SVG Sweep, 2027 Dodge, Chicagoland Returning, Rumors, and MORE!!! (ft. Michael Mrucz)

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Drivers!

Start your engines!

Get the floor on.

That was an absolute bulls***.

Not clear.

Awesome.

I'll tell you, I'm not making any rations.

What the f*** are you doing out here?

Before saying this great, like, f***ing idiot?

I don't care.

Let me your guy.

What the f*** is this?

Dude!

It's an American 20-line show.

Did you ever think you would see that?

Hello?

Did that just happen?

Holy cow, where'd the F go?

Oh, what's going on?

Who's my baby?

Let's go!

What is going on, everybody?

Welcome back to NWP.

It's a stacked show tonight.

We're going back to my, one of my favorite places on earth,

Chicago Land Speedway.

It's a great season to fall over.

Yeah.

And the winner this way is Danny B, Mr. Ball Buster.

We have Michael Marus joining us tonight.

Bobby Dale.

Yeah, we meet again.

He's racing.

He's racing this week.

Never forget that, man.

Eric is out for the night, so we will,

we will remember his memory, and we'll see him next week,

because I think it's on his channel.

But we're going to jump right on into Sonoma.

And more or less the SVG show for the weekend.

I'm just going to get this out of the way right now.

Yes, I know I'm a dumbass for picking Zillich instead of SVG in the O'Reilly

race.

I'm going to own it.

I admit what I'm wrong.

And it was a, it was close.

I made it because you.

I needed you to pick him because it allowed me to actually pick him

for the O'Reilly race and get a win because my cut pick,

Toleretic, he let me down bad.

Yeah.

Dookie, dookie pick.

But let's, let's jump into it.

Michael, let's start with you on this one.

SVG gets the win in a duel with Chase Briscoe.

Is it enough in your opinion for him to make the chase?

I'm just going to start off,

we're going to start off with that right away, rip the bandaid off.

Oh man, that's a tough one.

I want to see it so bad.

I think that would be so badass in his second year to go ahead and make

the chase on points.

I think it comes down to the final laps of Daytona.

I, I'm going to say that he makes it through.

I mean, he put a pretty good buffer on the cut line with that win.

He's just, he's going to have to put up and track house the Chevy's so far behind,

but it's like, it's crazy to say that he's carrying that team this year in

his second full-time season and having never driven an oval before a couple of

years ago.

It's crazy what he's been able to do this season.

Danny, what about you?

You think he makes it?

I put the pole up right now,

so that's why I went quiet for a second there.

Let's see what the chat thinks too.

I'm going to go no side note.

Were you hearing Michael?

Okay.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

You are fine.

Crystal clear on my end.

He is frozen smiling right now and he was just sound like a robot talking

the entire time.

What about the chat?

Can they hear me or do I have to unplug and plug back in?

So I keep it split screen with YouTube on just to the right of it.

It looks like it's fine on that end.

I don't know why just, just for me, just for Michael, Jared's fine,

but Michael is, is frozen like, you know what?

You know what?

This is a good thing for random driver lately.

I can't give him any hints.

Like last year.

Yeah.

If I say Bobby Dale Earnhardt, he's going to be racing in the

Arca race this week at Chicago land.

Yeah.

I got nothing positive to say.

But yeah, Danny, do you, do you think SVG makes the chase?

I'm going to go no on that one.

Yes.

Right now he's sitting 14th, 425 points and 16th is 401.

So it's only 24 points of there, but a little bit more of a gap to 17th,

which is 389 of Eric Jones.

I just don't know.

Like we've seen him slide to be in this position anyways before this.

I don't know.

I think there's too much time for him to stay right there and be competitive.

Now, hey, for all I know, SVG may pull out whatever he was doing at the Coke

600 and he might, he might go on to win another race at Chicago.

This time at Chicago land for all I know, you know, I don't trust track

house equipment at this point to do that for him.

Like looking at the races that are left, Chicago a mile and a half.

It's like Charlotte where he ran great Atlanta.

He ran great earlier this year.

North Wilkesboro.

I don't, it's like, you know, kind of a short, flatter track.

He was great at Bowman Gray for the clash.

Indy, he was solid there last year.

Like I feel like there are enough tracks where he could put up a decent enough run

where I really want to see him pull it off.

I think he can make it.

I'm just looking at Danny be gone.

He dipped.

It's just you a big.

Oh, let's go.

Well, we're, we're waiting for him.

We'll just pop it like this for a little bit.

We're just whittling it down.

Yeah.

Eric's gone.

Daddy's gone.

Welcome the new co-host.

Hey, I got a new gig.

It's the color of shirt.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

I guess that I guess I got the dress code down.

I'm going to say though, I think he probably misses and it's for the same reason.

Danny said, I personally think that he is carrying track house.

I think that if you get a decent car under him, he would be fine.

I think the problem is, as I see Danny sending sending a text on this end,

that I think just the problem is, is that one week they'll give him a top five car

for like Nashville and Charlotte.

And I think he could do it in Chicago land with how much of a tire degradation race it'll be.

And then you flip the page and at Michigan, he's running 35th all day.

Polkano too was bad.

Yeah.

And so like, I think that if there was one more road course, I'd feel really good.

Like if Watkins Glen was coming up, but I, I do think it's going to be close.

And I do think it's probably going to come down to Daytona.

I'm interested in Atlanta because he always seems to run well there,

even if he doesn't finish well, but I got to say probably the most impressive run of the day.

The probably, I would say honestly, the three most impressive runs of the day were probably from the Joe Gibbs camp though,

you know, on top of SVG bringing a car that probably should have been seventh to a win.

Chase Briscoe able to nearly beat him.

Ty Gibbs had to pass every car three or four times during this race because of the strategy.

And then Christopher Bell with the broken wrist doing the same thing and finishing top five.

What, what, what, what, what was your takeaway, I guess from Joe Gibbs doing really well that attract that some of them are good at,

but like Denny Hamlin running seventh when he got spun.

It's just, it's 2026.

I like, you can't count them out anywhere.

You thought that they, their weakest link was the road courses and then San Diego happened and all the Toyota's put out.

It's just every single week that Toyota's have something.

It seems like to me, I don't know, I could be completely wrong about this,

but it seems to me that their tires just don't fall off when everybody else's does like the tire wear does not affect them the same way they have them.

The same way they have like found something that allows their tires not to wear nearly as much as everybody else's.

And until everyone else can figure out what the heck they're doing, it's just going to continue.

And it, it doesn't really seem to matter the track at this point.

They've got everything down.

Yeah. Hamlin doesn't know how to turn right.

And he was turning right really well.

So it's just 2026.

And I was looking at like the season.

How many Toyota wins were halfway through?

We've got 123456789 10, 11 Toyota wins through the first half.

And I think Eric has a prediction on the board right now that Toyota would win 18 races this year.

I think they're going to outdo that.

Yeah.

I mean, I could see at this point, even with if Hendrick turns it on more, you know, they got 11 so far, I could still see them hitting 20.

Like they won't don't even have to be on the same clip that they're on right now to hit 20.

There's plenty of good tracks for them.

You know, and I would say I definitely agree with you that I do think Toyota has shown the ability to be really, really good on those long runs.

And we've, I think we've had a few more of them in races this year as compared to maybe years past.

That's probably one thing that's helping Denny Hamlin is definitely playing to his strengths, whether it's a road course or not.

Speaking of Denny, you know, he, he was the first one this year to actually take the points lead away from Tyro Reddick one point, but still,

I didn't even think about that.

Yeah.

Finally, we have a new points leader.

Yay.

It's another Toyota driver.

Yay.

Big change.

No, but he's restarted his computer.

I mean, at least, at least there's some sort of shuffling going on up at the top of the board.

It's just the two of them are so clear and far away from everybody else.

It'd be nice if like, I'm so concerned that they're going to bring the chase back.

You know, we're collecting points over the season and it's just going to be a blowout and NASCAR is going to be like, we had something good.

We had close points battles at Phoenix at the end of every year.

This, this is what you wanted.

Like, I can see it coming.

There, I mean, there is, I don't think it'd be cup, but there is a shot, I think, in like O'Reilly or Trump's for like that, you know, a checkered flag at Martin.

And we're crowning a champion just because of how big of a gap that one seat is.

That's why it's so important with this battle between Denny and Redick.

And I see everybody crowning Denny right now.

And don't get me wrong.

He's got the momentum really honestly fast paced for his standards at San Diego and Sonoma both.

I argue should have had a top 10 at Sonoma.

Yeah.

But these tracks coming up, it is, it is bad.

And forth, I think, and who gets the edge?

Like, yeah, I think Denny is probably the favorite for Chicagoland.

But look at who was battling Denny at the end before the last restart at Kansas, the sister track.

It was Tyler Redick and him going back and forth.

Atlanta Tyler Redick has the edge over Hamlin who sucked at race, super speedway races.

You have the shorter ovals for Denny, but they both suck at Iowa and then Daytona.

Like, I do think this could be a dog fight down the wire.

And I'm kind of again, in that, that boat.

No, granted, I'm, I'm, don't get me wrong.

I like, I do really like this chase.

I personally think it's the best constructed chase format we've had just.

Oh, me too.

Yeah.

I mean, 16th, I mean, they functionally have no shot at the championship and they should.

I kind of wish it was just the points battle the rest of the way.

Cause I, I feel like they're going to be dueling and I feel like somebody at Hendrick is going to get hot by the end of the year.

Cause they're like right on the precipice right now.

It's, it's gotta be Larson.

They've been like, when you have the Toyota's up there, he's all, he's like fourth or fifth week after week after week.

It's just, they need that little bit, that edge, that little bit of an edge and that five is going to go on a run.

And maybe it, yeah, when the chase comes around, maybe that's when it happens.

I mean, isn't that five team the old 40, 18?

It is indeed.

It really hurts that it Jimmy didn't stick around for a few more years because there was a lot of greatness right around the corner.

I mean, he was really good in that truck race.

I'd be down for him to go full time for the truck championship.

Oh my God.

It was like a religious experience when I saw him take the lead first left slanted six years.

Dude, I, when I went live after that race, cause there's so much, I mean, it's, you know, it's been so long since even just the five time championship alone, 10 years since 2016.

And which I, which I can tell from my hat and of course you'd be in a Jimmy fan.

It was a big year for both of us in sports.

I was like having to explain to people.

I'm like, no, this like, this is the Jimmy Johnson that we were talking about.

Like this is the dude we all feared.

Like just you can jump into a car has hadn't raced a truck since he raced for Randy Moss.

Yeah, I would love to see him do it full time.

Honestly, I would absolutely love because I think that they drive more similarly to the COT.

I'd love, I want to see him at Dover in an O'Reilly series car.

I just, I thought, yeah, me too.

100%.

I think that his skill set matches the lower series better than the cup car.

The cup car is just this weird freaking hybrid thing that they made in a factory somewhere really far away.

O'Reilly is old time NASCAR cup and truck series.

Please, Jimmy, if you could hear me, if you could hear me now, we need more O'Reilly and truck series races out of you.

And we want to see vintage Jimmy because you still got it.

Yeah, since Jimmy is on topic right now, I did want to ask, like, what are your thoughts on this?

I got, I got something to play for you.

The morning, Jimmy, first of all, how are you?

I'm doing great.

I'm so happy to be here.

What an incredible experience.

I was here in 23 driving, but to be here as a fan and soak it all in such a special, special weekend.

What do you remember about driving here through the night?

Most on straight.

Can't see much in the distance.

You can see the corner, you know, for the chicane that's there and the history that's behind everything that it deserves to be and like being a kid.

I felt like a kid in that moment living it.

It's just the most incredible thing.

And what did we?

He was so fucked up.

It was a little jimmy jam.

That was jimmy jam.

That was jimmy jam right there.

Do you remember like some of the stories they told on when they did that 200 wins thing for Hendrick and some of the party stories that like him and Dale Jr. had back in the day?

Vaguely.

I mostly remember the story of him riding on top of a golf cart.

Wasn't that at Chicago land?

It was before the season started in like 2006.

I think right before he went on the title run, he was riding on top of a golf cart in January fell off and broke his wrist.

See, I remember hearing about that in the infield back in the day, like different stuff that he'd do.

Yeah, they had some real good ones, but kind of kind of reown it back to the.

Let's talk about the broadcast he was on real quick.

What do you think of TNT?

Um, kind of the same as what I felt like last year.

It's like a little bit of a step down from Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime just has more freedom to do whatever the heck they want.

