Will Underwater Loans Sink The Auto Industry?

Hello, and welcome to the 3-th row cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor, and this

week we have Ivan Jury from Edmunds.com on to talk to us about upside down car loans.

T-Tech contributor Matthew Guy and I take time to discuss glass cleaner and NASCAR's regular

season finale at Daytona.

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next ride on eBay. See, eBay has got everything, from classics to trucks and imports. Now with

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If you like what you hear in the T-Tech podcast, please give us a review. And if you like what

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sold out.com. We are your source for car reviews, car news, opinions, and so much

more. Check us out at t-tech.com.

Here on the truth about cars podcast, we are always talking about stuff that we

use in our homes, in our cars and on our cars. And with me to do that today

is just about always is T-Tech contributor Matthew Guy. Matthew, how are you doing

today?

Hi Tim, I'm doing pretty good. How about you?

I'm doing well, sir. You're talking about glass cleaner today, right?

That's right. And that's the sort of thing that you can use just a bit anywhere.

We always preface this with sometimes in our homes and sometimes on our car.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And I had a unique, I don't know, unique opportunity or not. I'm probably

overselling it greatly. But it's been, it's been super dry where I live.

You know, it's been really, really dry. Haven't had much rain for a couple of

months. And I had to take a detour where I was coming back from and Google, as it

often does, you know, I knew that it was going to take me onto this gravel road.

But I was just curious as to see where Google was going to take me. And sure

enough, it took me up this gravel road. And it was dusty. You couldn't see a

thing. There was a car. I left the car in front of me, right? You can

picture that, right? It's just a dusty, raw road.

Not clean. Not a good way to keep a clean car.

Not at all, right? So then when I got home, of course, everything's awful to dust

and whatnot. And plus two, driving into the sun, you can, that's amplified.

All of the road grime and all the gunk that's on your window. So I happened

to have two different glass cleaners on hand. I had one from McGuire's.

It's just a spray bottle. Looks like, you know, the normal, quote-unquote

Windex glass cleaner bottle. So I had, I had a bottle of that lying

around. And then I also had something just called invisible glass. That's

more in a can, right? It's like in a spray can. If you were

to, if you were to spray shaving cream, that's a can, right?

Instead. So I thought, you know what? I'll do a little test here now.

And I'll try both of them just to see what it is. And then the person

who was there with me said, hey, why don't you also just try the old

fashion, old wives tale of just water and vinegar as well, just to see

what that does, right? Because that's cheap. There's non-toxic and it's

supposed to work pretty well. So the instructions that I found online

said mix up, excuse me, just to mix up two cups of water and a quarter

cup of white vinegar. Didn't specify anything special, just stuff I

had in the fridge. So I did, you know, a test then just to do

three different, just to do three different parts of the windshield

just with dust and road grime and stuff like that. The car had been

driven down by a thousand, six hundred miles, I guess, towards

that crud on the windshield. And the vinegar and water worked

really much better than I anticipated. I didn't think it was

going to do anything. Certainly in a pinch, if I didn't have

anything else, I would use that again. And I just used normal

rags, just, you know, the, you know, the fuzzy ones that

you get. What's the word I'm looking for? Microfiber.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Yep, just a microfiber one. So nothing

special there. And the, I mean, the downfall of it is it's

stank, right? I mean, vinegar is stank. So that was the major

downfall of that, but it worked way better than I

expected. I expected it just to make a mess. But it didn't, it

was good. And I did this in like a shady area, but the

weather was fair. You know, so it says that if you do

this like in a super, super cloudy environment with the

water vinegar, what I was reading about it is that you

might end up with some weird drying patterns. I'll throw that

out there. And then I tried to do commercial applications.

The spray, the foam, the stuff that came out of like the

shaving cream, the glass. That was that was fine. There

was no streaks really left on it. It worked okay. But the

Maguire stuff was probably, I mean, short of, you know,

getting the vinegar stuff for free. I would choose the

Maguire stuff, because it got it super, super clean. There

was no streaks. And this is me, you know, buying the

marketing, but it smelled good, right? Like, I mean, you

know, and you detailed cars, you know, many moons ago,

and sometimes just having a clean smelling car is just

as good as having a clean looking car as well that

just adds that to it. So that was that that was my

choice over over those three, just in terms of one, two,

three in terms of the ones that I would choose.

And you found these off email motors, these Maguire's

products? I did. Yes, I got Maguire's products off of

eBay. That was only about 10 bucks for a book. So it's

like 700 mils. So I don't know what that equates to

in ounces, but it's your typical.

Not me either, man. I'm not that good at math

this morning. But it's a mouth most people can picture

the the Windex quote unquote type bottle. And then I

also got the other stuff off eBay as well as this

invisible glass. The brand name is Stoner. I think

I think that's hilarious. So yes, I got those.

Right. And there's all kinds of different ones on

there. I don't ever have any trouble. Sometimes

people are like, oh, I can't, you know, buy

stuff that's liquid on on eBay. Yes, you can.

Right. That's no trouble to buy this type of stuff

from that site. And stuff shows up super quick

and always within the promise delivery date.

So recommend recommend that place for picking up

a lot of these a lot of these tools that we use

in our homes and on our cars, as you say.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah. Glass cleaners one of those

things. It's it's so easy to use. It's

relatively inexpensive and helps to keep your car

clean and visible. Visibility is also a big thing

too. So there's a little bit of a minor safety component

there as well. So, you know, as it is something

that when we worked at when I worked with a car dealership

we were prepping a car that had just been sold.

It was also the last thing we did was clean the windows

because anything else that you're doing is you prep

a car to get the windows dirty. But as we clean

the car, you know, we always make sure to have

those windows nice and shiny because it really does

look good. Showroom quality for sure.

It does. It does. It's one of those details that

there's a huge difference when you're looking at a car.

And if anyone of our listeners is, you know, selling

your car, right? Whether that's probably the

training you need. People say, oh, no, it does make

a difference. Yeah, it does make a difference. If you

got a clean car and it looks good, even if you

bring it to a dealer, it does make a difference

subconsciously. Absolutely. Having a clean

car, you will get a few more bucks out of it.

And the benefits too. I mean, I personally, I

think it's probably better to use automotive

specific products on your glass as opposed to

grabbing Windex out of your bathroom. But in a

pinch, you can do that. And then it also works

the other way too. You know, if you run out of

Windex in your bathroom or a mirror cleaner for

your bathroom mirror, you can maybe grab the

stuff out of your garage and use that on your

on your home, your home's windows or your

home's mirrors. And obviously, because glass

better on mirrors too. So to clean off your

rear view mirror, the inside of your side view

mirrors, a little squirt can get a nice

and clean. So all good there.

Tim, I'm chuckling because I absolutely do that.

