Tyler Reddick DOMINATES Darlington Despite Early Issues: Can Anyone Catch 23XI? Plus, Martinsville Preview

A lot of these guys that are struggling are guys that don't spend any time in the simulator. - Where'd you say Rodic was today? - He's at the sim. He was like, "Beat-beat coming through. Y'all need a move. Today is my day." How is it possible that one car would be that far off from everybody else? - Oh, it's easy. - It is so easy. - You're telling me that drinking beer out of your racing shoe is different than eating a booger. - Yeah, for sure. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Harv presented by NASCAR on Fox. I'm Kevin Harvick. She's Katelyn Vincey. Mama Smith. - Hey. - That's just a nice, you know well. - We got nothing. - Sleepy Harvie today. - I am sleepy. - Yeah? - We're not sleepy. - We're not sleepy. I'm grumpy. - Yeah. - Oh. - Yeah. - I haven't noticed that you're grumpy today. - Not yet. - Okay. - Still early. - Still early. - We'll start the show today. - We're just thinking. - Screw the show up. We're gonna find out how grumpy I am. - Hey, that will not happen. Welcome in to another edition of Harvick's Happy Harvick's Happy Hour. We have plenty to talk about. Leaving Darlington, the track known as "Too Tough to Tame." I know you got a lot of good sips on board. And we will also preview Martin'sville, which is the short track coming up. - Mm-hmm. - Where can they find us on the socials? - Harvick Happy Hour. - That's wrong. - I was just seeing if my color is still going to come out. - He already warned that he could be grumpy. - I know. He just got to poke the barrel over. - I didn't even get two hours. - You can't figure out how to say one phrase. - Harvick Happy Pond. - Good job. - Good job. - Good job. - I didn't even look for revoun. - Wait a minute. - Wait a minute. - Wait a minute. - Sometimes you gotta catch all the revoun and slam it back through. - That is also the YouTube page as well. Make sure you subscribe on there. Okay, so Kevin, last week we talked about all of the unknowns going into this race. Did you think it played out how you thought it was going to in Darlington? - Well, we know that Tyler Reddick has been really good at Darlington in the past. Not able to get to Victory Lane, but man, they just, he stomped him. And if he doesn't go to the back, this turns into a snooze fest for first. And I think that they just, they nailed the setup with the new package, as far as the cars being able to be driven well. I think that all the drivers were struggling with rear grip. And I think that for the 45, and even the 23, I thought the 23 car was really good at bubble wall. He had a bad pit stop there and then got in the back and then got crashed. But Tyler Reddick, from the time they dropped the green flag in practice, he was the car to beat. And they just, they got the balance of the race car right. They got all the things out of the way with the cool suit and changing the battery. Got that out of the way early and he was able to drive back to the front. So I think that overall, I thought that the race was better to watch. I thought that the drivers liked driving the cars, which is important to be able to have those guys be challenged inside the race car. So I think that the first go at it was a success at Darlington. Obviously, we've run it at Phoenix with the more horsepower, less downforce package. But Darlington, everybody had Darlington circled because it was going to be, it's just difficult, no matter what package arrow wise, you have underneath the car. And this package just took so much grip away from the race cars. So it's a good show. It was a good show. Kevin referenced all the issues for Tyler Reddick between the voltage, the cool suit, a battery change. Yeah. I got to imagine that he feels even prouder of this win in terms of what they were able to overcome. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously that 45 was as fast as it's going to be internet. Oh, my. No, they were all on the mail though. And I think that their group, they just are in their process of how they bring their setups together, whatever Tyler's doing in the same, what Billy Scott in that group is doing on the car. They really love their process right now because obviously it keeps working. So they're just building speed. Well, here's the thing. They have the fastest cars and the most confidence. And when you have those two things together, that's a dangerous combination because when you have scenarios where the car breaks and things aren't going your way, it's like no big deal. You pull in the pits, they fix it. And it's like, I'm going to drive right back to the front. And that's how this works. And the other thing that they're doing, they're not fumbling away opportunities while they have the fastest car. The field will catch up to them in some way, shape or form. But right now, 2311 Toyota in general has had the fastest cars consistently all year. They do this thing. It's interesting with the Toyota group, maybe 2311 specifically, Kevin referenced it on the broadcast a lot. They have had the most brake issues, right? So not that that was a big thing in this race. But like the little issues that you don't really see anyone having, they seem to find a way to have them. I remember one time when I was with Randy Goss, Randy Goss with our crew chief, and we had Kyle Arson driving and we wanted to go to this smaller battery because it was lighter and it was more powerful. Well, our two of our teammates, the battery blew up in the car and Randy's shook that thing out as fast as he gets. Yeah, absolutely not. We're going to go back to what we know. And sometimes that's the situation. So in that situation, that scenario with the battery, it could have ruined their day completely. That's where it melts down. There's no getting that back in and getting the car back on track. So for them to make that adjustment, make the change and then Tyler to fight, it was hot out. It was 90. It was 90. It was damn close. It was all over it. So frame to battle that and then battle that car with no. He said, maybe I don't need all this stuff after all. Yeah, probably need to talk to Ricky Stenhouse a little bit. Ricky will tell all those boys you don't need it anyway. Yeah, Michael Jordan, obviously very complimentary of Tyler Reddick being head in the game, Stain Calm through all that stuff. So we've been talking on the show over the last couple of years about would we ever see a team having those maybe double digit dominance in wins? He already has four. It's very early in the year. How many do you think he maybe could get? Well, I think that the early momentum is going to keep rolling for a bit here. But I do think that the rest of the field is going to catch up at some point. But that's the interesting part about this point system. Right? You don't get all those mulligans to win and get yourself in. So we see the Chevrolet's and the forwards be kind of hit or miss on those weeks where they're not running good. They're losing points. And I still am a pretty firm that you got to be in that top six to win this championship when the points reset. So right now Tyler Reddick's put him in a himself in a fairly good position to be one of those six cars. And I think