And I think that just gives for a better viewing experience.

But not TNT is solid.

The only thing that my biggest issue, it seems like every broadcaster has taken this up in, you know, this season.

I cannot stand the super overhead shots that they are using constantly from like the blimp or a helicopter or a drone, whatever it is.

I got like, I need a magnifying glass up to the screen.

I'm getting old.

I can't see these tiny little cars.

Like the view of when Hamlin got spun around.

That was from like, wait, they're using it all the time.

And I just miss like action camera, like, you know, regular level.

I know I'm going off on a tangent on something that doesn't have anything to do with TNT in particular, but they were doing it as well.

Fox started doing it.

Prime was doing it.

It's just, ugh.

But TNT, TNT is solid.

I can't really complain.

So I thought that they, they definitely improved.

Like I still put them fourth out of the five broadcast partners.

Like, but last year I thought I, the audio of the cars was so low last year.

And this year, like I didn't even think about it until people brought up that it was improved.

And, you know, I thought the commentary flowed a bit better.

Like I went back and watched, I think it was Atlanta.

It was the first one they did.

And I watched that and like the three, like the three in the booth just seemed like they were being reigned in.

It didn't have the same flow that prime did.

It was like this year, I thought the booth did a good enough job.

I still think the production needs a ton of work.

The pre-race audio was off.

Like it wasn't perfect by any means, but like last year I said it was closer to Fox.

This year it's like, to me it's closer to the other three.

I mean, I'll say two of the other three prime isn't another league.

And TNT has the unfortunate problem of following up arguably the best NASCAR broadcast ever put on.

Yeah.

And so it's like, it's like having the COT come after the Gen four where it's like, yeah, I mean, there's, it's pretty good.

But like, I'm looking at perfection.

Yeah.

Or close to.

But I put it in my video this past week, or I think it might have been yesterday and I had said TNT did something that Fox couldn't.

They improved.

Yeah.

Because we keep hearing all these excuses like we can't do this because we're on television compared to streaming.

And it's like, no, I mean, they improved on basic stuff.

We've been asking you to improve on Fox.

It wasn't perfect.

Nah.

I mean, I thought it was, went from last year being like, to okay to it's like, it's okay to kind of good.

Like I liked it, but definitely could improve.

I just, I found it funny after the week that we had where Mike Choi is coming out and like saying all this stuff.

And well, people didn't notice we did this or this or whatever.

And I just found it funny that that's, that's how it, when that happened.

That they were actually able to improve.

Yeah.

They actually were able to improve after we basically were told, no, we can't improve.

What do you think of TNT?

What I think of TNT.

Yeah.

This past week, what do you think of the broadcast?

I thought it was overall okay.

It just, it always feels like, it was like watered down version of Prime to me a little bit.

But I will say I did like the graphics package that they had, the little ticker over on the side.

I think the, the coloring was kind of throw me off because it looked like so many people was all red, but I'm like, maybe they're all red cars.

I really don't know what the exact coloring choice was because I looked at one point legit.

I saw like 11 straight red cars.

I'm like, they're surely they're not all red, right?

Oh, but they are.

No, they, yeah, I definitely could see that being an issue at different points.

I've always noticed nowadays it's like the cars are either red or blue.

And so like they're always mesh together a little bit with it.

But I, I thought it was better.

I thought it was, it was better than, than last year.

One of the talking points that kind of, I think got driven and overdrive this past week, though, was the attendance at Sonoma and people saying, maybe we should get rid of Sonoma, do another track or something like that.

And I wanted to get your guys's take.

So whichever one of you guys wants to go first on that one, go for it.

But I found it interesting that this is the week it's talked about.

I've not had a chance to go to Sonoma yet.

I'd like to one day, but it's just never really played out in my favorite build up, make that one that I plan for yet.

So I, if we're going to get rid of it, I'd like to at least say I could go there before we do that.

Just cause it is, it's one of those, it's walking the plan feels like the most nostalgic road courses.

Yeah, we've added so many new ones over the last however many seasons.

But if this was a kid, it was those two.

If I played an Ascar video game, that was the two road course options on there, aside from whatever fictional ones that was put in by EA sports.

But no, I'd be a little sad if it goes away, but also wouldn't be shock theater because yeah, it's, I think so many fans would prefer to go out there.

And granted, I don't think the weather was as bad this weekend as it has been.

They'd like to go when it's not as hot.

It's going to be probably hotter this weekend in Chicago land and it was at Sonoma, it sounds like, but I don't know.

I know a lot of people would love to see it wedged into the West Coast swing so that you can get that early period green Sonoma race.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

It would be sad to see it go.

I was pretty shocked at how empty some of those grad stands were.

Like I don't think I've ever seen it like that before.

I think it's like a special, specialized kind of race.

You don't really get the beating and banging there that maybe you would see at Watkins Glen or a street course or something like that.

It's more of a technical, you know, you got to play the strategy right.

Formation changes.

Yeah, you got to the tire wear is always such a big factor.

So it's like a different kind of race.

And I think it's a type of race that a lot of people will say is boring and okay, it's time to move on.

I would like to see them just like shake it up and yeah, put it at a different point on the schedule, maybe early in the year.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what its future is.

I would not want it to see.

I would not want to see it go away.

That's for sure.

Yeah, I feel like the conversation got so overblown about it all.

I know that I think on Gluck Show today, he had talked about that or maybe had a guest.

I just saw the headline of it, but the Sonoma did sell more tickets than last year.

And from people at the track, it seemed like it was normal to if not a few more, you know, in general than last year.

I know some of the grandstands are for certain purposes.

I think Peter put in the chat that like some of them are hospitality only.

I don't think it should go anywhere either.

I don't think it will just because it's an SMI track.

But I actually up until like the stage racing era actually likes Sonoma more than Watkins Glen.

Just because the strategy races always shook things up a lot.

In the COT and Gen 6 era especially, it was very much beating and banging.

I thought those two eras were a bit better than some of the Gen 4 races there, even though those are still pretty decent.

I just I feel like people are overreacting about like, you know, about the race, about the track, about its future.

Like I thought the race is actually pretty good, all things considered.

There was decent tire where people were on different strategies passing all through the day.

You didn't know we're really literally anyone was going to finish, especially with SVG actually being challenged this time.

Like I, you know, I get maybe it's not as good as the Glen, but I didn't think it was a bad race.

And honestly, I don't think it's a bad track, all things considered.

Here would be my proposal to wedge, Watkins, sorry, to wedge Sonoma into the West Coast swing.

We start off the day 200 500 and for this season it goes into Echo Park Speedway.

I would say forget Echo Park Speedway.

We go to Circuit of the Americas as the second race of the season, then Phoenix, then Las Vegas and then Sonoma.

Echo Park Speedway gets moved to the, what was it, the kind of early part of May where Watkins Glen was this year.

And Watkins Glen gets that Sonoma summer date because I know it's, it's, I just checked.

They've been having an excessive hate in Watkins Glen, but typically on average this time of year, Watkins Glen weather is going to be much more preferred than what usually would be Southern California.

I can tell you Watkins Glen, I was shivering in May and I've also been melting underneath the bleachers in August.

It is a wild climate up there in the Finger Lakes.

Yeah, I mean, I would, I will say I would also like it at some point when Sonoma is green and not just because it looks nice.

Like people would after five laps, they're like, okay, whatever, if it was the same thing.

But I like the idea of rain racing if NASCAR allowed it to be.

I had to have been rain too much.

They wouldn't, but I would, I enjoy when they put the wet weather tires on, whether they did the race in, you know, Marseille.

You know, March, April or June, or May, like if they could have wet weather tires on for a race there, I do think it'd be really fun to watch.

That would be pretty cool.

That'd be something different.

Yeah, I mean, it would be a change of pace.

I mean, remember how fun that, that New Hampshire race was a few years ago?

The Watkins Glen race when they got it back going.

And I think like McDowell went long on the wets while everybody else was starting to put the dry tires on and they're searching for puddles.

Like, I feel like that'd be a lot of fun.

But I think for now they're probably going to keep it where it's at.

I mean, I don't think Sonoma in my memory as a fan and I've, granted, only watched in so far, but I don't think it's ever been outside of June except last year.

I was looking at this, I think last week, I think it's always been in June and maybe some of the earlier races there were in May and that's it.

I mean, they're pretty comfortable with where it's at and it's usually not too terrible with it.

Let's move forward though.

Let's look at the points since we got those.

So I put the top 13 in this one.

I'm trying to get them at least so we can get everybody on.

So Denny Hamlin has 719 points to Tyler Reddick being one point back.

Then you got Ryan Blaney who's 104 back and it's pretty much the battle for third behind him.

Ty Gibbs fourth, fifth is Larson, Elliott, Busher, host of our Suarez, Belle the top 10.

So Belle moves up into the top 10.

Then Briscoe Byron and Bubble Wallace in 13th.

Which one, and I'm going to say too, because we'll talk about the battle for the lead obviously, but which one outside of that sticks out to you with, I believe, eight races to go now until the chase.

I think I've said before, but it's still Bubba to me because of the fact that he was up there literally with Reddick leading this very early on and he has just continued to slide, slide, slide down.

And he's right there by Byron who likewise has slide has slid down a lot by one point and it was sitting more about six or seven points.

We've just seen him not, not be on the same level as Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

If it weren't for the, for the races that he's had to miss, I kind of wonder where he would compare to Alex Bowman right now.

Yeah, Byron just has been like a no show compared to his teammates all season long.

I think it's kind of crazy though, considering how dominant the Toyotas have been that Bell and Briscoe are as far behind as they are 250 points apiece.

And that, that's a lot of points.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say for me, I'm actually going to point out Chase Elliott in sixth.

Now he's, I believe 17 behind Larson and he's well in the running for that third spot still with this many races left.

For me, where I look at this is when you break down kind of the stats on the season, he is the only one in that top six that's kind of broken away who doesn't have double digit top 10s.

He has eight.

He also has outside of Blaney's three top fives.

He has five top fives.

Now he has the wins.

He's shown the speed at different points, but he is the only one in that group who has scored finishes outside of the top 10 more than finishes inside the top 10 this year.

And I do think that Hendrick's going to get better.

I think Elliott will get better.

I'm just wondering if they keep the same pace of how much better they get because I agree with Michael that I think it's going to be, if it's going to be any of the guys from Hendrick getting hot at the end of the year.

It's going to be Kyle Larson more than likely.

They're already honestly way better than a lot of people are giving them credit.

But, you know, looking at where Elliott is behind these guys and the points he still would have to make up on Blaney and Ty Gibbs, who's been pretty damn good.

Yeah, that's, that's going to be tough.

I think.

Let's, let's take a moment there to talk about Ty Gibbs.

Fun fact, he's actually got more stage points than the three drivers ahead of him right there.

He's got more.

He's got 139 stage points and then he had one has 138 this season.

So yeah, he got the win at Bristol.

But I mean, he has just overall just had a phenomenal season this year.

He's had, he's had seven top fives, 11 top tens.

Really the only reason that he's so far back is that he does have four DNFs.

And if they can, if they can resolve some of that as the season, you know, heads towards the chase, you know, I think if you're in a top four, you've got it.

You've got a chance and we hit the chase.

If they can, then keep it all together.

I mean, that Ty Gibbs is definitely, definitely want to watch and Michael, if you've been here, it's like, Grandpa, could I finally be good?

Well, see, here's the thing.

Gibby and Briscoe swap teams in the off season.

That's what happened.

That's why he's suddenly so much better.

I mean, Briscoe was in the final four last year.

But I, you know, I don't, I don't expect Ty Gibbs to, to, you know, surprise everyone winning championship this year.

But I wouldn't be shocked if he is staying right there inside the top four as we progress through the chase.

Yeah.

I still think he's like a year away from being at the high, high level.

But I totally can see him, him competing and the consent consistency is there that the stage points are there.

And that's going to be the, I think a really big factor down the line.

I'll have a shot to, you know, sweep Bristol and the second one being a chase race.

Be huge for him.

That would.

And if, if he's well in it after the first two races too, I mean that, that could set the tone.

Now we go to the second page.

And we have those who are still on the bubble.

And I just put the ones within 40 points here.

Shane Van Gisburg and plus 36 priests, 13 up, 12 up is centric or contract.

As the chat likes to say over Eric Jones who fell out, bad Brad minus 25 AJ almond ninger staying in the fight minus 26.

Legano 20th, 31 out and Michael McDowell 32 out.