And that's why my bathroom sometimes smells like a

dealership, like a washback. Yeah, I can see that.

I can see that. Anything else we talked about

about glass cleaner? I mean, it's not a very

complicated subject. No, it's not. But it's

an important subject, you know, just for people

to have, like you said, and being able to see

is sorely underrated. Yeah, a lot of people

don't even bother getting their wipers when

the windshield's a little dirty. They don't

even use the windshield washer fluid, which

is different than glass cleaner, of course.

Yeah, people need to be able to see, excuse me,

in order to drive safely. Especially driving

into the sun that just amplifies all the road

grind inside and out. So, Noah, but thanks

for having me out again today. I appreciate it.

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This week on the Truth While Cars podcast we are talking

with Edmunds and the director of Insights

Edmunds.

Ivan Drury, how are you doing today Ivan?

Not bad sir, how are you doing?

Well, so what we're talking about today is something we covered

on the site at TTAC a little bit ago,

a couple weeks ago.

But it's an evergreen topic, so it's

not exactly time sensitive, but it's

underwater car loans.

And how people, and this is something that's

been talked about a lot of

times in the past, especially back in

2008 during the

lead up to the Great Recession. So

Ivan, kind of walk us through what's going on with

underwater car loans, high level, then we'll start

kind of drilling down to some questions I have.

Yeah, from the

highest level

what we're seeing is that they

are on the rise.

Consumers are trading in vehicles

that they still have a balance on

and unfortunately

the value of their vehicle is not enough

to cover that balance, so they end up rolling

over some of that value

that they don't have the next loan.

And the thing is that

roughly half of all trade-ins

are all vehicle sales

and about a quarter of those

have negative equity.

The thing is that

it's the dollar amounts that are getting kind of

out of control. Looking at

about $6,800, $6,700

on average, that's not

a little bit of money, right?

Yeah, so negative equity is

not necessarily bad in a car loan though, right?

Let's say you owe

someone, let's say you've got a three-year-old car

and it's 100,000 miles

and it's time for a new one, you have some

negative equity. That's not necessarily bad, right?

It's more just the dollar amount

that is what you have to concern yourself with.

Yeah, you know, if you owe

like $1,000, $1,500, hey

you're almost breaking even with the trading

value of your vehicle

versus what you owe.

You might even be able to

completely absolve yourself of it if you go

and trade it in somewhere else where I shop around

to trade in, right? $1,000 swing, that's not

that bad. You could actually be

positive if you got the right buyer.

So, you know, it's not all

bad and it does happen depending

on what vehicle you buy

and what your situation is. You know, if you

suddenly have a child

or a triplet's on their way

or something like your life situation changes

hey, how can I knock on that, right?

Like you can't forecast them future that

far to see that your needs will change.

Right. The thing is, is that

when we see this, you know

one time mistakes happen

twice, you might be

having a habit, third time you're striking out, right?

Like if you are now

taking out 84 month loans rolling

over like 7K, 10,

15, right? That's a lot of money.

Yeah, the odds of you

actually paying off this vehicle

or riding it out to the wheels fall off

become slimmer and slimmer and you will

probably find yourself back at the dealership

with yet another vehicle

and another loan and

maybe even two cars ago

worth of negative equity.

Yeah, that's not good. And I would suggest to

when you talk about shopping on your trade

you might also consider

selling it privately. You might actually

make some more money that way because dealers

are definitely going to want to spend as little

as they can on a trade and it's understandable

because they're trying to make as much money as they can on a deal.

So yeah,

I think you make a really good point too. It's one thing to be

negative equity just because you can't anticipate a life

change that might require a bigger vehicle

or maybe the vehicle

you bought just didn't depreciate super

well. You know what I mean? Or depreciated too much.

You bought a car that

just didn't hold three sale value that happens.

But yeah, so that's a really

good point there. I think too

the next question I want to ask you is

how much

so we hear a lot about high

average transaction prices. I don't have the ATP

in front of me but it's around 48,000 right now

I believe depending which source you look at

it can be a thousand

dollars give or take but about 48,000.

So how much

is new car pricing playing

a role in this because

$48,000 if you make

$80,000 a year is a lot of

money. Yeah, and

that's another component to it is

when we look at the age of vehicles

being traded in.

We're looking at vehicles that are like

3.8, 4 years old,

they're right on the cusp of that

rapid uptick

in ATP. There's roughly

around 2021, 2022

massive increase

in both MSRP and ATP

in that gap closing.