from second on back, the points race is pretty tight. But when you see the mistakes that are being made and the finishes not being taken advantage of for guys that are running good and having catastrophic failure at the end of stages or at the end of the race like we saw with Kyle Larson this week again, it adds up. You might make the top 16, but you're not winning this championship if you're not in those top six. The complexion of the points. Very interesting right now. How many wins do you think Reddick might get? Oh, I don't, I don't know. It's because it's an interesting situation. If we were, if we were in the old point system, I would say it could get upwards to like eight pretty easily because he can be as aggressive as he wants to, but he can't be as aggressive as he wants to because all the things. No, well, not as as he's 95 points up. He's 95 points up, but you could lose points really quickly. I mean, we talked about it before the show started. I think a max day, like a maximum top to bottom is like 70 is what we kind of talked about. So that's a lot. He's 95 up. That's great, but you don't want to lose any of it. You know what I mean? And I think if he can just keep the applying pressure and I think that's important and maybe more so what they should keep doing. Keep it in fast cars or the race track, but keep making everyone else have to chase you. Just if you can stay just a little bit in front of them and make them make the mistakes, that gap is just going to keep growing. And then with like four races ago, they can just hail Mary and probably find. Yeah. Well, I think they can keep being aggressive with where they're at right now. And I think that when you look at where they are, you know, in with such a huge lead, it gives them the ability to take chances. But the thing that I like about where Reddick and his team are, think back to Vegas, right? Like they were fourth to eighth place car. And that's where they finished. And when you have the points, that's where you need to be conservative and take those finishes of if you're running eighth, finish eighth and maximize the day because you just don't want to be the guy that's running eighth and finishes 25th. So that's where they need to be conservative and not trying to be a hero. But on the days when you have the car that's capable, when in like they did this weekend, you got to try to still take advantage of that. His aggression was. It was gone to watch and come back through the field. Like he was not worried about what other guys had gone. He was like beat, beat coming through. Y'all need a move. Because today is my day. I was sure that move that he had on tie Gibbs. There towards Taylor. Because I think you got a couple good ones. Yeah, that was one of the biggest moves of the race. But just speaks to your comments about his aggression. Like he goes into turn three, clear them by what three car lengths and there's not even a shot for tie to get back under him in turn. And puts it up next to the wall perfectly to exit the corner. And that's the thing that comes with confidence as you're going through these races week after week after week. You just have that ability to perform at an elite level because of the fact that you don't think you can do anything wrong. So until that momentum stops and they have some sort of issue or situation to stop the momentum, that train's going to keep rolling. Let me ask you Kevin. Is this the package that we just ran at Darlington? Is it the same as what we had at Coda and the same as Phoenix? And is the same as what's going to be at Martin's well. That's right. We think that they learned something about Ford Drive because in Coda, we talked about how down the straightaway. No matter what S3G did in the corner, 45 was gone. And it seemed like a lot of that was happening this weekend too, where they just kept their rear car tires hooked up. Do you think they found some Ford drive within this package, or do you think it's all separated? - Looks to me like they have a lot of horsepower too. - With the new package and the way that that car would run down the straightaway at Coda. But the other thing that to me, it actually came out of the Dini Hamlin conversation and I asked him about Tyler Reddick. And I said, hey, it just seems like Tyler's more mature, wants to be the leader of the team. He says, "Men, you're pretty observant." He's like, "That is exactly the case. Tyler had to step up and be an elite driver." And he mentioned to me that if they can figure out how to run and win on short tracks, then they're a championship contender. But Dini said himself that he didn't believe, he believed that they were championship quality, but until they can figure the short track piece of it out, that's when they're gonna, if they figure that part out, Dini's words, not mine, that they're gonna be really dangerous because that's been their weak point. - We'll be talking short tracks later in the show and that interview with Kevin and Dini Hamlin will be available on Thursday also. So Tyler Reddick and Company has a lot of confidence. So too does it seem like Brad Kizlowski after this weekend picked up a lot of points with the stage wins. What do you think is aided in their progress the most? - He qualified good. - Messi did. - He's been in the trunk every week and qualifying. And if you don't qualify in the front of these races, you don't get to make adjustments leading the pack, running in the front of the pack, your car handles difference in different in the middle of the pack and the back of the pack, which is where they've been starting. And it takes them all day to get to the front of the pack. This week he started up front one of his best race tracks, RFK has run good there in the past. And both he and Chris Buscher were really fast race cars. I think that Brad took advantage of Tyler having to go to the back of the field to make his pit stop for all the battery issues and things that he had going on. But Brad was fast. And I think that the key for the six car is qualifying. They have to qualify in the front or they don't have the opportunities to show what they have speedwise, but they also don't know what they have from a car standpoint because they're just battling for their life all day. And the Fords are notoriously worse in traffic than the other two brands. So the Fords qualifying up front is more key than the other two brands in my opinion. Both very important to get that track position in the front. But it seems like the Fords struggles a little bit more in traffic. Brad, because I'll ask you with this best qualifying effort so far of the year, it seemed like another area that was a little bit dicey for them was pit road for the six. Do you think they're going to have to kind of clean that area up a bit if they're really going to contend for a win? Everyone has to. Right, you can't pit road. There's guys on pit road are getting so good. And there's a couple teams that are just smoking some pit stops. And I was talking to Daryl Edwards, who's a Jackman on the 20. And this week, he typically used, like typically at Darlington, it's a good place for us to get into a rhythm because there's a lot of pit stops and to bust off some really fast times. But the way the setups were, the