Is There Any Way Denny Hamlin Can Lose The Championship?

this is a production of dirty boat media the dale jr download hey everybody it's dale jr back again for another episode of the dale jr download we got a great show for you today we're going to do another round table these are uh these are uh some ideas that me and a few other people in our in our dream of media uh group have decided to try this year i've enjoyed it i wanted to do another one leading up to uh the chase as we get ready to start the most important 10-week stretch in in the nascar season so i brought some great friends to the table steve letart jamie mcmurray jeff gluck uh just a few of the folks that i love to spend time and talk uh to in the industry we're going to bring them to the table and we're going to sort of set up our opinions of how this season has gone mainly around the points format and what we envision we might see over the next 10 weeks we'll talk specifically about drivers and um cover pretty much everybody that's involved in the chase at the cup level we're going to also touch on the o'reilly series and the truck series as well but uh should be a lot of fun these guys have opinions they love to talk and and share share share what they know and and and i'm looking forward to what this what this uh show might become so let's bring them in the room and get started all right this episode is presented by arby's new meat in three box you get more meal for your money at arby's we have the meats dirty i suggest you I saw your naked ass on tv just now like laughing and people are going to say wow jeff gluck is an idiot that happens every week anyway the dell jr download in three two one one first off i want to thank all you guys for showing up man this is uh y'all are great friends of mine and um when we we did a little bit of a round table a couple episodes back and i was like man that was a lot of fun doing the guests are great but every now and then kind of want to break up the uh the you know the the repetitiveness of that and so thankful for all of y'all being able to make this work i see y'all everywhere y'all are busy busy guys so i know that this was uh you know a commitment to to come out here and do i love it i love any time i get invited back to the table there's always a lot to talk about especially this time of year it should be a lot of fun yes sir i'm trying to get my chair to go higher because i feel like i did this show a few weeks ago and when i saw it i was like man i look smaller than i already am and then that's why i just sat down and i feel like i got dunced i feel like i'm even lower than i was right now oh this is bad please give me a sit on a pillow you want to sit down exactly what i want yes yes okay well yeah you say that dale because you're like six and a half foot tall when you're a little guy i'm only five ten well i'm like five two compared to you so i just need a little little extra length well this is a career highlight for me i mean dale jr download are you serious like come on i mean i i back toward my way into it by getting a podcast on dale's network and then sort of like all right we'll let you on dale jr download but i mean this is pretty cool so i'm excited to be here thank you for having me well i'm concerned by what you brought that's some reporter chicken scratch over there i'm not sure i can read my own what what do you have there what have you written down i have gone back to the you know my first year in nascar was oh four so i have the whole chase history i don't even have like the winston cup stuff in my head because i wasn't covering it back then but i i remember like the old chase you know like before the playoffs and i remember how i thought it used to go and then how the playoffs were compared to that and i was like i don't know did it really happen like that so i wanted to go through each season i looked through and like averaged it out of like you know how many what what people's the champion's average finish was how many mulligans the champion had in each year which is like you know i i feel like worse than 15th is probably a mulligan outside top 15 and then how many wins they had and i was comparing it and i was just like oh yeah like it's it is how i remember so what what do you not have a computer i mean like why did you hand write like why didn't you uh well i don't have a printer i guess i could have written it down i guess i could have printed it off let me guess it says tony stewart a couple times on a lot of jimmy johnson that's what i remember it's interesting because okay so you you remember jimmy you remember jimmy and chad being like this you know just killing it right and like barely having to scratch like you would to me the moments back in the old day like remember when sam hornish wrecked jimmy at texas and was like a huge moment because that didn't happen like you didn't see mulligans very often for those guys who were running away with it it would just be like oh my gosh this is matt like what just happened this is crazy and it was like a big story like it was a it generated headlines for the rest of the chase you know it was weeks like can he overcome this sam hornish incident or whatever right and then you got into the playoffs and it was like i don't know like if somebody had a bad race well you could you know just win your way out of it or you would you'd make up for it and and those it felt like those moments weren't as big because you could erase them right well in the 10 races you really couldn't do you couldn't afford very much of that so that's what i was looking at well i uh you know i we all had uh or we all were either experiencing it ourselves or we are we're a witness to the buzz around this system this playoff system uh or the chase coming back in the uh in the off season before daytona um you know they brought mark martin in uh who was very vocal about that um we wondered you know there was a there was a lot of conversations that were going on in those conversations i was able to be someone who could who was a who was able to listen to it i didn't do a lot of speaking myself but um um what i was hearing i really didn't think we were going to venture far from where we were in terms of the winning you're in and the rounds elimination all those things i just thought nascar is never going to get rid of this the networks are never going to allow them to get rid of this um and i think we can talk them right up to the creek but i don't think we can get them to drink and so for them to go as far as they did was insane i couldn't believe it when i when they when they came out and said i mean this is really all but a full season system to me i mean it might as well be it i'm it's right right up next to it and so i was really thrilled i've been uh and i've said it multiple times on this show and and and and to you guys um i have been i've been plugged in every week i mean i feel like mark was super vocal yeah i i don't want to say that i didn't care but i just learned to play by the rules and whatever they said i'm like well that's that's that's what we're gonna do yeah now that they've changed it i think it has been more interesting yeah and and and to me i i never really thought the win and you're in was a fair structure for it for a champion so i but but then we get to get to daytona this year and priest wins and he gets in so it's worked out it's worked out exceptionally well but i just was i mean did you were you passionate about it in the offseason yeah you were yeah i mean i wasn't gonna say what mark said because i really thought there was no chance mark didn't care he came in not mark hadn't been privy to a bunch of the conversations i think that all of us had had he he's out there you know in his in his motor home chilling and just doing his thing and he walked in the room and said why are we full season damn it you know that's what everybody wants and um and i'm like well that yeah i mean i think i want that but i didn't think we'd get a chance at that you know there's no reason to even bring that up because nascar's never gonna do it and um but he just pushed push pushed and so uh i feel like shout out to like racing insights and a few other people that worked on the numbers to make this really work the way it's working to to benefit the winner as much as it benefits we're seeing these really cool swings uh logano being a great example of the run he made in the summer to get himself into the chase and up through past several drivers it's very compelling and there wasn't as much meat on the bone now i get to tune in i watch a race i see somebody stumble and i go what's that going to be points-wise for them at the end of the day um or see somebody succeed what does that mean for them points-wise at the end of the day i'm here every week i wonder though you know here we are at the threshold of going into the chase and uh you know what will be um the winner of the race is going to be nascar the fan engagement you know we've we've we've had a season it seems to have gone well jamie you mentioned priest winning his way in which was incredible what that's how we wanted to have happen every year um i think it's important though that if it doesn't it's okay yeah it's okay i mean like i i just the one thing and it doesn't matter to me whether it's points or it's the rules at drafting style tracks i feel like we cater a lot to try to make everybody happy and there's no chance that you're ever going to make everybody happy that's been super successful this year and if it's not next year i don't think you can criticize it and say well we got to change something again right away to make sure that we keep everybody happier that it's a perfect system yeah i felt like that it was a great story if svg made it or priest right or or however that shook out it was still a pretty compelling thing for for svg to have the system change to to to his disadvantage right because of his his his performance on ovals and him go out there and just get better and be good enough everywhere to like almost get there uh you could hear the disappointment in his in his interview on on uh pit road post race it also reminds us of the system so i'm glad we've gone 26 weeks because it's not a winning you're in but 20 points is huge like no offense i think svg did what he could do you know everybody's like oh he should have stayed out it could he could have went 15 spots higher it wouldn't have mattered you know he didn't really mess it up priest won it which i think is easier to celebrate because those 20 points when you get into that final stage is it's