If you're looking at 2020

kind of pandemicy area there were

discounts happening. 2019

your standard issue $3,000 off

right low interest rates all that fun stuff

but what's happening is

you're getting more consumers

who are trading vehicles they probably

paid MSRP when MSRP

used for like 45k back in

2022 and

they are paying some of them

they were paying over fighting each other

but like grab four hybrids

right the prime going like 10k

over like you saw some absurd stuff

during the height of the crunch

and some of those

vehicles that are coming back

those pandemic regrets essentially

where you overpaid but now

your vehicles are readily available

probably look at large trucks people are paying MSRP

that's unreal you never see

people paying full price

digger price on a large truck what do you got now

well you got 0% loans you had

you had these huge discounts

cash on the hood guess what

your used value is tanking

so therefore if you trade in now

and you bought something during the height

you're going to be upside down unless you had

a substantial down payment

paid in all cash where you had

one of these offers that was just too good

to pass up where the resell value

of your vehicle brought you back to the dealer

and they paid you essentially what it was

new and some people that happened

I can't knock on them right you got

to drive a car for free essentially for two years

but for other consumers

they're getting caught up in the fact

that yes vehicles are getting

more expensive

every single year there's a chicken with the egg

right is it the vehicle that you're buying

and the options that you enjoy

and you can't get rid of and you can't go

backwards or you can't get a smaller vehicle

you can't get rid of your ventilated seats

your 360 camera

so you just got to buy more car

you know or is it the automakers not making

what you want a cheaper price

and honestly I got to

say that's the new car buyer mentality

is I want it all

right they only build what they

can sell and they would not

be selling these vehicles they would sit even

longer and the automakers wouldn't build them

but it's like you look at the options

and trim level proliferations

that we're seeing right started more than

10 years ago when

higher and higher trims kept coming out

because consumers kept buying higher and higher

trims you know I think

the Explorer was a good example of this

when it first launched with that redesign with

Unibody it was like a 50%

tape rate or something insane on the

top tier trim level

you know Honda's Odyssey Touring it went from

Touring to Touring Elite because people

just kept on buying that top tier trim

and it spans across

all categories of vehicles

that when people buy new

they're not buying base they're not buying mid

you know people are buying a lot of loaded

vehicles you have in like 30%

above base trim

level pricing and yes

that contributes to this because what happens

higher trim levels to appreciate quicker

not always right you buy a

TRD off road to coma yeah it's got a whole value

a lot better than sitting SR

but in most cases

in the used market people are looking for the more

basic version or those

options they time out right like

if you look at the technology from five years ago

versus today

that touchscreen that was big

and great back then is

not irrelevant now but it doesn't hold as much

value right so it's

it's that other problem of these

fantastic features that are so

you know you're so drawn to

in the new car purchase they're also some

of the ones that just not going to hold value in the future

yeah

so you mentioned pandemic regrets how much of this

outside of what you've already touched on

I don't you don't need to repeat what you already said

but outside of what you've already touched on

how much of this really is

driven by the weirdness of that

of that year two years stretch

well I think the more people

have had situations that have changed on them

as well you know you look back

how are you living here four years ago

yeah a lot of people are commuting now they work

home yeah precisely right now you're

buying pants and you're driving a word

you know it's like you're increasing your cost kind

of everywhere else too

you've got people who

did have

a need that has changed

and I think that change is a lot more

today than it has been in the past

because you've had a reversal

role so quickly

and that is something that

really makes someone think okay am I moving

locations am I

you know gonna try to find another job

seen plenty of horror stories there

you know it's a lot of users buy a vehicle

or move and in some cases

you're completely trying to change your occupations

so I know for some

people this is driven by

the fact that the world around them has changed

too it might not have been something that they

did you know or maybe you bought

an EV right this is right around

when EVs started becoming the

hottest items in the market

like the lowest days to turn

right we had like EVs not even sitting

on the lot all those reservations that people

made they raised their hand they said

I will buy this site unseen

but what if it didn't work out for you

unfortunately it's also the segment that

has the hardest

heaviest depreciation

when we run these numbers by powertrain EVs

is over 10k right it's

something in which you see

that that level of regret

is extremely costly

if it doesn't work out for you and unfortunately

for the technology that's you know

has the most investment has

some of the greatest payoffs from when it does

work for somebody if it doesn't

or they've got their eye on something new

that maybe has more range

or it's a little bigger

there could be a huge surprise for them

right around the corner when the dealer

yeah yeah so

the other question I wanted to ask you too about

you know

this is probably

you touched on this a little bit as well

and it's probably not just pandemic related

although it may play a part

just the whole keeping up the Jones's

aspect of

okay so I learned a chord right

I don't own a chord just hypothetical

let's say someone owns an accord

and it's a mid trim

and they bought it you know

and they paid under sticker

and negotiated and whatever

and the neighbor comes with

I don't know Lexis ES 350

and they say well you know

and I want the Lexis I don't need the Lexis

but I want the Lexis

I could have it's going to be a stretch of

it of my budget you know like a chord is fine

I can afford a chord I maybe can't afford a Lexis

but I'm going to go for the Lexis

or it's going to be a stretch anyway

how much of that is just people like

extending their budget because their neighbor got something cool

or because

a car has a feature they think they want

they end up maybe not using as much

or maybe because an advertisement got to them

you know like people who buy a full size truck

who never use it but they like the idea

of owning a truck you know what I mean

stuff like that

yeah it's so when we look at these numbers

you look historically

typically things were more normal

you know pre-2020

you know the percentage of trade-ins

it's usually half anyway right almost

half of all sales of all the trade-in

that's a very normal number the thing is

the share

of trade-ins with negative

has actually been higher in the past

more frequently it's usually

a third right now we're only at a quarter

you know resell values are still high enough

that you can kind of let's call it make a mistake

and be shielded by high

resell value the thing is

when you look at those historical numbers

and you see it's very

very typically a third

of them do comprise with equity

I do more often

than not default to bad behavior

all right you're not making

financial decisions you're making them

based upon what do I want

not what do I need

because if you see

the frequency in which consumers do this

you see them sometimes trading

up to a different trim level

same model different

trim you know it's like

that's why I say one way to

sidestep this problem all together and it sounds

crazy and it's like

it's bad in a different ways

buy as much of that car as you can

because if you are trying to save

$2,000 today

by not getting those ventilated seats

or those massaging ones or that feature

that you're like man

can I save a little bit of money

or my wife didn't use that often enough

or my husband never turns on the heated steering wheel

like guess what if that makes

you come back to the dealership

in one year or six months

then if you're going to have a bigger problem

than saving $2,000

you're going to be upside down like $10,000

and that is another issue

you have not just

the neighbors that got a car

you didn't realize it existed

maybe you could have gotten the same one

but you think hey I really

I really want that

and I could have that if I stretch it

but it's not thoroughly test driving

when you're buying a new car

you know it's like yeah

you might get dead set you fall in love online

you think you've added out all the features that you wanted

and the trim level

all that stuff

but this is the case in which it's like

you don't want to

find out later

by not having done a thorough test drive

you see people they this happens

quite often too they're like well

I ended up trying it out on my commute

or I drove to work and back and it turns out

that you know I

just say it hurts my back after 30 minutes

when the length of the seat cushion

you know I've had it happen with the vehicle that I had

I was like yeah I'm never going to buy this car

I thought I didn't it was a rental

but you know I've had a cousin who has a dealer vehicle

unfortunately the seat cushion is a little short

so the point where it costs is paid

you know it's like a thorough long

test drive can fat out some of these problems

but yeah there's the green

eye of jealousy and envy that

some people have when they

see what their neighbors got their co-worker

you know it's

it's tough because

autos represent such

a huge portion of our lives

it's a basic idea right?