droop of the rear, the cars was different so the tires were coming out of the wheel while slower. And so that was going to affect their rhythm a little bit. So that could have been part of the reason why some of the guys had paused, but Freckazowski is highly motivated, obviously, right now. I don't know if it's because he broke his leg and then everyone's like, well, you should retire. Well, he's walking around with the cane still. He's pees pimping. I mean, he's got to go and hop the cane. Amazon, he says. Yeah, the cane is working for him. So when he when his leg fully heals, he might just need to keep it because obviously it's part of his like, all right now. Yeah, well, I peed in the cane. I talked to actually talked to Priests before the race. And I was like, man, the way you guys operate RFK, seems like you guys are all on the same page. Yes. And you're all working together. He's like, you mean we're not, we don't care. He's like, we all want to win. But if the 17 or the six wins, I'm happy for the company and I'm not so sure every company has that. No, it's very evident with the, with the, the three of them at, at RFK, with the things that they do off the racetrack, how they interact with each other at the racetrack. It's very noticeable. And I think that makes a huge difference in the progression of the race cars. When you can have proper conversation during the week about an honest conversation about, you know, what was your car doing and each teammate be able to talk openly about that and believe what the other guy is saying. And I think right now they have that confidence in each other, all three of them, to be able to believe in each other. And I think that that is, it is a very healthy organization right now as far as the camaraderie between the group. One team that didn't look particularly healthy yesterday was Team Penske, a tale of two teams. You have Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindrick both earning top five performances. Ryan overcoming quite a few things. But then Joey Logano was nowhere to be seen. How is it possible that one car would be that far off from everybody else? It's easy. It is so easy. And especially in a situation where you have a new rules package at a place that is so tough, I know this is the third race that we've run with those rules, but Darlington is just such a beast as far as the racetrack itself and trying to get the car to drive right. And you have to do so many things that are different than all the other racetracks in order to get the car to stay underneath you. So 22 bunch missed it bad. And you see Austin Cindrick up there in the top 10 and obviously Blaney has been the Ford to beat on a weekly basis. But for the most part, the Roush Finway group carried the banner for Ford this weekend as far as the performance side of it goes. But definitely, I can promise you, Joey Logano was going to be the first one in the shop today. Because he could not be happy with the way that that car ran. There's a lot of, it seemed like there was a lot of drivers that were complaining about how the race car's going to be knowing. Which is shocking. But like, almost at a high level concern, like we missed it so bad. And I think that gets compounded when you have 2311 having sweeping the front row. And then even Riley Herbs, who ran well, I'm proud in his second in his practice. He qualified well, ran like 12th all day before getting wrecked. I mean, people would tell me with a weekend that Riley should be fired. He has no business being in the car. And then he goes with the hardest race track on his schedule. Right. And is running in the top 15. I mean, you can give him up in here. And even before the race, we heard Ross Chastain talk about how they can't figure out what they need to do on the second half of those runs with the track house cars and SVG finish 14th again this weekend, figuring it out. And you've got the hindered cars that are all over the place. And so it's a challenge to get this G7 car right. And a lot of times when you try something different, that is out of bounds from what your teammates try. Everybody's got different driving styles. And some guys it just doesn't, doesn't fit well. Ryan Blaney has to be encouraged because he typically does not run that well at Darneling, to Neon. They had one top five performance prior to the weekend. And he was able to overcome issues on Pit Road once again. But he was very vocal on the radio saying, we have got to clean this up. We got to be better than this. Yeah. And they, I think you guys, this is that stop where again, they have a pit stop one. Then they pulled down into another teammates pit stall. And they have to tighten up a wheel. I think you guys mentioned on the broadcast, like 33rd. Ranking on Pit Road. Like you can't win a championship like that. And I think Ryan and that group, they, they're doing a good job keeping their heads together and still trudging through it and battling back through. But like it shouldn't be that hard for them to have a car that fast to where they think they could win the race. And it was all day to get back to third. Because if he could have been up there, you never know if he could have made a couple of adjustments and with Jonathan Hasler and Ben right on the mix. Yeah. And you have some standout pickers. I mean, the 20 has been the standout picker. 17 group has done a good job. 54 has done a good job. So you've got some, you've got five to seven of those groups that, that stand out on Pit Road. And then you have some concerns. I mean, I've been concerned with the, with the Pinsky pit stops really from, from the beginning of the year. And Ryan Blaney is obviously stick out the most because of the trouble that they've had and how it holds them back from keeping themselves with the track position that they need to be able to win these races. But it always seems like it times out that way. You've got these bad ass fast cars and all of a sudden the pit crew timing is, is a little bit off. And then you get the pit crew right and then the cars don't have the same speed. Yeah, get off the tee box. You can put it great. You can't get down through the fairway in the trees. Yeah. Well, Ryan Blaney very eloquently reminding his team to do better. I thought he handled that pretty well. He handled it really well. I think that's, do you think he's passed? I think he's passed the, the magic meltdowns. You think for the most part, like he's, he's a dad now. Yeah, you know, the mustache must be bringing some, some wisdom and a little bit more calmness to it. Well, he's definitely got fast cars and I, I would imagine that if it continues to happen, he's going to become more frustrated with the situation than he has been over the last two weeks. But they, they definitely have to clean that up in order to put themselves in a position to compete with cars that are faster, right? Like you never know what would have happened if he could have kept himself up there all day, got control of the race. What was that car going to be like in clean air compared to BK and, and, and reddit? So I mean, reddit had the dominant car. You saw the pit stop on the on the 23 car, put him back in the field. I mean, that's the thing that happens when you make the mistakes on