almost insurmountable so my opinion on these 10 races have shifted dramatically as i've watched it on fold over 26 like 10 weeks in i'm like well reddick's gonna be the one seed well then now he's not heck he's not even the two seed right so it's i'm a lot smarter more engaged is a great way to put it but i'm sure after 10 weeks we're gonna laugh at this podcast and be like man were we wrong because this is how 10 weeks actually ran when it was time to do it i'll be honest i've yet i've looked and i've yet to find something about this system i don't like i'm sure as we go through multiple years of it there'll be a couple instances where something works out and you're like i wish that wouldn't happen that way but i've but so far i've yet to see anything i really don't like um all season long there's been a narrative that i've been pushing pretty hard myself that the top six is where you want to be to win the championship but um as we went through the year uh we heard even drivers say that maybe that's not the case uh christopher bell was one that i heard say that that that number might have moved to eight uh what do you guys you know what do you guys believe at this point who's in who's really truly got an opportunity at this well i would i would tell you that if denny hamlin were the ninth seed i would still say he could win yeah he just because of the performance that he's had you know for the last couple years we talked about this a little bit yesterday steve and i did and and to me logano is the cutoff point and i think you have to put logano in the conversation just because of the short tracks that we have in the chase and the amount of them and and you guys hit on this a second ago the advantage of winning is so high now that he can make up some of those points but in order for him to do that i think you're gonna have to have hamlin or blaney or reddick fumble the ball a couple of times and and have some some battery i think you said mulligans a little bit ago you know they they kind of have a mulligan in the bank i for some reason think this is going to be like a chase of excellence like i don't think this is going to be a chase of okay or mulligans or wrecks i believe someone or hopefully a couple you know so are just excellent and they just run away like like a reddick style run so i i looked at how many points someone has scored in 10 weeks this year and reddick and hamlin lead at like 480 logano's kind of in there briscoe's kind of in there but the next group are like 300 they're 100 points behind in 10 weeks so to your point i think right now logano up i i agree with jamie i think between ninth and tenth logano and busher's kind of the line but that line's going to move north quickly like if logano doesn't go out and close the gap you know people are going to be mathematic not mathematically but but realistically eliminated quickly in this 10-week thing if if now listen if hosavar somehow wins darlington we're going to talk about how he jumped into that into that fray but someone below logano is going to have to do more than they've done in the first 26 to get my attention i think it all comes down to what style 10 weeks we have because that that's where this divide that i was looking at comes from you know the original chase you had the champion had a 6.9 average finish 0.8 mulligans which again i'm saying is outside the top 15 and 2.3 wins you get to the playoffs and the average finish of the champion jumped to 9.6 because you didn't have to be excellent for all 10 weeks they had 2.25 mulligans so way higher mulligans but the wins were exactly the same 2.3 exactly so it doesn't matter old chase or playoffs the champion averaged 2.3 wins but the mulligans 0.8 compared to 2.25 so is this going to be a chase where denny hamlin tyler reddick people like that the guys that are up there are not making mistakes they're having an excellent like you would use a chase of excellence kind of thing so i think the mulligans i think the data skewed because much like dale was taking weeks off as a fan as did i as did most people in the playoffs so didn't the drivers so i bet there are mulligans in that data of drivers who could have a mulligan right in 10 weeks you can't so so drivers are really really good right i mean denny hamlin wasn't even going to finish the race at iowa because his brakes were going to burn out and he ran fifth and then we weren't even going to make a lap in daytona because there's no downforce and we went caution free basically like these guys are unbelievable so what i mean by that is it's a skewed data set because i would love to know how many mulligans exist for the drivers who needed to have good points days the numbers probably back down around one and in this system you have to have good points days so i agree the big i wrote down two things that make this chase different for me stage points that's a new thing right so if you score you know whatever the percentage is it's somewhere between seven and twelve percent of your daily points come from stage points and that 20 point win bonus right so those two things and i don't know what that ingredient is going to do to the recipe but i think it's going to change it but so that's where you go to logano and you say okay he's starting 65 points behind denny hamlin is logano going to outscore denny hamlin by 65 points if it's a chase where it's a clean chase and let's say denny has denny rex at talladega but otherwise he's finishing average seventh place finish or something how do you and so that means logano's gonna have to have a lot of stage points more than denny but i don't i don't think he's going to so then you're saying okay well then he's got to win a lot of races and that's where your 20 point bonus comes in so unless a guy that far back outside the top six really gets on a tony stewart run and gets those win points i don't really see them out running somebody you know the outlier in all this is who saved something for the chase who saved their best cars who saved something that they can get through tech or you know manipulate the rules a little bit and have some speed because you know historically the really good teams all have a little something in the bank and so you know who has done that is hendrick motorsports do they have a little something that they haven't shown yet that they're going to save until until this all starts and for me when we get to darlington you're going to find out who has what because that's a that's a great track for a lot of these guys that we think are going to be the championship contenders and for some of the organizations that haven't performed at the highest level and have they maybe saved a little something we went to um new hampshire nascar made some rule changes to the front structure we've not really had a great opportunity to go back to intermediates and so forth to see where everybody shakes out um and we've been to some racetracks where the the advantage that the toyota's held throughout most of the season was not quite as as large uh we saw um other teams win we've seen denny kind of normalize when we go to darlington this weekend uh you mentioned all the short tracks in the chase but uh we have a little stretch of you know intermediates as well we finish it homestead um do the toyotas still have the advantage that they have enjoyed throughout the season is that the advantage that that entirely gone um or is it minimized it depends on who you ask right because i asked a lot of teams about that front structure and some things it's going to be massive some some thing it's going to be no different i someone's going to have to prove to me on track that toyota still don't have the advantage that's where i stand currently like i'm would be shocked if the top four isn't some mixture of denny hamlin tyler reddick chase briscoe and christopher bell that's the you know this weekend yeah i mean no offense not only are the best cars but put them in kind of any of the car you know they're also probably the four that come to mind clearly when we go to darlington the outliers are the ones i'm most like if they run good i'm like oh i expected that the ones i really am interested in is probably larson byron chase and blaney like the four non-toyotas though i think those are the four non-toyota contenders for me how close can they be they don't have to win but they need to be like if they're 12th and the toyotas fill the top five it's gonna be a long 10 weeks yeah i'm just i really don't know how to evaluate the hendrick season because they're obviously not winning near where they want to they do show speed at times but it's also not like really convincing speed it's like oh they they popped up there oh you know look their cars were fifth to seventh or whatever but again in the chase how we knew it the old chase that's not going to be good enough at all and now with stage points too that margin's going to get higher and higher and higher and get even bigger if you're not hitting on it right away at the start of the race if you're not qualifying well where where is this speed going to come from like they're either going to have to turn it on and be like whoa there it is but we really haven't seen enough evidence of that to this point well the numbers agree like if you look at their speed ranking larson's the best at fifth chase is ranked eighth and byron's ranked where's byron ranked i'm sorry byron's eighth when chase is like 11th it's not bad but it's not going to be good enough i just wonder though like the five car there were multiple weeks that he was super fast like indy's one they they i think they blew a left retired indy any any crashes i just think of the momentum that you build if you if you don't have that blown tire and like where does that move you to like they clearly don't have the speed that the toyotas have had all year long i don't no one's going to argue that point but momentum is a real thing and like if you if you get that win you know like we've seen that happen so many times does that change the outcome over the next three or four weeks and to me getting to the point where i'm like i'm not going to be able to do that i'm not going to be able to know who has saved what i just this weekend is incredibly important for all these guys because i like my my take on darlington i will be shocked if denny hamlin doesn't go out set on the pole and just annihilate everybody because i think it's a tremendous track for him he has shown speed all year long and i think that mentally denny hamlin is one of those guys that not that he took last week off but he's probably