point A to point B but your car says something

about you I don't care what anybody says

it can make you feel good it can make you feel

bad it can make other people have different feelings about you

and when we wrap up that much emotion

something that's so

you know financially

important and expensive

we're going to have crazy stuff like this happen

yeah so

I'm going to take advantage of my platform right now

and I've got somebody who

is close to me who has a 4 year old

vehicle they paid about what you'd

expect for they didn't over buy

and I'm not sure what the miles are

it's a mid-size crossover SUV

and this particular person

is thinking about trading it in

I think it was around 70,000 miles on it

and I would just say

this person looked at the blue book value

saw that it was about

$17,000 or $18,000 something like that

and all the vehicles in that segment

equipped the way this person would want them equipped

it would be like a mid trim or lower trim

they don't need all the bells and whistles or top trim

would be probably

a $30,000

maybe a $35,000 maybe a $40,000 vehicle

or this person could go a size down

and crossovers

and go to like the $30,000 range

so

they'd be looking at it's a Cherokee owner

so they'd be looking at Broncosport

the upcoming Cherokee

RAV4 CRV or they could go down one size

to like Hyundai Kona

or maybe even in between there

I'm trying to think

Jeep Compass it's still on the market

something like that size

Ford Escape maybe I know the escapes kind of on its way out

but I'm trying to remember what off-time I had with vehicles still exist

and which ones don't

so what advice would you give them

would you tell them to go a size down

would you tell them to trade it in

tell them to go to a private seller

and get as much money as they can

and don't just do this for me

do it for anyone who's gotten that situation

anyone who's got like a $10,000 gap

between what their car is worth

and what the next car in the same segment

would be just because of inflation

and newer models

and how prices go up over time

the vehicle in your driveway

always say step by step

if you have a lot more flexibility

in the offers you receive for that

and your negotiation tool being that vehicle in the driveway

you've got to shop it around

you shop it to people that

you're not necessarily

trying to act in front

it is much easier to do it all under one umbrella

but if you can break apart the sale

into multiple parts and save yourself

$1,500

$2,000

now this is also dependent on what state you live in

because in some states

using your trade-in

does get you that tax advantage

do the math

don't just default to say

well it'll be easier and it's a negligible difference

it's like no do the math please

because depending on where you are

it could be another $500

$1,500

there's some wild swing depending on where you live

but shop or trade-in

it is imperative

no go to those online retailers

go to your car max

go to the dealer dental street

depending on what you drive

the independent dealer might be of your alley

and yes try it on private

but again time is money right

if you think your vehicle is worth more

than the market says

and you find that it's going to be sitting for a while

and you don't want to deal tire kickers

it might just not be worth it

have that breaking point in mind

where you say you don't want to cut my losses

and just make this

sale happen

but the other end of this is

if you want to not be in the same situation

you're going to have to buy the vehicle

that has the best resale value

and that is something which yes

if you buy a Toyota product

or a Honda product

the odds of you being upside down

are far more reduced

than say it's the longest product right now

you know this is something which

you know look at what's happening

on the new end of the business

if they have heavy incentives on new

that means their residual values in the future

will be diminished

and if you want to kind of save yourself

or if you're going to hedge your bets

buy the vehicles with the least incentives

if you really think

you can ride it out of this vehicle

on the flip side though

if you need to make this as cheap

as possible

and you really think you like that vehicle

that does have incentives

go get the one that's going to

let you get it for the cheapest over time

and get that one that has a finance offer

right if you can take that bad

debt and roll it into like

a 0% loan or 1.9%

loan

do it you know they're going to max you out

there's going to be loan to value ratios

that you have the state within to make this happen

but if you can take that

instead of paying 7%, 8%,

10%, whatever it's going to be

on that upside

down component to your existing phone

if you can make that a low APR

like a 1.9%, 2.9%, 3.9%

that too will save you

a lot of money going on down the road

because typically what we see

unfortunately is that people buy up

a lot of cars still when they

roll over their negative equity

the monthly payments

something like $915

in this Q2

but that was the average monthly

payment for people who had negative equity

and rolled oh yeah

it is on real levels

of payment right

that's an average and compared that to the industry

industry average was only

$756

so clearly we're seeing

that it makes a real big difference on what you buy next

but the thing is

is that I can take that

thorough test drive and if

cars are just 0.8 to 0.5

to you

if you're a little more brand agnostic

or you feel like

it's not something crucial to who I

am that I must have this vehicle

just this one color

shop around

yeah yeah and the person in this

example I know their payment I don't know exactly what it is

it's not insane it's a relatively normal

payment and I don't know

you know all the specifics here

vehicles in pretty decent shape I think did have

one fender bender that was repaired

with no issues but yeah normal

enough and I don't

know if this particular person is married to having

the next version of the same model

or willing to shop around a bit so

that's really good advice for anyone who's got

a three or four year old car that's

$75,000 a thousand miles on it

thinking about trading time but

looking and seeing the equities not quite matching

the cost of a new car in that same

segment in the same size

class so that's good to know now I want

to switch gears a little bit and go big picture on you

so this is a little interesting

to me is looking at

my my

I'm going to do a little background before I ask

the question one of my

kind of financial awakening since I was in my

20s when the great recession

hit and I was just sort of my first office

job finishing up grad school I

worked I had worked in the

real world for a little while and like

customer service retail type jobs my first

like white collar office job and

long story short

that's when you kind of started really understanding

all my adult now because you started seeing

as you read through the news you started

seeing that the mortgage crisis

was people people who were paying

attention saw coming in so many ways many

words because they saw people are under water

on their loans stuff like that

and that's kind of an indicator now of the

economic trouble right but I don't know

if cars are the same way and I remember

talking to a former

at the time he was my boss

about his theory I tend to agree

with this was if I think it was his

theory was that

cars are less of an indicator

when their car when people are under water

on their loans of trouble

because losing a car to repossession

is less catastrophic than losing your home

it just is you can

buy used car you can get around out of car

you can figure out something

else

a little more easily it's still it's still

bad it's still going to be avoided

but especially if you live in a place where

public transit is not existing but

I was always told

that you know you watch houses in that car

so is that correct and

is watching what's going on with the car

situation with people being under water

and have negative equity is it a harbinger

of bad times or is it just

a blip especially given the pandemic

realities and how the pandemic threw everything

off the past half decade

is it something we should be worried about

is it as a side of more more trouble

to come with the greater economy or it's just kind of like

well this is bad but it's not doesn't

necessarily mean we're going to go through another great

discussion

I put this up there as

for some of it is optional

behavior this isn't the same

as say

you know your homes being

possessed it's not on the same level as that

and I've actually heard from some private members

where they said well

people might be willing to skip the payment

on their home because you can't go to work

in your house right you got to

get to work in your car so

I think defaults on payments

that is a far worse indicator

because now you're juggling different kinds of debt

these are situations negative

equity situation in which the bank

is allowing the customer to make this

decision financially right

they are vetting it

to the degree that they are and

you know sometimes customers if they're

fully telling the truth and they're getting

denied because they owe too

much that's kind of

say a good thing but it helps

them not get into even more trouble

right now these numbers are telling us

that the bank is saying these are

manageable with what the customer

has told us and the information we

have available which reminds

me of the great recession buildup

especially a red the big short yes

and that's where it gets a little

dice here because we know that nowadays

there's other payments

that aren't really

out there in the same way right these

like pays you go things

right these low or

high level interest rate loans on cheaper

products I think that recently

we've seen more of them

requiring to report to credit agencies

whereas in the past

you know those hey pay this product

off

twelve installments of seven dollars

and it pays for it you know it's like these little things

some people are utilizing

that weren't really being tracked

so if the banks not aware of it to a hundred

percent degree as to how

you might be struggling financially yet

this behavior

you know it goes to stand that's a problem

for both you know it

loans involved negative equity and once

it don't yeah that I think that

negative equity it'll always

exist to some degree even when

resale values were at the absolute

highest we still had some people

you know going into soon

and rolling over some debt

like it just is what it is to some

degree for me the problematic

component to this is yes that

it's reaching all time highs

and we know

that there's people out there who are being

rejected who want to do this

but the bank is saying no

the dealership there yeah they'd be like hey I'll sell you

whatever right but it's really

come down to the F&I office so they're saying

okay this isn't going to happen

so you know you got to

wait it out or you got to get a different car

maybe something crazy like

you have to buy more car

to get the loan to value ratio right

you know if you're trying to buy a $40,000

car and they're saying sorry

you owe too much well if I bought a $60,000

car would that get the ratios

right yes it is

your income going to support that though

debatable you know that's

the next level but

is this all the same level as hey

we see negative equity therefore

we're signaling

yet another problem within

the economy and the consumers

going to start defaulting on loans

not really it's

the default on loans kind of lives

in a separate area

and is a far better indicator

okay we've got a major problem

the unfortunate thing is that

I think we're starting to see that too

even if it's separate from this altogether

there is more talk

of repossessions and defaults

yeah that can't

be a good thing

when you mentioned

banks saying oh this is manageable

oh my gosh that's flashbacks

I read the big short and watched them

that's in the movie a few times it's like

oh that's flash I mean it's in there

when they had the credit default swaps

they're like oh this is fine this is fine

now obviously it's not quite the same thing

those are complicated financial products

that I barely understand

and also as we said losing a house

is a little different level than losing a car

and all that sort of thing so it's not exactly

apples to apples but there is some similarity there

and the whole attitude of well I'm making money

that's their problem not my problem

that becomes my problem that's an issue too

but of course like you said

banks and dealers are going to want to do

whatever makes them money so I get it

I do

they'll do it makes them money in the short term even if they've heard some in the long term