So which ones on this list stick out to you guys?

I feel like there's one, especially that's sticking out to a lot of people so far this year.

I think it's Eric Jones.

I mean, I, I didn't expect him to be, you know, even having a legit shot to be in the chase.

And here he is just 12 points out of it.

Yeah, Eric is pretty surprising.

I think what boggles my mind is what the hell happened to giggles, Legano.

It's supposed to be an even year.

Yeah, what, what on earth is that team doing?

They just, they don't show up most weeks.

I mean, it's the inconsistency so far that's just been mind boggling or maybe, you know, enough to rip your head.

Out if you're, if you're a Legano fan, no, no hair equals no horsepower.

I didn't even mean to, I didn't even mean that to be a Legano joke.

Damn it.

Anyway, that was honestly, that's pretty good mistake on my part.

He does have North Wilkesboro coming up Atlanta.

They've been fast at in general, the shorter flat tracks like New Hampshire too.

They've been good at.

So I don't think a season's done.

I still honestly think if anyone's going to really jump in, it's probably going to be him in that team just because he can be clutch down the stretch.

31 points.

He can make that up.

I still think he's do a win at least once this year.

I don't think he goes winless and I definitely think it could be before the chase.

But it's just they never seem to be consistent with speed.

I mean, there's been so many runs where they've been 25th to 35th on speed.

I mean, look at Darlington, especially I just look at and.

I just, I don't see anything from that team like they don't.

Since Phoenix, Phoenix, they look like, okay, typical 22 car.

There's nothing.

Yeah, I kind of agree with this guy Ford bidding time till the new body comes out.

Yeah, I mean, they're, I don't think honestly, as much as I want AJ to jump up or McDowell, like I don't think they probably will.

Unless some craziness happens.

So it's just this battle with the, the 60, the two, the six, the 22, like you have all of these fours around this line.

And outside of Blaney and Busher, who are the complete outliers, number one drivers at their teams, Ford is 15th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 26th, 30th and 31st in point.

Yikes.

To just talk, go back to Penske as a whole, you know, to his credit, yes, he's third in point.

But I mean, I would have expected Ryan Blaney to be, I don't know, contending for more wins than he really has.

I don't, I mean, he got, he got edged up by Ty Gibbs there at Bristol, but other than that, like, you know, it's just like he's, he's there and around the top five, but he's not actually, no, he's not really around the top five.

He's only got three top fives this season.

That's the crazy thing.

He's got 10, he's got 13 top 10s and only three of them are top fives.

And he's run up there.

Like I do think you're right that he has run up around there.

A lot of times it's the pit crew issues or it's the car goes away during the race.

It's just, I think we've, I think Ryan Blaney this year is the best Ryan Blaney we've seen on the track.

I think the problem is everything around him is, is not there for him.

But this weekend, I think is going to be an interesting one for the chase just cause you have a track that a lot of them don't have experience at.

It's seven years older than they last for there.

It's ripping up tires pretty bad.

I'm curious to see how big a change it makes.

Yeah, I really don't know.

I know Larson's gotten some, some good year testing time in there recently.

And, and I guess Alex Bowman did win the last race there.

Kyle Bush got her soul.

He won one before that.

But Larson finished second and both of the last two races there.

So you've got to believe he will be a favorite to win this one.

But just, you know, before we hit this, this road course spell, I mean, Hamlin was proven.

They don't matter what track he goes to.

As long as it's not a squiggly, he's got, he's going to probably win it.

So I mean, I got to believe Hamlin is going to get back to it and likely win this one as well.

Did any tests there too with Larson?

I don't remember if it did or not.

I feel like they don't know if Hamlin did.

I think that didn't they also do multiple tests though too?

I didn't think it was just one.

Either way, I, I, I could totally see this being like those, some of those Kansas races.

Oh, he did.

He did.

Oh man.

Yikes.

That could be a Larson, Hamlin, dual.

Like, oh, I'm blaming he did, which would be pretty good.

I would say for, for their chances too.

I, I could see that being a dual at the end.

I think it'll be really competitive.

Let's, we'll talk more about Chicago land in a bit.

Let's go to the TV ratings and it's a mixed bag.

It is a mixed bag for sure.

The cup side is the ugly side of the bag.

Cup got 1.8 million viewers on average.

This is down 18% year over year from Sonoma.

I know people are like, well, it was up from Atlanta that was 1.6 million last year on

the same weekend.

That race also is I believe rain delayed an hour and a half, two hours into a Sunday night.

Probably not going to help your viewership either as a first race on a cable network,

regardless, not good numbers.

And they're like, well, the world cup Canada game was against it.

It was against it for about 40 minutes.

I don't think that.

We got a code.

I don't think necessarily it was killing the entire broadcast.

I know that I think it peaked at like 2.2 or 2.3.

But I don't know.

I'm kind of getting tired of this.

Well, it was because we were against this, what we're always going to be against other

sporting events, unless it's like Daytona 500 Sunday.

And even then we are at times.

Now the O'Reilly series was against a ton of sports competition.

And yet they scored 1.145 million viewers on average peaking at 1.231 up 18% from Sonoma

last year and the most watched Sonoma O'Reilly series race ever since it was added to the

schedule like four years ago.

Like it's the top one of those ones.

And on top of that, it's a 19th straight O'Reilly race that at some point hit over 1 million

viewers.

So plenty of positives on the O'Reilly side of it, even though there are against plenty

of competition as well.

Any given Saturday.

Saturday evening, which is supposed to be a death sentence to the Cup series now.

Does it affect O'Reilly at all?

Imagine that.

It helps having good broadcasts that are readily available.

I think that's what we've learned.

You got to have really good broadcasts readily available on areas that are not

available on areas that people can get it at any point.

I think that's why CW and Prime have been so good.

But I just kind of think if you're a sponsor of a Cup team watching this and you're watching

the O'Reilly series get over half of what the Cup side gets, sometimes within, you know,

700,000 or less viewers.

Where's the ROI?

If you just say screw it, let's do the O'Reilly series that's growing and put your money into

that series.

Like I kind of think that that would be a conversation if this continues another year or two that

I think is realistic to have.

Maybe it's not.

Maybe maybe I'm out of my depths on this one.

I could be, but I think that's a real conversation that could be had.

And then the poll.

I pulled everyone.

I asked what they thought of this race.

11,000 of you all voted and 11% said it was a great race.

59% said good.

So 70% net positive, 25% average, 5% negative.

Of seven pulled Sonoma races since I started running these, this is fifth of seven.

Interestingly enough though, all of those top five are all net positive between 70 and 75%.

So Sonoma is pretty consistent on that.

And it is the least negatively voted Sonoma race ever.

26th of 40 pulled road course races.

Definitely far down from San Diego last week, which was literally the top voted road course ever on the

poll and 14th of 20 races run this year since being pulled.

So a mixed bag.

I will ask you guys positive, negative or meme.

What did the first comment get us?

What was the name?

You didn't say that did you?

Spencer.

I've been Spencer.

Just going to be, I feel like he's going to be a negative bummed out about another SVG win or something like that.

Danny is just so, so pessimistic.

I'm going to go positive.

Well, we're halfway now through the 2026 season.

You know what that means?

Whoa, a halfway there meme.

I'm not going to sing further than that because no one wants to hear that.

It's not not our chat is saying go USA just went up one.

Marica baby, Marica.

Ethan had the top comment says Connor Zillich scores a top 10.

Yeah, I wish I would have got the top five, but oh well.

Hammer down top 10.

Yeah.

Hammer down says TNT is still better than Fox by a mile, but it was still a sloppy broadcast.

Just kind of what we were talking about.

Eric Elston says everyone's brackets in shambles as Bowman beats Reddick.

Yeah, there are actually no perfect brackets left for the in season challenge.

This, I have my God, it's such a waste of time even filling one out.

It's more impossible than March Madness.

You pick a bunch of tracks where just the most outlandish crap can happen.

I don't even bother filling one out this year.

Bowman's, you know, that was good for him because he's going to go up against Austin

Cendrick and being the defending winner of this track.

I feel like I've been in the Bowman there.

I still, I still have fun with it, but I do think honestly, even without that part in with how they've been,

I still, I'll give, I'll give Bowman the edge for sure.

Imagine Bowman wins this whole thing after the season he's had.

That would be kind of, he'll be this season's Ty, Ty Dillon.

He could be this year's Ty Dillon.

Can you win the in season challenge with not having completed all the races?

I mean, he's in it.

He got a waiver.

Did he get a waiver?

I think he got a waiver.

Well, I, well, we'll ask Bob about that.

This is the only time where you can talk about round rounds of 16 rounds of eight.

I think I brought it up last year that I honestly thought the playoff format we had would have been fun if it were just a meaningless bracket challenge like this.

Like, do we know what doesn't mean anything for points or anything like that?

I don't want it to mean anything for points.

I have fun with it.

I know it doesn't mean really anything outside of the winners, but like, I, I, I like the idea.

I'm glad that TNT didn't over focus on it this year, like they did last year.

Well, we could get a game.

Let's play along with the chat right now.

I'm going to ask every single one of you, Bowman or Cedric?

Who wins this weekend?

Okay.

Gill and Hosevar.

Hosevar.

Yeah, Hosevar.

Briscoe Gibbs.

That's a tough one.

Ty Gibbs.

I'll go Briscoe.

McDowell Elliott.

Yeah, Elliott.

Hamlin Jones.

Hamlin.

Yeah, Hamlin.

I want to say Jones, but I know it's Hamlin.

Buescher Bell.

Buescher.

Bell.

After, after what he showed last week, I'll go Bell.

I got Buescher.

Byron Larson.

Larson.

And SVG versus Blaney.

Bold SVG.

I like it.

I like the bold.

Something's going to happen to Blaney.

I'm going to go Blaney on this one, but I like it.

We'll see.

Come back.

We've got to come back to this moment.

See who was right.

A few more, a few more comments here.

Caleb says, I miss prime.

I think we all do know regardless of what we thought of TNT.

Duke Chronix says green races are the best road races.

And the gutter comment was from Slothner who says,

no more road courses, please.

Too tired of SVG winning.

I mean, that's not that bad for a gutter.

No, we had way worse.

We've had way, way worse.

So I'll do it for the cup recap.

Let's talk about the O'Reilly race.

I'm going to be honest.

There's really not too awful much to put in to talking about the O'Reilly race

other than SVG whooped him.

He's just got it down.

He's got it figured out.

And I guess I could say this, you look at him right there down below.

Viking cars, fourth and fifth Alfredo and Rhett's laugh, which I believe.

That was cool.

I want to say on door bumper clear, they talked about that they actually bought

a ton of the colleague equipment.

So it might, might not be too shocking with that context they've done

decently this year, but still like that team's taken massive leaps.

Alfredo talk posted on Twitter like what a difference one week makes to

week before at San Diego, he's getting carted off by an ambulance.

And the next week he's got a top five.

You know, speaking of one week to the next, you see that Sheldon Creed knew

the fence climber at San Diego.

What?

Yeah, he said three race interviews.

Like, so like, I didn't want to get him in trouble or get us involved at the

time, but like I knew him when like he came up to the window and I'm like,

why would you say that?

Well, now he's going to be called in whenever that guy has his trial for

his federal crime.

I hope he didn't get into too much trouble.

I'm like, why did he?

Why would you say that?

Sheldon Creed is going to have to serve five days in federal prisons as an

accomplice.

But just those two and the luxury federal prison suite basically for five

days.

Do they have flip flops with them?

Looking at the points as they're going now, Justin Allgaier choking away that

points.

Oh my God.

A small 207 point lead.

That's it.

207 points over Jesse Love.

Six behind Love is Day.

Three behind him is Sheldon breaking the law creed.

Then he got Austin Hill and fifth, Quapol Smith and Jones the top eight.

That's scrum of second to fourth.

Like that's going to decide who is going to challenge Allgaier in this, I

think.

I keep saying, I feel like don't doubt Austin Hill because he's going to

have a Daytona race.

They run Atlanta again, right?

Am I wrong?

Yeah, next week.

Yeah.

So he's going to get an Atlanta race and a Daytona race before this is all

over.

And he's just, I feel like he's one of those guys that like he's

got enough experience.

Don't doubt the big bully at the end of all this.

The big bully.

That's what the Chad calls him.

That's the name he's received on here.

Feel free to utilize that in your skits.

I call Austin Hill Billy.

I mean, as long as he doesn't try to get down here, he's going to have

he doesn't try to murder anybody, you know, he could make a run.