been so focused on getting to darlington and knowing how good he is at that racetrack and how just the success he's had i just see this weekend being an incredible weekend for him but also being an opportunity for all these other guys to show exactly what they have back to the hendrick conversation what i will say is i thought it took a third of the regular season for them to realize they weren't as fast as they hoped to be and then there was another third where they just tried too hard which i think we all would do that's not a knock right the drivers tried too hard the crew chiefs over crew chief the pit crews tried too hard and like the last third i feel like they've settled on a lot of things and they've settled on a lot of things and they've settled down and they said look if we have a ninth place car we got to try to run eighth we can't try to run first and i think that makes them not championship favorites but to your point jamie right it depends on how the chase runs if they can just operate kind of block and tackle and meander their way through the first four or five weeks maybe there'll be something at the end um i don't see them showing up and dominating darlington and scoring 70 points um but then again you know they've shocked us before i think denny hamlin is arguably a lot of people's the list of 16 drivers name two or three that you believe would be his biggest competition i have a crazy one i think ty gibbs why do you think it's crazy i don't think when i i don't think it's crazy at this desk but i think we just sleep on him i think a lot of people are like there's two career wins he's this he's that i'll be honest it wouldn't shock me if ty goes out and he's okay and he's middle of the chase which is not bad for as young as he is and he's going to or made a bigger curve than perhaps anybody things that have derailed him in the past don't derail him anymore speeding bad pit stops him and tyler allen have this i kind of go back to when you and i were racing we didn't really listen or care when anybody said we didn't even know what the news stories were i didn't we just went and did what we do that group has a little bit of that that that they just believe in one another and they go to work and they people can write whatever they want i think that makes ty dangerous and he's sitting in one of those toyotas right he he's in the meetings with denny hamlin and all of these people so i think ty is a maybe a sleeper is a better way to put it but i think ty could upset everyone i'm fascinated by christopher bell because here's a guy who first of all in the past he's had some great 10-week stretches he hasn't won the championship but he's had some really he can put together a great 10 weeks at this time of year but seven second place finishes jamie talked about how the narrative could have been different for larson if he wins brickyard and you get momentum how about you take just less than half and much closer to winning yeah i mean like multiple times yeah i mean take give christopher bell three wins that would have you know momentum wise would have moved him up in the standings would have hey you know they feel better about themselves they are really dangerous they are extremely dangerous now i don't know steve where they are on speed ranking because it feels like they've been a little bit off by their standards even though they got up to fifth and points after uh six and points after a bad start but it just feels like man that that could be a team where you look back and go you know you're not going to win but you're not going to win but you're not going to win man yeah they didn't win in the regular season but they are they smoked it in the chase yeah he's fourth according to racing insight so to your point he's ahead of look he's in the toyota bucket i mean that's who ryan blaney is the one guy that that statistically you can't believe if you took like brands and cars away you'd be like well he must be in a toyota look at all his numbers right he's the one guy that's outperforming perhaps expectation of of the brand it's hard though with blaney like the speed is there but the pit crew is like the the achilles heel to that and they've made changes and it's been better but it hasn't been perfect um so that speed wise blaney without a doubt is really good the one to me that that no one's mentioned now that that this weekend could be massive for him is briscoe because he's really good at that track if he goes out and can win that race and and leapfrog up just a few spots on the points and he's also one that to me at every type racetrack we go to he shows really good speed and and you look at at all of the four on pit crews he's number one on the restarts little little off on speed number you know seventh but on defense he's number one passing number five like he his his numbers like they just don't lie and and he is one of those guys i think the the crew chief dynamic is incredibly awkward over there like i don't i i like i like james small as a person but i don't like the way he talks to him on the radio i think i just i that would demotivate me so many times but it doesn't seem to affect chase he kind of rubs it off and moves on but he's the guy that we're about to keep our eye on that to me is that he's fifth in points right now but i can see him making some noise like to get dorky into the numbers when i asked the little chat here best 10 week stretches you know when you use ai you learn that you don't ask the right questions so i was like hey what are the best 10 week stretches hoping to get everybody's best well it gave me the top 10 10 week stretches and all 10 of them are reddick or hamlin wow so the best 10 week stretches in the top 10 has happened reddick hamlin reddick and james are the best 10 week stretches and the best 10 week stretches again hamlin hamlin hamlin reddick hamlin so it's not just one snippet of time like the best 10 week runs the top 10 of them are all reddick or hamlin then when you look at like each driver's best this is how big of a gap it is reddick and hamlin have had weeks where they've scored over 480 points in 10 weeks the next best is blaney at 410 70 points off gibbs 410 joey logano is fifth on the list at 375 105 points off both reddick and hamlin's best so back to kind of what you were saying about in the math if it's a messy chase i think a lot of guys are kind of in the mix if it's a heavyweight just go there and just who's fastest every week it's i mean the numbers are really skewed to a few standouts so i mean i don't know what kind of chase makes me nervous and i was trying to look up exactly where he's finished the last 10 weeks but it just seemed like all that momentum was at the beginning of the year and even though he capitalized on some wins when you looked at laps led like it just it wasn't there yeah just didn't seem to be and so like i know i get nervous with the next 10 weeks of like the consistency and and do they have the momentum going the right way at the right time i like blaney uh when you look at the racetracks that we go to in the chase if he can you know if he can put it together on the ones where they traditionally haven't been there very strong this year uh you know the charlotte uh vegas kansas st louis darlington i mean he's got uh this the racetracks that are in the chase are relatively the same racetracks that benefited penske in the playoffs and so that's what i think that they're leaning on is like man you know we can we can go out here and get those two and a half wins in this stretch of 10 races somewhere we just have to make sure the other races aren't awful um and i also like briscoe as well i think briscoe when denny hamlin looks at this list i think denny hamlin probably respects what blaney can possibly do and what chase briscoe could possibly do um i think you know denny's probably more than confident uh that he could outrun the rest of them um you know the wild thing to me i guess is more so where christopher bell and kyle larson are um at this point in the season um christopher bell in sixth uh 50 points out and to y'all's point just a couple of positions uh or a couple you know a couple of positions gives him a couple of wins and he's up at the front of this field while larson who has been in the conversation even this year is one of the greatest race car drivers on the planet um kind of struggled and stumbled uh to to uh to a backside of the top 10 result in the regular season i think something else that that you have to keep in mind is if you if we put all of our notes and computers away and all you did were listen to driver interviews over the past like six weeks i haven't heard you mentioned larson or chase elliott i haven't heard these guys be like oh yeah when it starts it's on like we're we're ready not at all but but i do hear that out of denny hamlin or or ryan blaney even like i those guys the confidence that they have or that they're they express in their interviews it that says a lot about where they think not only that they are they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that as their team but as an organization and and to me that tells a bigger story than really any any paperwork that we can pull out right now this is gonna maybe i'm the only one to see this when i look at logano back to your point about the interviews like he's the one that i'm not sure the driver has anything to do with if he's going to be a championship contender like i'm like joey's going to be fine he's got like whatever the car will go joey will go whatever strategy you want to run joey will run like he's almost like the least wild card driver you know i think if he was in faster equipment we'd be talking about how unbelievable joey has been because when he has gone with winning equipment man it has been impressed like he has not fumbled much it's the weirdest one though to me because yeah joey logano's exceptional driver and when you look at some of the bigger tracks blaney's run pretty well on them totally but joey hasn't and but then they go to north wilkesboro and they just crush everybody right and you're like well dang once once they got the car right and it you know paul is exceptional also at his job but for some reason something hasn't meshed up for those guys at the faster tracks i'll tell you though when logano speaks of blaney the reverence is unbelievable there's no one who seems to be a bigger ryan blaney fan or cheerleader than joey logano every time he says he goes he's so good i i think it's incredible anybody who has ever worked with ryan blaney or who's been a part of