alright so

yeah is there anything else we haven't

really touched on yet that you kind of wanted to talk about

that maybe I have not asked

or it just hasn't come up in conversation

I mean there's

there's one solution that I

could have mentioned earlier for your friend right

people are turning in these three and four year old vehicles

you know there's a product for that

that kind of makes this go away

it's called leasing right and it's like

yeah this person is actually thinking about leasing

the next vehicle doing the only questions

they put a lot of miles on a car in a year

so they're not so sure if it's a good idea

you tell them you know buy those miles

up front it's a lot cheaper than paying

the penalty in the end and I think that

the mystery

around leasing and the idea that you're

throwing your money away

you know and I think that people need to

kind of reestablish their

thought process when it comes to leasing

now leasing unfortunately right now

is at a very low

point now the offers

they're okay from automakers they're not

great people who didn't

lease three years ago aren't

back in the market because they had to buy

three years ago the incentives admittedly

awful therefore consumers

purchased and many of those

incentive offers three years ago

required the dealer to contribute

cash three years ago you could sell a car

over MSRP why would you contribute anything

so people bought so

a lot of that pool of consumers who

typically lease they're not

back at the dealer today

so we're seeing the lease penetration rate

is kind of hovering around you know like

19% which is a lot lower

than it's normal close to like 30%

so yeah yeah

I mean but leasing side steps

this issue whether or not the incentives are great or not

it's a lot better than being upside down 7k

it's a lot better than being upside down

$10,000 and people forget

this 24 month lease is this 36

this 48 months but if you

don't ask you don't get

you have to go in there and realize

they want to sell your car in any way shape and form

they can but make it fit

your lifestyle say yeah I want that

24 month lease I want 30,000

miles I want 40,000 miles

they can do the math and they can do it for

you so that it's not going to be

this huge financial burden

when you come back to the dealer

that makes a lot of sense and this particular person

is retired is getting close retirement

age and they might

excuse me they might retire

soon and if they do they will let less

miles on the car the commute to work

is a bit lengthy so

so that's a big

factor in the decision too if they

end up not working anymore

they work out of the house they work in an office

and if they work if they don't work anymore

and all sudden the commute is reduced to just go

into the grocery store which is close to the house

and all the other retail stores that are

really close to the house then

it becomes less of an issue so that's

interesting but I also want to go

we have about seven or eight minutes left

I also wanted to go big picture and is there anything

big picture that we did not get into

we did not cover that we probably should have

I think we covered it for the most part

I guess we could go down the road of

you know is it the 84

84 month loan prevalence that's also feeding

yeah that is something that I wanted to ask about

thank you for bringing that up we can finish with that

yeah the 84 month loan

I mean these are increasingly becoming

the most common loan type

that's a long loan for

yeah

again it doesn't go beyond your typical

warranty like yeah you better believe it

right so this is where

the 84 month loan might

also package in an extended warranty

some other packages right

things that don't add value to

your vehicle and if you come

back to the dealership guess what

with a seven-year loan

you haven't been paying as much principle as you

realize right it's it's like

a mortgage you pay more interest up front

it's not as aggressive

but yeah it's there your

there's a mortgage at all about that yeah

right yeah you're like wait a second

the price wasn't gone down much well

I've been in my place for a while so it's certainly

but yes yeah so you thankfully got

that golden point where like hey you know what

these payments they count

and it makes sense but yeah

for autos yeah you can see this becoming

very cyclical

for people that have signed up

for 84 month loans

they have a higher APR loan as well

if they bought those extra products

you know while they're good piece of

mind if you're not going to keep the car that long

and you're just doing this for

manageable you know for

mobility reasons extending out to 84

if you don't buy the extra products

right if you honestly only doing this

for the monthly payment you you're kind of

in that bad behavior cycle well at least

lower your monthly payment by not buying a

warranty you never need to use yeah

you know if you're gonna you're gonna drive

to the wheels fall off and you actually

love this car go crazy

check the boxes but for a lot

of people where this is really just

I'm only doing it to get the monthly payment

down to where I can afford it

then you might want to fork those

some of the extra curriculars

yeah and I have a hard time getting my head

around the idea of a loan longer than

three to five years or less like you

said you plan on

I had like growing up I had next-door neighbors and

I'm sure obviously in the 80s and 90s

finances was a way different so it's again

not exactly apples to apples but I had

next-door neighbors they'd buy a car and they would

keep it for ever

and the only time they replaced the car

is if it broke and it was

just because it was how they viewed

cars they just

they weren't exactly car people like

they didn't know a little bit about cars they weren't

exactly huge car enthusiasts they just wanted

a reliable transportation that would get them to

and from work and and would

you know just require regular maintenance and that would be it

and they were good about maintenance is one reason why

they kept their cars forever is because they kept

them maintained so I can see in their case

okay fine you want to go any more

for any four months fine yeah it's a low

weight yard go crazy right right but

for anyone who wants a new car every three to five

years and if they're not leasing

I don't understand you know

I get it people are people

trying to buy stuff they can't afford and I also understand

that the new car pricing

has gone a little insane as we talked about at the

outset the average transaction price is very high

and we talk about

T-Tac and a lot of the articles that we write

my colleague Matt Poskey writes a lot of these

he's actually the one who wrote the article that

had me reach out to Edmunds

you know

he covers a lot of this

for us it's the

the idea of consumers are

and we've touched on a lot of the reasons already

so we don't need to re-litigate it but

consumers are basically

a lot of times over buying just whether it's

like it's like whether it's like we said earlier keeping up the Joneses

getting features they want

or just feeling or just feeling that they have

to keep to get at the new car

the right size or whatever or like you said a change

in life so yeah it's

a lot going on it's a lot of

we buy for the occasional

not the everyday right yeah

you got that family that shows up

twice a year and the extra head count

means you got to get your

seven eight cedar vehicle

when you have one kid or no kids

it's like look you know

yes we dream the idea of

what this car will provide for us

but in reality when you just go to Costco

or you're like hey I'm on a Walmart

on the regular basis dropping off with one or two children

you're not going off-road everyday

right it's one of these things

where we've got so

many options available to us

and so many hopes and dreams for what the car