Again. Again. Yeah. Just don't repeat last year. Just, you know, I mean, Al Maroll is not out there

this year, so he doesn't have to get into a beef with him at Indy. And who was it that he

Molly Wopt at the Glen? Well, they've already been to the Glen, so.

Yeah. So that wasn't any wrecking. Oh God, I can't remember off the top of my head. I'll be honest.

I'm just gonna go ahead and Google AI. I will tell me.

McDowell. Yeah. Looking at the cut line. We have Parker at Slap up 61. He has almost up a full race

on the cut line with and checks notes, five races to go. That's almost. Yeah. I mean, that is probably

the success story of the year so far still. 10th of Sam era plus 38 Brent Cruz plus 21. Gray is 20

over Swalich. Raja is 26 back and Ryan Sieg 15 back. So I'll pose this question. I think we can do

this honestly the rest of the O'Reilly season. Does anyone jump in or fall out? Well, they have

to fall out if someone jumps in, but who on each side jumps in or falls out if anyone does or do

they not? We've seen Brent Cruz play this game for a few weeks now where he's in and he's out. Then

he's in and he's out. We also saw Sam Meyer in a much worse position, not even that long ago. We

were wondering would he even make it. So I don't know. I feel like it'd be either one of those two.

I kind of think it stays the same. I don't see it changing. They're too inconsistent,

those beneath the cut. Yeah, I would say I do think if I don't know how many races he has in

the 88, but if Raja can be in the 88 and not get an over his head, I think he could jump in over Gray.

But two super speedways left because reading off what's left. We have Chicago land this week,

then Atlanta, Indianapolis, Iowa, Daytona. So there's still plenty of shifts that could happen.

I think if anyone is to jump in, it'd be Raja. And I still feel like Gray would be the one to

fall out or Sam Meyer just because it seems like anything that can happen to him will.

But I would say if I did have to pick, I would probably be with you and say I think the 12 in

or the 12 in. Okay. Okay. I was able to honestly, this Google AI is very good to give you a quick

summer on stuff now. And I think I was able to find the remaining 2026 regular season races for Raja

or JRM. And according to this, it's Atlanta, July 11th, Iowa, August 8th, Daytona, August 28th,

Darlington, September 5th, and Gateway, September 12th.

Those two, yeah. And those last two are in the chase. So, oh, yeah, that's a real five.

Again, it's, it's a, it's not perfect. So,

but it says he'll be in there for all of the playoff races. So,

I mean, if he's in there for all those, I think he can get a decent points finish,

all things considered, but it's just, it's whether or not he can make the chase is all.

You know, all I think about with him on that line though is what if he doesn't spin out at Dover?

That's all I'm thinking about. Yeah, Dover. I mean, how many points were lost both in that

moment and hypothetically at that point too. So, but that'll do it for the O'Reilly side of it.

Let's, let's do a few of the super chats and do a super chat stage break real quick. So,

a few of these were left beforehand and I'm not able, I think, to pop all of them on screen. So,

I'm just going to start rolling with it. Matt says it's Canada Day, sorry, but I'm picking

dinner and fireworks over us tonight. Catch you all next week. We'll always be here.

I wasn't enough for you. There's Slothnerd, who is our gutter comment. He's always pretty

chill though. He says, Jarrett, in order to keep Chicagoland on the schedule forever, you must

read all of the NASCAR romance novels. Do you do it or risk the track gone forever? I would do it

if that were the case. I unfortunately think that it's not going to be that simple. I wish it were.

I wish it were. Let's see. Jeffer King left two of them said, would JJ have won in 2021

with that five team speed? I'll defer to the Jimmy fan.

Honestly, yeah. He wouldn't have won 10 times. He would have won 15.

I'll say probably at least 11 more. That's all I need. Give me one truck series win. I don't

even care if it's in a Toyota. I mean, just take it at this point. Daytona 500. He's still making

that scare. That ain't going to be for nothing. We need to drive in the 13 car. What is that?

We need to have somebody clip this because if he wins, I'm playing it to the start of the episode

after the Daytona 500 and we're going to have Michael come on and just be like, somebody,

what was it like losing faith? I will never lose faith in my boy. It's just I'm going on history.

He says also Larson was not the only reason in 2021. The 48 and the five were, or 48, five team was fast.

Let's see. Eric here says, so hype for the weekend, making my way to Chicago land from Canada. Awesome.

Awesome. I heard, heard Zane Smith say he was hopeful to get his first win here. How do you

guys feel about Zane going to Chicago? I think he'd get top five, top 10.

Top 10? Sure. When? Cape German, buddy. Sorry. I mean, you never know what the strategy in these

races though. Like it just one thing has to go right. I mean, what if it rains? It could happen.

I hope not because we're going to be there. Well, he's me and Danny are, but like,

could definitely been one of the pleasant surprises. Like Parker Retzloff is the pleasant

surprise of O'Reilly. I think Zane is that of cup. Like just kind of unexpected and running

much better than the equipment really should allow. Yeah. I mean, I, you get him a top team. And I

think he'll be really, really good. Nothing better than O'Reilly race on the fourth of July at

Chicago land. Can't get much better praying for CJ2K and his family. Yeah. I don't know if you

guys noticed I'm repping the Chris Johnson Jersey tonight. Dude was a beast back then. I remember

watching, uh, literally the fastest running back. I think the types of ever had, and we had Derek

Henry with Eddie George. We had a lot of good running backs. I think he was the fastest one

that we ever had. He, he earned every single one of those 2000 yards and man, just to see him

how he, how he was in an interview on Monday just shocked me very sad. Like to the point, like,

and I thought it was so great that the minute he knew he had ALS, they went and got his voice

recorded so that when, when you, when you hear him, you know, speaking through his system,

it's still his voice. And I really, I really liked, I really liked to do that for him.

Well, I'm very honored. It says, uh, Brandon Perna, that's a really good channel said,

he is the fastest NFL running back ever. So that, I remember that, that time he hit like

20 something miles an hour. I was insane. I think in 2009 had he not got hurt against the

Ravens, I think, I think I could have probably done something that year. Let's finish off a few

more of them here and then we'll head on to the next segment. Uh, the, the Rootsburg podcast

when Danny fell out, that's going to be the spin off. We're going to have a, our own separate

thing going now. Uh, this weekend we celebrate us telling England to eff off, celebrate safe

everyone and happy birthday to the greatest nation on the planet. You know, I lit off fireworks,

uh, for I think like 17 years straight and the worst I got was a blister on my hand from it

blowing up on my hand once I blew up and hit my hand, never blew off my fingers, knock on wood,

that never happens. A beast of metal says Danny B is glitching out harder than Reddick's power

steering and route to a record setting last car headline. Most laps completed by a Sears point

last place finisher by seven laps and no DNFs this week. Wow. A couple more here. Larson has been

better than Reddick and Hamlin the last six weeks except Nashville on average finish and top five

and 10s. Didn't get a lot of wins though. That's the largest.

Danny won three races in a row. I think that matters a little bit more.

Yeah. He's, he's got to get the wins that bonus, that 15 point bonus for winning a race, freaking huge.

I said when we were arguing points, formats last year, I'm like the whole change that they

needed to make the whole time and after 2003 was just give the winner more points. We didn't have

to do any convoluted stuff and it makes swings. NASCAR only worries about, sorry, imagine 2018,

how many wins that the big three was getting if we could have seen this system of that, with that.

Oh, that, I think they, that'd be, that would have been a hell of a fight, I would think,

just because they would have raced different too. NASCAR only worried about the case because

they don't know how to market the final or the chase because they don't know how to market the

final four races. NASCAR, man, I got to get out of my sorus. Only worried about the chase

because they don't know how to market the final four races. I guess that means that they were

only worried about switching to this format. I guess that's what they're going for.

They switched to this format because they couldn't market a package of four races.

I don't know. We'll keep fucking nobody wanted that anyway.

David Bell, thank you for being a member and saying wishing everybody a safe and fun July 4th.

Yep. And then we'll call it on to three more genuine question, but was Denny's second place

finish at Sonoma in 2016 and outlier when it comes to him and road courses. I remember his battle

with Tony Sunday's race kind of reminded me of that race. Definitely in recent memory. I

will admit I don't have Denny stats. I got to look that up. What are his road course stats? Is

he that podunk? Well, you do that. I'm going to look at these last couple before we get moving.

So it's possible crazy take. Ty Gibbs gets a chip by 2031. I don't think that's crazy anymore.

I think that's a sight for a timeline because that's five years away.

And then I will get this one. It's a little out of order, but I'll go to this one. David Bell with

a pity saying, I hope everyone has a great 4th of July. Thankful for those that have fought

and fight for our freedom. Stay safe everyone and have fun. And those are us flags. They just

don't pop up on the super chat. Time to change this season around and get some wins. Hashtag

team 20. If there is a driver who could suddenly pull together and do it as soon as he's fully

recovered, Chris Rebell could be one to watch for. We're going to go to, we're going to go to,

wait, I'm done. We haven't raced in New Hampshire yet, right? No, we have not. That's one to watch

before Daytona. That's one to watch for for sure for him. Do you have Denny's road course stats?

Yeah, they're pretty bad. He's run 61 road courses. Okay. That doesn't include street courses. 61

road courses. He has 21 top 10s, 14 top fives, one win. Does anybody know what track he won on?

Oh, Watkins Gun, right? Yeah. He's led 244 laps out of a possible 5,565.

And that one win was it was in 2016, the same year he got that second place finish. So

they had something going. Yeah. Still way better than junior for where those tracks.

He was very, very tall water there. All right. Well, we'll, we'll get to the rest of the super

chats later on into the night. Guys, do you hear that? It's, it's not raining here, but like,

it's just so hot. I think there's heat lightning. The lightning around. Let's jump into it. First off,

we have the NWP channel that's linked below as well as the two co hosts as well as Michael's

channel. They're all linked below. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Yeah. Legacy has announced

one of their next celebrity investors. It's Guy Fieri. This week, we're hitting the road and going

into Legacy Motor Club on Diner, Trevins and Dives. What on earth is going on over there?

You know, you're, that's the, that's the million dollar question. What does he need all this money

for? All these various, what is going on? Legacy, just one big Ponzi scheme.

And you go back far enough. The website goes back to the domain of DC solar.

Looking at some of the other seer track houses playing on building a new facility in Canapalus.

So for anyone that was wondering if the Nashville dream was still alive, it is not.

That was never going to happen. Well, they still have, they still have Nashville on their,

their Twitter account as their home base. It's like maybe an HR office or something like that.

That's really about all that ever will be here. That's actually the DC solar one. No. Red Bull has

created their first NASCAR themed cans in 15 years, featuring the likenesses of both Shane

Van Gisburgen and Connor Zillich. And yes, 2011 was 15 years ago. Monster Energy and Rockstar,

you have 24 hours to respond. The IMS racing museum will have a Jeff Gordon exhibit that is

up now and will go all the way through February of 2027 featuring, I believe, 13 cars and a bunch

of different memorabilia from his career. If you haven't been to the Indianapolis racing museum,

it's amazing. We got the, we were there in 21. We got like the full tour, got to go in the

basement too. I think that's more opened up now, but back then it wasn't. It's just such a great

place if you're a racing fan, you don't have to be NASCAR or IndyCar, any type of racing fan.

You would love it there. Plus, they did the renovations, I believe a year or two ago too. So

it's top of the line. And then all iRacing properties, games, sim, all of it are on sale

through next Thursday. So if anyone wants to jump on that or get the game at a cheaper price,

you have that. And then we were not paid to say that. No, we're, no. I haven't talked to them since

like last August or yeah, August. And then next week, we will be live on Eric's channel July 8th

at 8 PM Eastern time. And that will do it. Lightning round. And with that, we're going to

pop another one on. Let's go to the headlines, guys. First one, I think that's the biggest one

that a lot of people were talking about and looking at is Dodge coming back to NASCAR next year.

According to the likes of Jordan Bianchi, it is becoming more and more possible. So I'll read

off a couple of things here before we kind of dive into it. They're still targeting 2028,

but the garage has been a little bit surprised by the accelerated timeline. The proposed challenger

body has already passed initial wind tunnel testing and Stalantis has had breakthroughs in

who and how the engines will be produced. And the intention is that colleague will be that flagship

program for Dodge when they jump in. I will also add for anyone wondering about this that didn't

see the report last week, this will not mean that there are more charters gifted out. There is the

option for new OEMs that they can give a 37th and 38th charter or even go up to 40 if it is one of

those circumstances that it's needed. They have elected they being NASCAR and the 15 chartered

teams with a say in this to keep it capped at 36. They like it at 36 and they don't want to cut the

pie smaller at 38. So for the foreseeable future, foreseeable future, we're at 36 chartered teams.

