
That's what you basically need to know.
And then the final 250 or 200 laps, whatever it is, it's just straight up race at that point, more or less.
Let's add in that they will be applying resin across the entirety of the turn at the start of the weekend.
What?
At least by the time something gets around, it should be pretty well worn in.
Here's what I'm thinking.
Why more?
Here's what I'm thinking with this.
At least is the idea is because Bob said that they were doing it to rubber up the track.
My idea is when you watch a Dover race, every year, Fox TNT, it doesn't matter who has the race.
They show the side by side of the end of a run before a caution, and then they show how much the rubber got cleaned up on the track from the hot tires, picking the rubber back up and how the track is cleaned back off.
So my idea is maybe that's meant to keep the rubber down on the racetrack.
I think it's just going to lead to a shit ton of marbling, but we'll see.
I hope it works.
I feel like it's probably just going to ruin the truck and O'Reilly races.
It's just the 36 Charter teams.
There's nobody worthwhile that's new coming into this race for Cup.
Ross Chastain to be in the JRM number nine in the O'Reilly race.
As for the truck series, Brandon Jones in the TriCon one.
So Wallach in the five.
Kyle Bush in the Spire seven.
Chastain in the 45 for Nice.
Elmar Friesen in the 62.
We'll have Christopher Bell and you have Carson Hosevar in the 77 for Spire.
The truck race is the.
I feel like Chastain in it.
And that Nice trick is no longer scary anymore.
It's like, oh, Chastain in the 45.
It's the Giffel LeBron.
Exactly.
That's what I'm thinking of.
Yeah.
The truck race would be the go save 200, 200 laps, 45, 45, 110.
Did I put this in right?
Is it really at five Eastern time?
That sounds right.
I was just looking at.
Yeah, five Eastern.
That was a good idea.
And the track does not have lights still.
FS1 and Fox one with NRN having the radio coverage last winter here in 2020 was Zane Smith.
It's been a while since we've said that.
The O'Reilly race is the BetRivers 200.
Same amount of laps, same stage lengths, same everything.
4 p.m. Eastern time start on the CW and is it on MRN or PRN?
Would it be PRN?
So all star races on MRN.
This always bugs me every year.
Leave it all in one.
Anyway, Connor Zillich is the winner from last year.
And then the all star race is 350.
Mother love and laps 75, 75, 200 at 1 p.m. Eastern time, noon central on FS1 and Fox one.
Last time we have to say that for cup all year on MRN.
Christopher Bell is your winner.
Danny, what's the weather looking like?
Can that release be good?
Let's see.
We got our weekend weather report coming to us from meteorologist Jeff Bork.
Dover forecast, also our weekend is looking fantastic for Dover.
High pressure remains in control, keeping rain chances slim and bringing plenty of sunshine.
Friday will be cooler with morning lows in the upper 40s giving way to highs in the low and mid 70s.
Saturday is a tad warmer of lows in the 50s and highs in the low 80s.
Sunday will be hot for this area at this time in the year with a muggy morning in the 60s giving way to highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.
There is a slim chance of showers Saturday into Sunday, but not much will make it to the I-95 corridor, let alone east of there.
And also, since we are in the month of May, he's given me an honorable mention for ND 500 qualifying taking place this weekend.
For ND, the Midwest will be amidst an active pattern impacting the festivities for this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Rain holds off most of Thursday.
Friday does have a round of showers or storms in play while Saturday will have a meaningful round of thunderstorms move across central Indiana.
There may be significant disruptions to qualifying on Saturday unless storms can get going quicker and rapidly move east by midday Saturday.
Sunday features more dry time though.
Pick points.
Eric with 207, Danny minus six in second chat minus eight in third and I'm in the basement still minus 10.
My tanking for SVG strategy worked phenomenally.
Thank you, Shane.
Thank you, everyone.
Congratulations.
And Jared's all all roads laid right back to the basement.
Yeah.
At least it's close.
At least it's close, which means we're going to lead on in with the picks to win the truck series race.
And I'll go with the guy that won on concrete last, Christopher Bell.
All right.
It was a check out.
Who's the check?
That's right.
Check it score.
This time they've been in the lead for a while.
Yeah.
They're going cow bush.
I see a bunch of sevens.
It looks like I think there's some honey cuts.
Like trying to pay attention to both screens and I'm like, there's a good amount of honey cut sneaking in, but I think it's KFB.