can do for us or

help change our day-to-day grind

but it's like unless you truly go forward with

doing it you're probably buying up

too much vehicle yeah

and again this the idea of

social media right everybody's got to

have things instantly people like

to show things off and that

you know it's like

social media that matters too

yeah it definitely feeds into

that mentality of like

I want more why because

now the grass isn't greener next door

it's everywhere

it's across the globe everyone's

doing better than you see better one of them

in some way shape or form that you can

right it's pretty vicious cycle

yeah and on that we've got about

three minutes left so with that we'll wrap it but it's

really that that ladder

topic the idea of

why we're over buying

is something we probably could do a hold on

the segment so thank you so much

Ivan for your time I think you're already the director of

insights at admins.com

Ivan once again thank you

Thanks Tim it was great huh dude

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just about every week here

on the truth about cars podcast we are talking

NASCAR with almost always tchat

contributor Matthew Guy Matthew how are you doing today

I'm doing pretty good how about you

I'm doing well I'm doing better

than some drivers who just

missed a chance at the playoffs on Saturday

and Florida did so

we'll talk about the Daytona

race I don't have in front of me the official

name of it but we'll talk about the

the last race of the regular season

and

what determined you know

a race that determined playoff positioning

for a few people

you know and also just

was kind of an interesting race in general

so let's kind of go through

it before we get

to the opinions that you and I have

so the race

again like I said was the end

of the regular season kind of

guys in the cut line was their last chance

to get in the playoffs and we had a photo

finish with Ryan Blaney who I believe is already

in the playoffs I believe he already

has a victory this year if I correct me

if I'm wrong on that one but

yeah so

his win was a bit of a heartbreak for

some

drivers who had a chance to

so Justin Haley and Cole Custer

I don't believe either one is in the playoffs

and Haley hasn't won

since Daytona he won the Daytona

500 several years ago

they showed in the broadcast I want to say it was

I mean I don't recall

but anyway those guys could have gotten

in the playoffs with a win as we all know playoff

a winning organization in the playoffs

so heartbreak for those guys

and also

once again and you and I Matthew can discuss

this in just a minute or two once again we had

the

big one Rex in a super speedway race

the only difference was that came early in the race

this time around not as much

late except for Joey Logano being

spun which I thought was unfortunate although

that wasn't really a big one it was

just Logano who had a chance to win was in

lead with like 12 laps to go and he

you know I still couldn't tell I watched

the replay several times I couldn't tell

if he was contacted or not by Tyler

I think it was ready behind him but

he spun and lost his chance at

winning but that was not a big one it was not a 20 car wreck

the big one came early

I forget what lap it was I was

getting my dinner ready getting everything

fired up and

it was like 20 25 laps

in we had a big one

it was bubble Wallace was kind of

pushed down by somebody I think maybe Kyle Larson

pushed him and then he it was a car

in between

our Kyle Bush was in on the other side I

forget who was in between I'm blanking on

the driver it was

was it Alex Baldwin it was definitely

an A list like

competitive driver a guy who's in the

cruise in the hunt every week and we had a

we had a three car pinch

essentially led to a

big big wreck bubble Wallace

gets out of his car and says it's fun while

lasted his race lasted

probably less than half an hour you know

so we had the big one which

happens once again because we have

drivers going for it they

know it's their last shot of the playoffs

if they're not already in

and you know so they were

going for it and

and if you also have

super speedway racing you have

cars close together and this is what

separates NASCAR drivers from

us mere mortals is that

you put me in a car or you in a car

with nobody on track and a bunch of safety

support we can get pretty fast

but you put us in a car with all

these guys next to us one little mistake

the break too much or too little you're a little

too so direct the guy in front of you hits the brakes

you don't see a car next to you

all of a sudden 20 cars out of 40 cars

are going to wreck so super speedway

racing all the cars being so close together

played a big part in it and Matthew

second here I just wanted to hear what you

kind of thought about this race

and obviously we had the photo finish which was

really cool and kind of a cluster

but just wanted to see what you kind of

thought about the big one hurt happening

early in the race photo finish and anything

else that I haven't touched on

yeah this was I felt

was a really good race and I always enjoy

Daytona you know part of it's because

it was you know the first big track

I ever attended in like 1991

right so there's you know

sort of vibe there whenever I watch

race at Daytona but

I think that this is probably

one of the better races

we've seen with this next gen car

since it's been

introduced right it's

if you think about the sick gen 6

car right the one that was before this

and how that one presented itself

and how it was raced

by the drivers on these super

speedways this was probably the close to a

gen 6 race that we've gotten

with this next gen car

since it's been introduced

and I really like

that I thought that was really good

looking at the

time difference

you know I mean we talked about

just then you mentioned that it was a

photo finish and it absolutely was

they were four wide coming to the line

and 12 car nose to head

just barely it was

0.031

second

right 0.7

I was just throwing it out

there so that's crazy right

I mean that's absolutely bonkers and you

had you talked about one of

the last cars on the lead

lap was Denny Hamlin so he was

off the pace but back to 23rd

there was

well actually this is a better

stat within 0.5

within 0.5 of a second

were the top 20 cars crossing

the line half a second

I love it it's insane

you could throw a blanket over the top 20

and

and put a blanket over the entire

over the entire field that

finished top 20 so it's

I don't know like you said like you said these

drivers they're some of the best

in the world at what they do

and to be inches

and millimeters and not even

not even any daylight

between some of these cars there's one

really cool picture

I don't know I don't know who it's from

I'm looking at a website here called

racingamerica.com and I don't know

whom to credit for the photo but it's

just it's taken almost from

the flag stand looking down

right and you can see the 12

there which is nose out then you've got

the 99 and the 7 and the 41

and may I say the 99 looks really

good in the Coca-Cola racing colors

that white car with the red

green on it that looks so good

you may say that absolutely

43 team I know that

they have Dollar General as their main

sponsor but they ran some

STP colors this weekend as well which

I also thought looked absolutely

fantastic and Jones was

near the front for a bit so it was

very prominent yeah

that's really good

I don't know where he finished but

he was not too far from behind the

Lugano when Lugano spun

or actually right before Lugano spun I think

I think I still think

I don't think I can look at the replay

I think it was Reddick that got him

good paint scheme

absolutely really good paint scheme

and I enjoyed how you know I mean

the super speedways