And we're just going to see colleague move from Chevy to Dodge either next year or the year after.

What's our initial takeaways on this? Because I had to admit the report surprised me.

I think colleague will come in as the flagship program much as

Evern Hamm was the flagship program when Dodge first came in in 2001. But they of course had

some other teams hop in. You had Gnasi also with them in 2001. Then later you had Pinsky come in.

I think we're going to see something similar where colleague, yes, it's going to be the initial

flagship. But we're going to see someone join that helps elevate Dodge's program into Cup Series.

If that happens next year or if that happens in a couple years later, remains to be seen.

I think you're going to see Dodge push either Trackhouse or RFK or possibly both to want to

switch over and offer both of them a significant portion of control to what they're going to be

able to put out. But I kind of would lean more Trackhouse because they are definitely falling

off of the Chevy ladder and RFK still seems to be doing consistently well for Ford.

I think we know like who's going to join colleague. It's going to be the the five team.

You saw that show car that was burning it down on the out in San Diego. That was totally a Dodge.

I think it's kind of surprising that there's actually a possibility it happens next year.

Like that seems kind of fast. And I don't know when you usually like you rush things like this,

you usually fall kind of on your face. And it's not like they've really done anything

really noteworthy in the truck series this year. Like they're getting their legs under them and

figuring this out again. I just would hate to see them rush up the cup. And then it's just like

they're running in the 30s every week next year. Like that does it's how can you get excited about

Dodge coming back then? Well, it's like Toyota's first year in 2007. You know, I guess no one

looked good for Toyota in 2007. But then they got Joe Gibbs racing and Kyle Busch said hold my beer.

I'll argue though that Toyota didn't rush anything. I mean, they were in trucks

like like 0304. Yeah, I think it's like 0404 is when they came in. Yeah, I mean, so they had three

years to get the truck side ready before they went to the top two series. And to be fair,

the teams that went to Toyota were all pretty desperate that first year. Like

this feels like you had Bill Davis racing, you had Red Bull just getting started.

Well, it feels like a recipe for disaster. I mean, it just it feels like it's like, oh, we figured

this out. Yeah, let's just throw it on the track. Why the hell not? And the whole time every report

we get about Stoantus and Dodge, like I think there was the one where like they didn't understand

how the point systems worked and like how different races worked in tracks. And I'm like,

they're not knowing the basic things and they're just all diving in off the deep end.

I feel like as much as I would love to see Dodge next year, if it were all the workout, right? I'd

much rather see them in 2028 and be more competitive quicker. Because I mean, they could be stuck behind

the eight ball a ton next year. And then it could take two or three years. Whereas if you get the

proper testing development, you might have one bad year and then lure somebody else in. If they do

it next year, I don't think anybody but colleague will be in a dodge. Like I don't think anyone will.

I don't think there's the incentive really for anyone to jump.

I just wonder if Dodge is going to avoid the rally series because basically this point forward is

avoided it. Well, I don't I don't think they would avoid it just because it is a requirement. The

forward thing was a weird circumstance. I still do have at least one forward every now and then

there too. I just I just go back to the team side of it. There's no incentive for anyone but

colleague to jump to Dodge next year or even the year after that. Like legacy might be nice, but

they've finally started clicking it with Toyota. I guess Collin could theoretically bring back their

rally series program if it means that it gets Dodge a place there as well. Yeah, it would be the

factory team, I would think. They did say that they were just like putting it on hiatus, that they

weren't shutting down O'Reilly forever. I remember them saying that at some point. Yeah, I think

trackhouse makes sense to me to eventually end up a Dodge just because I feel like they are falling

off so much with Chevrolet. But then I think you run to risk of potentially losing maybe some

prospects who feel pretty tied into the Chevy system like a Conor Zilish, but I don't know.

I don't know how now that would really treat things in that situation.

I feel like they'd honestly if maybe it's a way longer off because I know it's not dead,

but it's definitely been put on the back burner. But Honda was talking about it until they figured

things out with IndyCar about jumping in. I almost feel like that would be a really good

fit for trackhouse just because this Dodge thing just to me feels like it's going to flame out

with the way that they're doing it. It's like everything is really for show and they're trying

to rush things. The more I think about it, the more I see about it, it just seems like this is,

hey, we need good PR and some crazy stuff to do. I just don't know if

trackhouse would jump at that either. I'm trying to see how it makes sense for certain teams,

unless Dodge goes and tears it up at the end of 2027.

I guess there are some outsiders that could also play into the Dodge system. I mean,

Rick Ware could potentially be like just an extra Dodge. You could see Haas do that.

And Haas would be actually be solid to have more Rally Series cars also tied into that.

I guess there's Hayek. They could potentially become a Dodge team. There are a few others that

could factor in and just filter in there. So it's not just Collich being the only Dodge.

Like I'm seeing people are saying, oh, money talks, like going to the Cup Series. Let's just get up to

Cup and make more than we are in the Truck Series. But like Jared, you're saying, is the point

just to make a few bucks but suck and you flame out and all this hype that you have built about

your return that nobody cares because you're running awful? Like that doesn't seem like a good

strategy at all. I would rather have a longer runway and get to Cup when I'm ready. And then

I'm challenging for wins. If you really like want to have Dodge in the headlines and

sell a few Rams or whatever the hell you're trying to do.

Here's a name just to watch for Dodge just because they do have history here. And we

would already talk about how much of a slide some of their drivers are this year. I mean,

not that it would happen next year by any means, but Penske maybe. I mean, if they don't see a

significant increase in performance over the next few years of Ford, why keep that off the table?

I mean, they've all said it is the car. I don't see why you'd give up being number one with them

with Ford though. They're not all making sense to me. They were number one recently with Ford,

but this year they don't look at see how the next two to three years go is what I'm saying with them.

I just think it'd be an overreaction. And we all know, we do know at least the RFK isn't because

Brad Kizlowski squashed that. I mean, hey, yeah, that's true. You're right on that. But hey, with

Penske, let's ever forget they literally won a Cup Series championship of Dodge and then went to

Ford. So, you know, nothing's impossible. I mean, maybe I just, I can't, I want to see it make sense

first before I were to jump on that. Wait and see what the new body for Ford is like before

to make that decision. Give it two years with that body. And if we still see Joey Slogano, then

kind of moving from the cars to maybe some of them that are in the cars or where they're racing.

First off, Alex Bowman had a few statements. First off was saying that he almost didn't feel

like he was racing for his job. He doesn't feel that way. He says he's comfortable areas in his

life. Bless they doesn't have to do this forever, but he wants to 48 to get in the right direction

and working week by week at it. And said he's focused on making the right decision for himself

and Hendrick Motorsports and we'll have an announcement at some point. I'm going to go

with Bowman Finn here on the Star is Off. Danny, where did you read into those comments about

Bowman and his future? That makes me sound, that sounds more like a guy who is okay if his NASCAR

career is coming to an end early to me. That's sadly what that sounds like. So, I don't know,

I'm not trying to overreact to that, but you know, just saying comfort where he is in life,

bless he doesn't have to do this forever. He wants to get the 48 back in the right direction week

means he cares more about getting that team back going well. It doesn't necessarily mean that

that's going to be him for the future. Folks that are making the right decision for himself and

Hendrick Motorsports. Again, those rumors and speculations about early retirement could be

something to it. I don't, and I want to say, it's not like he just goes back to the sprint car

racing, which should probably do that some, but I want to say that he shut down his sprint

car team Alex Bowman racing. Didn't that kind of stop or get on hiatus, I think?

I double check. I'm not sure. Something like that, maybe. Yeah. So, I don't know. I will say this.

I'm happy to be going to Chicagoland this weekend because I can finally see where the first win

happened. Damn. I've got the replica right there. That's pretty cool. I've heard it was,

I forget to name it. His logo is back here, custom die cast displays. It's a,

Steven got on the back. I've got the, the wind sticker put onto the back of it.

But something that's all been pretty cool in the collection is that one going back to where

the first win came back in 2019. Beat out now teammate Kyle Larson and I don't know.

I'm sure this weekend's going to be kind of a kind of an emotional roller coaster bruham and

a lot of other supporters of Alex Bowman this weekend. I don't, I've read that. And like my first

reaction is you don't feel like you're racing for your job, but like nothing's going right.

And like the rumors are swirling that you could be getting replaced. And now like thinking a little

bit deeper into it, he just seems to be content in life. And I mean, yeah, to me, the way that

sounds is like, this is it. Maybe this is, this is the last hurrah this year.

I just don't know what the future looks like for Alex Bowman. If he's not racing, he'll probably,

maybe, maybe he just takes more of a backseat roll to stuff that, you know, which would be wild.

Think about it's kind of where he was before Dale Jr. got hurt in 2016. And then he'd kind of go back

to probably, probably even more of a, of a backstage roll a little bit. Maybe if he comes

for like a, what's his name? Like Max Pappas. He's like a driver coach. Maybe something like that

after this. Just with his career at this point, the injuries, I mean, he's had so many. Yeah,

I think a lot of people think this way and maybe it's lining up. We don't know exactly what's going

on with them, but I mean, is this kind of that 2003 Steve Park part of his career where maybe it's,

you know, I think the 40 18s and mass, but maybe it's not all team. Maybe it partly is driver.

Maybe, maybe it is a bit of that side of it and it is time to hang it up.

I like this idea of Bowman becoming a spotter.

Yeah, I think I, I still think he has stuff in the tank though. Like that's why I'm not

necessarily jumping fully on that retirement side. I just, I definitely think based on saying that

it is way more of an option than a lot of people previously had talked about. And

you know, I wonder with that, if that is the case of that he does that,

do they just pull Corey day up or is it Connor Zillich, which based on earlier reports, they've

had talks with about it. Those, those, these two things together are separately,

wouldn't lead me to think the retirement side, but when you look at them together and in a story

and the fact that it's gone on this long and there's just no sense of stability in this,

that's where like I kind of get worried about it. And if it's best for him,

it's best for him. That's at the end of that most important part, but it's just,

it's kind of sad to me because we've seen how high of a peak he can get and he is a damn good driver.

If, if he's not going to be returning to the 48 and he still wants to race,

you know, you talk about the Zillich idea, I think it'd be kind of Nate if Zillich,

if Zillich took the 48, but Bowman back in the 88, that's the number that, you know, he kind of

started, you know, I'm not starting a cup series because he didn't start a cup series,

that would, but kind of start on his better progression in cup series, we'll just say it

like that. I think it'd be interesting if they could do something like that. Or again, I don't

think Austin Hill is the long-term option for Richard Childress. Maybe Bowman could be someone

to watch for there, but I think Gregson's also a name, I've heard kind of speculate about the RCR.

So there, there are some utter landing options for him, but again, also

wouldn't be shocked if just Alex Bowman is just piques out. I'm going to my,

going to my wife, we're going to raise a family and just do our thing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

And I made that point on my channel earlier in the year, like how many injuries are you

going to come back from? You got bigger things in life, more important things than racing.

Your family, his animals, you know, he loves his dogs. Like you got so much else

you could do that doesn't have to be in a race car, putting yourself in further danger.

And at the end of the day, he has eight career NASCAR cup series victories. Go back to 2014,

2015 until a NASCAR fan, Alex Bowman will drive for Hendrick Motorsports and win eight career cup

series races. What do you think they would say to you?

Who is Alex Bowman? No, that's literally what they did. They had Alex Bowman in his rookie year

go in the infield at Charlotte and they started asking about rookies and, and, and about Bowman.

And then at the end of it, like they're all like, I don't know who that is. And he goes, I am Alex Bowman.

And people may say that some of his wins were fluky. But I think Corey Day said it best

after he won his first win. They don't ask how they just ask how many in regards to how many races

did you win. So the fact that Bowman can say he won eight career NASCAR cup series victories is

more than a lot of drivers that have ever stepped foot in NASCAR can say about themselves. That is

more than some of the other drivers of the fourth Hendrick car, if you will. That's more than Casey

Cain won in his time at Hendrick Motorsports. You know, you saw guys like Joe Nemechek, Jerry

Nadeau, Casey Mears, all of them be the fourth Hendrick car for a little bit. And Bowman definitely

outperformed a lot of people's standards there. I mean, up until the later part of his tenure of

Hendrick Motorsports, I think he had done better than Dell Jr. did for the most part, up until the

later part of his time at Hendrick. I think the 2014 and 2015 and so forth, those years kind of

helped even it out for Junior a little bit. But, you know, this amount of time, I think he looked

a little bit better than that. My favorite, I'm sorry to cut you off. There's just my favorite

clip of him. I think he was driving the seven for Tommy Baldwin. Do you know where I'll go with this?