pit road. But we've seen it over and over and over again. want these pit stops are so fast you're right on the verge of of a disaster all the time. So we saw a lot of mistakes this week and we'll continue to see those as we go through the season. Someone who didn't really make mistakes was the Hurricane, Ol Carson, Hose of Bar with a top five performance, the lead Chevrolet too, which I think might be the most interesting part of that whole story. Yes, Byr was the first two Chevrolet. You had Daniel Suarez had a great weekend again, just consistent right there, qualified good, ran inside the top 10 pretty much the whole day and finished there. So Hose of Bar knocked two toe links off the thing and practiced in qualifying. So he had to start at the rear of the race and put himself in a position late in the race with a tire strategy methodically worked himself forward throughout the whole weekend. But he's exciting. He's fast. He's exciting. And you know, at a place like Darlington kept the car in one piece all day and was able to give himself in Chevrolet, the best finish there at the end. Do you think he wins this year? I think he's got the speed to win. I think it's just a matter of getting over that hump, right? Like just we talk about it with tie gibs and just getting that first one is so difficult, just knowing what's going to happen when your teams in that position to have to make that last pit stop or you got to make that last restart. I mean, at the day tone of 500, he had as good a chance to win that race. I don't know. Yeah, I go for it. What have you seen now, Hose of Bar? Cool car by the way this weekend. Great scheme by Chili's in that group. That was on point. Uh, man, Hose of was a dog. He's just a dog like watching him drive on Friday in the truck race. It was just like this guy has no quit and has no regard for anybody else, but himself and his team. And he's going to do whatever he thinks he needs to do to win a race. And I think if he getting over that hump, it's the next time he's in a real position in the Cup series to win a race, like you got to get it. Like, and I think he's going to, as he's been able to grind out finishes and start maybe a little further back middle of the day and then make his way to the front towards the end. I think those are things are going to help them the most. And then you look over at the seven, someone who I think, you know, Daniel Soares, someone who I think a lot of people I'd written off because he's now with his like 17. It feels like, um, no, all it needed, he needs to be around the right people, the right group of people that are pulling in the same direction. And I think we take for granted what that looks like and what that could be because we look at it from the outside looking at you like, oh, well, Ross is doing great. That's what he's doing a good job. Well, Daniel must just suck. Well, maybe not, maybe that just it wasn't working out. And now it's working out where he's at now. And that refresh for that seven group is big for them too, because it wasn't working out who was driving for it. And what you thought was kind of a lateral move to Spire has actually been a massive step up for him from a performance standpoint. And that's the part of not, not knowing, not knowing what you're stepping into, what the chemistry is going to be like, what the progression of the team is. And obviously Spire has made their cars better. Yep. The seven and 77 have have run consistently better. I think the 71 is going to have to pick up the pace in order to keep up with those two guys because it's, you know, they're performing well at this point. And, you know, I think that is, that is the reverse effect of what you see. That's the other, the other side of the story. You got two guys that have improved and McDowell hasn't taken that step up with with the seven and 77. And it's really hard to, it's really hard to have three cars at the, at the tier of which Spire is. It's hard to have three cars up in that top 10. I mean, the top 10's getting really crowded. The top of the dean is really crowded. There's week to week. There's about 20 cars that if you like, yeah, he won. I wouldn't be shocked. Ross just ain't, I think going into the weekend was 20th and points. He could win any, any given weekend. Yeah. It's talous talous. Not talous. Yeah, talous. The driver coming. I don't know that I mean, his car now his cars are not winning cars, right? No, but his driving ability and work ethic, he could, he could, in the right situation, I agree with you. Yeah. Sounds like he was very handed with you about the cars being off as well and that previous interview. I was just listening. I didn't interview him. Okay. Just listening. So someone who didn't finish in the top 10 was Denny Hamlin, an incident between him and Eric Jones in stage one, Baba Wallace, also part of the melee. What did you see happening here? Well, listening to Denny's explanation on the radio, he had blocked him. The 43 had blocked him and going into turn three, he had kind of looked left and the 43 moved to block and Denny was already committed to dive into the corner and probably try to do a slide job because with the momentum that he had, he hit him pretty hard. He hit him pretty hard and ultimately it got Denny into the fence and Baba Wallace hit the back end of Denny's car and tore his car up and hit the fence as well. So kind of a chain reaction right there, but Eric Jones came back to finish 10th. That's pretty impressive. And that's his, I mean, that's his best track. Eric Jones has done a really good job at Darlington throughout the years, winning races and being competitive every time that he shows up there. So Denny, then he had a loose left-througher wheel that he had to battle there at the end of the second stage as he was trying to nurse, nurse that car home, yeah, to be able to not have to pit and go a lap down, which they did. And you know, I think that ultimately that was just one of those timing heirs that got the 43 spun out and 11 and 23 tore up. It's going to be a concerning feeling for a driver with a wheel like that. It's very interesting when that left rear doesn't get tight and get on the dials correctly and then it, but that lock keeps the wheel on, but it slides back and forth and it feels like the old track bar movement is moving. That used to have, but when you're used to that car driving straight all day and not having any movement to it at all, all the sudden it's like, whoa, what was that? Yeah. And then you go down the straightaway and it goes the other way. So you come up off the corner and the cars got that, that y'all to the right. And then you go back down the straightaway and it goes the other way. It's a, it's a weird feeling when that car is, is meant to be straight up. And the Parker factor gets ratcheted up a little bit. Well, you don't know what's wrong. Yeah. And we heard him talking about thinking that he had a flat tire, but ultimately it was the wheel loose left rear. So Denny Hamlin probably not having the day he wanted to have. What about Kyle Arson? Because he ended up finishing 30 second. He was running 11th when he hit the wall with seven to go. These are the concerns you've expressed with him. Well, first off, this is a racetrack