always mix things up and like you said

you do have the big one which does

impact who is up front and depending

on when that happens but I mean there

were there were some big names up there

I'm looking at 5 and looking at 17

looking at 9 right so

the big guns were up there and the 12

but then you also had some

that you don't normally see up there

the 41, the 7 and the 99

crossing the line in the top

5 so I thought that was great and there was

a great quote

from Alex Bowman and there's all

kinds of including from

me words

about Bowman quote-unquote

should be in the 48 car or not

but Bowman got in

because one of those other cars didn't

win right because

we didn't win

and as you said because the 12 won

previously

Bowman was not bumped out if one of those

other cars let me look at this photo again

if one of those other cars the 41, the 7

or the 99 had been ahead

Bowman would not be in the playoffs right now

so he said that

he was quick to toast all

you know

credit to the man he said you know

he was quick to toast Rye Blaney

a million beers is what I owe the man

and then Rye Blaney said afterwards

I'll settle for 5 million

yeah that's funny

I loved those character

you know what I mean I just enjoy that

you know these drivers

these professionals can be

show flashes of themselves too

yeah and I was wrong

it was Eric Jones that

I think Ruddick was also

rocking similar colors and

it makes more sense that it was

Ruddick had a problem

early in the race of some sort of mechanical issue

or he was collected in one of the

wrecks I can't remember what he was

I think way further back so

you don't have to forgive me

I was watching the race while also eating dinner

and I may have missed a moment or two here and there

but yeah I definitely didn't miss

the big wrecks

I wish there weren't so many big wrecks

we've talked about it a million times before

it's kind of

I'd rather see some clean racing and what you made a comment

dude it's always good to see a racing deck at Daytona

I know it's kind of old hack

because most years I think they're there twice every year

and it's obviously

not the same impact culturally

it's always weird that the Daytona 500

is actually the

flagship race when it's not the championship

when it's the season opener

it's the opposite of every other sport

where the flagship is the final series

of course

with the exception of Super Bowl which is a neutral site

every year and rotates every year

every other sport

the final game is played in different places

can't predict it in the future so

I think Daytona has that advantage to it

but Daytona is always known for me as the

the season opener that gets NASCAR going

also

the only real big sporting event

that time of year because the Super Bowl is just about ended

and baseball is not just started

so Daytona is in a good spot

but even when you're watching the second race of the year

which is not as important

to the sport in terms of

vibes

and influence and all sort of thing

it still feels right to see NASCAR

at Daytona

and I've not been to a race there, I know you have

but Daytona is sort of

to me

kind of the speedway home of

NASCAR racing it's obviously the first or second track

I can't call tell that it was actually first

but

NASCAR got started

racing on the sand

we all know the history of the speedway built in 1959

based on

all that sand racing

it's safer

and easier to watch

and again along the tail day

you're kind of coming around that same time

you have the beginnings of the sport

so obviously there's

history there

so when you watch any race at Daytona

even

second race of the year that doesn't have as much impact

as the one in February

it still feels right

especially when the weather is good

and we had good weather on Saturday

so

I definitely enjoyed the race

just heartbroken for the guys

who finished second

I thought it would have been a cool story

for Cole Custer and Justin Haley to sneak into the playoffs

by winning

a photo shootout

but you watched that final three laps

and you knew that they just didn't quite have the right line

and Blaney

just had a little more speed

pushed by

different drivers behind them

and that makes such a difference

at Daytona

just who you end up

lining up in front of

bumping

who ends up helping you

in the draft

and it's always such a huge

huge part of it

we all can remember someone

our favorite driver

being hung out to dry at some point or another

and just losing the draft

and I know it's a little bit different now compared to

some other eras of racing

but it was pretty

it was really really exciting to see

I like that race a lot

and inspection

looking at some other post race notes here

inspection was complete, there were no issues from 12

so he's officially the winner

so there's no shenanigans like that

and they're not hauling any cars back to the R&D center

looking at

points

for the quote unquote playoffs

and so Larson will start at the top

tied with Byron

so you've got a couple of

Hendrick cars

right there

and then

looking for the other Hendrick cars

so there's Alex Bowman in dead last

and then Elliott's in seventh

so

that's where the Hendrick cars are

and Shane van Gisburgen

you've had a good race

for a little bit

I mean he's ahead in the playoff scenario

right now as it starts

he's in sixth

you're above halfway

and he's ahead of drivers

like Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace

and Joey Logano

and on and on and on

I do think

we would be having such a different conversation

if there was NASCAR

if we were still doing Winston Cup style points

because

of the results in the other

in the other types

in the other races

even though he has all those wins

he was still mired in a

fairways back you know what I mean

from first even though he had

a whole

boatload of wins so

yeah yeah and so let's

on that note let's transition

just a little bit to playoff preview

we are almost

almost on our segment for today

so we'll spend our last few minutes

on playoff preview we won't get too

deep into it because I

you know we don't want to

we still have a lot to go so we're not going to

go crazy here but

yeah we have four

three races

we'll determine the round of

so just for actually I have that

backwards I think so yes I do have that wrong

so Sunday's race

August 31st

tonight we'll be at

Darlington and

this race will determine

who moves to the

oh I'm

sorry I'm reading the schedule wrong I have it

right in front of me but I got my months

mixed up I thought

I thought the cutoff was for the end of the month no it's

three races I am so sorry

so we start with the cookout southern 500

on Darlington in Darlington

on Sunday August 31st

and then that's Labor Day weekend obviously coming up

so we go to the round of 16

then they're in Illinois and

to me it's a different world even though it's the same state

it's five hours from here for more on

sitting it's the Madison Illinois

just outside St. Louis Worldwide Technology

Raceway they enjoy Illinois 300

so it's really a St. Louis race even though

it's in the Illinois side of the border

out at St. Louis market that's September 7th

and it's in the afternoon and afternoon race

and we're back to night racing

on Saturday the 13th

in Bristol Tennessee classic NASCAR

perhaps along with Martinsville

the first two that come to mind

NASCAR short track so

those three races will determine

round of 12 and so

looking at the

the standings

you know

what do you think is going to happen

going forward to this first

first round here this first

seriously races

well Darlington is so traditional

I think you're going to see one of you know barring

some sort of

of apocalyptic

event I think you're going to see

some of the more traditional

drivers up towards

the front whether that's Larson

whether that's Chase Elliott someone