When his car is burning down at the end of Pit Road at New Hampshire, and the guy stumbles and falls

and sprays his fire extinguisher all over the place, and Bowman's in the back just like,

what the fuck are you doing? That is one of the greatest clues.

That was Dover. And then not even that many years later in 2021, he was winning the race there.

That's right. In a 1234 finish. Yeah. 20. It had a lot of good races there at Dover.

I finished third when I went there last year. He finished second, I think in 2019,

the Martin Trucks Junior, led a lot of races in that one.

Yeah. Damn good driver. Well, let's have a little fun, guys. Let's head to the fun segments real quick.

It's been a little heavy here, so let's give a little levity. Let's go to our predictions to start

off with. So each host and guest will make two NASCAR motorsports or show related predictions.

We can have fun with it. We'll keep track in our accountability session. Sorry, Michael,

we did not keep track of all the guests once I have to go back and do that at some point.

We'll get there eventually. You're more than the fun of the game.

And we will try and keep the predictions relatively concise within a few years,

but we play fast and lose with that rule. Starting off with me. Yikes.

I said, Tyra Redick would not lose the points lead in the regular season this year.

I thought I was in a pretty good position with that one.

I made it when it was double digits though, before it hit triple.

I said Denny Hamlin would score at least one top 10 in the two races at San Diego and or

at Sonoma. He was on his way at Sonoma to doing so and I was slowly didn't. And then I said SVG

would lead 80 or more laps in the cup race. Thank you, Ty Gibbs for taking that from me.

Eric is also in the red. So Denny Hamlin will lose in the first round of the in season challenge.

Almost chase Elliott would be the top finishing Hendrick driver at Sonoma.

Larson, right? I think so. Yeah.

And the Austin Hill would make contact at SVG at some point in Sonoma.

Tough to my contact or they can't catch up to him.

And Danny got one correct. So SVG would sweep Sonoma and then said Conor Zillich would score his

first cup top five at Sonoma. Man, you really went out on a limb there.

When you say the point, you'll understand, sir.

So, so far this year, I am leading 57 and a half percent correct. Eric now under 50 at 48.5

seven and Danny at 33.33333333333. You're repeating and that'll be a meme.

All time I'm leading 39.74. Eric at 34.6. Danny at 32.48 fitting.

The point 48 is very appropriate.

So I actually, Eric sent me his predictions. I'm going to read those off to start so that he

doesn't get overlapped. And then I will, from there lead us off. So he said TNT would show the

Tropicana Orange at some point during the broadcast on Sunday. You're going to be in a

spot where you can kind of more say to broadcast, right, Jared? No, I'm going to be, be

in it on top of the road. Well, I guess I'll record it. Eric might get a chance to kind of say some

of that. But that's one of them. And then the other one he had is that Denny Hamlin would

lead the most laps at Chicago land. I do admit that one's probably not that far off on a on a limb.

Not gonna lie, but also I'll start us off here and looking at some of these. I'm going to say that

in 2027, there will be exactly three scheduled Saturday night cup races.

So we got Daytona, we have Bristol. What's the other one? I'm not going to guess that part, but

just I'm going to say we're going to get three Saturday night races. Something random like

Gateway on a Saturday night or something like that. Richmond, maybe Atlanta. I mean,

if Atlanta's moved to fourth to July weekend, it would be much better to be on July third.

But go with that one. So Danny, you're up next. Alex Bowman will finish top five at

Chicago land. Top five. I like that. That's going off on a limb, especially this year.

You know, yeah, especially this year, but I'm just going to go off of, hey,

you know, track track was good to almost just go up that.

I remember, I don't know if it was the last time I was on or the time before that I predicted that

Legacy Motor Club was going to have one race by the end of 2026. I remember that. That one stuck

out in my head. I'm going to say Legacy will win a race by the end of 2027. I'm going to extend that

a little bit. Both could end up being true. Yeah. Eric Jones could just win Todd. I get randomly

and then we're all good. Yeah. That checks the box twice for me. I'll make a prediction about

Chicago land this weekend. The margin of victory in the cup race will be less than one second.

I think it's going to be a closer one. Then watch Hamlin wins about like 13 seconds.

And everyone would be like, we should have kept this off the schedule.

Rain will impact Chicago land weekend, but the cup race will be fine.

I hope.

Okay. So you don't record guest predictions. So I could say the freaking sky is orange.

No, we don't record them yet.

Now tonight, now they're going to start being recorded. Do you want to say the sky will turn

orange because a perfect sunset is kind of true. The 2026 champion of the cup series has not won yet

this year. I feel like I know which direction you're going with that. That's clearly Larson.

Kyle Larson. No, it's not fucking Cody Ware. Joey Logano.

I mean, I could win every single race to end the year.

Can you imagine the meltdown that people would have?

Like if he won every race, like overall points, why does he probably end up top three at minimum?

Probably, he'd probably win it honestly. All right. Those are some fun ones. Let's keep the fun going.

Let's jump on over. And this is where Danny and Michael have to lose you guys chat.

Random chat. Driver. Oh, here we go. It's time for the rematch and he gets, there's no Eric here.

So this is the most one on one rematch for Bobby Deller and Hart that he could possibly get.

There he is. Oh, it makes my freaking blood boil. You should just find a way to just hide

yourself, Jared, and just put that image up somehow right in your spot. I would be able to.

I would try, but I wouldn't be able to, you know, but I was on since then and I correctly guessed

Stacy Compton. So I'm, I'm two and oh in my mind.

What did you get, Bobby Deller and Hart? I knew it was him. You stole it.

All right. Let's look at the, uh, the facts coming up here. But first, Danny leads Eric 44-42.

So Eric's given a freebie possibly to Danny if he wins tonight to pull ahead again.

In the last five, I got the two co-hosts on Jim Roper. They did not get that one right, but

Danny got two of them with Austin Cindrick and James Busher. Eric got Matt Kenseth and Red Byron.

So, of course he got Kenseth. Of course. The fact he got it on was the name of Matt Kenseth's cat.

Lars. Yeah, because he's a Metallica fan. So let's get it going here. This random driver

is a fan of both the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Yankees.

Huh.

This random driver began racing go-karts as a birthday gift while in kindergarten.

It's a good gift.

Gift that kept on giving. At least in the NASCAR, right?

This random driver actually dropped out of college initially for racing. Oh my gosh. Initially,

that was, it sounds like you might have finished it. I don't personally, I don't know if this random

driver finished college. I just know that at one point dropped out. I don't feel like it's going to be a

more modern guy. This random driver won seven national karting championships as well.

So he got in a go-kart and he was like, good. Seven national karting championships, you said.

Yes, and two grand national karting championships.

Hmm.

This random driver appears in the music video for Jake Owen's song, Real Life.

I've never seen that music video.

Would you like how many times people have tweeted about this random driver?

This might help a long ways. Yeah. You got Michael as well. Just curious.

That was the fact I was looking up right before we went live.

I will say it in the order of times each person, from smallest to largest.

I tweeted about this random driver nine times. Danny 14, Michael 22, and Eric 70.

Well, he's like covering the race the whole time. So that's easy, but me 22.

Don't worry. Eric tweeted about Kenseth like a hundred something times.

And it was all from like 2017 on back. Eric tweeted how many times?

70. I'm just going to say it. Is it Ty Gibbs?

Ty Gibbs.

I don't know why I thought that'd be a guy he ran away with just talk a lot about.

This random driver raced the OEMs of Chevrolet, Ford and Pontiac.

I would have just waited.

Pontiac.

Pontiac definitely throws a loop.

Yeah, it does.

This is why I when I put these facts together.

Chevy Pontiac and which was the other one?

Chevy Pontiac and Ford.

Ford.

So I was assuming Eric would be on when I put these facts together because the next

clue I'm just going to put there because it's funny as hell in context when we get the random

driver name. Eric actually tweeted multiple times that this random driver is a diva.

A diva.

When I saw that, I'm like, Oh yeah, baby, we're going to put this one and get Eric on it.

And then it's like, Oh, who is a diva that drove a freaking Pontiac?

Pontiac.

What series they drive the Pontiac in?

Oh, God.

Let's keep going.

This random driver has 16,000 subscribers on YouTube, 400,000 Instagram followers and

nearly a million on X.

Who the hell is this?

How many on X?

Nearly a million.

This last time I checked it might be over now.

But 16,000 YouTube subscribers.

So do they have to be like full time?

This is just someone that was in the driver.

They could have any driver on any series.

Any of the top three series.

Oh my God.

And I've tweeted about that.

Who the hell do I tweet about?

We've all tweeted about this person.

This random driver made two cars tour starts as well.

Well, at least one in the series of the car store.

This random driver's wife was working PR for Randy LeJoy and Jeff Gordon.

So I took two drivers out of the running for you guys.

If that helps.

Yeah.

Oh, this is brutal.

This random driver is an Iraq champion.

There's your Pontiac connection.

Doesn't help.

This random driver's wife also actually tried racing as well.

Has a racing background.

Would you like the numbers this random driver drove?

This might help.

Yeah, let's do that.

This is across NASCAR, all three series.

Well, I mean this could be NASCAR.

Yeah, they say that's going to be from, I mean, I just gave you Iraq stuff.

So it could be any.

Oh, okay.

All right.

The numbers are double 024567 14, 17, 20, 21, 24, 29,

33, 41, 62, 71, 72, 75, 77, 79, 88, 90, 92, 98, and 99.

Is this Kevin Harvick?

Kevin Harvick.

Correct.

Oh, my gosh.

God damn it.

That was the one person that was in my head, but the Pontiac thing, I was like,

when the hell did he drive a Pontiac?

That's true.

Iraq.

Oh, my God.

That's all.

I literally just, you know, when I said he was an Iraq champion, there's your Pontiac connection.

Silver platter, guys.

At least I didn't steal anything from Michael that time.

I just straight up figured it out.

Like, first I had, when you were talking about Pontiac, I had Bobby LaBoni stuck in my mind,

and I couldn't get off of him for the longest time.

The wife stuff really started it for me, but then seeing numbers that belong to

RCR and Kevin Harvick Incorporated kind of glued it together plus the 4 and 29.

When did he drive a double zero?

Oh, I got double checked that one.

And I know it's in, I know he did, but I put these together a few weeks ago.

So I'm looking up double zero.

Did he drive for Haas in the truck series?

I think it might have.

I mean, you could have.

Oh, hey, drove the number double zero.

For junior motorsports in the 2015 season in the truck series.

Okay.

That's right.

All my guys, there you can tell that I dug deep.

Even if I can't remember off the top of my head where I got it, I dug deep.

That's what I was getting at most people after a little bit, but keeping that truck going.

I mean, if there's no penalty for guessing, I should have just fucking said it.

So I got to ease up.

I'm just getting very heated over here.

This, uh, this random driver game really gets me all worked up.

So I got you on Bobby Dale and Kevin Harvick.

Let's see the rest of them are starting to give it away a bit more.

Two SRX starts one 24 hour of Daytona start to O'Reilly titles.

22 Daytona 500 start in a row, but not a rookie year start.

So.

Well, like the cars tour thing, he is the cars tour like, especially at West number.

I said, didn't know what series.

Oh yeah.

I should have also realized that 62 you got that one in there has been his more recent number as a light.

Yeah.

Now I'm looking back on it.

Eric calling him a diva.

Yeah, I do think I kind of remember that if Eric was here, I think he would have instantly gotten it

because he would probably remember saying that.

I mean, it was a long time ago that he tweeted that.

A long time ago.

I want to know what did I tweet about Harvick 22 times?

Uh, a lot of game titles.

Like, yeah, I have titles.

Okay.

But all right.

So there we go.

That is our fun.

He's a flyer than a Yankees fan.

Interesting.

Former.

Let's head to Joliet, shall we?

Uh, we don't know.

So getting into preview, we don't even know if this is a one and done.

If it's coming back next year, I know there are people are getting their renewal stuff already sent to them.

That's not a guarantee.