that we expect Kyle Arson to contend for the win and be dominant. So I think that tells you where they're at with their cars right now and, and, and knowing that they have some work to do to get the balance and speed out of their cars that they need. We didn't see, we saw them up in the front at Vegas. Kind of in the, in the mix in the top five for sure, but never that dominant speed like, like we've seen out of, out of the Toyota's so far. Yeah, I mean, we've seen dominant speed out of those cars at times. We have not seen that at Vegas or Darlington, which I would consider two of Kyle Arson's best tracks. So really interesting scenario. And I think for him wrecking from 11th, those are the things that you can't do. You can't do that in this point system. You have, if you have an 11th place car, you got to finish 11th. Otherwise, you just throw and dirt on yourself and making, making things worse. His average finish is really declined in the spring, Darlington race. His last four races were 20th, 34th, 37th and 32nd. And a lot of those other ones, he was all in ass. Oh, he was, but just doesn't have finished. He just hasn't been able to finish the spring race at Darlington. I think, you know, obviously we just talked about it. That would was the question going into this year. Like, will he, if they're not, you know, running really well, is he going to push it a little bit too far and get himself in a situation where they're losing a lot of points? Your answers, yes. And the answer is so far. Yes. Now it's surprising because he's still, I think he's still 10th and points. So, but I wouldn't, you know, if I'm him, I'm like, okay, like I need to settle down a little bit. We need to get our cars faster and keep up in the points because I can't put us behind in points just because I want to go get one more spot that one more spot isn't worth doing what he did. Darlington, finishing 30 seconds. Well, and the crutch has always been we have cars fast enough to keep winning. Right. Right. Now they don't have the cars aren't to that spot yet to be able to put themselves in position to win multiple races. And they're going to get there. It's just, it's, they're not there right now. And when you're in that position, you just take what you can get. And if you're going to run 11th, finish 11th because if you can run 11th and you just nitpick at all data to just grind away and, you know, the 54 did it this weekend. Host of our did it this weekend. And there were several of those guys that just ground it out and put themselves in a position to get a decent finish and get out of there. So you, but when you're running running 11th, you have to finish 11th. It's the old school, it's the old school version of racing, man. That's right. It just, you don't have any Mulligan's. You can't get it all back next week. No, you can't. You can lose it. There's no, no winning in. No, no, it's not. More orthodox version of racing and going after a title. Good job on the drivers only broadcast. But yeah, that was fun. Yeah, we had a good time up there and we kind of split it up this year. Everybody's like, well, what do you want to do? I said, well, I want to make sure that that Joey and Ryan have to live under the pain of play by play. I want them to have to do reads. I want them to take it into the break out of the break. And so we split it all up. And, you know, I think it came across, you know, as fun, which I thought we had had a good time up there and we had a great race. That was just a great race to call. And the ending was phenomenal with everything that Hime was able to do and kind of catch chess. saying off guard right there in the last two corners. So when you have a good race to call it makes things a lot easier. I ran into a Madison Steadhouse on Pit Road. I thought Ricky did really good. And I was like, damn Ricky, Ricky did a good job. She was, yeah, I didn't know he could use that many big words in a row. He might have had the longest Pit Road report of mankind and known to mankind. He didn't, you know what it was? Was he just kept it right here? It was like, here's a sit on the couch and that's what made it so long. The thing about drivers only is who knew Austin Austin, sender had a personality since he started doing the Pit Road reporting. We've all learned at Austin, sender is a pretty funny dude. And that's really what drivers only is all about is learning about who these drivers are and how they talk and what they say. And, and, you know, I think that one of the interesting parts was host of our talking about drivers only after, after qualifying. He's like, yeah, I'm sure somebody's going to stir, try to stir up some shit on Pit Road. So we had, we had Cindrick and, and Steadhouse down there to, to interview hosts of our. So it was definitely a little bit awkward. My favorite, my favorite part was you guys were asking, because Cindrick had been in the booth. He are in indoors. He had AC and A.U.s warm and everything was fine. And the prior races, now he's back on Pit Road. And you guys asked him, what happened? Cindrick, you had the mode. He's like, yeah, that's your business. Yeah. Yeah. He's right. Well, good job, guys. It was entertaining to watch. Okay. We are headed to Martin'sville Speedway short track coming up next for everybody. You've obviously won there in the past. What makes it so mentally and physically exhausting, racing at Martin'sville? I'm not real sure how I won. Somehow we won. It was not my favorite racetrack. It was never, never, um, one that was never one that I said, man, I'm so excited to go to Martin'sville this weekend. It was always like, yeah, we're going to Martin'sville this weekend. My favorite thing about watching Kevin go to Martin'sville and I was a kid is I always knew he was going to get pissed off and run through somebody. Oh, dear. Oh, yeah. That was always something you could bet on for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And to the very last thing, it was definitely a place that frustrated me. But I think it frustrates a lot of them, right? Yeah. And, you know, I think with with the power, I mean, we still have another racetrack with more power, less room down force. What's the drive off the corner look like? That's that's really at Phoenix and all these places that we've gone to. And everybody knows that. And I think everybody saw that going to the to Darlington guys missed the balance of the race car back still blew off blew the back tires off. But now they got the front to where they didn't turn on the entry to the corners. So who can hit that balance right? Keep the rear tires on the race car and still get it to turn through the middle of the corners. So I'll be interesting to hear what everybody thinks about the power at a place like Martin'sville with all the gear and everything in it to be able to do what they do. But I'm looking for the I'm looking for the hindered cars. You know, I think they got to show up. They got to show up at Martin'sville to be able to to it's not that they've ran bad. Right. It's just that they haven't been great like we expect them to be. And that's the expectation that we put on those cars. But I really feel like anybody could hit it like we saw this weekend with with reddick Brad keselowski