S1: Episode 23: It's Been A Hell Of A Year

[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is raise rowdy racing with Caleb Conrady and Dawson Edwards. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Good morning, beautiful people. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Man, I'd just like to send out my condolences to everybody fucking else because we champions. [00:00:21] Speaker B: God dang. [00:00:22] Speaker A: We fucking did it. Finally. Finally, Ryan Blaney gets him the big one, the trophy that matters. Even if he didn't get both of the trophies at the same time. Hell, yeah. I'm so freaking fired up. Let's freaking go. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Hell yeah. I feel like a professional now that I got this going and you didn't. That's incredible. I know. First time for everything. [00:00:46] Speaker A: I know. We were just trying to get this thing started, and I couldn't make Riverside work to save my life, which is so weird. [00:00:55] Speaker B: It worked, though. Somehow, some way it did. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Yeah. A day late, dollar short, and one computer down. Here we are. But, hell, I was glad to be doing it one last time for the season. [00:01:11] Speaker B: One last real time, one last race time like we've talked about. We'll still have some other podcasts coming up throughout the rest of the year, maybe some guests and maybe to talk about, I don't know, anything, really. It's our podcast. We can talk about whatever we want. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. Just start talking about football. Just raised rowdy football all of a season. [00:01:37] Speaker B: Something like that. Be kind of cool. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Just raised rowdy. Silly season. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah. If anything cool happens or really anything, we can talk about anything we want to. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's always a sad and depressing time every November when the NASCAR season comes to an end. [00:01:53] Speaker B: It really is. It feels so odd. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, thank goodness we're the sport with the shortest offseason of all time. I mean, it's maybe, what, a third of the year, if even that. That we're off, and then they're back at it again for 32 more weeks almost in a row. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they have, like, what is it? So you get all of December, all of January, and then you have two weeks in November, 2 weeks in February off. So basically just three months total. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's 25% of the year. [00:02:24] Speaker B: We get racing 75% of the weekends of the year. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Which is pretty cool. [00:02:29] Speaker A: And not only that, but we don't even have, like, our preseason is still a race that people want to win, so it's not like you're just having to. You finally get football back, and it's just a bunch of backups out there. It's legitimate racing from the Coliseum on, so it's definitely a great part of it. But, man, those three months, it feels like they take forever every time. No way around it. [00:02:53] Speaker B: I wonder how long the Coliseum hangs, huh? [00:02:57] Speaker A: I think Fontana shutting down really helped them. My, that's my hot take of the day. I think Fontana going away means they still need to have some sort of hold on the market over there. So I think that's what's keeping it rocking and rolling because, you know, the teams ate just, they're like, man, we got to go all the way there, then all the way to Daytona, then all the way back out there again for the West coast swing. [00:03:18] Speaker B: It's like, money wise, it's a disaster for them. [00:03:21] Speaker A: It really is like running a race in Portland or whatever other nonsense they're. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Going to be doing. [00:03:29] Speaker A: But, yeah, I think that's the only reason that track keeps holding. Does it? Obviously doesn't sell a lot of tickets. The teams don't really like it too much, but it gets them over on the West coast, and I think that's all they're shooting for. And nothing is funnier than going out and doing all that while watching the comments section on any time a Fontana demolition update gets posted, all the people saying the wildest things like, oh, we should just make it a dirt track out there, or we should do this to it, or we should make this happen. It's like, man, you all got to stop. There's just nothing left of that racetrack. It's gone. It is in the past. It doesn't exist anymore. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah, obviously, I don't know if anybody really knows except NASCAR, what's going on, but they post little updates and obviously it's torn down. And then they send that conference before the race at Phoenix that they still had a plan to put a, the goal is to still put a short track out there. But it's just kind of sad because Fontana, I don't see a two mile racetrack getting built in the US maybe ever again. Who's going to take that much money and build a two mile racetrack? [00:04:48] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt it would have happened back in the day, but not anymore. It would something crazy not surprise me. Too crazy much. Yeah, but it'd have to be out somewhere where the land is cheap and you're pretty much looking at the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. [00:05:03] Speaker B: They don't want to be in the middle of nowhere. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they love their big markets. But either way, man, you want to start off, talk about where we were this weekend while we were watching these championship races. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Trick, crew wise, we were in, started the weekend off in Bowling Green, which that was on Thursday. There wasn't anything going on Thursday? We watched Thursday Night Football. We're also a big football bus. After that was the Soaring eagle, which me and Caleb had been there before, back in 2021. [00:05:37] Speaker A: That's up in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Like I was telling you, I remember that vividly because it was so cold that day. It was like spitting ice out of this. It was raining ice. I remember I was telling you. I remember us eating those big, greasy cheeseburgers. Family. I remember eating those at that little spot there. And both times we've been there, it's been sold out like a big show. Last year it was with Aaron Tippen, and then this year, Little Texas. So it's cool to have another 90s artist out there. So a lot of reasons for that thing to be memorable of a place. And then Hard Rock Cincinnati was the last. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Went down there for the last one. [00:06:20] Speaker B: So we watched the truck race in Michigan and the Bush race in. [00:06:27] Speaker A: I thought we might have to finish watching the truck race in Cincinnati. By the way it was looking. [00:06:31] Speaker B: I mean, we were pretty much leaving by the time it got done. No joke. [00:06:35] Speaker A: I mean, talk about the race that should have been the shortest. Ended up taking the longest out of all of them. And it was all because of the shit show that it became at the mean. I told you. We got done with Loadout, and I grabbed my bag off the bus, and we had to walk to the hotel, which is on the opposite side of the casino. So, I mean, anybody that's been to a casino knows even small casinos are still pretty big buildings. We had to cross all the way from the venue side to the hotel side. And this isn't a small casino by any means. So it's a long jag. I was able to grab my bag, get to the casino floor when the first wreck comes out, when Heim decided that he wanted to ruin everybody's day. And I started in the casino with that caution coming out, and I was able to make it all the way to my room, which is about at the end of the hallway at the other end of the hotel. Get in the room, send a few text messages off, get in the shower, take my shower, get done, get back dressed. And it was ending on my way out of the hotel room. And they wrecked with what, like nine to go. That first restart. [00:07:39] Speaker B: I can't even remember what it was like. I told you, me and Bud were standing at the end of the trailer when lights are getting put on. There was like 20 to go then. And he had texted me after I was already in my room, was like, this race is never going to end. I was like, yeah, I don't know. This is stupid. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. They just kept getting stupider the longer that it was going on, I swear. [00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, the last 20 laps legit lasted, I think, probably over an hour. Really? Realistically, I think it was, like, over. [00:08:11] Speaker A: An hour, which is just unbelievable. And even the broadcasters, bless their hearts already for not being there. [00:08:21] Speaker B: In Charlote. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah. One, they're not there, and two, it's just not the greatest dynamic in that Fox booth right now. [00:08:30] Speaker B: No. [00:08:30] Speaker A: I mean, between Michael Waltrup and, gosh, who else was on that broadcast? [00:08:37] Speaker B: Phil Parsons and Jamie Little. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Phil is the one. I always can't ever remember who's up there. Obviously, we don't get a chance to watch many truck races because we're always working, usually when they're going on. [00:08:49] Speaker B: And honestly, after this year, we pretty much decided we didn't want to watch truck races anymore. [00:08:54] Speaker A: It's unbelievable. But there's already not the greatest dynamic in that booth. But then you put all of it together with them not even being at Phoenix and having the shit show restart parade that was going on, and it's. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Starting at 10:00 Eastern. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it was brutal, man. Everything about it was they tried to vamp a little bit off of each other, and it's just awkward, and it's not fun. And Michael is just already. Michael is just weird. He's a bit of a loose cannon in the booth, but then you give him an hour to fill, and it just derails. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:09:28] Speaker A: So all the way around, the trucks were derailing. Crew chiefs were losing their shit. The broadcasters are losing their minds and are completely lost in left field, just waiting on a restart to actually go the distance. I mean, it came down to it. I think NASCAR in any other situation would have called the yellow on that last restart when I think it was Tyler Ankram was up against the wall. They would have called that restart in any other situation back under caution. But I think even NASCAR was to the point where they were just like, screw it. If he doesn't get out of the way by the time they get to three, we'll just hit the caution over there. So that way, at least this race will be over with. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that was 100% what they were doing. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, nobody was invested anymore. I don't know how many different ways you could read different tweets or know about it, but it was just embarrassing all the way around. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't see one person had any good thing to say. No, drivers included. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just listening to door bumper clear hiking with Stella this morning, and Bret, you know how he mean, he didn't go into detail, thank goodness, but he was definitely not about it. And I heard that they had a series official in the drivers meeting on Sunday morning that straight up looked at every driver and said, you saw how not to do it on Friday night, you saw how to do it on Saturday night. Let's try to be a little bit more like Saturday night when you got a race director telling you that your series was an embarrassment and that we don't need a repeat of that. That's everything you need to know about the Craftsman Truck Series right there. That is everything you need to know. I mean, I get it that these kids all have something major that they're trying to drive for. They're trying to prove themselves and this and that, but it just turned into no one had any respect left on the racetrack. Your championship, four drivers are getting squeezed together and knocked around. And by the end of the race, every single one of them had some sort of major damage to their truck. And it's all because these kids lose their freaking mind. And, I mean, you can watch how a professional does it. When Ross is blocking for the lead on Blaney and he's trying to win the race, he's not out there trying to wreck him. He's not trying to make his life any easier by any means, but he's not trying to wreck him. He's not doing stupid crap and putting him in bad positions. He's just putting his car where he needs to put it to maintain the lead. And these kids are just go out there, and if you're trying to pass them, you better get ready for some contact, because there's just no way around blow. They're going to try to knock your door off if you're trying to pass them. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I wish somehow, and I don't know if this will ever happen, but I wish they could get a little bit of that identity back they had back in the day. And I hate to always be the back in the day guy, but, man, some things were just better back in the day. And, like, having. I mean, I'd even go say it was 50 50, probably, but you had 50% older guys that were either NASCAR, maybe not champions in the Cup Series, but, like, race winners, great racecraft race winners with, like, Tod Bodine, Johnny Benson, Mike Skinner, Ron Hornaday. He had all those. I could go on and on. You had all those guys, and then you did have the Kyle bushes, and I'm talking about 20 years ago, but, like, the Kyle bushes coming up and the Kevin Harvick's coming up and all those, they were coming up, it was half young, half mature and old. And I feel like those younger guys who are now the veterans of the cup series really learned a lot racing those guys. [00:13:16] Speaker A: They did. [00:13:18] Speaker B: And at the end of the day, the Johnny Benson's, Todd Bo Dines, Mike Skinners, they were the champions. They all have multiple championships in the Truck series back in the day, in that time. And, yeah, I think they learned a lot. And that was like a cool dynamic and identity the Truck series has. I know Dell Jr. Harps on it a bunch about the identity for each series, and that was just a really cool thing the Truck series had going. Nowadays, you literally have guys like, I'm going to mess his name up. Like William Salowich, however you say his last name, he's 16 years old. [00:13:59] Speaker A: These kids can't even drive on every single one of the racetracks the Truck series goes to. [00:14:03] Speaker B: And I mean, as we all know, because we all were, 16 year olds aren't the smartest, most mature things in the world. I don't care. Even if a lot of people say, like, oh, he's so mature for his age, that's great. They're still kids. [00:14:19] Speaker A: They are. [00:14:23] Speaker B: That whole dynamic. You got a bunch of kids racing each other. So that's just the kind of weird thing about the Truck series. I don't know. There's a lot of money in the Truck series and a lot of young no give a damn kids in the Truck series, and it's just kind of crazy. I don't know if that'll ever turn back or change or what. I don't know. [00:14:46] Speaker A: I don't see it ever turning back. I mean, there's already such a problem in the Truck series with getting enough money to put your truck on the track. I mean, you see the purse looks impressive. When you look at it just from that one number, the purse for the race looks good until you realize that what the winner's cut gets basically hangs a body on that truck that's at a big purse event. The only way they can get money is to have somebody with money come into the sport totally and bring the money with them, because even sponsors aren't going to pay as much for an event that looks like it does and doesn't make as much money and doesn't get TV viewership and all the other problems that they're having. Trucks are basically becoming ARCA in a slow death fashion. They're becoming ARCA and eventually it's just going to be a whole bunch of idiots out on the track wrecking each other and here we just, that's what it's becoming. It's just a bunch of kids with money going out there and wrecking other people's vehicles because they don't have to give a damn. Daddy will buy me a new one. [00:15:49] Speaker B: I have two points about that and one to go exactly along with you just said about the Truck series kind of being a joke. Jesse Love, who just won like eleven or twelve ARCA races, won the championship, all this