I think they're leaning.
I think they're leaning Kyle Bush, but it's not.
It's pretty close.
It's like 60 40.
Yeah.
Go ahead and pull them because I just saw three honey cuts in a row.
Go ahead and pull them.
All right.
7 11.
7 or 11 boys.
Well, since mine is neater does, I'm going to get Carson Hosebar actually.
Mine is going to be whichever one the chat does not pick.
So I will have to.
Oh my God.
It's actually close, man.
Yeah.
It looked like it was pretty close in the chat.
Probably a good idea to pull.
I think it's playing more honey cut.
Yeah.
I'm going to end it in 321 and it is honey cut.
Oh, that's who I wanted.
All right.
I'll take Kyle Bush.
Alrighty.
Well, that means we head on over to the O'Reilly race.
So who wins the O'Reilly race this weekend?
I'm going to go chalk Justin Allger.
Monkey.
I'm on key.
Watch.
He doesn't win.
Jack's keys.
Who you got?
Who you got?
A lot of options, a good choices.
I'm saying seven.
What's going on?
Someone said nobody are you can just not pick you to skip pass.
They said pass.
Oh, okay.
They're going Carson Quaffle pretty unanimously, I think.
Really?
Yeah.
A lot of ones.
It was decent there.
All right.
We'll give them a couple.
All right.
I'm going to go Jesse Love.
Yeah, it's pretty big.
I'm going to go Brent Cruz.
As I'll say this, I had written down Ross Chastain,
but I just, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
So I'm going Brent Cruz.
I just remember the Gibbs cars were fastier last year.
That might be a steal.
That honestly might be a steal.
We might have gifted you one.
Brent.
I'll prefer the suck pick or we can,
honestly, we can add miss if we want.
I'm going to go Ryan Priest.
Oh.
Do tell.
Chet.
Who do we got?
They can.
Sure.
Yeah.
It's the last one of the year.
If you guys want to do Fox, go for it.
Let him do Fox.
Yeah.
All seriousness.
I'll see a lot of 22s.
Yeah.
I was going to go Logano.
I really, I really thought.
I mean, I can give them two.
Who cares?
It's a suck pick.
Go Logano.
Because that seems to be the driver I'm seeing the most.
I know, but I give them like, it's a suck pick.
Like if we wanted, we could make 34 suck picks a week.
If we wanted to.
So who do you got Danny?
From the high solo with SPG.
Good pick.
And then Eric, you said Logano.
I said Logano.
Yeah.
All right.
As for dark horses, I am going to go with.
Hugs Bowman.
It's a good pick.
I like that.
I bet you do.
I'm going along with your pick or your prediction from earlier this year.
Yeah, I did.
What, what, what I say to finish.
I think it's top five.
Hold on.
I got a, I got the entire document over here.
I'll just pull it up on mine.
I can't remember if I said 10 or five.
I think five.
You said.
Five top five.
Okay.
Are they going Bowman?
I haven't seen.
I was looking type in chat.
I'm seeing a lot of forty eights and seventy sevens, but I think more forty eights.
All right.
Who you got Danny?
Chris Buescher.
I got Kyle Busch.
Is that a couple of good runs in a row?
Kyle Busch.
And he's locked in because of he's a past champion.
And only that.
All right.
Who is going to win the all star race this year?
I'm going to go with Denny Hamlin.
Monkey.
Oh, monkey.
Yep.
That was my number one.
Yeah.
Same.
All right, chat.
Who y'all got?
I saw some nineteen.
Some still putting the elevens in there.
Nine is coming in like crazy.
I mean, to be fair, like there, you could argue he should have won last year.
If things had fell right.
Yeah, there are a lot of nines and some fives.
But I think there's a lot of nines.
I saw four in a row.
More or not.
Let's go chase Elliott.
All right.
Well, my one and my three pick both gone.
I made it middle of a number two.
Oh, it's Bowman.
Oh, he's going to do it.
Let's go.
The all star race and bye bye Dover bulldoze it down.
Isn't he in the dragon car?
He is in the dragon car.
Oh, my God.
I got to figure out how to put a dragon in the graphic this week.
How about how Bowman see bail?
Yeah, I'll take it.
So we basically got Gibbs versus Hendrick this week in our picks.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that was a lot of fun.