hit it at at Darlington. Yeah. And I think you could see. You know, somebody hit it like BK did last weekend at at Darlington. So I still expect it to be Gibbs versus Hendrick. Yeah. It's I mean, if you can get the car rotated earlier in the corner and then use that power and have that straight line drive, that's really what everyone's going to be looking for. And if you didn't have any of that at Darlington, you're probably a little nervous about how you're going to find that at Martin's ville because it's just magnified. And you know, Kevin talks about the our expectation of Hendrick. Well, heavy is the head that the crown sits upon and they are the ones that always are dominant and always on the front and always winning these championships and all the stuff. They have not been behind in a while. Right. Even when we made the switch over, they still were one of the one of the front teams when the switch happened with the new, when from one generation to car to another, they're not even behind. They're just not. It's not great. They're just like for our expectation. So it'll be interesting to see what they show up because this is a track where they've literally won one, two, three. Yeah. Yeah. So expect and I just wonder, you know, we've heard so much talk about, you know, the F1 team and everything that Chevrolet has going on forward, forward same way, right? Like with their F1 program. And but Chevy and Cadillac have designed the F1 program from top to bottom. Where are the resources allocated right now while you're trying to make your F1 program go? I know Hendrick is interesting point. Hendrick has a lot of resources within, but we know the manufacturer controls the keys to so many things right now with the simulation and all the things that happen. How deep are those resources to help their teams get to where they need to be early in season? I mean, what I mean, one of the things it's funny to bring that up as you're talking about this, like the one of the things for Penske that really was a benefit to them was with the other cars that they have with the underbody, they were able to lean on other people within the organization to get their cup cars kind of up to where they needed to be with the new arrow package. Well, now Spiderman has T W G that they work with and they might be getting some of that technology, some of that help too. And that might be helping them while Hendrick to your point may not be getting all the same attention to the resources. Now that the GM and the Cadillac this, you know what I mean? Think about this. You know, we talk about, we talk about some of these guys that have been struggling. We talk about a lot of these guys that are struggling are guys that don't spend any time in the simulator. How you going to fix it, fellas? Right. Now, you know, base before because you didn't spend time in the simulator before. Tell me how you're going to fix your car if you don't go to the simulator. It is not going to happen. And that's the problem when people get out of the routine of going to the simulator because everything is going good and they start skipping steps in the process. But we hear so many of these guys talk about not going to the simulator. Well, now you're in a bind and that's the only resource that you have to be able to test things during the week. And it's hard to get that baby fired back up with only when it's going bad. So if you don't do those things when it's going good, when it's going bad, you know, the the resources that you have are limited. Is that a practice is not enough to get that ship turned around? Is that just a complacency thing? Or why would you not tap into a resource that you have available to you? Well, I think a lot of guys get frustrated in the simulator to be able to go in their week after week after week. But being in their week after week allows things to be developed around you and helps the engineers fix their system to get, especially when you're in a new scenario where you have new arrow packages, you have new different tires at a lot of these racetracks. And if you're not in there scaling those tires and you're just leaving it to the sim guys, to be able to do that in my opinion, it's going to take you longer to catch up. Yeah. Tom Brady was still throwing after practice with his wide receivers and working on routes and he's to go. So think about how many of those guys talk about not going to the simulator. It's a lot. Yeah. It's a bunch of them. It's a good point. So we know Hendrick is feeling the heat. Who else are you? Oh, time out. Where'd you say, Rodic was today? He's at the same. Oh, that's why he can't do his interview. Yeah, he's, he's got, he's the rest of my team. Yeah, I got you. That's one four out of the first six races in the simulator in the lab working on his stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He could be a champion. Tom made my drive. I was just going to ask the what other teams do you feel like are feeling a little bit of the heat entering the weekend right now? I mean, there's no, there's no hiding from the eight car and the Kyle bush and those guys and everything that they're going through, you know, with with him in the last year of his contract and the pressure for those cars to run better. So, you know, I think that that we definitely got to, we got to see some improvement pretty quick out of the out of the eight. I think that the track house cars are are feeling some heat to be able to get themselves in position when you hear your lead lead drivers start talking about the deficits of your car. You know, I think that Joey Legano's got to be sound in the alarm. I know he qualified on the pole at Phoenix, but you know, it was Blaney winning the race and Joey does a great job of keeping his track position and qualifying and doing all those things, but they got lap three times at Darlington. So, you know, there's there's definitely a lot of different things happening within the the whole NASCAR world right now as far as who needs work who doesn't and then we've had so many different arrow packages, different styles of race tracks that you're all over the place as to what are we approached first? Where are we? Where are we off the most? It's hard to know where you're really lacking the most when the schedule is as complex as it is right now, which is a great thing as a fan and for us to look at and talk about as a competitor, you're like, I wish I had four mile and a half in a row. So I could work on just this for a minute getting to a rhythm because you had a super speedway day, Tony, you had a super speedway on steroids, but it's high down for it. It's not the same super speedway at Echo Park. We went to a road course with no grip whatsoever at it. And now we went to the hardest track on our schedule at Darlington. Oh, by the way, we're going to go to Martin's Rail where everyone's going to be mad because you're going to take a week off and go to Bristol and then take a week off. Yeah. That's right. It's going to make it very interesting as we head to the paperclip this weekend. And now it is your turn to take over. What do you know? Caitlin, what's he's not taking over? We're just going to let him do a segment. No, no, no, no, no, no, we're taking over. No, no, no, no, we're