S2 Episode 17: Larson Wins in Wine Country!

[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is Ray's rowdy racing with Caleb. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Conrady and Dawson Edwards. [00:00:13] Speaker A: What's going on? Ah, hell, yeah. Damn. Yeah. How about it? For sure, man, I was. I'd be surprised if they didn't have a DUI checkpoint on the way out of the track if you're going leaving the infield after yesterday's race because of all the one. Because of all the crashes. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Everybody out there driving like they're hammered. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:00:40] Speaker A: What a. What a great time, man. I just did. [00:00:43] Speaker B: I. [00:00:44] Speaker A: If you'd asked me three months ago how I thought the Sonoma race is going to go, that is just not what I would have predicted. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Well, you told Saturday night that it was going to be a terrible race, so. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We had a conversation about it, and I. I still think. I still. If you had. If you told me that the race was happening tomorrow and I didn't get to see that, I would still tell you. Yeah. It's. This race gonna be boring. Just gonna be like every other road course. It's basically, I mean, repave it. It's basically coda. It's just gonna be a long string of everybody running in order and no passing and. Damn. I love it when I'm wrong. I love it when I'm wrong. That was awesome. I enjoyed the hell out of myself last night watching that. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. There. I don't, uh, by far the best next gen road race, in my opinion, that we've had in, what, two and a half, three years now. [00:01:35] Speaker A: God, since the next gen car hit the damn track. [00:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So since 2022, this is. This was by far the best next gen road course race. And I just feel like it had. It had a little bit of everything that you needed. Like, it had the chaos. And then the last stage running green let you get the strategy involved, too, which we saw all the comers and goers with the strategy. Multiple people running out of gas. You see the Larson strategy where they pit long. And I was like. Originally, I was like. Larson said in his interview, I was like, oh, man, this is. Yeah, this is not the move. [00:02:14] Speaker A: I thought so, too, because they had to catch back up to everybody again. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And he was 20 seconds out in, like, 6th or 8th or something like that. [00:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Personally, I thought. I thought that Truex was going to have the winning strategy, and then it turns out kind of. I kind of have the same thought as I had last week. They got to racing so hard. There he was already racing busher as hard as he could. And then Larson gets up there and they had a three way battle for the lead. There was no, Truex wasn't saving gas. And I don't know if they told him to save gas or not, but you can't save gas when you got a three way battle for the league. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Going on, so there's no such thing unless you're willing to be the third guy. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's as good as it's ever going to get. But, man, what? Yeah, you're, you're not kidding, man. It had everything from your normal road course race where everybody's kind of running in order. You had a little bit of a truck race there to start stage two. You had tons of strategy. I mean, whenever Kevin Harvick comes on the broadcast and says, this is the most confusing race I think I've ever watched. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:26] Speaker A: You know, it's just absolute chaos going out on the track. Yeah, we were. I was trying to explain to Allison because she fell asleep for pretty much all of stage one and two. She was taking a nap and she woke up about stage three right when Reddick finally pitted. Or maybe is the end of stage two. Right when Reddick finally pitted and he was in the back of the field for the very first time, she woke up. It's like, why is Reddick in the back? And I was like, I can't even begin to explain to you why anyone is at all where they are because so much is gone on. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Called this. Reddick had a fast car and he called the shittiest race. Yeah, that, but there was between. There's actually polls. I don't know if there's multiple, but I know for a fact I saw ones, like, who made the worst call first? I want to apologize for my voice and my nose and my eyes. Like, I am just stopped up. We can get to our weekend on. [00:04:24] Speaker A: The road all because of the weekend, for sure. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Friday just absolutely killed me. And so I got sinuses, eye water, the throat, my body sore from coughing. I'm just like, just want to put that out there. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, you're going through it. You're spitting and sputtering like Truex trying to get to the checkered flag. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was like, what was worse? Like, Truex is running out of gas or just straight up blowing the strategy call? Like Reddit screw chief, I think his name is Billy Scott. I think. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Well, my question is, did he really blow the strategy? Cause he kind of lined up with everybody else. Maybe there's something I missed because there was so much to watch. I may have missed a piece of it. [00:05:06] Speaker B: He had the, he had one of. He was just as fast as Larson. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:12] Speaker B: So he just had one of the best cars, and they could have done something differently to help him out, and they just did the same thing everybody else did, and it just marred him back with this whole pack of people that are all in the same stuff. So he. [00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I just thought he was having trouble. I thought he was just having trouble passing cars, and I thought that was mostly because he never had to pass a car for the entire race up until that point. [00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:42] Speaker A: So now he's got to basically spend his pit stop learning how to get around people or not pit stop. But the next phase of his race was now you were in traffic, figure out how to get around a bunch of cars, which is terrible, and you haven't done it. But Larson had spent the entire race passing cars to get back to where he was. Every time he would fall, like, to six, he would have to pass a couple cars. He'd get back at the third, and he's having to pass fast cars to do that. So I can't imagine you take Larson and put him back 20 seconds at the end there, why he was. That makes total sense, why he was able to rise and why Reddick was kind of stuck. [00:06:21] Speaker B: And same thing with Laney better tires, too, though. [00:06:24] Speaker A: That also definitely helps. [00:06:26] Speaker B: That helps. [00:06:27] Speaker A: That's it. That's. I guess that's another good point you make there that he was also on. [00:06:32] Speaker B: That's. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah, he was on the same number of lap tires as everybody else, so he didn't have the advantage. [00:06:36] Speaker B: He had no advantage. So what he got, he got marred back so far, when ready went down pit road, he didn't. It didn't do anything for anybody. You know what I'm saying? If he just did the same thing as everybody else. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that is. I didn't say tired. [00:06:55] Speaker B: That that's what, yeah, that's what I was getting at. So then you run long, like, like Larson did, and then you initially, you see that he's back 20 seconds, and everybody thought, uh, me included, that there would be no tire wear, and there wasn't a lot of tire wear, but I think there was more than there was anticipated in a way, because it made such a drastic difference there. And you could definitely see when guys had new tires and had old tires, so. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, and you hear chase in the middle of the race, also talking to his crew chief, saying, if you put new tires on my car and you put me back out onto the track, yes. I. I don't think you're going to necessarily ruin your tires by overrunning them, but you can definitely overheat them, and it's going to take you a second to get them back cooled down again because the track is so fast. I mean, especially on those S's on the backside, man, watching them just basically tank slap it around. It almost looks like an old gen six car running around there, I'll tell you. Because it was fun watching those ass ends get out. It's the first time I've been able to see a next gen car get genuinely, like, loose coming off of a corner and not just spin the hell out. So it was. I don't know if there's an ability for somebody to save their tires too crazy much? Other than just not over running those corners. [00:08:13] Speaker B: I don't remember. And I didn't even know because it's changed so many times, back and forth, whatever, over the last couple years. But this layout at Sonoma is the old school layout that, like, I grew up with. This is the best Sonoma layout there is. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Not without the carousel. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I hate that. Took passing zones away. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:33] Speaker B: For me. Yeah, because when you have that big. When you have those two hardcore right hand turns there after you come over the hill, I don't even know. I don't know the. [00:08:45] Speaker A: What corner they all are, but corner six and seven. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah, those. Those is where growing up, that was where all the bump and the passes and their bump and runs, like, all that happened. And I love that they brought it up, too. They're like, jumping the curb, like they used to do back in the day. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:02] Speaker B: One of the things. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Michael McDowell did it. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Because one of the things, like, they didn't. They had. It was like just another section of the esses to me, when they put the carousel in there, it just like. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, just. [00:09:14] Speaker B: It's just fast. There's no. There's none of that, like, where you're down. I don't know if they were actually down in the first gear, but in those two, there was multiple sections in this track. With this layout, they were down in the second gear. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. When they did that track map, it looked like the lowest they went was 2nd. [00:09:31] Speaker B: 2Nd gear. Yeah. So that's what I was at the beginning of the race. That's what I was going off of. And. Yeah, I think that I just. I just love. That's the Sonoma that I love is that. That layout. And I don't know, I just wanted to throw that out there. I don't like the other one, and Larson Truex and I think Ricky Rudd are the only three drivers to win on both layouts of Sonoma. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they hardly have a chance to do it. [00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Two years. Like, I think it was two races that they had with that. [00:10:09] Speaker B: I think it was 21, 22, and 23. And this was. [00:10:13] Speaker A: I couldn't remember. It was not as he had one. [00:10:17] Speaker B: He won it in 21 with the carousel. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:22] Speaker B: And then wins it this year with the old layout. Yeah. [00:10:26] Speaker A: It was just cool to see. I think the biggest, obviously, you had the new pavement down, which just changes everything, which is the reason why I said I thought it was just going to be a super boring and straightforward road course race. Uh, like we. Like, we're used to having. Mostly just because they were still on throttle during some of those hard sections. So I was like, well, if they're not off the throttle there and they're able to kind of put a little bit of power down, there's just not a whole lot of opportunity. Like, yeah, you have the braking section, but then once you're both under power, I felt like the fast line was going to be the fast line, the outside line was going to be slow, and that was exactly what it was. But that actually ended up helping out more than I. More than it hurt, which I. I thought it was just hurt it. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Which. The exact reason you thought it was going to be bad was the exact reason I thought it was going to be good, because they were like, they were going so fast that it made them on edge. [00:11:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:22] Speaker B: It wasn't just very fast. Yeah. It wasn't just the fastest line around the track. The fastest line. And as fast as they were going, four and a half seconds faster than they ever have before. The cars were so on edge that it gave you that gen six. Exactly what you said. The car, you're going so fast and slinging the car so hard, you're going to get loose and the car is going to hang out because you're. You're giving the car more than the car in the track can handle. Yeah. Which is. [00:11:50] Speaker A: It's all. Yeah, it's all about that time. And if you have another car around you, how do you nail it? [00:11:55] Speaker B: I take Matt Weaver is a very, very, very intelligent racing person. He knows. He knows more about all types of racing than, like, anybody. Anybody. Anybody in that's, like, in the media. Like, not, not. Not more than, like a crew chief, but, like, he can tell you stuff about the way a racetrack, from a world of outlaws race to a NASCAR race to isma rate, whatever. He can just tell you everything. And he made, he, uh, he made a post talking about all of this stuff. And he's the same guy that, you know, said that, like, this car was made for road course racing, which is going to make road course racing suck. He's the one I bring up all the time when I say that quote. Anyway, he made a big column on his page about why he thought this would be awesome and why that wall was going to cause problems and all this. And I just take what he says to heart. And he, he said that earlier in the week. And then they got there with, with real practice. Had a real practice session, enough for everybody to change springs and shocks and, like, do all the stuff that we want them to be able to do in practice. And seeing the guys just lose it, you know, like they used to. Guys getting in the dirt, guys doing stuff that literally. I love that you said, like, a gen six race because in certain parts it really did. And, uh, it's just another thing that Matt nailed. And so that's where I got like, man, I don't know, I feel like this is, this has the potential to be really chaotic and fine in which that's what you want at a road course race, is chaotic and fun. [00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, it was. It was that for sure. And you're. You're very right. It was just, uh, it was right at the edge of everybody's limit. And most of these guys didn't grow up doing this, so their limits a lot lower than the other guys around them. So they're trying to keep up and honestly trying to outrun their own talent, really. And I feel like sometimes that's what happens. I don't mean that in an insulting way. It's the same thing as if me and you got out there on a regular go kart track. At some point we're going to spin it out or do something stupid. That's just because we don't know fully what we're doing. These guys are professional race car drivers, and you put them in these uncomfortable situations where it's like, this is completely different than anything I ever grew up. Just because you spent so much of your time behind the wheel of a car doesn't mean you're perfect at every different way that you can drive. And it was a lot of fun to watch them try to figure it out, especially for the fact you had a lot of guys that have been going to this racetrack for years and years and years and knew one way of doing it. And now all of a sudden, you have to completely switch up your entire mentality about what it is to race at Sonoma. So it's. Everybody's out there learning for the first time again. Yeah, tons of fun, man. The chaos didn't even take away. It was. It got so close in stage two to getting to, like, a ridiculous point. And even the broadcast. Even the guys on the broadcast, you can kind of hear their voice just like, all right, like, we've had our chaos. Can we please just get this sorted out? And the moment they said that is the moment it sorted out. So it never even got to that ridiculous point. [00:15:14] Speaker B: And that's where you got the whole. The whole third stage was long enough to bring in the strategy. And I know we already said that, but, like, that, you got, like, the best of both worlds. Like, you didn't have the. You got the. Literally the best of both worlds. You got to have the strategy and see all the guys do different things and you had the chaos. It's like, yeah. What more could you ask for in a road course race? [00:15:34] Speaker A: Oh, no doubt, man. [00:15:36] Speaker B: When I saw the poll, Jeff. Jeff Gluck's poll this morning, it was 81% yes. [00:15:44] Speaker A: It's down to 80 now. [00:15:45] Speaker B: But for Sonoma, which I was. [00:15:47] Speaker A: That's phenomenal. [00:15:48] Speaker B: Did you vote yes or no? [00:15:50] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, definitely. I voted yes immediately. I think 20% of people only voted no because of stage two's opening sequence. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Or they hate Kyle Arsen. [00:16:01] Speaker A: That too. That too. Or for that reason. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Or they're huge Jenny Hammond fans. Yeah. [00:16:09] Speaker A: My actions detrimental is going to suck because he won't know what he's talking about this week. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah, our. Mine and Lindsey's phones blew up when he. When he blew up. [00:16:23] Speaker A: When he blew up. Y'all blew up. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Because Lindsey's loves Denny Hamlin. So, like, her dad and my mom and dad and everybody is just like, oh, my God, this is so funny, Denny. [00:16:35] Speaker A: I know. Just seeing an engine hand grenade like that, man. When's the last time you saw that? Like a full on smoke pouring out of the car, oil on the track blow up. [00:16:44] Speaker B: I don't know if I can win the next gen, really, outside of an Xfinity race recently. [00:16:49] Speaker A: I don't know if I've seen it either. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a legit blew up motor, you know, I don't know. He. They never really. I don't know if they ever really said what caused it or whatever, but I was gonna say something else there. Oh, this is Denny Hamlin's. First ever last race finish in his NASCAR career. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Last place finish. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:14] Speaker A: No way. [00:17:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Damn. Happens in the least of man, least. [00:17:19] Speaker B: Amount of laps he's ever completed in a NASCAR race and in all three series is in like 820 something starts. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Wow. And it wasn't his fault. So it's honestly one of those asterisks besides the. Beside the, beside the stat, because it was an engine blows up. It's like, what are you, what are you gonna do? That's not even necessarily his fault. I can't say specifically if it wasn't. Because it wasn't a shifting thing. Was it not? [00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah. If he shifted wrong, it was his fault. [00:17:48] Speaker A: I tried to up shift to set a downshift or try to downshift to set up shift just over rev the engine. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is, uh, if you remember last year, Denny, Denny got the pole at Sonoma and also wrecked super early. So he has, there's another stat. Like, he has two back to back DNF's at Sonoma. [00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Just stuff you never would have saw coming. But that's part of that chaos, man. I mean, it ended up affecting other cars, too. I mean, John Hunter, Nimichek slides through, hits the wall. Casgraw, I think, got into it that the little bit, a little bit of that oil, it also affected the next restart. I was a genius move by Reddick at the time to, to line up behind whoever it was leading at the time, and I'm just blank. [00:18:36] Speaker B: He dropped a row back and went. [00:18:37] Speaker A: To fourth, and I was like, man, that's a, it's a, it's a risky move, but it is a genius move. I saw the moment, I saw that, I was like, blainey, no way he gets second place off of this. I mean, with that speedy try and the oil. Because when Denny was blowing up, I was like, God dang, you're, you're. I mean, not like he had much of a choice. Everybody was on his outside. But it's like, you're in the frickin racing line, man. Like, what are you doing? Get in the dirt, do something. Because you're just putting oil down right in the fast line of turn. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:07] Speaker A: Like, good lord, man. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And it was. I honestly expected that next restart have some guys slipping and sliding. Yeah. When they hit that, but it seemed. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Like it slowed down the line, but it didn't really, like, screw it up anyway. Yeah, that was a, that was a weird part of it. Um, but, yeah, I mean, so you immediately start the race off with just a holy crap. I've never seen that one before. And then the whole rest of the race was. I haven't seen that one before, which is a good road course race in a next gen car. [00:19:38] Speaker B: Yeah. All the way around. And I loved, back in the day, like, in a road course race, the. The race would be done, and, like, the cars just ran 500 miles at Bristol, and that's exactly what they look like yesterday. Even Larson, he had, you know, donuts on the door and on the fenders, and, like, everybody in that field had some, you know, damage or something. And, like, man, it's just, it was refreshing because they have not, they don't even touch each other at road courses anymore. They can't run side by side. Nothing. It's just one car after another parade. Yeah. And, man, it was just nice to see even, even at the end there. I know it was because of strategy and stuff that got them all together, but even Busher and Truex, they were racing. They're racing their ass off, and then obviously, them racing their ass off pulls them back to Larson. And, I mean, having a three way battle there for the lead at a road course in today's times, like that was just, that alone could change your mind on having this being a good race or not. Almost. Just like last week, when I was, like, when. When Blaney and Bell were running side by side, I was like, this is incredible. Like, yeah, like I said last week, I feel like they ran side by side forever. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it was phenomenal. The only way to make that any better is to put it ten laps later and I'm not even playing. And it was still. It was still badass to watch it go down. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And I love that, uh, at the end there, when he finally was getting the pass, uh, lar, uh, Harvick was like, there it is. There it is, there it is. And then, boom, coming out of that corner. He, he called it from the corner before. When he exit. When the exit was coming out, he knew that he overdrive. It was there before he came out on the exit, which I thought was. That's the perk of having a guy that just came out of the car in the booth. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it was, I think the moment the truex got around him, I got around Busher and then did drive that wide. I was even worried. I was like, man, that's. That might be the spot right there where he gives up. Not, he may make the pass for first, but he's going to get passed back into second. We're just going to flip flop this whole running order here. [00:21:58] Speaker B: And did Bush finish second? Did Bush or finish second? [00:22:01] Speaker A: No, Michael McDowell finished in second. [00:22:03] Speaker B: Okay, so Bush or fell back a couple spots. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah, once he got past, I think he finished in third. I'm going to have to look at it. I've got it. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Finished in third. Um, yeah. And getting around to the. To the end of that race. I mean, holy crap, what a last lap, man. I didn't see if Kyle Busch or chastain got into it after the race. I would assume something was said or somebody got, got up in somebody's grill. Unless Kyle was just like, I don't. [00:22:34] Speaker B: Think Kyle did, because Kyle's like, what am I going to do? Get fine, 75 grand? You know, he was, they were definitely not happy. Um, man, I don't really know what Chastain was doing there. [00:22:50] Speaker A: I. I never saw the replay of what he did do to spin him around because it was right there in that six area. [00:22:57] Speaker B: It's. It was so bad. Dude. If you. For, for those of you and you that haven't seen it, Chastain is coming. And you can tell. They tell Bush. Bush goes over and gives him as much room as you possibly could, and chastain blows through there, looks like 15 miles an hour faster than he should, and just wipes out the eight car. [00:23:20] Speaker A: I'm watching it right now. He gives plenty of room. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Plenty of room. [00:23:27] Speaker A: What was that? [00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. Like, just like they said yesterday, like, they don't give a fuck. Tours back on, you know, it's. [00:23:35] Speaker A: I just. I don't know, man. It's like he was running out of brake fluid or something. He got that the corner was coming. [00:23:42] Speaker B: He looks like he's guys in there, like 15 miles an hour faster than. I don't, I don't know. It's almost getting plenty of room. [00:23:51] Speaker A: You know what I wonder? I wonder if he was going to make the dive bomb, assuming that Bush was going to try to defend that position. And when Bush gave him all that room, he was expecting to have a tires and only had four. So he's already overcooked into the corner. [00:24:04] Speaker B: Expected. [00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah, he was going to use the eight either way. But whenever they gave him room, it almost was like, I wish you hadn't done that, because you would have finished right behind me if you hadn't, because now I'm overcooked into the corner, and I'm going to hit you square in the door, t bone you. Instead of being like, door slamming you through that corner and just pushing you wide. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Which, I mean, either way, he was going to push him so freaking wide, he might have wrecked anyway, but. Wow. Yeah. That's a hell of a last lap move. [00:24:34] Speaker B: Bad look, for sure on that. [00:24:36] Speaker A: I mean, it ended with him getting a top five, so, I mean, you can't say anything shitty about Chastain's finish, but you can definitely see how. How that may piss some people off. You can tell Chastain ain't racing for a job next year. I'll tell you that much. He ain't afraid of losing one. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, shout out to McDowell. Great road course racer top two. Todd Gillan qualified great. Finished 10th. Great for him. Yep. Corey Lajoy, who I don't think most anyone considers a road course racer 11th. [00:25:14] Speaker A: I never would have. Yeah, he was running right there, too. All day long. He was in that 10th, 9th to 11th area. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Almondinger. Great. Obviously, road course guy six. They didn't talk about almonding or all day. I mean, he wasn't up front, but, you know, top ten for him. [00:25:30] Speaker A: Tiny little bit of a conversation there. Christopher Bell getting taken out in that seven car, 710 split that Josh Barry pulled, still finishing 9th. [00:25:41] Speaker B: We can talk about it, too. [00:25:44] Speaker A: We'll be getting there for sure. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah. It was on my fantasy, my fantasy thing. I pulled. I had Byron in my. In my top five or whatever and had McDowell in my garage, and I had some other guys, like Chase I had in there. Larson had some guys finished up front. But when the 24 went through the grass or the dirt there and, like, nose dived into the ground, I was like, man, that just doesn't look good at all. I don't know what broke in that, but that doesn't look good. And so I flip Byron from McDowell. I swear to God, it wasn't the next slap. McDowell's over in the other grass with Cedric. She's looking back. No. Me and Megan were talking. Then. I was like. She was like, do you think you should flip them back? And I was like, no, because I looked at McDowell's car. Because you can flip back and forth until. [00:26:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:47] Speaker A: Oh, is it halfway something? [00:26:49] Speaker B: Stage three. Halfway somewhere in that area. And McDowell came off as he lost all those positions. And he. At the time, he lost all those positions. He's actually way. Byron was, like, close to last, and McDowell was probably like, last, last, but he didn't have any hardcore damage on the car. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:10] Speaker B: And I was like, man, I don't know. I feel like when the 24 nosedive he screwed and the 34 can still come through, and boom, he finished second. So I was proud that I didn't flip him back. [00:27:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a great call. I mean, he. He straight up showed what he's made of with that last green flag run. Running all the way up to second was a monster last stage for him. I mean, I know for. I know for a fact. Well, I don't know for a fact, but I don't think he was getting around Larson. I think that was pretty much how they were going to finish. But give it one green flag, or, like, a green white checkered, or give one random yellow in the middle of that run. Once Michael was up into second, that would have been a hellacious race for the lead. I still think Larson comes out on top, but I think Michael is just in that position. He's already moving to a different team, but he's just in that position where he can get a third win in that car. He's been running for so long. I think he would do. I think he would have done anything to get it. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Oh, same. And Michael is one of the best road racers out there, so, yeah, it's a. He's still. He's still plus money for top tens at road courses. I mean, they're just given. I. Which I'm here for it, but they're just giving money away. [00:28:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. They give money away on him all the time. [00:28:32] Speaker B: He's a lock. And I know. I know why. Because everywhere else, it's. It's understandable. You know, it's. Yeah, but he gets. Michael McDowell gets top tens at mile and a halfs and other places, too, especially in the last couple years. Like, Michael McDowell runs out of doubt. He runs in that 15th to 10th ish area. That's why he is right at those bubble drivers that, you know, getting in on points every year. And the only reason he's running points wise in the twenties is because he's had a couple DNF's at a couple places. [00:29:07] Speaker A: That'll do it. Especially whenever there's not as many DNF's as there used to be. [00:29:10] Speaker B: Totally. And if you. But if you look his average running position, he runs between 15th and 12th ish, 16th to 12th, you know, like. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Right there, which is an unbelievable step up over seven years ago, even. [00:29:23] Speaker B: Totally. And a couple guys fall out. Boom, top ten. And then. So that's why you give him plus money on a road course. And it's like Michael McDowell's pro. Unless something happens and he's in the dirt like Michael McDowell's probably going to finish top ten in a road course. Like ten. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:37] Speaker B: 10Th is like, honestly, like almost easy. Like, guaranteed he's going to finish 10th like he in a road course. I expect Malcolm McDowell to be battling for a top five or maybe even a win. Like we said, especially in the last couple of years. He, he proves it every single time we go to one. [00:29:55] Speaker A: So, without a doubt. And that's the best part about these betting acts, is it's a marketplace. I mean, it's, it's based off of other people's betting trends. I mean, any time Chase Elliott goes to a mile and a half, you should fade him. Chase Elliott on a mile and a half, he's got one win and one top five ever since the next gen car has debuted. But every time we go to a mile and a half, you see all the Chase Elliott fans are going to be putting a ton of money on him, and it's going to overvalue Chase Elliott. So you never should put, almost never should put a bet on, down on him. But he'll be up as one of the favorites just because he has so many fans. It's definitely not based off, it's based somewhat off of stats. I think they get a starting point based off stats. But as soon as you open it up to the general public and the marketplace takes over, it starts to overinflate and underinflate certain drivers. Like just a couple weeks ago, I got a top ten on Justin haley, uh, for plus 1000. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, plus 1000. [00:30:55] Speaker A: He finishes in nine. And that means I turned one. I, every dollar I put on it turns into $10. And that's a super undervalued driver right now is Justin Haley. Because the 51, if you just look purely off of predictor models and stats, the 51 should be finishing about 25th or worse. But with Justin Haley driving it this year, he hasn't been driving it long. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Enough to affect the stat line broadcast yesterday. Yeah, he has coming. Like, he hasn't put my normal yet. He top ten. [00:31:26] Speaker A: But if you average out all of the races for the 51 car for the past five years, or whatever model they're looking at, probably since the next gen car came out 2022, that 51 car, that's, this is the first year it's ever done that. So it's still so skewed to those old years when he was running, when that car was running back in the back and Justin Haley was running back in the back. So right now, he's someone to watch for. Every week that the stat lines come out. I look at what he possibly could do. He's one of my drivers. I look at every time you go to these road course races, and, yeah, AJ is a great one, but he gets a little bit over inflated sometimes. Yeah, a road course, because people know that. So it's all about playing the market. And who do you think is going to be the outlier that stats or in the market don't predict? [00:32:12] Speaker B: And that. That's the thing, too. You made a great point there. Algae or alma dinger is just popular enough when he does the one offs to get over inflated. McDowell still sits in that medium range where he's not the most talked about guy. So it's where he's at. I can't remember what race it was, but he was plus 400. He was plus 400 on a top ten, and I put him for a top ten, and he got it. And it was one of the races where I made, like, a bunch of bets, and I only had two bets hit, but both bets were, like, happened to be the two bigger plus bets that I made. Yeah. It made me win more money than I put down. And one of them was because it was like, a $5 bet and he was plus 401, like $45 or whatever. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:00] Speaker B: And I can't, without a doubt if that was a plate track or what. But for all of you out there, McDowell top tens are plus money, and they're, most of the time, a great idea. [00:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah, because if he's names that don't. [00:33:15] Speaker B: Talk about a lot, he's damn near close. [00:33:18] Speaker A: That's where I feel like these sports books make most of their money, is the popular driver names, because you're always going to want, you know, that Hamlin, Elliot, Larson, Truex, guys like that, their names are so big that they're going to be low amounts of payoff to get a top five, even much less trying to pick them for the winner. But the hardest part about doing that is there's only one winner, and there's only five people that finished top five. And you probably got ten names that are being bet on most to finish in those spots. Really where you need to look is your guys that are just under that threshold. Your Alex Bowman's, your Ty Gibbs, your Christopher bells, your. Your Michael McDowell's, your Justin Haley's. Anybody that isn't that main name, that's going to be lower down on the stat sheet or lower down on the betting sheet, but maybe has higher stats than their position would give. And you start looking at those numbers, that's where you're going to actually make some money back because if you bet dollar five on Chase Elliott to finish top five, he's got a battle with so many other guys that are just as big of a name. And even if you're not going to. [00:34:30] Speaker B: Get much, he's probably mine. Not minus money. We know. Minus number. [00:34:34] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:34:34] Speaker B: A top five. [00:34:35] Speaker A: But then you try to put Alex Bowman down for a top ten, you'll probably get it for a similar payoff. And he's got ten chances to get that instead of only having five or one. That's where a lot of your strategy comes in. Now, that isn't to say I didn't just have ten bets and only win one of them, but at the end of the day, like, that's where the fun of it is, is trying to find those diamonds in the rough in there where you're going to get big payoffs for something that's a little bit easier to get than trying to get Denny Hamlin top five. Yeah, but that's the, that's the fun of betting. I mean, I haven't had to put any money in for a while, but I've fluctuated anything from having as little as $5, depending on the race, to having as much as 55 this week or this year. And I, this was a losing weekend for me. But man, did I have fun watching it because I had no idea by the end of it what was going to happen. Yeah, I texted you and I had so many almosts, which is such the story of betting, but you had the one, you had 100% rate this year or this week. [00:35:39] Speaker B: I didn't go through and do anything crazy. I put one bet on Larson to win. I had $7.90 in my account, put the $7.90 on Larson to win, and boom, he did it. [00:35:52] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. See, mine was hilarious because I had, and I even told your mom had texted us last Saturday, on Saturday and asked us, who should I pick? I haven't finished the pod yet. And my go to was like, I honestly think Truex is going to have a good shot because he's already good here and he did the tire test. So I predicted Truex was the winner. I put that bet in and, man, it was that close until obviously the last lap especially, but it was that close to getting it. But I had him to win. He loses out to Larson, rides in second for a while, runs out of gas. So I was kind of one and a half spots off there without the gas issue. I had Reddick top three. He ran there all day, and then just couldn't manage to get back from his pit stop. Blaney, top five. Ran there all day, just couldn't quite make it back up to the top five again. Legano, top five, best car in stage one till he gets back there and gets that. [00:36:53] Speaker B: Man, that couldn't be. You take that pit stop, thinking you're flipping it, and it's going to be perfect and all this stuff. And Harvey know, they love this call, you know, whatever. And then the old saying, you run back there, the squirrels, and you get your nuts crack, and, yeah, the next lap, they put the camera on him, and his whole passenger side is just ripped off. And I'm like, oh, my God. I. [00:37:18] Speaker A: You know, that is just keeping them up right now. Cause I was just looking at the playoff standings. Cause I want to have a conversation with you about that here in a minute. Right now, Joey Logano is sitting 18th, 16 points out. If you don't think that that race right there just scared the crap out of them, made them crap their pants a little bit. It did. Because now they're really worried about that bubble line. 16 points is hard to make up this late in the year. I mean, it just takes a lot. [00:37:43] Speaker B: Make it up. You. Like, he's not running well enough to get those playoff points. [00:37:49] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:50] Speaker B: We've done this enough now. We've done this enough now to know you gotta have playoff points to make it in. Deep in here. When they reset every time, you gotta have the playoff points, because, yeah, each time they reset, even if you make it to the next one, no playoff points. Boom, back to the bottom. Gotta fight your way up. And the only way you do that is like the last couple of years, where Bale, you know, wins the right races. Blaney, kind of like last year, I don't remember how many playoff points he had, but wins the right races. But, like, what are the odds of just nailing the right races? [00:38:26] Speaker A: Every and only one guy is going to win those right races every single. So if you're talking around a 16, Logano has a bit of an advantage just being as good as he is. But just like I just said, to prove your point even better. I just told you how hard it was to make up 16 points at the cut line. At the damn cut line. It's hard to make up 16 points. Now, you go into the playoffs, you're in the round of eight, and the guy leading the points right now is Larson, and he's got 22 playoff points stocked up. So now, not only do you have to make up even. Let's say the round of eight started right now. Lowest guy would be Martin Truex with two playoff points. Austin Cendrick was seven, somewhere in that range. They're already starting off with a seven to five, seven to eight point advantage over you. But they're also going to run in the top ten the whole race. So they're going to be getting points the entire time. Even if you manage to outrun them, you're only going to outrun them by a handful of spots, one to maybe four spots. So you're only going to make up maybe two to four points every single stage. And that's assuming you beat them. Every single stage. They beat you. Boom. Now they've got an even better points advantage. I mean, it's so difficult late in the playoffs. Exactly like you said, it is so difficult to make up points and outrun your competitors when your competitors every single week are going to be running up in the. I'm going to get points every stage. Yeah, that's positions. [00:39:56] Speaker B: That's the thing. Like, they're these guys. What's it. Okay, how do you say, obviously, the playoffs is the goal, you know, that's your goal to make the playoffs. But it's like, Logano is not running. He is not a top ten guy. Like, you just, he's not getting stage points. He's not getting playoff points. Whatever. It's like, okay, he makes the 16 and then boom, he's going to be out the first round. If you just go based off what this year has happened, he would be like, say him, isn't that what happened last year, too? Probably. [00:40:30] Speaker A: I don't knocked out in the first. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Round, but he didn't run good. Last year was a bad year for Logano, you know, in his, for his, in his eyes standards, you know. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And this year is proven to be the same. [00:40:42] Speaker B: Yeah, this year's exactly the same. And it's just the weirdest thing. And Denny Hamlin talks about it and there's been other people talk about it. We've talked about it. Penske is like, they're not the same Penske that they used to be, but they've won two titles back to back. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. They're hit and miss. They just managed to hit times. [00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah. It's been super odd because, like, if you, I know if you talk to Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Roger Penske, like, if you just sat back last, the last few years, like at, in the next gen, like, just looked at the overall view of the year, even though they won the titles, they're gonna tell you that it, like, still wasn't, like, up to their standards. Like, winning each, each of those guys having, what, three to five? You know, I'm not really saying Cedric, but Blaney and Blaney in a and a, and a and a logano, like, you know, they're wanting to have those, that three to five win kind of year. That's what Pinsky is. That's what Pinsky always has been. And so, you know, that. It's just like, it's just so odd to me how it's happened the last couple years, because both of them were in the same exact situation, like, kind of just had this year, didn't win, just kind of rode there in that middle section, and then, boom, won the right races. Boom, won the title, which, great for them. I mean, Ford kind of, in general, you know, over the last couple years. [00:42:09] Speaker A: A title is a title, and, yeah, everybody's running the same format. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I had a couple points I wanted to make, but then when you said that, it made me think of that point first, but, uh, one of them was something else Denny Hamlin said. And he's like, the longer we race in this next gen, it's going to go, you know, the first year, the next gen points, everybody had playoff points because of. [00:42:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Because of all the different people, all this stuff. Yeah. Every year that goes by, it's going to go back to the way it was. There's going to be about four to five guys that hog all the points. [00:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Right now, it's Larson, it's Byron, and it's Hamlin. [00:42:47] Speaker B: Yes. And if you look at the. Got those guys. That's who. That's exactly the what it is something else you just made me think of. It's happened the last two years. William Byron comes out of the year, out of the gate, the hottest thing since last bread. It's happened two years in a row. He gets three wins right off the rip. Yeah. And then in the summer, he is completely gone. [00:43:12] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:43:13] Speaker B: It's happening right now. We're, we're watching it happen currently. [00:43:17] Speaker A: Yeah. It really is. It's kind of funny to see that, because this, this is the conversation I was actually trying to get to at some point is we're about it. Like the. Are we at, like, the halfway point for the regular series? [00:43:28] Speaker B: Exactly. Halfway. [00:43:30] Speaker A: That's kind of why I was wanting to get into this is like, looking at the playoff picture now is a much more clear picture then if we had asked any earlier of who we think is going to make it, who we think is going to get eliminated, who we think is going to succeed and struggle. And I agree with you. That's the. That's the benefit William Byron has, is he gets a chance to test some different things out, try some different strategies, try to do some, you know, try to do some different things and take some chances here and there. But, yeah, I mean, winning three races at the beginning, it helps out a ton. He's got 16 playoff points. That puts him in a great position to make it out of the first round, probably even out of the second round. [00:44:12] Speaker B: So I'm assuming it's. You had only reason. I know I'm going off this is because we had. I looked at it pretty deeply yesterday. Larson was second with 17 plus five gets him to 22. Correct. So he's at 22. Hamlin's. Denny's 18, and then he's 16. Byron, 16. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Tired with Christopher Bell and William Byron. [00:44:35] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you just. I don't know if you go ten. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Points more than anyone else's gut. [00:44:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because, like, Truex and those guys have, like, eight ish. Correct? [00:44:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Chase has six, Reddick has eight. Truex has only two, actually. [00:44:52] Speaker B: Oh, never mind. Maybe I was thinking like Reddick, but. [00:44:55] Speaker A: Kez has five, centric has seven. So it's like a. It's kind of a mixed bag in there, but pretty much there's a ten point gap between the top four and the bottom. Everybody else, the odds for those four. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Guys to make the final four having that many more playoff points, the gap is huge. It is just for them right now. I mean, halfway through the season, the odds for those four guys to be in the final four are got. Unless there always. Somebody gets hot. Always. Stuff changes throughout the year. But if you're talking about right hand. [00:45:28] Speaker A: Blows up a brake rotor. [00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah. You're talking about right now, in this exact moment, halfway through the year, the odds for those four guys that are 16, 1618 and 22, it's almost. You would look at the odds of whatever that would be right now, and they would be almost locked. Guaranteed locked in. [00:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the cause every time it. [00:45:50] Speaker B: Resets, I think that's an advantage. They get such an advantage every time it resets in the rounds. You know what I mean? [00:45:56] Speaker A: So, like, is that not the final four that you predicted? [00:46:00] Speaker B: No, I had Chastain instead of Bill is the only difference. [00:46:03] Speaker A: I don't know how Bell instead of Chastain. This might be the four that I had predicted. It was it that the three on the top, the Larson, the ham one, the Byron I'm pretty sure is the three that we agreed on. It was that fourth. [00:46:14] Speaker B: Now I have it written down right here. Hold on. [00:46:21] Speaker A: I've been intrigued. Look at this after a while. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Just. [00:46:27] Speaker A: To see how correct we were at the very beginning in our preseason thunder episode. Yeah, it's always funny to feel like if we're an idiot or four geniuses. [00:46:35] Speaker B: No, I don't have Byron in there. I'm an idiot. I have Blaney, Chastain Larson and Hamlin. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Blainey, Chastain Larson. Okay, so it's pretty damn close. [00:46:45] Speaker B: I was basing my last year this pick off of Blaney the schedule, and they've talked about this on door bumper clear. And I hate that I keep referencing other podcasts, but it's just the schedule until something gets shaken up is, like, perfectly laid out for Ryan Blaine. It just really is like. [00:47:01] Speaker A: And Christopher Bell and Christopher guys benefit the most out of the playoff picture. [00:47:06] Speaker B: They're both good at flat racetracks, dude. [00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's weird. [00:47:11] Speaker B: Tracks with no banking. They are good at. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so. It is funny to think, but yes, you're exactly correct. That is exactly what it is. And they're both getting to the point where I feel like this is their breaking point of, like, are they going to get more consistent on the other racetracks? And that's. [00:47:29] Speaker B: They're both. [00:47:30] Speaker A: They're both kind of here and there. Just depends. But, yeah, it's. It all lines up for them on those last. [00:47:36] Speaker B: That's the biggest thing. That's the difference between, like, a Larson in a Hamlin and Truex a few years ago, maybe not as much today, but definitely tricks a few years ago. Like, they're consistent over the board, like, at all these. All these racetracks. Like, they're like that any given Sunday kind of guy. But then, like, then you. Exactly. You just said, like, your blaney's and bells, they're like, really, really good at certain things. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yes, they are. And it all is right there. And we've got a big one coming up for Bell, which is New Hampshire. That's not too crazy. That's two weeks away. [00:48:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:16] Speaker A: New Hampshire is one that he's almost a lot to be running top five for. [00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:20] Speaker A: I mean, he's possibly got another win coming. [00:48:23] Speaker B: He's only finished. What is that stat out of every NASCAR race he's ever run, trucks, xfinity and cup. He's only not finished top ten at New Hampshire. I think one single time and then last year or somewhere else, he, I think it's two times now because he had a bad wreck, like while he was leading, I think, in a cup race. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:44] Speaker B: But he. His, like, average finish from trucks, Xfinity and Cup in New Hampshire is like off the. It's like Casey Kane running truck series. Like his average finish is just stupid. At New Hampshire. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:48:57] Speaker B: All the way across the board. And that's one of them deals. It doesn't, when it, when a guy can race somewhere and it doesn't matter what era, car or what type of car that track, like, that's one of those scary things. Like that dude has that track down. It doesn't matter what car, what series. What, like, you. He's that guy. Like I say, he could go out on a bicycle and race the trash bag behind him. Like I say, Eric Jones at Darlington. Like Bell could go. Bell could run top ten at, at New Hampshire in a, with a, on a bicycle with a trash bag behind him as a parachute. [00:49:33] Speaker A: No joke. [00:49:34] Speaker B: He's just that guy. [00:49:36] Speaker A: So to put this in even better perspective, a win gets you into the playoffs. But looking at. I'm just looking at the schedule as it's coming up all the way up until the round of twelve. Excuse me, the round of 16. We've got Iowa, New Hampshire. [00:49:52] Speaker B: I want to talk about Iowa, too. Yeah, at some point, I know it's the next race, but, like, we need to go. We need to talk about that a little point. [00:49:59] Speaker A: Iowa. New Hampshire. Nashville. Chicago. Pocono indy. Richmond. Michigan. Daytona. Darlington. I know that sounds like a lot of racetracks. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Your wild card is Chicago, by far. Imposter. [00:50:12] Speaker A: Daytona and Daytona. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:16] Speaker A: But looking at that, I can already tell you who's going to run really good at New Hampshire. And he's already got two wins, which is Christopher Bell. I can already tell you who's going to run good at Nashville. And he's already got three wins. That's Kyle Larson, Chicago. It's going to be a wild card for sure. Your Daytona is going to be a wild card indie. We obviously cannot predict that one until we see it because it's just put the next gen car on the oval. What's it going to do? [00:50:42] Speaker B: But I think it's going to be realistic. We've said that before. But Denny also reiterated, like, it could be really cool. [00:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And realistically for your guys, like we were just talking about. And that's kind of where I wanted to get, like your Loganos, your bubble. Wallaces just looking at the playoff picture, 14th and down 14th, Ryan Blaney. 15th, Bowman. 