And remember next week before we head on into the Super Chat cool down
lap.
NWP is on.
Danny's shot.
I pointed the right way this time.
I just hit the.
Hopefully we are celebrating five pound bass cut by Danny B and Alex Bowman
all star race win.
I hope honestly, at least for the best part, I hope so.
That'd be pretty cool.
All right.
Well, let's let's roll back into the Super Chat.
We got a lot of them.
So we're going to roll them quick.
Hendrick was a complete no show Sunday.
I would tend to agree.
I think we did talk a lot about that.
Yeah.
I know they'll show up this weekend.
All of them.
Yeah.
I know it probably won't or can't happen, but I would love to see SVG attempt
the double.
I'm curious to see how his talent would translate to Indy car.
Maybe not as good as cup.
That's for sure.
Truly horrifying thought SVG and Hendrick equipment.
I mean, horrifying for him this week.
Yeah.
Actually, this week it might have been the kryptonite.
The rest of the field needed.
KB was better than SVG at Kota 25.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But magic.
It happened.
Proud to present your Fox coverage this year from Calypso.
That's that's who it was.
Clips on a mod on this channel.
I didn't think I did.
Did I give clips?
Can somebody give someone else mod status or is that like an emoji?
I don't remember giving clips a mod status.
They're playing a dangerous game here.
Let's hope it's just an emoji.
Anyway,
I mean, I think they proved overall to be readily armless.
I didn't think I did that.
Like I'll keep eyes peeled.
Comment real quick.
I want to see if you turn blue.
Dude, did somebody give Calypso mod status?
Like I'm actually,
I'm genuinely wondering this stuff now.
Speak Calypso.
I want to see you turn blue right now.
We'll find out.
I'm rid of Fox for 2026.
Ha, the that.
Oh, hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
That's what you meant to say.
Yeah.
98.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
There we go.
Fox getting distracted by a tent is like when Peter Griffin got
distracted by a plastic bag when he posed to,
when he was supposed to film Stewie.
Oh my gosh.
They are a mod.
They're blue.
Do can mods give other mods mod status or something?
Cause if that's the case, like why?
Why we'll figure that out.
I don't know.
We can trust Calypso.
I think.
Yeah.
I dreamt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Powered and or else that will change.
We're going to, we're going to fix that right now.
I stream too damn much to, no, no.
All right.
To clarify my last super chat,
I'm spending this weekend at CTMP and we'll miss the all star
race.
Look at you.
Yeah.
Damn.
I just tested it.
I'm not able to add new people as mods.
I don't know how that was done.
I don't know how it was done, but it's, it's.
She has her methods.
I like how NBC has announcers around the track for road
courses to catch all the action.
Fox is just phoning this in at this point.
I agree.
I agree.
Catherine leg doing the double means the return of the
legendary.
My leg meme.
That's the next sounder we got to get.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Fox hacking NWP behind the scenes.
We had a little glitch earlier.
I think in the first half.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We did.
It went off.
If Chicago land is replaced with Chicago streets, anger emoji.
If Dover dies like Fontana one or Fontana, I will not
forget.
Sorry.
Fontana was brutally mutilated and forgot about Bowman in
the 178988 at J.R.M.
would win five yearly and a rally.
I could say that.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Next one here.
Any driver Eric dreads doing the Monday chat with.
I mean, there are some guys like it's fun when Chase Elliott
wins, but he's a hard guy to get to come out of his shell.
So he's a challenge, but it's fun when Chase wins.
Pete fans are happy.
There's nobody I like actively drew.
I would say.
Yeah, I don't think there's anyone I actively draw.
I've been hard on Riley Herbst on this show.
So if he squeaks out a win at a super speedway or something
somewhere, that might be a little awkward.
Hopefully Gibbs wins again, because you're kind of owed one
from that one.
Yeah.
Ty's another one who's kind of hard.
He's hard to get to like really him.
He's also a hard interview.
I think anyone who's watching an interview with Ty Gibbs will
agree with that.
He's a hard interview.
Let's see.
Chris Buescher wins one.
He is modern Matt Kenseth.
I love it.
He's got a great pit crew too, like the Killer B's back in the
day.
A host of our being the second best Chevy driver and points
this consistency-based format isn't being talked about enough.
Such a step up from last year.
Sure.
Good point.
Yeah, when you factor in the rest, the Hendrick cars are kind of
iffy.