that organization how high they talk about his ability to drive a race car and like quick movements inside of the car you know he he reminds me so much of casey kane because the interviews outside he's just quiet and like just so calm then he puts his helmet on and every other word's an f-bomb when something goes wrong it's but he also is just incredibly fast you know especially at fast racetracks um it reminds me a lot of casey and then the performance is there as well what's the biggest x factor for a team in this uh system where uh like pit crew things like that so i guess the the conversation i'd like to get to is how important you mentioned blaney uh and his pit crew not really being on top of the world this year and the struggles they've had in the older system man the pit crew was super important you knew of the four guys that were going to be racing for the championship the pit crew was going to play a role in that day one way or another and while the pit crew still needs to be competitive has that normal has that sort of regressed to where it sort of belongs in the in the in the um in the recipe of a great team um where what is you know how valuable or or how um you know how can a team overcome with an average pit crew and still succeed in this format i think it's a great question and i would have told you without looking at what i have written down here that the pit crew still is an important factor as you can have but when you look at blaney being the second seed his pit crew was 16 of the 16 pit crews in the chase reddick who's third in points his pit crew's 14th of the 16 crews in this and gibbs is 11th he's fourth in point so i don't know when you look at that it it makes you think that maybe it's not as as big of a determining factor as what we all want to put on it i think it's a determining factor but not for these teams josh barry had a winning car at new hampshire and everybody talks about one slow stop i don't agree every stop they did was 10 and a half seconds and this isn't a knock on the 21 car but that's how fast they go reality and the best teams do nine threes so every time josh barry comes down pit road normally if he's running 15th you don't see it but when he is exceptional which he was it was glaring he just lost spots every time so i only equate that to speed all these teams have the ability to do the same speed pit stops it'll come down a mistake i wrote down 90 and what i mean by that is i think this car this these races these pit crews if you can operate at 90 everything's great if you can have an extra half a pound of air pressure you don't feel like you're going to be able to do tires if you can drive at 90 rarely does that thing snap around on you we've seen great drivers wreck like in the blink of an eye pit crews if you can if everything is so good that you can take that two-tenths of a second to glance to make sure the wheels are put on and drop the jack you may lose a spot to your point but you stay in it so i think it's it's like that's what i'd be coaching my team too is if we come in fifth and out six every single pit stop in the chase that would be good enough we can't come in fifth and out 29th or have a wheel come off like that's what i'd be coaching my or the issues you know those mistakes i think are more glaring so i mean to answer your question i do believe that the pit crew has become a little bit more i really think there's more bad and good stops because of strategy and fuel and adjustments than there are the humans doing them i think it's pretty even across the board barring the mistakes i think that's the big variation we see i just think you're you're exactly right you again we we seem to be thinking here that it's going to be a clean chase or the champion is going to have a relatively clean chase not going to be you know dnfs and you can somehow win this it's just not going to happen so you can't have your pit crew be responsible for the mulligans if you have a mulligan that that you can't it can't come down the last stop look if your pit crew doesn't get you out first on the last stop and you know you you finish third instead of winning i mean that that could cost you a lot of points but it's you said 29th i mean if that ruins your day you leave a wheel loose you have to come back down under green it's over i mean that could ruin your chase right there so just don't you can't have them take you out of it just hold serve if you can even even not like just don't make a massive mistake let let the driver let the strategy let some fluke mechanical thing or some you know whatever happens in racing in general but to have the pit crew be responsible for that that's going to be hard to swallow outside of talladega in the schedule i'll run through the schedule real quick darlington st louis bristol kansas las vegas charlotte phoenix martinsville homestead which racetrack is the one that's kind of the biggest wild card that could provide us the shock winner or the biggest point swing well you'd have to say talladega outside of talladega outside yeah i should listen to the question no it's not i have an early one um i think i think worldwide technology in st louis is going to be really difficult why break issues break issues i think to be good it's kind of what i was saying 2311 it's a nervous about going there so so i go back to what we were talking about i think we're going to you know when i talk about the garage it used to be tires people like oh man we're getting tires tires that was the buzz and now man i talk to guys and they keep telling me how they're not like i don't get a lot of confident answers like well you do this you definitely won't have brake issues i know you know like i'm like well surely you know like what knob to turn and you can just read in their face like they don't know they are not sure what knob it is so they can be overcooled they can be undercooled you as a driver so i just feel like we could go there it can be a non-story outside of talladega could be a story i think a huge name could have a mechanical get that mulligan right away even could be from the lead and you're talking of 50 like you've given up everything right there in one week that's every time that i can recall that we thought we might have brake issues we've had them there's not there's not you know we've we as broadcasters we kind of tiptoe into those things because we don't want to start a story that's not a story you don't want to be the guy that made a big deal out of something that didn't even happen during the day but every time we sort of started going man brakes brakes might you know yeah some at some point in the race there are two or three four guys that were like having issues and you're like um i think martinsville yeah i say martinsville because if you look at every driver that's in the chase even denny hamlin at some point he's had a disastrous martinsville like it's one of those places you can't hide if things get off it's one of those tracks that i feel like if your car is not right you're just helpless at that place it's not like you're not going to be able to move your line around and try to find grip somewhere you're you're you're kind of stuck with what you have so if i had to pick one on there that that would make me i mean i think if you're and i'll use denny as example because i said him incredible at that racetrack but he's also had had some struggles there and so to me that would be one that it's kind of the outlier that uh i mean outside of talladega that i think everyone's had had a bad a bad day out before i've got one that's not going to make sense on the surface but give me a second charlotte um i know by then we will have seen everybody's cards on mile and a half tracks and all that stuff but traditionally i mean first of all we haven't run that race in the fall on the oval in what 10 years or something right and traditionally that that halfway point of the chase and that part everything has started to ratchet up you kind of know who the contenders are this is a pivotal moment to winnow like the last three four guys leaving charlotte who's going to be competitive and we often saw that was when guys really started to go head-to-head i mean everybody you know had gotten to home you know they will have had kansas and vegas by then i think um and you're going to go to charlotte it's going to be the air is starting to turn crisp the pressure is going to be on and that's when you could get uh a mistake guys running into each other um something weird happening and everything seemed to flip because the pressure element of this always seems to change the outcome or like i mean i mean take this further imagine if you know we're talking about who can be in it imagine if you you let blaney or logano close and give it a sniff coming into talladega martinsville homestead like you can't you can't really afford if you're the toyota's to you you want to you know get them out early get them buried because if you give some of those drivers a chance going you know they're still alive that's a whole different ball game so two things that jump out with the chase first of all is i'm not sure this garage area is ready for 70 days. They've had, had like three weeks, take a breath, reset three weeks, take a breath. And I'm going to tell you 70 days is forever, like forever. And there's no laps off. There's no qualifying off. There's no race off. Every point you get goes into the bucket. Like it's literally like trying to save up for a car, right? One paycheck at a time over like 10 weeks is a marathon. And I think it's going to be mentally exhausting. But then you said it, I circled Kansas, Vegas, and Charlotte and three mile and a half back to back to back. And it's like, there's no variety. There's no man, you just better be fast at all three. So to your point, I think if you're one of these 16, I would tell my guys, we're just going to come in and run our race for three or four weeks. People eliminate themselves. Let's not be one of them. But I agree with your assessment. When we leave Charlotte, we won't be talking about 1610. I don't even think we're talking about eight or six. I bet we're probably down to what? With four races left, we're probably down to what five guys or less that there might be more mathematically, but there's five guys that we all think it's going to be one of those for a championship. I think what we still have not seen in recent years that I'm looking forward to getting back to is we haven't really seen these top guys go head to head at the late time of year, because it was always still about advancing to