taking over. Take it over. It's your favorite part of the show. Mamba's social sips. Shout out to everyone in Darlington that came out. It was awesome. We had the Ram rides. Oh, my, the Ram rides. The Ram thrill rides were on the whole thing. Sorry. The Ram rides were full of fact. So if you didn't make it to Darlington for it, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to pay attention when we show up next. Okay. Let's start with the word of the week. Yes. Kevin did a great job with this one. It wasn't hard. We just lay up. But it meant something to the people. Okay. Let's run the clip. RFK is having a great day here in South Kakalaki. Tell you who is not. And that is Bumble Wallace. He got into the wall and turned two a couple of laps ago. And his kind of nursing that car around now. He's now dropped a lap down. South Kakalaki. No one reacted. It's wild. Well, when I, when I don't fumble through it with whatever the word was the week before. What was it? Don't ask me. Okay. I was just checking. I'll move it on. Okay. Yeah. That was a tough one. South Kakalaki was kind of a relief. Yeah. I bet it was. I didn't stress out about that. I didn't even write it down. After that Vegas one. Probably everything. I'll feel like a layup now. No, no, no. I needed. No, no, no. No, no, no. We're pronunciation. We're getting fired back up. So we are going, we are going to Martinsville. Big race and Brad Perez, who's a garage favorite, a grinder. This is a guy trying to figure it out. Put on social media that he had an opportunity to run the arc race. I think this was in Phoenix. That got covered. And he's still looking for some help from Martinsville and Charlotte, Darlington, Kansas. Well, somebody answered the call and it was a one. Bubba Wallace. I like Martinsville. I'm in for 15K. It's pretty awesome. And helps helps out Brad. It's not another competitor. Do that. Some of this people that Arger Rodge is really good about that. Like I've had help from Kevin, from Tony, from Ricky Statenhouse, Carl Larson. Bubba Blaney, like AJ Almondinger, a bunch. Arger Rodge understands how hard it is to race. And the people that are doing it at a high level, they appreciate, I feel like the grit and grind of somebody. We went through a situation like this one time with Morgan Shepherd. And I'm like, man, it would be so cool to see Morgan Shepherd run good. So I had the KHI guys go get his car a couple of weeks in a row and bring it to the shop and go through it and work on it. And that's definitely not something that hasn't happened in this sport before. So good on Bubba for helping Brad out. Yeah. So good luck to Brad. It'll be a good run. Yeah. Something else. Someone that I really am looking forward to. Yeah. Is this next guy that we're going to talk about? We actually have a little video and then I'll mention his name. But let's run the video first. Report to Lee Polio. Pull the head 24, 1000s on a second. What a race. What you guys think about Lee Polio? Tell me how Lee never got a real shot. Tell me how this guy doesn't have a NASCAR suit on it. You can't. I don't know. He's still waiting. Absolutely. Listen, this guy, you didn't see it. Lee Polio, Virginia's own one of the one of the best short track races to ever strap in. A late model. I'm so excited to see Lee get this opportunity with Jarrah. Yeah. And I think that Lee quit before he should have. You know, I think that he won the race as we can in South Boston. They're opener for the late model stocks at South Boston Speedway. But Lee is a genuinely good person. It has been a big part of short track racing in this area for a long time. And I think he, I don't know. I think he went through a part of his life where he was like, you know, I need to make a living. Yeah. I've got a family. I need to just work on the cars and give up on the driving piece of it. And that all got reignited. And now you see him in the late model stock again, you're going to see him in the J.R.M. car. What a great opportunity for somebody who probably deserved it before this. Yeah. And now he's going to get, you know, that opportunity to go out and show it. Accolade speak for themselves. They're listed right there. You know, you grew up at Langley Hampton. So you know, of Lee obviously very well. What does that mean to that area up there? I think it's huge obviously for the Virginia short track community. And kind of the same when Josh Barry went over and had all of his success too in the cup series, you know, it just, it means a lot. And it just reinvigorates that whole program and what people are trying to do. Yeah. It's like him and like, bubble, like those two guys hope that they can make this happen. Oh man. When those two guys get opportunities, it just gets everyone's attention. And Bubba made, made the most of his at Richmond. He did a great job. Yeah. It'll be fun to watch. Look at the point of that. You know, we love burnouts and donuts here. Absolutely. That's what we love that most. And we're an buyer and try his best. He got to go over there. He got to go over to the, the canes, the hurricanes are our local North Carolina hockey team. They gave him the Zamboni, which I don't think they knew he was going to do this. Probably not. And he's going to blow in the owner's eye with his Zamboni. William's been busy lately with all kinds of different activities. They've known us. Hey, DAP, DAP pays. Well, that's his only burnout practice he's had this year. Shot fired. I don't know if I'm firing shots. So those are just factual. Okay. All right. Did you see it? But I like it. Yeah. Well, I like it. I like this burnout. Did you see it? Did you see it? Because they do the horn. They do like the side. He was getting out of it. Did you see him do it in his video? He's a huge canes fan though. Big time. He got to do their draft pick. Yeah. That's something. Yeah. I think he's going to do it. I think he's going to need it. He might need to get the doctor. We're going to show him. Because he had that thing ripped. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's a, he's a local Charlotte North Carolina kid. So he grew up with Panthers and Hurricane. So he's still following his roots on his sports teams, for sure. For sure. And one, one little extra thing we've, we've started. We're now three weeks straight into NASCAR Sundays that we've been doing a watch party. We've been doing watch parties in Charlotte. He has his own watch party. Yeah, about 30 people have been showing. 