That's a great point.
Chicago Street course was garbage while I go back at Big
Ass Market and they had some pretty crazy moments.
It was not garbage.
It was okay.
Thank you, David Bell for the one.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Sheldon Creed stadium super truck throwback.
When he vaulted through the mud.
Yeah.
That's funny.
It's Sam Boney time.
I can only imagine watching SVG on road courses is what old
heads felt watching prime Michael Jordan in the 90s.
A master class.
Yeah.
Took a good person.
Live telemetry should be restricted to teammates.
I mean, I'm fine with everyone not knowing what everyone is
doing with their SMT there, but I know Bianchi put out a puff
piece on the Atlantic with or the athletic with an approved
narrative for the Glen in May, but we saw the real reason
NASCAR wants to blunt SVG's influence by confining his wins
to the first half of the season, but it's back in the chase.
I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I, I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't, don't think they care when
SVG wins his or I think they'd like him to win a chase race
that when he's in the chase, it looks like he's, you know,
competitive deserves to be there.
Anyway, did you know there's an entire ride?
The Dentime Dentay music video on YouTube with 4.7 million views.
I remember coming out, out thinking it was
AI made, but then sung by a real person.
Well, yes.
What are y'all's favorite NASCAR isms and catchphrases?
Ride the Dentay hail melon.
How bad you got it?
How bad you got it?
It was pretty good, man.
That was pretty good.
I like that.
I like the damn I'm good shirt that Earnhardt wore and that
those photos.
That's a fun.
That's a low key one I like.
I think it's too hard to beat soda cookies.
That was.
Mmm.
Soda cookies.
And the note of like AI generated songs.
Have y'all heard that Luke Bryan song that's like when kind of
memed lately?
It's like the worst song I've ever heard in my life.
Sorry, Luke Bryan fans.
I don't know what the hell.
Yeah.
Wait, I see Josh in the chat.
Literally says shout out Luke Bryan.
He's got some, I don't know.
Just fine.
We'll find it after the fact.
It's like, it's like AI generated country music.
28 years old is confirmed.
Unk now on NWP.
Yeah.
So we're, we're all there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talking about Raj on 32.
How about my boy Carson, the 91 swapping seats with Decker every
few weeks?
Who do y'all think is the next Truex, meaning very mid first
half of career and then becoming elite in the later part of
career?
Hashtag remember the Alamo.
And all I'm thinking with that is like, who, who, who is this when
it comes to success?
How long is this going to take?
No, not Brisco.
I mean, Brisco only was in cup a few years, but I feel like Brisco
now it's kind of like Truex getting in that now 19 car in this
place.
Yeah, priest.
Or even busher.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe busher.
Yeah.
If priest.
Truex had a lot of, you know, success in the early days of his
Bush career, then a little in cup and then fizzled and then got
way better later on.
Kind of similar path for busher.
Actually, yeah, that's a pretty good comparison, I think.
Someone said syndric in the chat too.
Still young.
David Bell, my second son inside joke.
Brent Cruz has no ceiling.
Looking forward to it.
Hoping everyone has a great week and weekend.
1000000
Big money on the line.
1000000 dollars.
Like that commercial with Bell.
Yeah.
Stock voice.
At first they said 1000000000
If you're not listening to it, it sounds like it says billion if
you're listening across the room.
With the rumors of Chicago land already closing back down.
I think we can all congratulate Alex, the track killer Bowman
for the upcoming Chicago land win.
He's winning Dover.
He's won a Chicago land again.
Confirmed.
And San Diego.
Talked about more best forward team so far this year.
Chance.
But at this year, Chance, maybe they become Ford's flagship
team.
If this continues, I don't know what they would unless Penske
left.
It's hard to pick Penske.
Yeah.
I don't know how that works, but I mean, they have a big campus
out there.
They've obviously won championships in the past.
So it maybe, I don't know.
They've got one of the coolest like museums.
You can go see any NASCAR campus in my opinion.
Yeah.
Eric.
Eric, how was it interviewing SVG this week?
It was actually great.
It was fun.
I was a little, I was going back to that every question.
That was when I was a little nervous about because Shane is,
I mean, he's a, I don't get thrown around a lot, but he is a
legitimately world-class race car driver and I felt pressure
not sounding like a, like a dunderhead talking to him.