I got a renewal sent to me about the clash at Daytona and then they went to LA.

So we'll figure that out when we get there, but knock on wood.

Looking at some of the guys that are starting in the fields.

We have JJ Yalie in the 44 and cup 66 is, I believe Casey Mears and Corey Hyman, the 67 car.

And then in the O'Reilly series, Cole Custer in the zero for SS Greenlight,

Zillich in the one for JRM, Quapol in the nine for the same team.

Raja is in the 32 for Jordan Anderson, Chase Elliott in the 88 for JRM.

Looking at the races, the O'Reilly races, the Cuervo 300, 200 laps, 45, 45 and 110.

530 pm Eastern time start.

I believe I will double check just to be sure because the starts are late for this.

No, I think it's 530.

530 pm Eastern time on the CW and MRN.

The defending winner is Cole Custer back in 2019.

The cup races, the Euro 400, 267 laps, 80, 85, 102 at 6 pm Eastern time on TNT,

dynamite and MRN as well.

Alex Bowman, your most recent winner there.

Danny with the nice show and tell and Danny, what do we got for the forecast?

I have the display ready to go.

Yeah.

It gets better as it goes on.

Forecast.

Yeah.

I think forecast lines up pretty well with my weather prediction that I made.

As NASCAR moves back east, we are back to tracking rainstorms for the Euro 400 weekend.

The ring of fire pattern is keeping things hot and humid for the Eastern U.S.

thanks to a broad area of high pressure.

Impulses in the mid and upper levels track along the edge of it,

bringing waves of thunderstorms that can contain some very strong winds.

At this point, Friday and Saturday look to be the most problematic as the most ideal setup

for this pattern materializes over northern Illinois.

The best opportunities for storms will be between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

These things are tricky since it's not as cut and dry as a traditional strong cold front.

The storm complexes fire up over the Great Plains and generally follow the flow and feed

off of the abundant heat, humidity and instability.

ARCA and O'Reilly can expect disruptions at a minimum along with any on track activity.

Multiple hours at a time can be washed out, but don't expect an entirely rainy day or night.

High pressure starts to break down and shifts east later into the weekend,

allowing rain chances to drop off for Sunday, especially come cut series race time.

Campers and anyone on property, Jared, you listening to me?

Heed any warning as lightning, heavy rain and very high winds can come with these types of storms.

So what you're telling me is get on top of the camper and raise the largest metal object I can

find up in the air and just pray for mercy.

America!

As for the pick points, Chad still has a lead, but I am up to second minus 14.

Eric stays in third minus 17.

Danny minus 21 in the basement heading to Chicago land.

Don't quite get my number one picks because Michael's here to try to snipe me.

And as I do Riley picks, you got.

Hoof.

All right.

Oh, I got to look at the line up here because I can never remember who even races from week to week.

All Gire.

Okay.

Hometown.

He'll win it.

He wins everything this year.

Wait, isn't this hometown?

Is he from there?

I can't remember.

I mean, it's a home track for sure.

Illinois.

Okay.

Come on.

It's come on.

I'm going with Chase Elliott.

Yeah, I knew you were going to do that.

Damn it.

All right.

That means looking at Eric's picks, he's going silly for Zilly.

Connor Zillich.

And the chat was starting to type one and they were still typing 88,

not realizing that was gone too.

All right, which leaves me.

I'm going to stick in the Chevy Hendrick tree.

I'll go Corey day.

So chat has consistently typed 17 and 88 all gone.

Who did they go with?

They're they're discombobulated.

They are.

We broke them.

I think I'm starting to see some nines.

The night.

Quapal.

Nines.

I think it's mainly nines.

Yeah, because now it's turning to two.

I'd pull two and nine.

All right.

Well, while we're doing that, we can get our picks.

So Michael, if you want to start out with your suck pick for couple,

I'm putting two and nine in.

Suck pick.

Suck.

Suck suck suck.

That's going to be meant.

Damn.

I forgot there was a suck pick.

So now I'm just like going on the fly.

And you know, I don't like to do anything half-assed here.

Let's see here.

Suck.

You just say you just say giggles.

I'm leaning in the giggles direction, but I don't know if I want to pick giggles.

I'm going to say suck is.

I don't get giggles is going to suck.

To be fair, that's what the chat is saying, dude.

They're going to go on.

All right, giggles.

Yeah, we're going with you.

Danny, are you going to, to just go with the flow or?

No, I'm going to say his slide continues.

William Byron will not look like his teammates this weekend.

That could be, dude, can you imagine if Byron, even with Bowman,

having been out with injury and Bell being hurt,

if William Byron somehow missed the chase this year,

like how embarrassing that would be for that team.

By the way, they're going just to love in O'Reilly.

And when I say Byron suck, I'm saying like probably like, you know,

20 for worse, basically.

I just realized we are going to get such an angry hate comment from that dude on X

who loves Toyota because we all picked Sheffy's for the O'Reilly series race.

That's like freaking 95% of the field.

Who's the dark horse for the cup series, Michael?

Dark horse, dark horse.

SVG.

I'm going to Bowman as underdog.

Not going to pick him to win, but definitely pick him as the underdog.

The disrespect towards this person.

I can't, I can't pick him to win just because there's others that are full time,

but it's Heim time, man.

It's been Heim time for a while.

He got that cup win and everything.

I think you can get a top 10.

And I think they're going Jones or.

No, but Butcher has got a ton of support.

I'm going to Butcher on that one for.

All right.

Well, they're going to go Butcher, which means that we have one question left.

Who wins the Euro 400?

That guy, that was just, that was on the screen.

Larson, the championship bid begins this weekend.

You're going Larson.

I'm going to say Larson gets three second place finishes in a row here because.

It's back to normal.

Denny Hamlin wins this one.

All right, which means damn it.

Eric Snipes me Tyler Reddick.

Damn it.

I really, really wanted to read the chat one at 11.

They wanted 45.

Well, I'm going to be Mr. Popular.

I'm going to go chase Elliott.

He was really, really good here.

Granite in the gen six era and, and he's really, really good.

He's really, really good at the mile and a half tracks, Kansas, especially.

I think that this is a race that fits right in his wheelhouse.

So far for that guy on Twitter, me and Eric, are the only one at no wheel to him.

For context, Michael, there's a guy on Twitter who anytime we pick Toyota, it's like so and no wheel, but these guys are idiots.

So we're going to get a comment on the O'Reilly one being like these five are complete idiots.

There were just four in a row for house of our in three in a row for Blaney, but.

And bell has a few too.

I've seen.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of twenties.

I would pull 2012 and 77.

And I think that's all I would pull.

Yeah, I think, I think those are the good ones too.

So 2012 and 77.

I think, I think the host of our one might actually win.

I feel like I'm seeing more 77, but let's still pull it and see what they say.

I mean, to be fair, when I go to races, crazy stuff seems to happen.

Like I see some of them, like I've seen some of the craziest moments in recent NASCAR history.

So like a host of our win would fit.

It's a very close poll right now.

I mean, honestly, I think what we should do is the top two after a certain amount.

We then just do a runoff with those two because those two are seemingly pretty close.

Yeah, the 77 and 20, they're not really thinking I'm blinding no more, but the 77 and 20 are

they keep changing places.

I would, I would pull just those two now, which is weird because I thought the 12 was definitely

there more than 20 there at first.

Hey, we're giving them all the shots in the world to pick them.

So 20 and 77.

All right.

Now this put Euro, poll two.

All right.

This is for all the marbles for you guys.

All you, all you blingy supporters aside, which one of these two you want?

You must choose wisely.

I, yeah, that's certain to be, they're going experience and they apparently they know

wheel as well.

It's, it's just me and Michael that are the ones that over heart for these people.

All right.

It's going to be C bell getting the wind for the chat, which is a much needed wind too.

That would be impressive.

And David Bell, I guess I'll do a burnout in the chat.

All right.

Well, that is, uh, that is it.

For when it comes to the picks, uh, before we get to the super chat, cool down lap,

just a reminder again, we will be on Eric's channel next Wednesday,

8pm Eastern time, July 8th.

And Eric will be here.

I'm assuming it's his channel.

He should be here.

If not, we'll just ask if he dresses giraffe and in wherever Colorado, he posts, he's in

Colorado, so I can say it.

I'm a giraffe.

All right.

Let's, uh, let's jump into the final super chat stage break.

The super chat cool down lap.

Uh, Jeffrey King saying Elliot since Watkins Glen has been off.

Oh, that's great for me.

Legato makes the chase by one point and wins the championship.

Book it.

Oh, uh, Spencer, 60 month member chat.

That's five years, right?

That's pretty good.

Damn.

Says happy fourth of July weekend, everybody.

Happy fourth of July weekend, everybody.

I love America.

TNT's leaderboard will be in red, white, and blue with all of these patriotic schemes.

Hashtag 250.

That's something I'm looking forward to this weekend.

All the unique paint schemes this weekend.

And not just, uh, you know, patriotic ones.

We got Bubba running the space jam card this weekend.

I think Ross Chastain, a special like orange bush, uh, card is weekend.

There's a lot of different paints.

If you're a fan of non-traditional paint schemes that you see for the year,

this is a weekend to be there.

And did you see who the pace car driver is, uh, for this week?

I think I missed that.

Who is it?

Joliet native, Mike Allstate.

Oh, I love Mike.

He was the man.

Like, like, like him, like I always loved the full back position and, uh, you know,

I'm a Titans fan, but I did have an all start jersey back in the back of that one

as a kid, like book and ears.

I was claimed as like my, my NFC team since my Titans are AFC.

You had those big ass shoulder blades.

They're our shoulder pads.

That is incredible.

I've got, I've got a, if they, you know, usually give you a random chance to interview

like people like that, I got to try to get some of him.

Definitely.

Uh, looking at some of the others here, uh, Ryan Idias, uh, I believe it is.

Yeah.

It's like, it's a Canada day.

Um, I can't remember, or is it their independence?

I can't remember what it is, but it's important day for Canada.

I'm sorry.

American education system.

We don't, we don't learn anything about anyone else.

We're the center of the universe.

Don't you know?

Uh, Calypso says, if I can't rain out the street race, just say hello to my return

at the speedway.

And if you think that's evil, just be ready for the monies.

The monsters.

Yeah.

I like that.

There's a reference.

It's movies, uh, just reminding you of 331.

Okay.

What's called, what's called this guy has to say 331 in every single one of my

live streams because I did a challenge at Dover where I made it to lap 331 and failed.

I think I couldn't touch the wall and I touched the wall and I had been on that

challenge for hours that night.

And this son of a bitch reminds me all the time of 331 spam 331 in the chat, please.

Oh my God.

And just, just for the fun of it, we'll put the chat on screen.

Danny's the worst.

Of course.

Danny Bobbosper is back.

I got to start us off.

They're even spelled it out with Spencer there.

Oh man.

This is great.

Everything's great.

What's your guys' expectations for NASCAR 26?

I fully expect them to take big steps.

I think that should be the expectation.

Anything loss would be a disappointment.

Yes.

It's not just be a copy paste.

Yeah.

It's got to have something, something unique to it.

We cannot keep doing this with, um, these small incremental gains year over year.

Give us something to be excited about.

We got, there's so much that NASCAR 25 did not have that 26 needs.

It's not a good sign that one of their biggest like advertising things is that we have burnouts

in the game because-

We got clouds!

That should be a basic necessity that should have always been in there.

I hope that's just like the first of many things to roll out.

Like I will give, I want to give them at least the chance just because this is a whole new team,

everything all together.

But I mean, I said last year, I was fine with it last year being bare bones.

It wasn't like the greatest game ever, but it was functional fun.

It was exactly what we needed after NASCAR 21.

But there, yeah, there needs to be fleshed out big time.

I don't care if it's a bunch of added game modes.

If it's, you know, making the physics better.

If it's making the damage model better, which it's desperately needs to on that side of it,

like online, I'm glad that cross compatibility though with online mode.

I think that is a big change.

Should have probably been in there, but-

I can't wait to get destroyed by everyone on PlayStation.

You know it buddy.

I bought a PlayStation just for that game.

I played it for a while, but like-

Well, it is interesting how they have the, I think, the cross play for no matter what system

you're on.

So if you're, unfortunately, if you're on PC, you're going to be playing with people who are

strictly on console.

So-

Dream car is going to be nuts.

Get ready for four year olds ready to wreck your stuff, buddy.

You cannot run and hide anymore.