stuff, dude, obviously he's been a Toyota driver his whole career. He races midgets and all the dirt stuff. He's with Toyota, he's been with Toyota and Arca. He's a Toyota driver. He got the opportunity to straight up skip the trucks and they put him in an RCR car, not they. He decided to do that on his own obviously, and get out of his Toyota deal. But trucks are a joke. I don't know. They're a joke. So those guys are just, I think you will see more of that. More of guys go straight to Xfinity. [00:16:35] Speaker A: And Cup and you're seeing fewer and fewer cup drivers, if any, take the opportunity to use their five races they can do in the trucks because they don't want to go down there and just ride under caution all day long and have the possibility of getting wrecked like hell by some 16 year old kid who doesn't know any better. There's a lot of lessons you got to learn driving, but that's what your local Saturday short track is for. That's what your late model races are for. That's where you need to go and learn something. You're getting all this attention and eyes put on to you. I mean it can really mess with your future career. Like Carson Hosevar is a great example of somebody that's overcame it. But imagine if he never quite did get it figured out and he kept doing the stupid stuff that he was doing. He'd probably be blacklisted from getting a better ride just because he is getting eyes on him at too young of an age when he doesn't know enough. Maybe it's tough because I don't know the business of small town motorsports, but I know it's not easy and I know it costs a lot of money and it's tough. And if you have that money dangled right in front of you, why wouldn't you go chase it. But, man, it can be a benefit or it can really hurt you getting into these trucks too soon. And I feel like a lot of that is what's happening. Kids are getting opportunities at too young of an age just because they have the money to bring into the sport. [00:17:56] Speaker B: I agree with that. And then my other point I wanted to say, and this was something I didn't, how I knew this number is how much it costs to run a competitive Xfinity Series car. But Brad Kaslowski was posting on was, this was like two weeks ago, probably. And even when they made the rule about cup guys doing your five races, a lot of them, even back in the day, still ran five races, ran a bunch. And before that, you had cup guys that ran the whole series. I mean, you had Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards are two guys. I can think about that. Both won titles in the Bush Series while they were racing full time in Cup. But he posted, he was like, it takes five to 7 million to run a competitive Bush Series car. And he said, if you have a company that's willing to fork out five to $7 million, he said 99% of the time they just want to go cup racing and there's no point in forking out five to 7 million on the second tier team. You know what I mean? That made really good sense. I was like, if you're going to fork out that much money, let's fork it out where there's more eyes and more people and the superstars are. And that made a lot of sense to me. As much as that sucks for it costs that much to race a Bush Series car, but it makes sense. It makes complete glad. I feel like Brad's always been kind of that guy, very transparent about things behind the scenes. And I like when guys post stuff like that for guys like us that we can look at and see, know, really unDerstand. Well, like, why doesn't Brad Kazlowski race Bush Series at all? He. There's your reason. You know what I mean? And that's a lot of the reason. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it's not like those teams down there that have the opportunity to have a third car on the track. It's either you can field another car or you can put all that money you're going to invest in that one car and put it into one of the other guys. And I mean, it makes sense, like, for Junior, he owns his own cars, so he can go out there and run his own. He's using his own money. But if you're talking like an Austin Cindric or a Ryan Blaney and Pinsky. It can field a 22 car in Xfinity. It's like, well, we could do that or we could take the money we were going to get for running that car and just invest it into the Cup. And yeah, it's always about money. And that sucks because there's just not as much of it going around as there used to be. But that's a little bit of everywhere. And so it's a bit of a problem with the model of the sport. That's been a topic of conversation that goes way over my head. I don't know all the ins and outs and details of how expensive or difficult it is to change everything. And I know it's not easy, but the sponsorship model was awesome when NASCAR was the highest viewed sport in America. Now it's a little different. You got to find a different way to make that cash. And they're trying their best to find different revenue streams as much as possible. But really it's going to take a. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Major, I mean, we're about to see two huge shakeups here probably within the next month or so. I'd say they're going to figure out this charter deal and figure out this TV deal. And I hear they're not going to figure out the charter deal until the TV deal gets figured out. That's two huge pieces of money. Things they got to figure out. The contracts are up, so they're figuring them out right now. They said in the state of the sport press conference the other day that they had hoped that TV deals would already be done, but they're not. And tHey're hoping they're done in the next few weeks. So, I mean, we're going to see some know, I don't know what we're going to see really, but I know. [00:21:47] Speaker A: I really don't know who's in the running for the TV deals. Is it still a Fox and NBC split? Are we talking going to streaming on any kind of races? [00:21:55] Speaker B: I heard old Adam Stern posted that Amazon's in the running. [00:22:01] Speaker A: Amazon wants everything, man. [00:22:03] Speaker B: They do. They got, the thing about it is Amazon has money. Amazon has more money than a lot of these companies. Don't get me wrong, NBC and Fox and all this people are worth tons of money. But I just saw ESPN over the last couple of years has went from being worth $50 billion to 24. And I mean, that makes sense for them. They cut all those people, people that we've been watching on ESPN, calling football games and baseball games since we was little kids losing their jobs. And me, I was like, what's going on here? Where's this money going? What are they doing? And that just came out. Just the other day they posted that ESPN is over half worth what it was just a couple of years ago. And a lot of these companies are there doing this and Amazon's doing this and not stopping. So Amazon has money, know, money talks, bullshit walks. Amazon has the money to put it down and say, here, we'll do it. And I guess kind of be a monopoly. I mean, if they want to own it, seems like they want to own everything. Like you just said, they want to be a part of everything. So I don't know. I really don't. [00:23:20] Speaker A: It's very true. And a lot of it is the way that people are starting to stream more stuff than they used to. And it's a total shake up in how the TV industry works in general. So you're seeing that play out. But the unintended consequences of all of those things changing is sports and individual networks and individual TV shows have to change the way that they work as well. And that's one thing I really hope that's one thing NASCAr has always been good at in a certain way, is being on the front of big changes like that. I mean, they were the first sport to come back from COVID They were the biggest sport in general in the mid 2000s when all these cable companies and everything were still kind of new to us and we were still getting all that kind of stuff figured out. [00:24:09] Speaker B: The original Fox deal was the biggest deal ever at that time. Back in one. Yeah. [00:24:16] Speaker A: So they've always been good about keeping their finger on the pulse of where TV is going. And that's the one thing that definitely got my interest back a couple of years ago when they first started floating the idea of a NASCAR streaming service where it's you buy this to specifically watch NASCAR races. At first, I was still in the mindset of cable companies or the big guys, and I had YouTube TV for only the first six months when I started hearing about this, that was still new to me. But now I've realized how much better it would be if you could just pay for the things that you want and not have to pay for this huge package of other things. I mean, we're going off into this deep rabbit hole of it, but that's all the things that NASCAR is looking at right now that could really change the way the truck series works, the way that Xfinity Series works, and of course, the way that cup works and how you view it, and it's interesting to watch. So I'm definitely intrigued by that. That is a huge piece of news that we'd have to wait for in the offseason. It seems like silly season this year is a lot calmer, but that particular piece of it is a lot bigger. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. I know, like you said, we're in a deep rabbit hole, but since we're here, I think with the Xfinity Series, going to the CW is a really cool thing. Talking about they wanted to get into sports. From the article I read, they really want to get into sports, and this was one of their first opportunities where they could do that, and they did another. I mean, I think it's, it five years, it's like five year, 140,000,000, 160,000,000 or something like that deal. And, I mean, that's huge for the Xfinity. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:25:58] Speaker B: And their TV deal, they're wanting to do the same thing and kind of going back to the identity thing that can kind of give the Xfinity series a piece of that identity. Like, hey, every Saturday, the CW for the next five years, that's where it's going to know. And if they get this TV deal worked out on their end, too, where they get a little bit more of that money and not to worry so much about sponsors, which sponsors always have been, always will be number one. I totally get that. But I mean, you're looking at some of these guys, they're not getting anything. I mean, we're talking about pennies on the dollar compared to what the sponsors are bringing in. It's like, without the sponsors, they're not making any money. [00:26:36] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [00:26:37] Speaker B: They're not getting any money from TV, they're not getting any money from purses and all this stuff. It's just a lot different than what it was back in the day when you had 200,000 people at every single race. Then the purses were humongous. A lot different. Like you just said, there's a lot more money going around. And we kind of made the joke this weekend talking about country music and NASCAR and, like, royalties and songwriters and all the same thing. It's kind of the same thing. They're kind of one and the same right now. Like the early 2000s, they were popping and blowing up, and there was just money to burn, and now it's not the same. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's extremely different, and you're very right. If they could get a little bit more of that TV deal. Imagine how much easier it'd be for somebody that doesn't have funding. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:27] Speaker A: To get around able to make their way into the Xfinity Series. And you're going to see talent over money, over pocketbooks, which is what they want. [00:27:36] Speaker B: I mean, you listen to Junior and Denny Hammond and these guys that do have podcasts and talk about it regularly. That is what they some. It is a business in the know. Michael McDowell said. [00:27:53] Speaker A: When he was on. [00:27:54] Speaker B: Denny's podcast and he was like, you got a fun. He doesn't bring loves with fun. He gets paid to race that race car. Obviously, they all get paid, but he doesn't Bring them with him. You know what was like, and he was talking about Bob Jenkins front a lot of that money out of his pocket. And he was talking about, I can't remember what drivers he might have said. Austin Hill talking about coming with United Reynolds or something. If he's got even just $6 million to go cup racing here. Here's $6 million. He's like, that's 6 million more than I'm bringing. That's 6 million more. Less than Bob would have to put out of his pocket to race. When you put it in that form, that makes sense. It is a business decision. At the end of the day, it's a business decision as much as that sucks when back in the day, your business decision was finding the guy with the most talent. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, imagine if the NFL draft didn't exist and it was just who has the most money that they can bring to the table. The product and the quality of the play would go down, goes on the screen would go down, because it's no longer about how good you are at the sport, it's how good are you for the sport. And that's a small difference. But it's a major change in the way that people get recruited. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Yes, we'll totally do a podcast about it, about the whole TV deal when it comes out, in which I think it has a chance to come out before the end of the year if you go off what they said on that press conference. [00:29:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Either way, I guess we can go onto the Bush series, Xfinity Series. That was a good race all the way around. That was cool. [00:29:32] Speaker A: I was a bit sad. I didn't get to see near as much of it as I would have liked to, but everything I saw looked awesome. Moments where all four of the drivers had a shot at winning it at. [00:29:42] Speaker B: The end there, them being four wide on the last checker that was awesome. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly what you asked for. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Yeah. This is the format we have. That is what you would want out of that format is those four being four wide. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Like, it's a great. It is the genuine game seven moment where it's all the way to the end of it, everything's on the line and right now is the time to capitalize on that. And Cole Custer ends up coming out and winning it, which I think made absolute sense. So if you look at all the last 50, 60 laps that were ran there, I mean, he definitely was the guy that was running up there out front, had the kind of the car to beat, and it ended up being him right there at the end. I, of course, was pulling for all guy, or that was the guy that I had picked to win it all. And he was right there, man. He was right there, but he just did not have that speed. Once the cars got think. I can't remember who it was on the broadcast, but they said these two guys, Custer and Algae, are restart animals. They're going to go out and get the most of it. And it's like, man, that would be great if this restart was happening. And he was right there up front and Custer was like a couple rows back, but you put them on any more than a couple laps and it just seems like Ogar couldn't find a way to keep up. So, I mean, long run, short run, sometimes it sucks. You're just on the wrong end of, but really, really cool way to see the race end. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that was the main thing. It surprised the hell out of me with Algar. I mean, he being the oldest, most been there, veteran kind of xfinity guy on lap five, when he got in there on the inside of the 20 car and just doored him and lost it. I just couldn't believe that he put his car in that place that early, I guess is what I should say. At the end of the race, I would expect that it's a totally fine move, but on lap five, I was like, I didn't see that one coming. [00:31:44] Speaker A: I don't think he did either. It looked like he was doing everything he could to keep it off of the 20, like trying not to completely ruin both of their days. You know what? If I'm going to spin, I don't want to have to take you out, but there's a point where you can't turn back anymore. And I think he found that point. He did what he could. [00:32:03] Speaker B: He left a nice donut mark on the 20 car. I'll tell you something else that I want to see, and I have not seen a replay. My dad asked me about it, and I saw Landon HuffMan ask about it on Twitter. What happened to the 20 car to where his car was destroyed at the end of the race? [00:32:22] Speaker A: You know, I have no idea either. [00:32:23] Speaker B: I don't know. I haven't seen a replay. No one interviewed him. I had the same thought that dad did. He was like, man, I expect him to get out of the car fighting or something. The way his car was so messed up. I was like, me, too. And then they didn't even. I mean, obviously they're talking to algae or talking to Custer. [00:32:37] Speaker A: Custer, everybody. [00:32:39] Speaker B: And I totally understand, but he came down pit road, and his car is destroyed on the passenger side, and I mean flattened and bent up. And I was like, what in the world happened? Still? Obviously you haven't either, but still haven't heard. Seen nothing. No idea why or how. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Couldn't tell you. I'm sure John Hunter could probably tell you, but he's about the only was a. That's. That is an absolutely wild way to end it. If you're in the championship for trying to get to the end there and getting your absolute shit mean. [00:33:10] Speaker B: It was weird. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Put it all out on the track. Checkers or records. That's what they say. And I guess that's what he ended up trying to do. But totally, I would be interested to see the actual problem. What the heck happened there? [00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Cup race. So your boy, Mr. Blaney, he pulled it out. He 100% had the best car. Even when he was in the back, he was running fast lap times. That's still what blows me away about this package, man. The faster car could not get past it. Blows my mind, man. They do that guy on Twitter. He's pretty popular, but they do. The last however many 50 laps ran green flag like what the median lap time was, and the one car would end up finishing like fifth if he off straight up lap times in the way it was. But because Blaney was blowing his doors off lap after lap after lap on Blaney on the graph, he had a chunk of a lead. So it's just kind of crazy that that's the situation. I will say it was probably one of my favorite Phoenix races that have happened since they've. Since the next gen. Yeah, maybe even since it's been the championship race in the last five years. It wasn't terrible, but it still wasn't great. I even texted you. It's like I almost wish they could have brought the same tires as they brought Martinsville to mean it was one. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Of those races where the intrigue of the moment was greater than the intrigue of the race. The race is still pretty mid race. I mean, if I was watching it as a Blaney fan, I would have absolutely been asking him to dump Ross Chastain if it wasn't a championship race, and then it would have been even freaking better. But at the end of the just they don't have it figured out at Phoenix, and we've talked about it before. The race isn't going anywhere. So can we figure it out at Phoenix? Can we do something in the spring race? I don't care if we take a huge swing at it and we miss. Let's try. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Better to miss in March than miss in November. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Exactly. And it's a great way to set up. Hey, if the racing looks this good in March, imagine how good it'll look for a championship race. So I am all with you. That race needs to be revamped in some way. Is it a tire problem? Probably. Is it also a shifting problem? Yeah, they've got all these different ideas about why it is a problem, but we know that it's missing by a foot, but we're only going to do two inches at a time. [00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I hate that, too. [00:35:53] Speaker A: It's a tough race to watch. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of like they said about Martinsville. If that same race happened in the spring, no one would have gave a damn. And you kind of just said that about this race. If that same race happens in March, probably no one cares. Yeah, it does help that, obviously, the championship race, that's what makes it be so exciting and not knowing what's going to happen and all of that. But, man, I'm with. It's. It must not be as easy as we think it is, or everybody says it is. But the way Denny Hamlin talks about it, dude, he seems like they could fix this tomorrow if they did about three things. And he said even with just getting the engines up to 750, would really help them out and they wouldn't have to spend, he said, getting over 750, that's when you had to start spending some money on the engines. But he said, right now, the way it is, he said those engines are built, the 750, and they can go the way they are. And between that, the gear ratio and tires. And he says that they can do that without being too crazy cost. [00:37:11] Speaker A: The one thing I will say about that I've listened to why are you holding an adjustable wrench in your hand. I've been seeing this the whole time. I'm trying to figure it out. [00:37:20] Speaker B: I just need something to do with my hands. And my pen was in the floor. So I'm normally playing with the pen, but today there was a wrench sitting here. So I've been playing with a wrench. [00:37:27] Speaker A: I just heard it in my ear and I looked down and you got it up by your head. I'm like, why do you have an adjustable. Are you about to go to work on your microphone stand? Get an extra 3 Hp out of it? Like, what's going on here? [00:37:37] Speaker B: Straight up. Just like having something to fidget with. [00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:40] Speaker B: An adjustable wrench is perfect because you can just go back and forth and. [00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah, all the way from no inch to a half inch lug over there. That's exactly right. But what I was saying, the one thing I will say about Denny Hamlin talking about all that stuff on his podcast, I know that he knows what he's talking about for the most part. But I also know that whenever they asked him why Ryan Blaney's shock being a different length than everybody else's was a big deal, what would that change on the car? He had no idea how to answer that question. [00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:12] Speaker A: So at the end of the day, I think there is a problem with the fact that they're shifting. And I think there is probably a problem with the type of tire they're using. And the lack of horsepower is obviously a problem, and everybody knows that. But I don't think I can take Denny Hamlin's word for it every time when he tells me that he can combine three of those things together and tell you exactly how to do it, and it would fix everything. So I think he's definitely got some great ideAs. [00:38:37] Speaker B: At least Denny's vocal, though. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Yes, at least he is vocal. I love that. I love that he's at least putting his opinion out there and he's saying, I think these three things are problems. Someone come tell me how we can fix it. [00:38:49] Speaker B: Or if I'm wrong and you got a guy like, I take what he says more seriously than, say, Dell Jr. Because Dell Jr's never raced this car. Even though Dell Jr. Says the same, they pretty much are on the same page. Say the same thing about shifting and tires and horsepower and all that. I just do take. Honestly, if you get, like, Denny Hamlin, maybe Brad Kezelowski and Kevin Harvick, and put those three guys in a room, I feel like those three, if they needed to. They're level headed, but they also have that team owner. They have the driver and owner mentality. If you could sit those three guys down and have them talk about what they thought the problem was, I feel like then you'd get a pretty good rounded answer of what it is and maybe how to fix it, you definitely would. [00:39:45] Speaker A: And like you said, I love that he's out there at least talking about it and saying different things and coming up with different ideas. I just want to see more of the drivers doing that, and I want to see some crew chiefs getting in on that conversation, too. And I know that there's probably a few of I just haven't heard from as much, but I would love to see a huge swath of those guys just come in and say, we have got to change this. What are we going to do about it no longer. I just wish sometimes that NASCAR would get out of their own way and let the guys that actually do the damn thing be the guys to tell you what the damn thing needs to be done, what needs to be done about the damn thing in the first place. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And I'm right there with you. Yes. Literally during the race, word for word, Clint bore your post. This sucks. Having a guy that you are so much talking about, Ryan Blaney and Chastain, you are so much faster than, but he can arrow block you to where you can't pass. He goes, this sucks. And then someone called him out and was like, okay, Clint, say that on the broadcast next on me and tell me it's raining. And in the booth, those guys do that so hardcore. I mean, all of them do because that's what they're paid to do and supposed to do. But at some point, I don't know, it would just be nice if he did say that on the know because like a guy like Denny would say that. Denny's going to tell you that and it's cool. Clint is telling you that on Twitter. So it's kind of like everybody, an arrow's always been a thing, but just not the way it is. And that's a thing. And then the whole shifting thing at Martinsville is straight up. Like if you go down in there and punt somebody and they get out of whack, you just gear down and go. And then they talk about. Now, Jamie Murray was talking about on Junior's podcast this past week. He was like used to back in the day when these cars had 950 hp, you were never full throttle on a short track, ever. Yeah, because the as in is just completely out. And he was like, at Martinsville, you couldn't get full throttle off the straightaway off the corner because you're going to spin the tires and you'd be so out of whack and then you would burn the tires up so fast in 15 laps, you'd be screwed. Denny Hamlin said specifically, and I apologize for talking about Denny Hamlin so much, but he is so vocal. So I take his word for it. He said back in the day, he said if you ran hard at Martinsville, you could court a tire in 15 laps. [00:42:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:42:23] Speaker B: He said he used to change tires in 15 laps. Kevin Harvick, Rodney Childers did not change the left side tires at Martinsville for. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Over 200 and something laps, which is unbelievable. [00:42:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Dale Jr. Calls it 3000 miles tire. [00:42:36] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just crazy. [00:42:39] Speaker B: I don't understand. [00:42:40] Speaker A: You're exactly right. I mean, at the end of the last generation of cup car, they got to the point where you had so little horsepower that if you did get punted out of the way, you lost so much momentum that it ruined your entire race because you got thrown back to the back. Now we've fixed the problem of you get thrown back to the back because you can't get your momentum up. Now you can get your momentum back, but the problem is you have so much extra grab in your gear than you used to that the mistake doesn't cost you anything anymore. But the best of both worlds was back in the day with the 950 Hp package. Just like you said, when you got punted out of the way, you had the ability to do something about it, but you can't do too much about it. You're going to ruin the rest of your race. And it's really on you for being slow enough to get punted in the first place, but then trying too hard to outdo yourself when you're trying to get out of it, that you could end up ruining your race on your own. But at the end of the day, the other guy can just. He can move you, but it was up to you how you responded to it. [00:43:36] Speaker B: The key thing you just said there, it's up to you. The more you can put in the driver's hands and on the drivers, the better the racing is. It's always the more that their talent can be showcased of saving tires and getting off the corner, getting in the corner, all of that, all of those things. The more it's in the driver's hands, the better it's going to be. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't want a fair field. I don't want every driver to have the same car. That's just not how teams work. Even when they tried to do that with this new car. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's our problem. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And you still have teams that are better than others. There's a reason Rick Ware Racing hasn't won a race yet. Because they're still Rick Ware racing. They're still back marker cars. They still exist. They're just harder to pass now and can affect the outcome of the race more. Man, back in the day, yeah, maybe sometimes you did have a guy drive off with the entire race, but that just gave incentive for the other teams to try harder and figure other stuff out. Now you've bunched them up so much that it's really more about what car gets put underneath you than it is who is actually driving that car. Amarola Spotter said it himself. He said, man, I knew from the moment qualifying ended at Phoenix we weren't going to have a chance to win this race, but I knew if we had just qualified better, we probably could have. It just all depends on where you start. [00:44:56] Speaker B: Joel's the man. He's my favorite follow on Twitter of anybody I follow. [00:45:01] Speaker A: No, he's hilarious, man. [00:45:02] Speaker B: He's the most non give a fuck person in NASCAR. And supposedly he's retiring. They don't seem to believe him, but he's apparently done full time spotting. But damn, dude, he cracks me up. The shit he says and posts about people. He does not give a fuck. [00:45:21] Speaker A: I think he just wants to go and drink cases of Bush light every day and not have a Sunday interrupting it. [00:45:26] Speaker B: He does. He wants and go hang out with his dog and go fishing. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Yeah. With Greg Biffle. [00:45:32] Speaker B: With Greg Biffle. Loves Greg Biffle. Got fired from Greg Biffle back in the day. That was a funny story. If you listen to door bumper clear last week, it was a great. [00:45:40] Speaker A: He's. He's just a. There's so much they still have left. [00:45:46] Speaker B: To fix it, so. [00:45:49] Speaker A: No, we're not. [00:45:50] Speaker B: We can just talk about it. [00:45:51] Speaker A: Man. It is getting better. I mean, I will say it's getting better. It took them all season long to finally get it there, and it's getting better, but they still have a long way to go. I don't want them to just see, oh, we had an increase in ratings. We should be a little bit better now. We can leave it there. It's like, no, you're still behind where you should be, but we're at least showing you the appreciation for your effort. That you're putting in. [00:46:12] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. So I wanted to bring up, I told you this earlier, my favorite thing on Twitter is the Jeff Gluck poll. I was going to read some of the stats about this season. [00:46:26] Speaker A: Get her done. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Let's see here. Just scrolling down. So Phoenix, was it a good race? 67% of people said yes. That's number eleven of the 16 Phoenix races ever been done. That was number five of the championship races in the poll, between four at Homestead, four at Phoenix. The championship race last year for Phoenix got a 28%. Yes, one of the lowest of all time race, probably his. [00:47:02] Speaker A: JOey Logano won it. [00:47:05] Speaker B: That totally does affect the vote, but still. [00:47:11] Speaker A: Yeah, a fan favorite. Winning the race definitely bumps it up by at least 5% to 15%, depending on who it is. [00:47:19] Speaker B: So only three races made it in the 90% club this season, down from seven in 2022. So there were more 90% club in 2022. But on the other hand, no races were under 30% this year, whereas five races were under 30% last year. So that's interesting. Not as many great races according to the poll. Not as many great races, but not as many bad races, according to the poll. Under 30%. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:45] Speaker B: And then the top five races this year were Kansas Spring, the Coke 600, the Daytona season finale, Fontana and Atlanta, the summer race. The worst. [00:47:58] Speaker A: Mile and a halves have made a comeback, for sure. [00:48:01] Speaker B: Dude. The worst were Vegas Spring, which surprises me. But then Phoenix Spring, Sonoma, Watkins Glenn, Martinsville Spring. Those are the worst. All in the. [00:48:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Road courses and short tracks are suffering. Mile and a halves and super speedways are. Well, super speedways are never going to go anywhere. They're always going to be fun races to watch. But Mile and a halves have made their huge comeback. [00:48:32] Speaker B: They really have. And we've said it on this podcast before, let's dive into that. Let's lean into if Mile and a house are great, let's dive into it and race a bunch of them. Let's don't have three road courses back to back to back. [00:48:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm definitely with you on that. Honestly, the road course thing, you know, I love a good road course. You know, I'm a fan of them. I like road courses. I'm one of those people that is going to tell you that I don't care what you have to say about them. I think they're a lot of fun. I think they bring the best of what it means to be a crew chief out of the crew chiefs because you're really having to call some really hardcore strategy, and it's a thinking man's game. I like that. I do not like the current cup car on a road course and definitely think we have completely overdone it. NASCAR fans in general are not the biggest road course fans. So just because you have a few of us out here asking for more of them does not mean that we need 18 of them on the schedule every year. I think we should definitely be dialing that back. CHicagO, as fun as it was to see somebody come out and just absolutely whoop ass on their first ever race, it's such a mess. Nobody's a fan of it, and things like that are just a little bit too goofy for me. They're a little too gimmicky, if anything. Make that a non points paying exhibition race at this point because nobody cares about it. Nobody wants to see that kind of nonsense all the time. But I had a point to make there and I totally lost my train of thought. But either way, I think there's a great thing to be said about the mile and a half being good again. I love that. Don't get me wrong, but short track racing is still something that everybody wants to see more of. Everybody wants to see this car get better at it. I think that's where the focus needs to be right now for NASCAR in the offseason is fixing the short track package. We don't need a major shake up in the schedule. If we can just make those better, we'll have a great NASCAR season all the way around. [00:50:37] Speaker B: And honestly, people compare short track sometimes to road courses. I think if you fix one, the other automatically gets better. If you. I can see it, figure it out. You know, I just. I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do, what they're going to try. According to that press conference, they are going to change. Something's happening. They didn't say what, but he said everything's on the table because they did say short track racing and road course racing is obviously not what we want it to be. But then again, it's like also them putting two freaking road courses in the playoffs next year. It's like, what? And maybe they fix it next year. It's awesome. Whatever. But, man, road course racing has never been more important than it is next year with two being the playoffs. Man, for a guy, like, talking about, like, say, a Bubba Wallace or one of those Guys that maybe don't run great at a road course, you got to just be pissed off or depressed or something that could screw you. You got to be a road course racer to get in the playoffs almost. For a guy like Tyler Reddick, he's probably licking his chops. Tyler Reddick or AJ Almondinger. But I don't know. We'll see what happens next year. Obviously there's going to be a bunch change. There's going to be all new cars, manufactiles and stuff. So we'll see what happens next year. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Could not be more of a wild card, honestly. Yeah, I mean, it was already a wild card when they introduced the next gen car. And then we've ran a couple of years with it and it's been good in some places and it struggled in others. That's been every NASCAR cup car since 2004, 2007. So nothing really much has changed there. Just where it exceeds has changed. And we're going in with a completely different type of schedule, putting different races into the playoffs, keeping most of the same bodies in the same spot, but then changing up the entire body style of the cars. I mean, there's so much going on right now that it's once again, I can't predict to you how I think next year will go. [00:52:51] Speaker B: Me neither. I can't believe that. And obviously, I don't know. This has to do with manufacturer contracts and then NASCAR has their contracts with the cars and stuff. This is like two separate things, but it kind of blows my mind that they're going to have all three cars with new body styles and characteristics on it. The third year of next gen. Yeah, that kind of blows my mind. Like you just said, it's already kind of a wild card because of next gen next year. And this has happened since I've ever been watching racing. Every time you have those guys, the cars change body styles or change whether they're going from a charger to a challenger or a Taurus to a Mustang, whatever it may be, whatever manufacturer change they make, it always shakes up of like, this guy ran greater. This team ran great last year and then not so great here, and then this guy didn't run that great, and then they come up and kick some ass. I could totally see that happening next year. I don't know who or what, but I could see it happening with the body panels and everything changing. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Yeah. The funny thing for me is that I didn't get the benefit of multiple decades of watching NASCAR. I've only been watching for seven ish years now, so I still learn a little bit as things go on about different changes that come in because somebody like yourself will draw a comparison to something else. Like the Car of tomorrow, getting the giant spoiler on the back of it, and different major changes that have happened, changing from one type of car to the next, just like you're talking about. It's funny to me that you can have a completely different team just come out the gate at the beginning of a year succeeding that was struggling because there was a year there in 2017 through 2019. I don't remember when it was Hendrix Motorsports was struggling. [00:54:47] Speaker B: Camaro, exactly what I'm talking about. They made that nose, somebody being too pointy and to this, they came back and made the edges not as sharp and they changed some stuff. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Exactly with this. [00:55:01] Speaker A: And you see things go from there, struggling and SHRs running one, two, three and four at Talladega for most of the race, and all of a sudden it's just they're ebbing and flowing. It's always, it's the most fun you'll have as a NASCAR fan is the first outside of the playoffs and your driver going through, obviously some of the most fun you can have as a NASCAR fan. And maybe this is just me personally, but the first, like six to seven races of the year, and I'm probably going to have to push that to about eight now because Atlanta is the second race. You can't get a very good read on how good any team is doing until you get out of the super Speedway debacle. But you get into a bit into the season and you finally do understand, okay, who is running good as a team, who is struggling as a team, what individual drivers are overcoming their team struggles or underperforming? At a good team, it takes a few weeks. So a lot of times you start off the year and one team is doing phenomenal, like Kyle Larson and William Byron starting off the year running one, two at almost every single track, still ended up being in the final Four by the end of it. But you definitely saw the improvement of the other teams as the season went on and different people finding things at different times. It is a lot of fun getting to watch that and figure out, okay, what kind of season is this going to be for me as a Penske fan, I want to see the Penske cars running up front and we started out slow this year and it definitely worried me. And then here we are, we get a championship of the twelve car. I mean, the season is so long and so dynamic, but I love the beginning of it because you get to see, okay, who is going to run good this year and what are your predictions based off of that? I did not have the twelve even in the Final Four. I think I had the twelve getting eliminated in the round of twelve whenever the playoffs first started. It's so much fun to watch how the season progresses when teams get used to the cars that they're running now. [00:57:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you. And I think next year is going to be even more drastic. And it's possible that it goes back to the first year of this where it was like 19 winners or whatever. I think this year is on like 14, something like that. [00:57:17] Speaker A: 1314, still an unbelievable number that just didn't exist before the next gen car. [00:57:22] Speaker B: Yeah, which is still a huge number. And you're talking kind of like when you started watching racing, it was like funny because you were talking about Hendrix