I'm like, okay, I don't want to just ask him, yo, how do you
turn right better than everyone else?
Like I got to like put a little more thought and effort into
the, the clips I pull, the questions I asked.
So I put a lot of extra prep.
I think, luckily, honestly, I think, I think he partied pretty
hard.
He told me afterwards.
He partied pretty hard Sunday night.
So I don't think he was available Monday.
So fortunately we were able to push it to Tuesday, which gave
me an extra day to prep and I needed that to like get my wits
about me, but it was close.
It was, he was actually a fun conversation.
I saw the comments were all like, oh, he is so wasted or like,
he was so wasted the day before.
I didn't really, I didn't really pick up.
I'm like, he looks, I mean, he looks fine to me.
He looks a little tired.
His eyes were a little red.
Like getting slept much.
It was his voice.
You could tell that it was a little bit lower key.
Like I've partied like that before and I can, it can be like,
you know, I guess it can be a day or two later where I'm just
like, oh God, guys, I sound like shit.
He did.
I don't know.
I think he told me this on the record.
He said they shotgun.
They always like shotguns of beer with the team off the trophy
and they had to figure out how to do it because the trophy here is
like a bowling pin.
And he said that was really difficult.
That's all he said.
He didn't tell me how and give me any more details as to how
they got it done, but he did tell me off the air that they had a
challenge drinking a beer off the bowling pin.
So I don't know.
I hope, I hope he can like explain how that worked.
Let's see.
Bring NASCAR back to Road America.
I am a okay with that.
I agree.
I agree.
Hey guys, hope you're doing well.
This Sunday will be the first time me and my father are attending
a NASCAR race.
Is there anything I should know before going there?
I hope you all have a great race weekend.
Danny, are you the only one of us that's been to Dover?
I believe I am.
And I do have a blog on Danny B talks.
Check it out.
It's fresh from last year.
So you can get an idea of what the outside and inside of the campus
at Dover is like.
And I mean, overall, I enjoyed Dover.
I had a chance to actually go explore the area.
We had another blog where we went and explored New Jersey and Delaware.
We wrote a fairy to get to Delaware.
So overall, I had a really good time in my trip last year.
West Virginia, NASCAR screwed us.
So Cal fans and now the Northeast.
You know what would be really intelligent for like IndyCar to do is
if they just started doing a bunch of East Coast races to pick up where
NASCAR is leaving a bunch of motorsport fans off.
That would be really, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a few races
doing that at some point extra.
Let's see.
Is it Mel?
I think Mel.
The street race one of the best events.
The street was one of the best events I've ever been to.
I literally planned my engagement around the street race,
something I wouldn't do in Chicago land.
Being gay like wedding engagement.
That's pretty sick.
That's pretty cool.
That's what if I'm interpreting that, right?
I mean Chicago is pretty scenic.
Probably get some good photos.
Let's see.
Just let the winner of the clash get the million dollars
and make the all star race a 37th points race.
NASCAR gets to keep a big exhibition race
and donor fans aren't screwed.
I'm fine with that.
I mean, Fox has signed on for 14 races,
not 12 points races and two non-point races.
So we're bringing them.
Love Chicago, but hope they rotate cities in the future.
As a SINSEE resident, I remember they had talks with NASCAR
before San Diego got the nod.
No more Kentucky RIP.
So would love a race in my backyard again.
Yeah, I mean, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh was interested.
Denver, Seattle.
The Montreal talks got pushed back a ton too.
I'm with you.
I want them to rotate it.
Dirt clash. Come on.
They should drive Crown Vix at the all star race.
Might as well just go to Friggin Factory at that point.
I do love the idea of them wrapping those cars
to look like their cup cars.
I think that'd be kind of cool.
Numbers forward and everything.
Kyle Larson in shambles when leg actually completes the double.
Dude, Twitter is going to be a cesspool.
The moment she gets mileage ahead of Larson on that.
What was it? 595?
She's got to get over 595.
She finishes the first five.
If she finishes on the lead lap at Indy,
everyone's just going to be like, she has to hit this lap.
Just this amount of laps to beat Larson.
Dude, dude, I'm already seeing it now.
They're going to put, there's going to be somebody that makes a
graphic of Catherine leg.
And it's just says greatest driver in the world.
Indy Carson.
All she has to do is more than 595 miles this weekend.
Yeah.