I got, so I got the game and the PS5 before StreamCar was strictly like

the PC side of it.

So like, I was like, oh, we're going to, you know, we're doing this one.

I'll do it.

Now I can be in it and I know others will be.

So like, I am fully expecting that first day toner race this winter to be nuts.

Like, I, as long as my schedule allows, I will be in a few of those.

I will suck, but I will be in them.

I'm just going to try and stay out of the way and be my best possible Mark Martin.

Oh, that was a good question though.

Rick, where to dodge in 2027?

Lame is prediction.

And they'll still run 36th.

Beast of metal says another thing to remember about Toyota's entry back in 07.

There were only a handful of openings for new teams due to a rule that locked most

of the field in before qualifying.

Good thing it was later dismantled and not revived.

Huh?

We added a team to it since then.

35 to 36, you know, at this rate,

we will get to 43 guaranteed entries in, I don't know, 140 years.

Perhaps.

Zyclipso says, if you're wondering, if you're wondering my, by monsters,

well, my children Laguna and where got to make the playoffs somehow and Amlin and

Reddick got a big enough lead, don't they?

Jim, I was and still is my all time favorite driver.

I was excited for Michael Roots to be on RFK won't switch until Jack dies.

He is a loyalist to Ford.

Yeah, there's as long as his name is anywhere on the building, they ain't switching from

four.

That's not happening.

No.

Die hard.

J. J. R. and KFB fan want to see Hamster win the title this year.

Also, Jim, I broke me so many times at Charlotte as I never saw KFB win in 60 races since 2008.

He, he honestly should have won the 2009 Coke 600.

If it didn't rain out, he was, he was, don't worry.

I saw KFB win plenty of times for you.

That's right.

I've seen it too.

Yep.

Let's see.

They miss him, but man, I saw him win plenty of times.

It'd be neat to see Bowman end up as a crew chief.

I mean, I'd be interested.

The irony of everyone thinking his crew chief sucks just for him to become the best crew chief of all time.

Let's see, Indy Carson in for a few of them.

Hey, NWP, Sonoma O'Reilly and Cup Series SVG spanked them in both races.

Now all I want for SVG is two things.

Past Jeff Gordon is the road course king in the next two years and at least went on an oval in 2026 or 2027.

That's what I don't know about.

Follows it up here says, Michael, do you think Jimmy Johnson should compete in more truck races so he can join 41 other drivers to win a race in all three series after San Diego?

Why shouldn't he try?

I mean, yeah, after that performance, like I saw, I don't know who said it, but he was running lap times.

Like the entire race, like he was consistently one of the three or four bests

trucks out there the entire time.

And if he would just go,

I mean, I don't know if there was something because like San Diego was new for everybody, so he excelled because he had experience.

I don't know, but like if he would go to some of his better tracks like Dover and just like I'm so curious now,

what could he do?

Let's see. Jonah here says something.

I've wondered if we can go to two different tracks in Virginia and three different tracks in Tennessee and Florida.

Why wouldn't be be able to go to three tracks in Illinois on the schedule?

Um, I mean, the gateway obviously is so far away.

Different markets basically all together.

Nashville and Bristol are based by different markets too because that's like that's like a five hour drive.

Yeah, it's a total different market for sure.

Uh, the the thing with jolly yet and Chicago is the Chicago street race

is definitely one that's almost like a tourist trap activity.

Like when you look at the amount of people that went to it that didn't go to a NASCAR race or were new to it,

I think that's I think something like 80 of the people that went like had never been to chicagoland speedway once

chicagoland still having trouble selling out.

I think some of the tickets now are like 30 bucks because they're just trying to get it sold out.

Um, I don't think that the the area could support it whereas there are more NASCAR fans in Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia

compared to northern Illinois.

I was just curious the drive the drive time between Bristol Motor Speedway and Nashville Super Speedway is

four hours and 11 minutes and then let me uh,

let me say some real quick.

I want to see how this compares to another

track that we don't go to no more Kentucky Speedway.

Yeah, pretty close. It's three hours at the eight minutes between the two. So I was gonna say like I think that

Nashville Super Speedway basically replaced the same market that Kentucky Speedway had but

they're both equally the same drive. They're still far enough away that they're not the same market.

Yeah.

Uh, let's say iceberg you and everyone go into chicagoland for NASCAR. Have fun.

I will have fun as well for indy car in mid Ohio. I'll let you know how it goes.

I can't wait to go to my 42nd track in motorsports. That's awesome. That's pretty good. Yeah.

Uh, let's see. David says, Hey, Michael M. Can you send Danny B. Some dirt late model t-shirts?

He needs more racing gear during a NASCAR podcast.

Hey, I'm giving love to CJ2K man.

He said just kidding. Just kidding. I will send him some.

Well, that's good because I don't have any dirt late model t-shirts.

You're literally wearing a shirt. I think it's like an old school one. Am I? Am I? I have no idea.

I just bought it from old Navy. I don't know. Never mind. That's not a light model. I thought that was at first glance.

Uh, Jeffery King left a few here. Says, Bell is due. He is the best candidate for a Stuart Run.

Will the fender edit for short ovals fix etiquette? I think to a degree. I mean, if it works how they say it will, it would work enough to

make bump and runs work more. That's one of the goals.

But it definitely will make sure you don't have to all out slam into somebody. I'm

I want to see how it plays out at North Wilkesboro.

Uh, Indy Carson also says, Michael, I like your Larson pick because I've thought of him

all of June with his consistency. Crazy Kyle Busch defeating Larson is the last race. I went to a chicagoland

imagine Larson winning sunday.

I think he's a good sport or something.

Yeah, I mean, he he was damn good. He just never won. Uh, but granted, he was also a canassy at the time.

Uh, moobs, you talk about how the monday live ended.

This guy, this nishant

Oh god

At least he like he he trolls me in all the super chats and then talks to me normally in like the regular chats

Like he's explaining that that's how it works for me. Okay. So you want to know what happened on monday nights live?

So I was in the lead with Boris said at the chicago pier in nascar o nine

When all of a sudden the god damn car just flipped upside down on its own and I blew my engine

And that was how it ended with 20 laps to go from the lead

And then I went to bed

Thank you for reminding me nishant 331 baby 331 in the chat

There they go again

uh

Sadden that while you're talking about your chat there, michael. I just want to say just real quick give an update the

charity, uh, the fundraiser we did for bundle of joy. It actually completed

um

A couple days ago and we ended up raising 3259 dollars between the big night that your

your stream had

Um and and some we did with nwp and just other donating through various other places that it was put

So just big big. Thank you to everyone who did that

Hell yeah, that was awesome. Thank you to everybody. Um, that was in my chat that night that donated and everybody that donated just in general

That was awesome

Oh

Ross crash dane says if he retires from cup does alex go race o'reilly. Maybe we'll see

um

Eight years ago today was the famous slide job finish. We miss ukb. Hope larson can get the win for him

That's right. Yeah

That was that was so cool in person. I mean to see it in three and four

And when larson like when he goes through the grass and you see the tuft of dirt and grass go over his car

That was right in front of my campsite

Messing as you're saying that person and had no clue that slide job slide job wasn't coming on me man

No, I

When I went I went live so my brother and I went live for like 15 minutes

um after the race

And I'm like, hey, how was jr. And they're everyone's just like iconic call and I'm like, what did I miss and then

we went live inside the camper because

10 minutes after the race it started raining. They had moved the start up actually

And it was perfect because a huge line of storms came through

We had to wait it out for like an hour before we packed everything up and headed home and

Just everything lined up. It was it's a great race by the way

Like if you actually watch it from green flag to chocker flag, it's not just a great finish

Like the racing itself is pretty good. Even if it seems kind of dull at first. It's this sort of the slow

Rolling like snowball gets bigger and bigger and finally

Just explodes at the end. So I happy punched the floor when jimmy won his seventh cup

I was running all over the freaking house

I remember watching it with my grandpa and uh, he's just like, you know, if anyone could tie dale because he's a huge earner fan

He said if anyone could could tie dale, I'm glad it's him

Like that's high praise from a day learn her fan

Yeah, and I always liked the um, the radioactive

I think it was the radioactive that they did of that homestead 2016 race

And jr. Comes up to jimmy in victory lane or you know on the front straightaway after and

He tells him that he wishes his dad could be there to shake his hand

Because he would think that he's such a badass

I I always loved that

Yeah, that was a great moment. I remember seeing that too and I'm just like damn

This is a moment in history and the call to rick alan's call was awesome

Uh, let's see

Uh, what a week so far chicagoland this weekend angry birds three trailer on monday hit 8k subs on tuesday

I don't know what could ruin this. What do you mean?

Uh, starin's is still with the mess

Being a mess fan it ruins everything for you. Sorry. This is why i'm glad i'm such a casual

Baseball fan. I I don't have a team. I don't really care who wins it all

I just enjoy going to a game and checking out stadiums. I've been to

wriggly for cubs. I've been to

Atlanta for braves. I've been to la for dodgers

I'm going to be going to cubs and reds and cincinati next weekend

Might go back to another game at cubs this weekend

So I don't know. I just go for enjoying a baseball game and do you know food?

Do you know what the name of uh, of the burr stadium is?

No wriggly north

So let's see. So when I get to uh wriggly done is a all right wriggly stadium get on your feet. Come on

I'd take azzie being strung out on whatever he was on over jeff gordon's

USA advanced by the way my erica. Yeah, but i'm reading online apparently a bogus red car

Was given to one of our players made to finish it with a man down and that player won't be able to play in the next game either

Soccer so stupid

Calypso with lots of 3 3 ones

I'm just gonna get a tattooed on my wrist

So I can look at it all the time

So there's also me and my grandma skipped church

Well, that's a hell of a thing to promote

Was that let's see. Oh when he won his seven championship

I was like, well damn I've been doing that for like

Six years or more

Thank you. Who's trash can for the dollar

And uh joseph here saying do you guys think that cup will ever return to wisconsin either at rhoda america or the

mile

Definitely not the milwaukee mile. I would say rhoda america has more of a chance though, but not

Not in the coming future. I would say

Yeah, the milwaukee mile truck stuff was a it was just a cluster truck. It was not gonna work out

Um, and it was pretty much just who was running it. Um

Let's see. Happy early fourth of july to all the nascar fans. Happy fourth of july everybody. Make sure you keep 10 fingers

Uh after this weekend too pretty reverse. Terry

Yeah pretty reverse terry

Um, and then he says I still attention

All right, thank you guys for coming on out michael. Thank you for joining us

Uh, we didn't keep you on for a marathon this time

Yeah, no, uh, I could go to bed

sued

You online michael marrutes, where can we find your stuff? Where can people find me?

Uh, mainly here on youtube just if you search mru cz. I'm the only one

Um, find me there search me out on instagram

x

I've tweeted about kevin harvick 22 times. I didn't even know that

So if you're interested in harvick tweets, you know, uh go search me out and uh

Yeah, thank you guys for having me. Happy fourth of july everybody america 250

The searching for michael moobs bring you up. I do wonder that does it?

shit, although

well, I also

Uh, thank you bailey. Uh, same bowman story. It dies

That is great

Bowman's story of more than likely being famous for his car catching fire at new hampshire to winning cup races will always be cool

It definitely will be and hopefully it ain't ain't over anytime soon too. I hope he keeps going as long as possible

Uh, but next week we'll be on eric's channel apm eastern time

Uh for nwp covering chicagoland if you're there

Danny eric and i will all be there. Uh, we'll probably be out in the midway or all together at some point saturday

So come say hi. We are all all cool saying hi. There's supposed to be a bunch of other people there, too

It's gonna be a party in the infield outside wherever it's gonna be

Um, I don't want to dox all the names that I've heard that might be there in case they want to keep that more of a

Secret but I've heard some other people you may know will be at this race

And thank you mom

Says proud of you son always wriggly nor 23 for the number of runs the cubs scored today and the goat yet

That's right. MJ will be there for sure and he's got to be with the space jam car

Oh 100 percent

Oh, I can't wait. That's gonna be awesome. Thank you guys so much for all coming out. We will see you next week and uh

later

Yeah, so I overdrive just let me do my job

I'll tell you

What the f*** are you doing out here?

You

Chicagoland Speedway

Sonoma Raceway

Shane Van Gisbergen

the chase

Jimmie Johnson

Car of Tomorrow

Ford F-150 Lightning

Dodge Challenger

Stellantis

wind tunnel testing

Kaulig Racing

charters

Buick Grand National

slide job

About this episode

Original notes