struggling. I mean, Chevrolets in general were just terrible for a few years there. And then I saw this stat in 2018, 19 and 20, Kevin Harvick won like 23, 24 races, something like that, in that period. And that's when Amarola won some races. I mean, Shr man was kicking tail there up until this. I can't remember if the new car was when that kind of happened or what. But Harvard did get two wins. [00:57:59] Speaker A: I mean, Shoot, Kevin Harvett got nine wins in the 2020 season. [00:58:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:03] Speaker A: So he was still doing good all the way up until 2021 and I think 21. That's about when they started falling off. Yeah, that was about, his last good shot of the championship was 2020. [00:58:14] Speaker B: Yeah. He did win two races last year, right, when he won at Richmond and Michigan. But either way, it's funny. He did Richmond and Michigan in 21 or 22. And then last year, this year, Busher did Richmond and Michigan back to back. Two Ford guys, same tracks back to back. [00:58:37] Speaker A: I mean, Ford is always going to show up to Michigan with something. You know, it they want to win there so damn bad. Which, I mean, shoot, we were even talking about it before the podcast got started. Talk about a manufacturer that just struggled all year, comes in third out of all the other. Out of all three manufacturers, comes in last place and sweeps the weekend for championship racing gets them all. I mean, talk about any given Sunday. We're at any given Sunday kind of moment right now. Your driver could just show up to the track and blow everybody's doors off and get a surprise win no matter what week. It is all just depends on the car that they bring to the track. [00:59:16] Speaker B: And just like you said, that's going to be even more prominent next year with the new cars and new body lines and all that. But I don't know. I'm excited for it. Excited for a new, I guess excited for the offseason, not really kind of depressed that the season is over. [00:59:35] Speaker A: I'm excited to see. I think there's a whole lot of stuff to be watched for this year. I mean, last year there was a few things. Most of it was who was going to what car driver drama and maybe some small changes here and there. This year, I feel like we've already talked about all of them. Major TV deal getting changed, major body style changes, major changes to the short track package. All of this stuff is going to be figured out over the charter thing, the charter contract. So talk about, yeah, I'm excited about all that. [01:00:05] Speaker B: Yeah. AnD like you just said, they're major things that are going to shape and shake up the next probably ten years. I mean, I assume this TV deal ain't going to be no small deal. So I could say, I bet it's a ten year plus deal. [01:00:22] Speaker A: I'm excited to see what happens, man. It's going to be. The crazy part about it, too, is that we're just going to have to wake up one day and see a news article and we're not going to know when that news is coming out. It's just going to drop one day and it's going to shake up the entire way we're looking at next season. [01:00:37] Speaker B: And we'll start a podcast when we see that article. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. Just get on here and fire it up. So we'll try to keep everybody updated as much as we can about what we know. Obviously, the trick crew is getting close to the end of its year as well. We have three more weekends total. [01:00:55] Speaker B: Nine shows left. [01:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we got three this weekend coming up. We got Louisville, Joaquin, Illinois or something. [01:01:02] Speaker B: I've never even heard of that place ever. [01:01:05] Speaker A: And Paducah, Kentucky. [01:01:07] Speaker B: Oh, look, it's going to be cold. Cold there, though. [01:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to be bundled up up in there in Illinois and Kentucky all weekend. And then we've only got two more weekends after that. We go this weekend. Next weekend we're off for Thanksgiving and then one more right after it to round off the year. [01:01:23] Speaker B: So everything is just that time of the year, man. [01:01:27] Speaker A: Time of the year when everything starts slowing down and we start looking for. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Jobs, we go broke. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the coldest winters are the ones when you're touring, man, because you better have saved up all year. We're excited about what's coming. We got a lot of holiday stuff coming up, but obviously we keep saying it. We're going to still try to do some podcasts as we go. They're obviously not going to be as regular and as scheduled, but we'll try to keep everybody updated and if things pop up, maybe we'll do a couple of short videos. So keep in touch with us. We'll try to keep everybody updated on what's coming and looking forward to next February when the Coliseum happens and the 500 comes. [01:02:11] Speaker B: Thank you all for listening to us for our first little season here. I know we didn't go. We started a little later. I think we started this thing in like March or April. Wasn't too far after the season started, but yeah, it's been fun. I've had a blast doing this all year. Awesome. Totally looking forward to next year. Like Caleb said, probably going to do some stuff. We have some like even just get on here and shoot the bull and talk about whatever. Maybe even doing at the end of the year. At the end of the year if we're done with Travis's stuff and just whatever. Just get on here and shoot the shit. Maybe crazy football game, whatever it may be the TV deal, whatever. But thank you all for listening. It's been fun. [01:02:56] Speaker A: Do it even bigger next year. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Apparently according to Burrell, we've been trending up all year with our mean. Not that they're big, but know in the Green is always good. [01:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And we appreciate everybody. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Obviously we got to give a big shout out to Randy Adams for being our biggest supporter all year long. [01:03:14] Speaker B: Randy Adams is by far the biggest supporter and I think my mom is probably also the second biggest supporter. She listens every single week. [01:03:22] Speaker A: We love you too, Randy. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Ask me when it's coming out, but yeah. Thank y'all. You can find me Dawson Everard's music on everything, Caleb. [01:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Caleb Conroddy on everything and give us a follow at Raised Rowdy racing if you want to keep up during this season as we learn things, you'll learn things. And if we're doing something, you'll find out there that'll be the best place to keep up with us. Shout out to raised Rowdy and Nikki T. And helping us out all year and helping us get this thing started and bringing us new ideas all the time and always pushing us to do a little bit better. It's great to see that. And they're just as excited about it, so can't wait to. I'm glad we're rounding off a good year. It's been a damn wild year all the way around. Lots of big life events that we didn't even see coming. I think both of us got engagEd. I had a house fire. You bought a house. Trip crew is still going. We lost Scott, and that still weighs heavy on our minds. I mean, it's been a big year. Not everything has been a roller coaster, so we're glad to have the raised, rowdy family with us throughout the whole thing because it makes it easier to do it when you got good people around you. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Just like Parker McCollum said, it's been a hell of a year. We can name that. Podcast can be called it's been a. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Hell of a year. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. [01:04:45] Speaker B: Well, thank you all very much. Peace. [01:04:47] Speaker A: We love you peoples. We'll see you all soon. [01:04:53] Speaker B: I don't drive a Monte Carlo and my truck ain't painted black it ain't got a big white number three Turning left around a track but you can hear me coming from a mile and a half away these good years can't handle dirt don't eat no curves with banks what I like in horses I make up with four by four I'm in and out of traffic Till I make it to your door Checkers record My rap was hammered on the gas I'm making my way to you, girl earn hard bathroom.