16th, Wallace. Those guys are the guys that are in Blaney and Bowman by a margin of 60 plus. But Bubba is only eight points above the cut line in 16th. Then you got Kyle Busch, Joey Logano. All right there within 16.7. And next after that is Chase Briscoe, Michael McDowell. Those guys, I think everybody from 16th down to 20th have a shot at winning a race coming up. The problem is, most of them have the same shot at winning the same races. Like, you've got. Michael McDowell maybe could sneak a fluke win out of a road course there at Chicago. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:43] Speaker A: Any one of them could win at Daytona, but what other opportunity is there, really, that somebody else isn't already predicted to run really well? [00:51:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:51] Speaker A: Those guys have got to be shaking in their boots right now. And I'm wanting to know who you think gets eliminated out of that group. Between Wallace, Bush, Logano, Briscoe, and Michael McDowell, there's only one spot open for each of them who makes it. [00:52:03] Speaker B: It's. I'm kind of in that same. It's kind of the exact same thing I just said about McDowell earlier. Like, they just, they, all those guys kind of run right there in that, like, 15th to 10th spot, which is why they're on the bubble line. And it's, what are they, what's going to change, especially at your next week at Iowa, the next week at Nashville, New Hampshire, any of those just oval tracks, what's going to change for any of those five ish guys there that hasn't already been doing it, you know, all year? Like. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:45] Speaker B: What's, what's drastically going to change for one of those guys at a place, any of those places, you know, like you said, anybody can win at Daytona. Justin Haley can go out and win at Daytona. [00:52:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we're talking about every single one of those guys is almost needing a win. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Yeah. The best thing that all those guys hope for is they hope that if a guy wins, it's a guy that's, that's. That's already has a win. [00:53:12] Speaker A: 15Th. Yeah. [00:53:14] Speaker B: The line doesn't, you know, keep getting. [00:53:16] Speaker A: Pushed down, but how are they going to make up a 65.64 point gap to a Ryan Blaney? Also, because of the NASCAR app, Chris Buscher is only 32 points above the cut line, so he's technically down there. Further, of course, the NASCAR app is the most ridiculous app of all time and doesn't put people in the correct order. [00:53:35] Speaker B: The one of the things, though, Bush to me, is running better than that. Bush is running better than Bubba Wallace, McDowell, Bush Briscoe. Week in and week out is faster. It unloads and runs better than all of those drivers. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt. And I really think he does just fine and gets right through where he needs to go, especially recently. I feel like his, his stats are skewed a little bit in the playoff picture just because of the beginning of the year. But if you take him from basically Darlington on the, where he's running right now, it's going to put him probably in about, I would, I would say twelve to ten in the point standings by the time he gets to the end of the year, depending on the race, is shape. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Pretty much. He's run. He runs top five like every week. It feels like in running top five at Darlington when he gets butt smacked into the wall, so. [00:54:31] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So he's, he's definitely going to go out there and do something awesome. And I can't wait to watch the rest of that year. I think he gets a win before the playoffs come. [00:54:42] Speaker B: So do I. So do I. [00:54:43] Speaker A: If he doesn't get a win before the playoffs come, he'll have a win, maybe even two by the end of the year. [00:54:48] Speaker B: This, this. I wanted to talk about Iowa because Chris Buscher won Iowa a bunch in Xfinity cars back in the day, but. [00:54:57] Speaker A: With that grip strip they've got going on now, I don't know if you've looked into all that with them repave in just a small little section of the track. [00:55:05] Speaker B: I was like, in the fastest part. I don't understand. I don't understand. It has potential suck. [00:55:10] Speaker A: It does have potential to suck because, I mean, you can't dive bomb because you'll be running down there and chewing your tires up just doing it one time, you're already going to be at a disadvantage to the guy that's already in that fast line. [00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:22] Speaker A: It just has the potential of taking a multigroo racetrack and turning it into a one groove racetrack where there's no benefit to going outside of that group. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I. There's never been a cup race at Iowa. Um, you know, I would got ran in the Bush series for a long time. I mean, even. [00:55:42] Speaker A: It was awesome. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Watching and I can't remember if we talked about this on the podcast or this is a conversation me and you just had, but, man, back in like 20 18, 20. 19, 20 20. We used to tear up Iowa on the video. [00:56:00] Speaker A: We did talk about that on the last podcast. [00:56:02] Speaker B: I was one of our favorite tracks that we ran, which I know that has no correlation to real life racing at all, but I own the video game. Back in the day was awesome. That little bump, either one spot, you had to either be higher, higher than it, or lower than it. Coming out of turn two, if you were in the middle of it, man, it would just, your car. There was no saving it or holding it. It was just gone. [00:56:27] Speaker A: It would eat. [00:56:28] Speaker B: I remember. I remember that. [00:56:30] Speaker A: But it's such a, it was such. [00:56:32] Speaker B: A game run multiple. [00:56:35] Speaker A: And that's the, that's the worst part about it, was I was so excited when they announced I was going to be on the cup series schedule. I was freaking pumped. And then I found out that they paved the fast lane of the racetrack and nothing else. And I was like, you got to be kidding me. We had this perfect racetrack, and I know, like, obviously, if you've got to pave it, you've got to pave it. But we had this perfect racetrack, and then we're just going to ruin it right before we finally get to go. And I was like, we're just one year too late, man. Yeah, we're just one year too late to go there. Yeah. [00:57:05] Speaker B: It's gonna be, I don't know. I don't know what to expect for. I don't know. Your guys that run fast are gonna be your guys that run fast. But I'm pretty, I'm trying to think, like, probably everyone in the field has ran it, Iowa, but in an xfinity series or a truck series car, I'd. [00:57:30] Speaker A: Imagine most of them. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I would think everybody has, man. [00:57:35] Speaker A: I'm just so excited to see it. I think. I hope it's going to be a great race. I love that track. So I'm going to hold out hope for it. So I'll be your, I'll be your Brett Griffin of this, of this podcast. I'll say I cannot wait for the Iowa race, and I really hope it gets the race that it deserves. But, man, I'm just a little nervous, but I ain't going to let it damper my spirits. [00:57:55] Speaker B: I'm just like, the same. My excitement comes from never being there before. And, like, I don't know, could someone unload and they're just like, blister the field, you know, like one of those guys we were talking about. I doubt it, but, like, coming to a track that no one's been to, you know, didn't who did the tire. [00:58:13] Speaker A: Test there, I would actually have to look that up. I know, I heard somebody talking about it recently. Let me see if I can find it. But that's going to be. I think that's going to have a huge factor. It always has a huge factor. Chastain and Truex both did the tire test at Sonoma, and they were both badass fast last night. So it definitely. It shows you how much a tire test is worth to these teams when they get to go out there and run them. [00:58:40] Speaker B: And coming off of, chastain has one race win. Correct. Making that up this year. [00:58:50] Speaker A: This year? No, I don't believe that. Chastain has a win. No. He's got two top fives and a stage win, but no wins. [00:58:57] Speaker B: Okay, well, you know, he won at Nashville last year, but one of the fastest cars on the track last year. [00:59:04] Speaker A: At Nashville was Reddit, Iowa tire test. Brad keselowski, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson. You're about to have two good weekends in a row, dude. Two good weekends in a row. Coming in with momentum and a tire test in the back pocket. [00:59:21] Speaker B: Oh, man. They let Kyle Larson go do a tire test. [00:59:27] Speaker A: They should just put Kyle Larson's line this week at plus 150. 