Or our next weekend.
Hey, NWP NASCAR at Watkins Glen,
Arca and trucks and Dale Jr. series.
No car store.
Caden really, really did have a honey for drivers to slip and get
cut by dominance.
But clever.
O'Reilly. Oh, O'Reilly.
Zillich had no love for Jesse this time.
I think if you have another one until a little later,
so we'll get to that one.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, there it is.
I guess, Cup, I guess the flying tent was the best on TV,
according to Fox Indy car great finish.
I hope Indy car doesn't have a 2003 Dale Jarrett new Hampshire
moment like Rossi out of his stalled car under green flag.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you all see that?
Like that was wild.
I did not.
I've consumed a an embarrassing little amount of Indy car content
this weekend that I need to change that.
He was stopped on track with cars speeding past like raising
up his steering wheel and finally just got out of the car,
hopped the wall, went across pit road, all under green.
Like I saw like Twitter blowing up and rightfully so.
This was during the road course race last weekend.
Mm hmm.
Oh, jeez.
Because I was, because people were asking me about it.
I'm like, guys, I'm watching the, watching the Riaway race right now.
I can't watch like, you know, I, I, I am old school that I like to
focus on one screen if I'm able to when I watch races.
So no for, for future reference.
Cole Custer was at Indy 500 practice yesterday.
Let's let him have a go at the double.
And so his host for, he was, I think they're today.
Uh, I still want to see someone do the Phoenix double.
I would love to see that too.
That actually be pretty cool.
Mm hmm.
Uh, well, it's been a year since the king of the hill reboot premiered.
What bit surprised you the most boom?
How are getting a girlfriend?
Dale becoming the mayor of Arlen or Buck Strickland being still being alive.
I, the, the Dale joke was great because he won an election and then contested
his own election because he didn't trust the government.
I honestly think that that surprised me more was actually, uh,
Khan and his wife getting a divorce.
Yeah, I'm gonna be honest.
He won't surprise me about it.
It was good.
It was like that.
I enjoyed every second and I'm glad they, they signed on for like three more
stages and I'm glad.
Yeah.
I, it's not very often these reboots are good.
I mean, they did exactly what you should do something like this and they
aged them appropriately.
Uh, beast of metal.
I feel besides modern day slash pioneer split, they should also separate
crew and shop figures into their own category and put execs and owners
into another and put inactive 75 greatest drivers in over next decade.
Um, I think that I don't want to like over complicate it.
It's just, it's hard to get people past the driver because that's the
figurehead, the face all of it.
And I do agree with you that I do think that those, uh, different aspects
though, should be appreciated more than that.
They're just not.
That sucks.
Uh, SVG is great, but he's not better than Gordon or Stuart.
Currently SVG has four wins with Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Mexico.
Gordon and Stuart never got a chance at the roval and street courses
case close.
I don't think it's case closed.
I mean, I think it's still open book.
I think I think it's not open and shut.
People, people seem to forget that Gordon didn't have a road course
win from 2007 until his retirement.
True.
Um, hell, it's last super speedway run.
When was 2007?
A Carson host of our does the double in dimmy.
Indy Medente.
God, that's, that's a tongue twister, man.
Endemic.
Uh, random question.
Which team or teams do you think are likely to sell their charters?
If any colleague, Rick, where racing?
Um,
I'll like, once I hang on to what they got for when the odd is ready.
And I feel like everyone keeps bringing up front row, but why would they go
through that entire lawsuit over the charters to then turn around the next
year and sell one?
Well, it's worth more money now, but I, yeah, I don't know.
I, I have no clue.
According to Brad keselowski, none are for sale.
Nobody's actively shopping them.
So I don't know.
We'll see.
I guess we'll see if he's telling the truth, if things change.
I do.
Rick, where's the weirdest situation?
One, because they're always bottom of the performance, but also like,
remember last summer, and I know maybe this was a kind of a reaction to the
lawsuit with legacy, but remember last summer when randomly it was like,
Oh, by the way, TJ pusher is taking over Rick where racing.
And then that didn't, at least I haven't heard anything.
I don't think that I don't know that that went anywhere.
So Rick wears in kind of a weird spots because they don't really have the
resources to be competitive, but I don't know.
I don't know, man.
It was started.
They want to keep one.
So yeah, I don't know.