rounds. And then you get to the championship race and then you, you know, then you can race it out in the, in that final race. When you get guys that are in a points battle and they're really, you know, all those three intermediates or whatever, and you're trying to position yourselves, that's, uh, you know, I want to see Denny and Larson go head to head. I want to see Blaney Briscoe side-by-side on a restart. You know, if they're close in points, something like that, like that's, that's going to be compelling. That's where the rivalries can form that we, we really haven't seen with the top guys. We've seen hosts of ours versus a lot of guys. We haven't seen the top guys versus a lot of the top guys. All right, NASCAR fans, listen up. Xfinity is waving the red flag on internet price hikes. And they're raising the green flag for savings. Now you get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need locked in at one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellows, just a straight shot to victory lane. And just like that, folks, we've got a winner. I've been using Xfinity internet for years, and it gives me the speed and reliability that I need for anything we've got going on at the house. Xfinity, imagine that. We saw a lot of people that made the chase that we expected to make the chase. One team that might have overachieved in a lot of people's eyes was Spire, placing Daniel Suarez and Carson Hosovar in 11th and 12th. So both of those guys, I mean, at one point, Hosovar was quite a bit higher in points, but has had a rough little stretch leading up to the end of the regular season. But do you believe they overachieved? I think Spire has been the most, I don't think, it's a fact, the most improved organization in the past three to five years. I mean, they were literally a starting, I mean, a starting part. It was not even buying tires. And you just, it's incredible where they are now and the speed that they have with all their teams, and not just in the Cup Series with what they're doing in the Series as well. And that is, it's so hard to do. I mean, especially at the Cup level, to be able to come in and perform the way they have. And it's not like they went out and hired a Denny Hamlin or Kyle Larson to come in and drive that, right? I mean, they brought some of these kids up. They brought Suarez over. And the Hosovar thing, though, is just fascinating to me. The speed that Carson has at some of these tracks. But then, you know, you look at the last two weeks and you're like, I just, it's hard to watch, you know? And then the interview afterwards, you're just like, man, it's tough. But it's incredible to see what Spire's been able to pull off the last two or three years. The Daniel Suarez part is intriguing to me because Daniel has been one of these guys. He's been at Gibbs, Stuart Haas, and all of those deals, they didn't retain him. They didn't see value to keep him. He gets over to Spire and gets in the seven car, which is, you know, had a pretty, you know, rough couple of years. Hadn't been a very quick car at all. I mean, just even a year and a half ago, the 77 was really the only performing car at Spire, period. All the other cars were still kind of on their old deal where they were just kind of, you know, show up, get us a top 25. And Daniel gets in that car and grinds out a spot in the chase. I wouldn't have thought that was going to happen. He upgraded. He did. He got let go and got upgraded. Grind is the magic. So Ryan Sparks is on top of the box. He's been at Spire really the longest. I think he was employee one or two or three. And him and Suarez, they, that's the perfect word. If Josevar is the news story and the flash and the fireworks, and he's normally the faster of the three cars, like Suarez ranks 16th, 16th, 16th, 16th, 13th. The only thing he's not 16th is his hat. He's 11th in points. Like, like Suarez is that driver. If you're any team, right? You have to scratch your head by like, man, I was even here. They just, the nicest thing I can say is they just don't make news in either direction other than the big win at Charlotte, which, which was amazing. They just kind of like, Oh, seventh. The other thing that Suarez does that I see is complete is, is an outlier. It's it's he separates himself from most of the field is he doesn't give up spots. He is not a guy that's going to roll over like, Oh, you know, you're faster. Go ahead. He is not a guy that gives up spots. And, um, I don't know if he like typically a driver. Yeah. We're in the middle of a, uh, you know, a 10 month season. It's lap 100 at this, at the 12th race of the year. What's the point you're quicker. Go ahead. I'll, you know, you'll give me this back a couple of weeks. down the road. Maybe. Um, he doesn't do that. He doesn't subscribe to that idea. And so while he may be on paper, the 16th best team out there due to his stubborn approach, uh, kind of comparable to Ryan Newman in some ways, he's a, he's a hard pass and it nets him a couple of spots a week. You know, I mean him being in this is so improbable. Like to think that a guy, I mean, he was probably what, 30th and points or something last year. And, you know, he gets booted out and it wasn't like spire for a while seemed to be like, Oh, please come over here. They were like, Oh, who else can we get? All right. Uh, yeah. Daniel, you're, you're still there. We need somebody. All right. Let's, let's do this. Try it for a year. I don't know if it's going to work, but we don't really have high expectations. And he not only makes the chase, but like, it wasn't even close, right? Like, if you would have said, all right, Daniel Suarez is going to make the chase first, you would have been like, really? Wow. How does he do that? And then you would have thought, well, he probably was in the priest situation. Last gasp, Daytona figured out a way to get in there. He went to Daytona. He's already good. Like he had a great regular season, uh, you know, showed off all the veteran stuff that you're talking about. So just super impressive, super surprising to me. Um, I mean, Jordan Bianca and I had gone through our chase predictions and see how they stacked up. And we had all of the guys that made it, uh, you know, between the two of us, except for Suarez. I mean, he wasn't on anybody's radar. I mean, imagine sitting before the season and you're like, oh, Suarez is going to make the chase. You'd be like, man, you have no idea what you're talking about. Do you even pay attention to this sport? But yeah, I mean, he's just, I'm so impressed with him. I think that's a, like, as you guys are talking about all this, I just kind of looking at Daniel's numbers, the least amount of stage points by quite a bit of anybody that, that made the chase. And then when you look at just the overall results, there's, there's a lot of 14th, 13th, 17th. It's crazy to me that he was able to capitalize on, you know, it's one thing if you scored a bunch of stage points, but you didn't get the finishes. We see people score high in points that way, but I don't really see anything that sticks out of, of why he should have been where he was in the points, but just didn't have the disasters. What shocks me and you two are both drivers. So maybe you have some insight or we're drivers, but, but he is stubborn. Like that's that. And in this, you know, connotation, that's like a, Hey man, you're stubborn. Congratulations. It's great. But most of those stubborn drivers get shipped every once in a while. Like people run, like the cup run over and they lose their mind. They're like, I've had enough of you. He's shown, he's shown enough outside the car, not to get anybody going to ship him. Come up and put you in a headlock. I think my point though, is that like he's some, I was going to ask how you guys did it, but it's like, I don't, you know, well, you know, he's, if you push him around, he gets out of the car and comes down and he'll talk to you. I like it. And it, and it's a very potential, there's high potential that it might get physical. And I think that that allows him to go out on the track and stand his ground a little more firm than, than the next guy. Right. And I just, I think it's pretty fascinating. I, I'm, um, I want to move to Carson Hosovar and we'll expose ourselves to some criticism from his fan base, but does he, does he sort of, you know, he's been for the most part comfortably in the chase, right. But it has been a bit of a free fall outside of the top 10, do you think that he can, you know, gather it together, right? And start putting the races together? Or is he going to, or is it going to just take a while? Is he still going to kind of be this send it, you know, kind of, you know, throw caution to the wind by the seat of your pants on a prayer, Hail Mary, you know, he's got, he has the flair for the dramatic, good and bad, you know, and so how does he find a balance that produces the points that he's going to need, right, to go up there and make a run for this? I'll let you jump on the grid. You look like you're ready. You can get kicked in the nuts first. Go ahead. I'm right behind you. I was looking at Jeff. I like it. It was probably not fair. Yeah. I see it going one. Two ways, right? It could either be, I mean, I think most people think it's probably gonna be like, he's going to do something stupid. He's going to get into it with another chase driver. He's going to make some, you know, move the backfires on a restart, all that kind of stuff. And I think that's probably, and then, and then it will snowball or spiral because he will have had one bad week and he tries too hard or that's very possible. And it's hard to see him based on what we've seen lately, putting together a clean 10 weeks. The one thing I do think though, is like this guy is the old school race fan, right? Like he sits there and he watches, you know, race day on speed from 2008 Charlotte fall race or whatever, right? Like just because he's, he just has it on his YouTube playlist. So he knows the old chase, like not very many of these guys have any experience with the old chase and what Danny and Lugano. I mean, most of these guys are, they're racing in it for the first time. This guy, at least he's watched all those old races. He's seen all the interviews of, Hey, you gotta be, you know, where we talked about the average finish somewhere in the back of his mind. It's probably like, all right, it's chase time. This is what I have to do now. Can he actually do that and keep his composure and not lose his mind for 10 weeks? I don't know that we've seen enough evidence of that, but