30, 40, 30, 40. It's been good. It started Daytona. We've been doing it the last three weeks for sure straight. In this weekend, we're taking it to Hoppin, which is in South Bend. Hoppin. Hoppin. Hoppin. It's a nice little brewery. We're taking over there for the last stage on Mamba's dime, Open Bar. I told him maybe I'll have to collect my girlfriends and come up there and see you. I feel like you would be happy about that. Yeah. Come in. I would be happy about that. You have some very nice friends that can come by. No, but it's going to be great. So anybody that's in Charlotte that wants to come watch some race and we're going to hop in. We're going to start at Corner Pub in Uptown and then we're going to hop in. Oh, so this is a moving party. It's an organized, yeah. Yeah, organized. It's almost like a little party. Have you already gone to the bars and tried to make all this happen? Yeah, we already got it locked in. Okay. Let's go ahead. You have specific drinks or anything that you bring to these bars like you have Michael Walchard. You have a signature cocktail. Beer or whatever they call it. Bushlight anything. I don't know. Do you have any suggestions, Kevin? Do you think I'm just asking? No, I haven't got that. I think you need to serve your own like drink that's named after you. Okay. Mama moonshine. Yeah, Mama's. Mama's shine. Mama shine. Okay. We're moving on. I think I can see this getting on a shirt. Guys, if you want to leave a voicemail 805 317 4175 mail back question. I'm part of it. Happy hour for at gmail.com and I'll see you on Sunday. Sunday party. All right. Time now, guys, for our last call and we have to grade the burnout, which I think wasn't received quite like this might be our first F. It might be our first F for the Darlington lack thereof kind of burnout situation. Chris Hard on first things first. He gives the cowboy is a grade every every week. Yeah. I think I'm just sure what happened there. Yeah. He's been doing some good ones. Yeah, he's done some great burnouts, but this one was not great. Maybe he was just so hot he wanted to get out of there. Maybe. Well, I mean, he drove around for a long time. I'm gonna tell you what though. He probably was really high in a little dehydrate because when he got out, he was ready to do a little celebrating because did you see the shui? He made up for it with the shui. The shui was just, I mean, epic. Would you do that Kevin? I wonder what prompted this. Oh, if I won, I would do. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, shadow Daniel Ricardo on this, you know what I mean? I don't think I would do this. Really? No, I don't think so. I do have a line and I think it's right about how many it is your own foot. I don't care. That's something else's foot. I don't need that. I mean, you've probably ate a booger before or something. You're different. You're different. You're telling me that drinking beer out of your racing shoe is different than eating a booger. Yeah, for sure. So you eat boogers? No, I don't know. I don't know. No. No, we're all kids once again. It's a hard no, I guess. No, I don't think there's no shui. No, there's no scenario. I'm not going to say there's no scenario whatsoever. So if you were racing and you want to race, you would not do a shui. I don't think I want to do a shui after winning a race. So you'd rather not race. No, that's not the only way you could race if you did a shui. Oh, then absolutely. Okay, I'll do the shui. Ever to the race. There's a price. to do the race. To do the race. There you get some late model still right Kevin. I'll do this. You let me drive one of your cars. I'll do a shoe I'll do a shoeie at a your shoe. Oh wow to drive one of your cars. Wow. There you go. This just got even more interesting. Oh see that shoe He's not so bad now. Is it not now? It's starting to get intrigued. I just want to I mean drink beer out of whatever. I mean listen, do we have to talk to Delano about this or can you make this happen on your own? I know sure. I'm not sure. There's probably not even really up to either one of the last. Well, There's Josh Jones at get him on the line guys. Okay, time now to take a look at the point standings where Mama and I are now tied. Kevin. No, we're tied for what you guys totally screwed me on the lead because there's zero points awarded for Kevin and I for picking chase briscoe which seemed like it was going to actually get us some points until it was going to be fine until the last bit last little bit. And then Mama you picked up six for picking Ryan Blaney. So now it's a very tight points battle though. I must say but I am in last. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you are. But you have a chance to redeem yourself in a few days. So I'd like to protest. Okay, go ahead. Oh boy. I'd like to protest my committee. I'd like to protest the fact that you guys abandoned the end of my pick. I didn't even ask me. Okay, what my pick was for whatever week it was. Okay, when did you know that you weren't going to be here? Probably beginning of the year. Right. And you didn't even I should have submitted my pick. We didn't know until the Friday before. So I think that that is erroneous and all accounts. erroneous. Fine. It's fine. I'm going to catch up. Yeah, you all do you want to go first today? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I'm going to take Danny Hamlin. There you go. He's taking Danny Hamlin. It's a good bet on the short track. I'm going with William Byron. Three wins. He's had there. I think I'm going to pass you this week. Go ahead. Do you think so. So you don't you're not confident in the Hendrick. I mean, I'm kind of a I'm kind of a bandwagon guy sitting on this side of the mic. So to win. I'm not picking you. Yeah, you have been, I mean, you have been leading the bandwagon for the 11 for a while. Um, I if this was the fall race, I would go with the 12 because it just seems like 12 is great in the fall race. I don't know why. Um, usually this is Hendrick. I would normally probably go with like a chase or a biker. But I'm going with bubble wall. Oh, I thought you might say that is time for a running good. He's running well. He just had just had the birth of his baby girl. No pressure. No more prayer. Everything's good. We're running fast. I love how he just announced it on Thursday or to me in Friday or whatever day was Saturday during his interview. Yeah, he's like, you know, I had no idea. Did you? I'm I like to think that I'm one of his best friends. And I had no idea. There you go. Then I did get a picture after and being so cute. I just wanted to keep it a private moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was over at that point. Yeah. Well, we'll see how he fairs and these picks do and speaking of Denny Hamlin, you will have an interview with him on Thursday. Yeah, we had a great interview. Got to sit down with Denny and just kind of pick his brain about everything. His success at Las Vegas. His 2311 team and everything that he had going on his life retirement. And we went fishing. That's cool. We did a big fisherman now. Did you catch anything? No, I didn't know what he caught anything. Oh, I did. I did cast my my line one time. My warm went that way and my hook went that way. Okay. So that's fun. That's pretty much the story of my fishing career. Yeah. When it comes to the best pro Kevin's one, the hunting side of that. Yeah, fishing side. I don't really like to fish. No. No. It's boring. He's never he's never caught anything. That's why. No. I used to go fishing with my friends all the time. And they would catch like 10 fish and I would catch one. See he's really caught nothing. No. Yeah. I got a summer for Marley once. There you go. No big deal. Well, we look forward to Kevin's interview with Denny and also your interview with Tyler Reddick will come out on Tuesday. So we look forward to that. All right. I'm busy. He's in the same. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check us out at Harvard HappyPod. We'll see all of you after Martin'sville.