I just hate that we're losing a pretty competitive RFK car unless
something changes for a third legacy car.
Like, yeah, really?
Oh, that sucks.
Um, let's see.
All star race of brain fog and confusion.
A little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, so it has the wrench, but I saw in the chat that it changed off.
So vote 51 for fan vote or suffer my wrath.
Thank you.
So, uh, thank you guys.
Great stream.
Zane Smith for consonant qualifier.
I like that.
I like that.
I have no way of knowing, but I like to imagine the all star race format
this year was a stealth FU to everyone by Steve Phelps on his way
out the door.
The, the all star race is a pancy of, of just great ideas.
Uh, don't forget the cop caution during the 200.
Oh Jesus.
Is that true?
That probably is.
Great.
It's by four of them.
I don't know.
The Emmy to shittest network goes to 12 for 12 Fox.
Damn.
That made a real deal.
Slightly off topic.
I've been watching David Land talk about the push to pass an Indy car lately.
Would you consider it in NASCAR or is it a band gimmick?
I don't know part of that.
Yeah.
Keep that far away from stock car racing.
Like, I just, I fixed the car.
That's what I want.
Fix the car.
Would you rather have wrote America or Chicagoland on bias of Chicagoland,
but wrote America is pretty damn awesome.
Man.
Yeah.
If they said, if they said they were going to never return to Chicagoland,
then I would want wrote America back.
Uh, let's see had a driving lesson while a while back got to talking about
racing with the guy.
And he said that he was the driving instructor for Kaz Krala.
I thought that was cool.
That is pretty cool.
That is cool.
Cool connection.
What is Kaz doing these days?
Is he a SIM like driver team?
I think he's still like, yeah, like a reserve slash SIM driver for our CR.
He might be.
I actually don't have one in trucks.
Yes.
I can't.
I can't remember the great question.
Chat will let us know.
Has he?
Someone's saying he's a SIM driver for the legacy.
I thought that was Harrison Burton.
It switches all the time.
Yeah.
That's true.
Um, all right.
Okay.
That chat clearly doesn't like pass to pass noted.
Neither does Jared.
Shut that down real quick.
Yeah.
Uh, if like finishes lead lap at Indy and within three laps of the leader in the
600, she'll have completed more mileage than both Larson's doubles combined.
Uh, you know, the other part of it too, and then grants a long race.
So she, you know, laps down count.
But if it goes into like multiple overtime, she could still get the 1100.
Oh, she could get over 1100.
Did Tony do that?
God, dude, that would be, what if by that technicality, she finishes the most
miles anyone's ever finished in the double?
It goes like into quadruple over time.
Oh, by the way, Catherine's leg is at like 1101 and we're about to go green in
three laps.
I hope she does that.
That's awesome.
Oh, that would be, that would be amazing.
All right.
I think we got one more here.
By the way, Catherine has won a NASCAR.
He won a 2017 race at Daytona at 18 years old in the 33 track.
I forgot about that one.
Damn.
That's racing.
Good pack rat.
Close this out.
Uh, saying Richard Childress will be racing at Cleats race.
I didn't know that.
Like he'll be driving it himself.
Good for him.
Somebody hold his watch, man.
Shoot.
All right.
You don't want that.
You don't want that smoke.
Yeah.
You heard how he's driven rental cars, how he drives his rental car.
All right.
Well, that'll do.
We will be live next week, May 20th, heading into Coke 600 weekend, Indy 500 weekend on
Danny's channel, covering everything from this weekend, heading into prime.
I can already hear CCR playing in the distance.
Uh, and playing over and again.
Uh, but that'll do it.
Thank you guys so much for coming out, hanging out with us.
It was a lot of fun and, uh, great show.
See you next week, guys.
Let's go.
About this episode
Road-course dominance takes center stage as the hosts debate whether SVG is “the best we've seen,” credit telemetry like SMT for repeatability, and compare his adaptability to drivers coming from F1/IndyCar. They also dig into Watkins Glen and other road-course win-rate talk, then pivot hard to broadcast/race-control gripes—missed wrecks, odd Fox coverage, and even audio glitches. Later, the show turns to schedule rumors (Dover, Chicago) and an All-Star preview, then closes with NASCAR Hall of Fame voting picks and modern-era ballot chatter.
Watkins Glen may have produced the likely winner but everything else in the NASCAR world is going haywire. We break it all down here.
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