it's there. I bet that he knows what he has to do. At least I think the challenge for hosts of R is the best version for hosts of R on the racetrack. Doesn't fit a 10 week run. It fits three week rounds and the flare and the dramatic and his talent is undeniable, but his approach is very, it's very lighthearted. I'm not saying he does not prepared, but he's just like you said, man, if he just zigs and zags and does whatever the car thinks it needs to be. And it's fun to watch and the fans love them. And I'm fine with all that, but he's a little bit like DeChambeau in the golf world. And luckily for DeChambeau, the golf that says hit it as absolutely far as you can. And that's going to improve your chances of winning. And I think the way Carson drives increases his chance of winning on a weekly basis, but it decreases his chances of winning on a weekly basis. It decreases his chance of scoring the most points in 10 weeks. And, and I, the only concern I have for Carson is I go back to Ross Chastain, like something has changed when he wasn't his, his self or his original person that we saw drive. And I think the best version of Carson is this version. And if you do get him to calm down, even if it's a self-correction, even if he says, man, I studied, and I think I need to be a little bit less boisterous or less, you know, dramatic and less flare, man, is that his secret sauce? Is he still as dangerous? Because his secret sauce is that he will zig when everybody else is zagging and, and like him or don't like him or appreciate what he does or not. He absolutely wrecked that thing on, on his own at Daytona while passing for the lead in the closing laps of the race. Like he didn't do it from 26th. And I think that's what makes him so much fun to watch is, is it was a huge mistake and he admits it, right? It happens, happens to every race car driver, but it happened right at the biggest point on the biggest stage at the cut race. Like, I mean, he's a lot of fun. He will make headlines for 10 years. I'm just not sure there's going to be enough positive headlines to overcome just simple errors when it comes to point total. He's hard to figure out. I just, you, you're watching on the track and then you watch the interview, the, you know, the, the, and I think the Ross Chastain is, is a fair comparison, but I also feel like when Ross gets back in cars that have the same speed that he had when he was that guy that we will see similar performance. I think Ross exceptional talent as a track house is, is off a little bit right now. The thing about Carson and, and you're right with, we're just going to get our ass kicked for, for talking about it, but you know, like, and, and the criticism that people have is because they don't agree with our opinion of it, but everyone within the sport, you, I, the other drivers, we, we look at not, not what sells the most t-shirts and not what gets the most clicks on social media. We, we look, we, we analyze people based on what we think will win them the most races and have a shot at winning a championship. And the way Carson goes about his business right now, that's not a good, it's not a good formula that he has going like that. He is incredibly fast. The thing that makes me a little bit nervous is that when I hear his interviews afterwards, I don't feel, I mean, if he does know what happened, he doesn't, he doesn't like admit it on TV or say it. It's like, I, I feel like the word, I don't know, comes out of his mouth more than any other phrase. Like, well, I don't know. I don't know. Like it's just, and it's, it's over and over. And, and, and maybe that's the, you know, we all have nervous tics or, or, or, or just sayings that we revert back to. And maybe when they go back as a team and they watch it, he's like, listen, this, this is what I did wrong. And this is what I need to do differently the next time. But he doesn't convey that to us. And so when you, when you analyze him, it's, it's a tough study because you just don't, you just don't see there for what, what you're going to need in this. He, you know, he prides himself on being different, right? He prides himself on taking the line that nobody else takes. Nobody else thought of, you know, you'll, you'll look at some of the social media posts and it'll be everybody up high on the track. And then he's the one car that's down doing something different. And so to me, it's like his aggressiveness and, you know, in some, some cases, creativity on the track. It's, it's very boom or bust. It's, it's, you know, Keselowski, if you Texas that he tried to go on Gordon, you know, back in the chase that caused the brawl very similar that move now in modern day standards is not that not that different controversial at all. Really? I mean, that's sort of the norm now at the time though, that was crazy. Like, Whoa. And I think that host of ours aggressiveness is something that other people will try to match and catch up to. But right now he is sort of the Keselowski that we looked at Brad that way for a while. Now I brought this up to Brad and he's like, yeah, but I was going for wins. Carson's doing that for 12. You know, he's, he's making moves and making people angry at 15. It's okay. You know, to be doing that for a win, but Carson's not always doing that for a win. He's, he's back in the field doing that. So. Hey, this is Dale Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. Download gear, including the I'm old drink, some beer t-shirt we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. When you look at the NASCAR correctly weighed the value of, of doing well in the regular season. And so if you do well in the regular season, you start with a great point advantage. If you barely squeak into the chase or if you come into, you know, the backside of the, you know, 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th, you got quite a steep mountain. To climb. And I wonder what the mindset is for a rhyme priest, an Austin Sendrick and a bubble Wallace, even sitting 90 to a hundred points out with 10 races to go, knowing how good the competition is weighed toward the top of the top of the chase. When we were doing this, Jamie and Steve, we were in a much better numerical position. If we were, in the backside of the chase, we, we were much closer to the, to the, to the leader when this thing started. What was the difference from first to 12th? What was it then? I don't remember. Way less. I feel like it was a lot less. Way less. Almost zero, wasn't it? Yeah. I think I felt like zero. I think the first year, the Newman year, it was all zeros. I think that that was the playoff chase, but I think, well, also it was a different point system too. It was. That's right. Yeah. But yeah, it was pretty close. It was pretty close. I mean, I believe that if you're anything, let's be mathematically hosts of our down, cannot leave Darlington leader. They cannot, they're behind an entire race. Yeah. I think you just have to say, you know what? Our goal is to leave Miami higher than we entered. And I know that sounds silly, but, but you can't say that Ryan Priest, Sendrick, Bubba Wallace, Byron, or hosts of our two to a man's man. If you talk to, I don't, I don't speak to the drivers about this, but I definitely talked to all their crew chiefs. They will all, they're very honest. Like, man, we just don't have the speed, the championship speed to do it over 10 weeks. It isn't rounds. We have, to be great. That could change five weeks in, maybe it all comes apart from somebody else and you end up in the right spot, but I think they're very honest. But here's the thing when, when you're in that position and it's, it's, I think it's so easy for us to look at numbers and say, well, they're mathematically, they shouldn't be able to do it. The reality is when you race every single weekend, you know, where you stack up, right? There's, there's no, you've been doing this for the last 20, some weeks. And you're like, just don't have the speed. And we talk about it every Tuesday in our, in our meeting, like, What do we have to do to get better? So your expectation, I mean, not knocking on anyone, but if you're in that lower half, none of those guys are – everybody wants to win the championship, but the reality is when you lay down and put your head on your pillow at night, you're like, I hope we get in the top ten. You have to set a more realistic goal for what – you can't set this unattainable goal because you'll just be deflated every single week. I mean, that's my point about improving. Like, Jose Var was fifth at one point. So I don't think they're thinking we're going to win a championship, but if they come in 12th. He could get back to fifth, though. That's what I mean. If he finished fifth, I think they would have to be like, what an unbelievable chase we had. I mean, they moved up seven spots, and then you take that building block back to your original. If you're any of these guys and you exit ten weeks from now up four or five spots, you say, guys, if we can just enter five points higher, five points, then it's a championship. You know what I mean? And I think it's hard as a team to sit in a meeting and be like, well, we're not going to win the championship. It's kind of an unknown. You don't just go in and say, well, we have no chance this year, right? But there's also reality in your head of what you think is realistic and what you're going to be happy with. So let's go ahead, all four of us, make our championship pick, and why? I mean, it's so – you could say this so many different years that it's going to be Denny. Every year we say this is his best shot. Yeah, I mean, it's his last best chance, right? And, you know, you go into this year, and he had the offseason. He had the heartbreak. He says, oh, by the way, my shoulder's injured. And you're like, well, that's it. You know, he's just – it's not going to be the year. And he wins a regular season championship. He looks as good as he ever has for much of the year. They don't seem to have a lot of flaws with that team. And, you know, especially once Redick fell off from where he was, and you're like, well, he doesn't really have somebody that's challenging him on a weekly basis. I mean, you're – if you're not – if you're not going in saying Hamlin, aren't you just sort of saying, well, something's going to happen to him? You're almost projecting like, well, I'm not saying Denny because he'll wreck at Talladega or have a mechanical failure. I'm not saying all your picks for you, obviously. I'm interested to hear yours. But I just feel like how do I – on performance