you know Danny Hamlin someone of that nature

I think we're going to see a driver like

that win at Darlington just

because that track is

so traditional and everyone

you joke about the Darlington

strike because of the configuration

of that oval it's a real thing

it's a real thing right so 500 miles

at Darlington I really do think that favors

the more traditional

driver

and by traditional I mean someone who has been there

a long time right someone who has

raced there numerous numerous

times so that's that's

my not so fearless

prediction for Darlington

I think that we're going to see

something along those lines

you talk about Gateway Motorsport

Park

they call worldwide technology

and may I say

that I definitely

get backwards

when they name

these tracks by their

sponsored names right instead of the same Gateway

what's the new

Echo Park

what's that

it's Atlanta right

I always

end up having to Google this stuff

and I understand the idea of

corporate naming and the money involved

is necessary but I do struggle

a little bit myself just trying to figure out

what is what yeah right

so it's

it's something that

Echo Park out about if you're fine

alright you know you got your

naming rights you got your deal

I'm still going to call Atlanta

sorry for however many things you

spent and then

you're moving on from Gateway you've got Bristol

and that's another very

very tough track

to try and that one's

that one's a night race correct yes it is

it's a Saturday it's a Saturday yeah

it's probably a small night racing going forward just for TV

ratings I think you're right

so I mean I don't expect

I think I think van Gisburg

and we'll make the second

round of playoffs just based on where he

is in points

and then using

the win and you're in because that is

correct if someone

one of our listeners can definitely

tell me if I'm wrong

but if you win you're into the next round

and I expect him

to do quite well on the roval

in the second round so I think

SVG might make end up in the

third round just by

dint of that

point yeah

yeah and we only have a few minutes left so I'm

going to just go ahead and just wrap it with my prediction

which is going to be a very loose prediction for this point

I don't have a champion prediction

just yet

although I would probably if I had to go to Vegas

and throw down some money and probably throw it towards

Carl Larson, Hamlin, Blaney

and maybe Logano

to repeat

so difficult with one race

but I'm glad you mentioned Shane

because he is to me

every other game on this list

of the top 12 plus the other four guys

who are in that cut line

other than maybe Josh Berry

kind of on that

lower tier

these are all top tier guys

who are in the conversation every week

pretty much no matter what kind of course they're on

no matter what track it is

what the weather is, what type of racing

every name on this list

is a name that has been

competitive over the past five years

just

and Josh Berry is kind of on the edge of that

but Reddick, Dylan, Bowman,

Logano, Chastain

Bursor, Hercindrick

Wallace hasn't won in a while until Indy's

but he's often been in the hunt and had some bad luck

Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott

Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Danny Hamlin

William Byron, Kyle Larson

these are guys who have won big races recently

who typically win more than one race a year

and we got Shane van Guisbergen

who is in the playoffs on the strength of his wins

on the Chicago Street course

and the road courses in Mexico City

and I believe he won Sonoma

and we know he won Watkins Glen

four road course wins

I think four out of the six or whatever

I don't think he won a quota this year

but you know

and this is only one road course in the playoffs

NASCAR goes back to old school

oval racing

the roval is the only road course

so the question is will van Guisbergen

get through to that second round

he's gotten better on ovals

he's not a one trick pony

he's not a road course only guy

but he has definitely

had to learn just to get to

be better on the road courses

and that's fine

because he grew up in a different type of racing

he grew up in essentially street racing

in New Zealand and Australia

he's a New Zealander but I think most of his racing has been in Australia

so

you know he's a guy who's

come to a different type of track

and he equated himself fairly well

for a little while in Daytona

I don't know how we got stuff out of the lead

I didn't catch if it was

a traffic issue, a pitch strategy issue

if he just got passed but

he definitely let a few laps this past weekend

and he's

I've noticed, I don't have all his

numbers in front of me but I've noticed he's tended to be

in the hunt a little more often

than he used to be on the oval so it's a long way of saying that

you know

if he can get through

these short, these kind of mid length tracks

and the short track at Bristol and Bristol can

mess up anybody

because short track racing is very easy to get caught in a wreck

a battle of attrition on short track racing

as much as it is talent

or speed

so if he can get through these first few races

I think you're right Matthew that

he's got a good chance of winning the roval

so he's to me is the wildcard

I'm also looking at Chase Elliott as kind of a wildcard

he's had his standards a down year

but he's in the hunt, he's in the playoffs

and I think the same of Larson too

Larson's had a bit of a down year, had some bad luck

but he's in the playoffs

and right now he's also plus 26

he and William Byger are at the top

despite everything that's happened

so

I also think Hamlin's

maybe it's because we're the same age

I'm a little bit biased towards older guys in racing

but Hamlin's had a strong

strong season and

you know, he's the same reason why I like

Scott Dixon and Indika, we were born in the same year

but

Hamlin's had a strong season and so I wouldn't

put anything past him

but to me the name I'm really watching is

because

not because he's a rookie or because he's young

and he's a rookie but he's also 36

which has given him plenty of years

to get racing experience

the reason I'm watching him is just because

he's so unique as such a guy who's so dominant

on road courses

but also relatively new to the ovals

he's not just your standard rookie

who's 30 years old

and came up in the standard dance car channels

so watching him and

I always want to see Bubba Wallace do well

as a guy who has been snake

been a bit so I'd like to see him do well as well

but obviously all these drivers

are going to become my eye

and all of them as we go through this process

but to me, I think I'm with you there

for the first round

anyway

Van Gisburgen is going to be the one

to really watch as a wild card

Agreed Van

This is the point system we have

so we might as well enjoy it for this year

and look forward to it

We're going to go ahead and wrap the segment

but when we reconvene the next time

we'll be talking about a playoff race

so that is amazing

there's still our 10 races to go

it's a very long season

but yeah

it is amazing that we're in the playoffs already

so even though we still have

more than two months of racing to go

It's not even September yet

We're still in August

so a lot of racing left

it's just the way it works

so with that, we're going to go ahead

and wrap this week's

NASCAR segment on the Truth About Cars podcast

Thank you, Matthew

Fantastic, thank you, Tim

That's all for this week's Truth About Cars podcast

I'm Tim Ealy, the managing editor

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts

You can also find us at ttac.com

or the Truth About Cars, allspulledout.com

We thank Ivan Drury

and Matthew Guy for their time

and Matt Poskey for editing

Most of all, we thank you for listening

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