alone, if we're looking at this, how do I say, yeah, Bell is going to come from 50 points back and beat all these guys? I just think Denny's the driver of the year, the team of the year. And so I have to go. I have to go with that regardless of the luck that we've seen historically from them. Mine's boring as well. I always say I'm going to pick the guy I'm okay with being wrong with, and that's Denny. I mean, he got beat last year. He was one caution away from everybody being right, saying it was his year. The only, I guess, asterisk I would put is if it's not Hamlin, I hope somebody has a priest type of – you know, like I said, SVG didn't kind of get knocked out. Priest took it. So if it's Hamlin, I just want somebody to be better than him. You know, I don't want it to be a power steering failure or a flat tire. I know all that matters, and it's 10 weeks and all that stuff. But from what I've seen out of that team, the organization, he's driving a Toyota, it would just be a wasted pick to pick somebody else. Not that they couldn't. I just don't believe they will. Like if I had to ask, I think Hamlin is the guy currently at the top, and he's been there for quite some time. So I also have to go with Hamlin. As boring as you agree, you know, it's kind of a – you feel like it's a boring pick, but it's truly what I think. Yeah. Well, if you're listening to this, and you don't pick Denny, you're a moron. I'll just tell you that right now. That little shit better change mine. We can talk about everything. There's so many facts that lean towards wanting to pick Denny. If you just look at the eyeball test of what you watch every single weekend, he wins that test. If you look at the numbers of wins, top fives, top tens, laps led, like just everything, he wins that as well. He's got a great pick crew. He's got a great team. And the most important thing, the most important thing for me with Denny as it's getting closer to the end of his career is that Steve said like the longest 70 days. Denny has lived the disappointment more than anybody else in the series. And as we close in on these final 10 races, he's been through it more than anyone. And he's lived the wrong side of it more than anyone. And he used to say this, and I didn't believe him at all. I think he's content not winning. I think he's won enough in his career. I mean, ultimately, he should have won the championship last year. The caution comes out. He's had enough disappointments that I think, you know, as he thinks about what he's accomplished, this is a bonus. But he is the pick this year. And I don't even care if he has a bad Darlington. He's still the pick this year to win the championship. Yeah, I like everything you said there, Jamie. I feel the same way. Denny Hamlin, I think if we had a 36 race championship or if we had had this system in place over the last, decade or more, Denny would be a multi-time champion today. Denny, as we say every year, this is his best year. This is his best year. He literally has been improving year over year over year on his ability to put races together, get to the end, out-point guys, out-perform guys. There's other people that do well and have spurts and have moments. But Denny has consistently been there every single year. And this system is an advantage to him. Going to this system is an advantage to him. I think he latched onto that this year and the confidence in that. He had to talk himself out of wanting to win that championship. He had to tell himself, I'm going to be okay if I don't win this. Because he knew in the old system how ridiculous it was. And he's like, you know what, I can't even embrace this because of how by chance it is, especially after last year. It's like, yeah, whatever. It's just hard to make it to the, I'm proud of just getting to the final four. That's a hell of an accomplishment. Well, he's been beaten in every way that you can get beat. Every format, it's happened numerous times and that's why I say that when he talked about that he doesn't have to win this to feel like he, I believe him because ultimately he's won it a couple of times. They just didn't give him the trophy. That's right. So the question is, you said, what's the biggest wild card other than Talladega? So if you form that question here and say, all right, if everyone has Hamlin, who's a driver that can upset him or can beat him? Blaney. I think Blaney is a great choice. I'll stick with Ty Gibbs. I know that's a little bit more of a long shot. I like Blaney, but for the sake of a pod and a conversation, I don't think Ty Gibbs is. It's completely a crazy, it would be more shocking than other names, but I think it's possible. If the structure changes at the car, you know, that they did to the car before Wilkesboro or around that period of time, if that stuff has had any effect, I just, looking at the tracks, I feel like Blaney has the best shot. I mean, I think Denny is by far going to be difficult to beat. Who can get the closest, you know, I give Blaney, a good, good shot. It's all, it feels like it's Blaney and some Toyotas. Yeah. I mean, seriously though, like if you were Joe Gibbs racing and Blaney wins the championship and all four of your drivers somehow. Well, you got to go over here. They kind of went through that on the other series. Yeah. At Phoenix. Why don't you peel it? Yeah. Well, well done, man. I mean, look at, once we open the door, you could scream it through the shop over here. It's, it's a, I'm sure it's. No, no, you're, there is, there is something to be said for that. Right. Like, like they, nobody says it back to the meetings. Nobody's in there. You know, the championship goes through here. Like they're walking around feeling just like Hendry Motorsports. They're walking around feeling that they only have two wins because of everything they've accomplished. If you're Joe Gibbs racing, you're walking around happy. You got your cars in. You're not sad about it, but that's real. That's looming that man. What if we don't do it this year? Gosh, darn it. That would be awful. Right. It's like, those things are real. And if you're Blaney, even though I agree with your pick, you're kind of like, man, I'm the little engine that could, I'm going to prove everybody wrong. Like there's different motivations through the whole set of standings. All right. We're going to jump to the O'Reilly series. And finally the truck series before we wrap up today's show. Um, looking at the O'Reilly series standings, uh, you've got, you know, Darlington, St. Louis, Bristol, Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville, Homestead, Justin Allgaier had an incredible season. Um, and. Uh, Carson, uh, Quapel had a couple of great runs late in the year to kind of climb himself up into the top two. Um, there's a lot of heavy hitters, uh, throughout the field champion, uh, last year's champion, Jesse Love, Austin Hill, Brandon Jones, Sheldon Creed in third. You got Corey Day, Sammy Smith, Parker Ritzlaff, Sam Mayer, Taylor Gray, and then Rajah Carruth with a great final, uh, race in the regular season at Daytona, be able to get into the top 12 there. To make the O'Reilly's, uh, chase, you know, I know I have my own opinions. I don't think anybody really wants to hear those since I'm the owner of two of the cars or actually four of the cars to two of the top two, four of the cars in the, in the, in the, um, in the chase, but what has to happen for Justin? I mean, he's kind of in Denny Hamlin's shoes, I would say where he's, he's kind of got this, this, this great opportunity to go out there and finish the season strong and continue what he's done. all year long, but you know, do you have that confidence in Justin that you might have in Denny on the on the cup side or is there another team or another you know I just don't see how how is somebody going to come and beat Justin Allgaier over the course of this big of a sample size it's just so hard to that they would have to have so many things go wrong um and look Carson's been great lately obviously I mean they're really coming on strong but I still feel like Justin Allgaier the veteran that he is and knowing you know how to race for a championship uh these tracks are good great places for him where he's so much experience and I just don't see another team I mean you look at like Jesse Love it feels like every single thing has gone wrong for him this season he's fourth in points so you're like it's that big of a drop-off like they're not even close to where the top two guys have been performing and he's fourth like where it gets pretty bad after that then like in terms of guys catching Justin Allgaier and it's the same sort of thing with with Denny like okay like you're Taylor Gray and you're like man I've hey I'm in a JGR car and hey we could go do this but you're starting 75 points back that's like that's too much to overcome I think I think it's an Allgaier-Kwapo conversation for Allgaier I think he's the standout favorite as long as they I think it's important that they get going like they've been running like not anything better just because they're because the reset can be a negative when you had such a huge advantage it'd be easy like oh look at what we got away gave away instead of saying we've earned a 25 point advantage I think that would be important internal like I'd be like we we earned 25 points we didn't give anything away from the huge lead we had so Allgaier and Kwapo I will say the one name and I don't think he's a championship of battling Allgaier but I think he will finish higher we keep talking about drivers and what's a good goal Corey Day coming in seventh it was a steep learning curve in February he's definitely up that curve a little bit I don't think he's going to be able to do that he's by any means where Allgaier or Kwapo is probably not even Creed but I'm excited to see what Corey Day does now that he's been in the car more but yeah I agree I think Allgaier just just the experience alone Corey Day is is definitely the guy on the list that I think can make the most noise uh in in over over the next they have nine races left right is it am I saying that right man you're the O'Reilly well I know but we've been talking cup the whole time I'm super or is it appears to be no it's not yeah nine right yeah well um Corey to me has been like I you know Talladega a little bit unexpected to be able to win that but what he did at Dover when he ran Justin down passed him on the top side it was I mean it's incredible and I think it shows his potential there's still a little bit of a learning curve there but I see him winning one or two races before the year's over the championship will come down to Allgaier and Carson to me Allgaier's weakness and he only has one and it's I feel like it has plagued him almost his entire career is to pit or not to pit and and the process of that yeah and and I I for a while I and I I would love to I I would love to know the inside of this but for a while I would always blame the crew chief but then as it's happened over like two or three crew chiefs I'm like to me like that's the only weakness though the seven team is is I mean Justin's won 30 some races and he probably should have won 15 more if cautions hadn't come out at the end of these races what makes Carson dangerous is that he's not going to be able to win the championship but he's going to be able to win the championship and so I think that's the only thing that's going to be a big problem for me is that he has the momentum right now on his side and I saw him walk in here a second ago carrying a trophy I'm like it's a lot of confidence for that young man with nothing to lose so and the fact that he's going to be back here next year I think uh that's going to be fun to watch those two go go go at it well and and also just worth noting that um unless I'm mistaken I'm missing something O'Reilly and trucks have never had this format before right because they had season long and then they eventually changed it straight to playoffs they never did a chase that's and that is the one thing that's unique uh uh great point and it's really important in the truck and the O'Reilly series because to you guys know that one two maybe multiple cup guys are going to put together pretty flawless runs through these 10 races if nothing falls off the race car right um they're going to have really low average finishes it's going to be pretty pretty impressive typically that's how it goes um in the truck series and and the O'Reilly series man you know those guys can easily get caught up in a moment right and and make an un you know make a make a um take a risk that's unnecessary and and and and you know they're going to need a mulligan or two um whereas I think that's a benefit to Justin huge benefit yeah this veteran that knows I just got to go do what I'm doing he doesn't ever seem to get worked up either even when all the tires fall off he's like kind of the same guy been there I mean he's he look he's Denny Hamlin of the O'Reilly series we talk about people that keep getting better he literally keeps getting better every single year he's not gonna let a 20 something year old driver overcook it for third and wreck him like like like not it but he's gonna see it out of the side mirror he's like you're gonna have third today yeah because I'm not sure you're gonna make the corner and if you do you can have like he just makes a lot of those wise game time decisions I'm gonna survive to race again next week all right moving on to the truck series uh we've got Bristol Kansas Charlotte Phoenix Talladega Martinsville Homestead Lane Riggs leads over Caden Honeycutt those two guys I'm telling you in terms of driver talent ability uh their their work ethic uh how badly that they want to to to get to the top level and how uh confident they are in their own abilities I mean they're very very similar guys uh you can see that they're very very confident in their own abilities uh they're very very confident in their own abilities we got Chandler Smith back in third Kristen Eckes um Gio Ruggiero Ty Majewski back in sixth Grant Infinger Daniel Hemrick Ben Rhodes and Tyler Ankrum um I think it really comes down to Lane and Caden it's going to be a fascinating fun handful of races to watch and see how that plays out I mean it's gonna be a front row stuff right now is I mean they are the drivers are like are unbelievable the trucks are unbelievable it's going to be you said it we you know it's gonna be a great head-to-head battle that's what I'm so looking forward to for trucks in particular you really have two heavyweight guys um who've pretty much dominated the season right and the opportunity to see them have this large sample size just see what they got right like every week we're going to be watching those two guys now Chandler Smith you know just people that get up there for sure but like if they race the way that that where they're capable of they're going to be finishing one two in stages they're going to be finishing one two in races it's going to be close it's going to be fun um there's going to be drama because they're going to get into it they're going to not be happy with each other at times and uh I think that one is setting up to be some a real a real fun one I feel like every time I turn the truck race on Lane Riggs is leading now it just I turn on like oh my god guy's leading again like I thought he started last like that you know I had an issue he um clearly seems to be the fastest Caden though I follow him because of the the cars tour as well I watch him on all the short track stuff he's come a long ways and and he's super he drives extremely hard uh and and I think he will give Lane a run for his money but if you know if I had to bet on it that Lane would be my pick right now yeah it'll be interesting to see how that works out I've I've watched both those guys Lane come out of late model stocks we raced against him many many years with Josh Berry and in the cars tour and watched him win national championships and Caden as well come through the cars tour watched him run a ton of races um around the short tracks here in the southeast and uh honestly I don't know which car he's going to be more talented than the other and it's just going to come down to you know who has the right truck on the right day uh minimizing mistakes on pit road and pit stops and things like that um Lane Riggs's truck doesn't look a little bit quicker at times as you mentioned Jamie well the it's the it's the whole organization looks really good I mean when because both of those trucks a lot of times like wow they're running first and second I mean and those guys are those are great drivers as well but it's it's hard to get both guys to win and it's hard to get both guys to be the fastest that's right you know so I think it says a lot about where front row is for sure well it's been a fun conversation um I've enjoyed sort of their peek into what we believe is going to go down over the next several races for both for all three uh top NASCAR series um thanks again guys for joining us today this was a lot of fun I feel prepped and ready for the chase as a fan I do I feel ready to go I'm excited I'm ready for the races to get here and have a fantastic week yeah I can't wait to call it it's a fun time of year you know every year we feel you said it like the pressure like we talk about it but you can see it out the window you can watch it on restarts you see guys that have been just you know unflappable for 26 weeks making mistakes that we just don't expect whether that's pit crew or crew chief or driver and the only thing you can equate it to is is is you know kind of the pressure of the situation I'm I'm so looking forward to the moments that are going to come from this like that's that's what I think the playoff part of it missed because there was there'd be things in the middle rounds that maybe felt big for that race but ultimately didn't matter right and like because it was the final four that mattered the moments that can come from a 10-week chase and the rivalries and seeing the build-up and the slow burn of the of it being whittled down like I want I'm excited to something that's going to happen that we're going to be oh remember in 26 when this happened at this race we're going to get that yeah like I'm very very excited about that yeah I think it's important to get off to a good start we're going to an incredibly tough racetrack easy place to get some suspension damage and as as i walked in here today and it was 100 degrees outside all i could think of is how hot it'll be in darlington this weekend that's hell tough i don't miss that i miss that zero at all uh but you know and and i also think that when you when you look back at over the years the chase that first race there's always a couple guys that have issues and it happens early in the race and you're just like we've spent all year preparing for this and it's like crumbled right in front of us on lap 20 of the race don't let that happen to you this weekend yeah man it's gonna be awesome thank you jamie uh jeff and steve um the fans they're ready and prepped all right everybody that was a great round table i want to thank again uh steve and jamie and jeff for coming through they didn't you know they got other things they're doing so i appreciate their time and i really wanted to have that conversation around um you know the chase and where we think everybody sits and and what we might expect uh we've celebrated the change in the format earlier in this this year we've watched this all play out we've enjoyed an incredible season very compelling season i've been more entertained um all year long by uh what nascar has presented and provided to to the viewers and i'm so excited to see these next 10 races and how this might play out so man i don't want to miss anything with the way this is sort of shaped up and how this should play out um i'm going to want to tune in every sunday or saturday night or whatever and watch this all live and see it for myself so uh and i'm anxious for it to be good uh compelling and entertaining and there'll be a celebrated champion at the end of the year that we'll all um have felt uh was deserving of it and so you know that's going to be pretty uh pretty pretty fun to see that how that rolls so thankful again for the conversation it was a lot of fun back to our typical uh standard guest segments uh after this weekend but these round tables are something that i've i enjoy i like to get more people in the room and kind of pick people's brains and hear what other people think about you know especially what's going on in our industry and uh so we've done a couple of those round tables this this year and i know it's a change away from the past but i'm excited to see what's going on in the future from from what we've done traditionally with the wednesday guest show but i've enjoyed that i kind of got to break it up every now and then but anyways um this episode was presented uh by arby's new meat in three box you get more meal for your money at arby's we have the meats thank you for tuning in and we'll see you tomorrow bless your heart check out dirty mo media on instagram facebook x and tiktok