50 shot in this race. [00:59:32] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:59:33] Speaker A: That's going to be ridiculous. The Cbell hate club will be firing off if you put a bet down on C bell. I get it, but screw you. [00:59:42] Speaker B: Those would be the guys I'd look at then. [00:59:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I'd look at all three of them. [00:59:46] Speaker B: They're gonna have the most laps. They'll be in my lineup for sure. You said Bell, Kez, and Larson? [00:59:52] Speaker A: Bell, Kez, and Larson. So, yeah, without a doubt. Hey, Brandy, if you're listening those three, and make sure that you have Austin Dillon in your garage, you're gonna want them there. You never know when someone might wreck out. You're gonna need that extra couple points that a 24th place finish will get you whenever Larson finishes in 32nd. Trying too hard, that's definitely always possible. 100% is possible. Yeah. You're Brandy Dawson's mom. She's constantly asking us who to pick to put in her fantasy lineup, and every single week, she gives me some sort of crap about picking Austin Dillon at Texas for a top ten, and I'd rather. I'd rather it did hit. So I get a lot of crap for my Austin Dillon support at Texas, but I'd rather get crap for something that hits than get crap for something that didn't. That was just such a hot take, because I usually have one hot take per race. I'm not even sure I have a hot take for this one. [01:00:52] Speaker B: Your hot take last for Sonoma was it was going to be a shitty race. [01:00:56] Speaker A: That was going to be a shitty, boring race. And that hot take did not hit. Let's see if I could think up a good, I'll think up a good hot take for it by the end of it. [01:01:07] Speaker B: But yeah, I'm excited just for the uncertainty of Iowa, but I definitely guys are the guys that you would look at. Just like I said, though, Brad K. Doing that test helps busher out, too. So I would look at Busher as well. [01:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, Chris Buscher running that, running that racetrack, I could see him doing extremely well. Just like you said, he's got a bunch of wins there for, for his history. So you put him in Iowa with the teammate having just done a tire test and it was the owner of the team. So he's definitely going to have a lot of say over what goes on. Chris Twisters car. I can see that going really far. Excuse me. Good Lord. I think the pizza from Friday night still upsetting my stomach a little bit. Those five mile wide pizzas, I feel like you could put some, I feel like if you just paved the outside of those pizzas, you could race a cup car on it. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Chris Buscher has an average of a top ten, a top ten average at Iowa. [01:02:09] Speaker A: There you go. And he's got a bad fast car lately, one of the top Ford teams. So I would definitely keep my eye on him. That's going to be a huge, that's going to be a huge benefit. On top of having the, on top of having the tire test in the back pocket. My God. Dang def. We be watching out for him. I bet his lines down super low whenever the bet lines come out. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. He's, he's raced there four times in Xfinity and has one win and has a top ten average finish, an average start of 7th. He's led 94 laps there. I said, I remember him running well there back in the day. He was running, he ran when they had the little bunny ears on the spoiler of the Xfinity cars. That's what he was kicking ass and won two championships. [01:03:03] Speaker A: Hell yeah. All right. [01:03:05] Speaker B: In that 60 car. [01:03:06] Speaker A: There we go. [01:03:07] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. He, he definitely knows. He knows what he's doing there. [01:03:13] Speaker A: There's some good predictions right there. So gives you, it gives everybody, somebody, some people to watch for and people to look out. [01:03:21] Speaker B: Chris Buscher, just while we're on it, Chris Bush's average finish in his whole entire Xfinity series career, which is 74 races, is 11.1. [01:03:32] Speaker A: Damn. Not bad at all. [01:03:34] Speaker B: I mean, let's go prosper, Texas. [01:03:37] Speaker A: Man. Showing off. [01:03:41] Speaker B: He ran Xfinity from 2011 to partial schedule in 2011, but 2011 to 15. [01:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Damn bad fast, man. An xfinity car. If only they drove a little similar, that would be perfect. [01:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but I just. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah, the deep dive into the Chris Buscher history, they're brought to you. [01:04:01] Speaker B: Edwards and natural only. Uh uh. Whatever. That was his stat. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Race and reference. [01:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, race. [01:04:11] Speaker A: And reference. As a hardcore NASCAR fan. You're not a hardcore NASCAR fan. [01:04:15] Speaker B: I just knew that he ran. I remember him running well there. Yeah, there was also, um, Caleb, you probably don't know this, but there was anybody like, if you. I know for a fact, Randy Adams. Remember this. And I think it was Ricky Stenhouse and Carl Edwards. Finity series race at Iowa. And it is coming down there. They're on the last lap. Teammates. Now we're talking about two roush guys. And I think it was Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse. If it wasn't, it was Ricky Stenhouse and Busher, one of the two. And I think Ricky is leading the race coming out of turn four and he blows a tire coming out of turn four. And I think, like I said, it's Carl Edwards. Carl Edwards is right behind him. Pile drives him so hard and ass car flies up in the air and they go across the finish line. Stenhouse wins and he's up on top of the. Of. [01:05:14] Speaker A: I think I remember seeing a replay of that, but I have. I don't remember watching this. [01:05:19] Speaker B: This happened like ten years before. I was probably. Yeah. The craziest shit I've ever seen in my life. Two teammates absolutely total. Their cars destroy their cars 100 yards from the finish line. Maybe even closer than a hundred yards. But the. He just blows a tire, boom, up his ass. Go across the finish line and he pushes Stenhouse across the line. They almost flipped over. He hit him so hard. And that was the race win. [01:05:49] Speaker A: That's awesome. What a finish, man. [01:05:51] Speaker B: That'd be a. [01:05:52] Speaker A: That'd be on par for a 2024 finish right now. The way the r race is, that's. [01:05:56] Speaker B: What we need right there. [01:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, shoot, we've been having some good ones this year. So that would have just fit right in. I would have loved it. [01:06:05] Speaker B: I'm going to look. Go ahead and talk a little bit. I'll see if I was Carl Edwards. [01:06:10] Speaker A: Well, actually, I was just about to say, while you're looking up Carl Edwards stats in the infinity series. [01:06:15] Speaker B: Just about to say, yeah, Carl Edwards, it was. Stenhouse blows a tire coming out of the corner. And Carl Edwards, boom, literally lifts him up off the ground. He hits. Stenhouse is the outside wall. Carl hits the inside wall. Stenhouse wins. I mean, just the craziest thing I've ever seen. [01:06:36] Speaker A: The stuff you would never be able to predict if you. If you paid for it. So getting around to the hour and six minute mark, it's time for everybody's favorite portion of the day. What is your hack of the week? [01:06:53] Speaker B: Okay, I'm gonna go off the rails here. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [01:06:58] Speaker B: Or not. NASCAR related. Hack of the week. [01:07:02] Speaker A: Wow. [01:07:04] Speaker B: My hack of the week is the dumb motherfucker who paid shit tons of money to go to this Cain brown concert. Be in the pit and flips double birds. Cain brown on the stage. And Cain Brown says, you want to see what happens when you bird me or flip me off or whatever, gets the security guard over here. They ship his ass out of the concert. [01:07:26] Speaker A: You're kidding. I did not see that. [01:07:28] Speaker B: It happened this past weekend, and I sent it to Josh, our buddy who works for Kane Brown, and he was like, dude, he was so pissed off. And I was like, he should be. I was like, this is. This is incredible. [01:07:38] Speaker A: That is unbelievable. I'm gonna have to look that up. [01:07:41] Speaker B: And I got the video. [01:07:42] Speaker A: Should forward that to. [01:07:42] Speaker B: I do. I have the tick tock. I have the. I saw this last night and before I saw this video, my hack of the week. So this is, like, my backup hack of the week was going to be chastain for just the don't give a hell. And, like, I would have got it more if Kyle Busch was, like, racing him hard. The hack of the week part comes from Kyle Busch literally giving him a lane in the half, and he still just barrel rolls through there. [01:08:10] Speaker A: Kyle Busch might as well have been taking the carousel and Chastain still managed to find a way to wreck the shit out. Yeah, that was like. [01:08:16] Speaker B: I was like, this is insane. I was. I cannot believe that this is how that actually went down. But then last night, I was laying in bed and saw this video, and I was like, this is. This is an idiot. This is top tier hack of the week. Like, yeah, you're stupid. [01:08:31] Speaker A: How do you manage to do that? [01:08:33] Speaker B: So I had to. You got to be an idiot to pay for pit tickets and then. And then do something to the artist of the artist. Stupid gets kicks you out himself. [01:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good, that's a solid way to just get banned from ever having a cane brown ticket in the future. [01:08:49] Speaker B: Ever. Yeah. So. [01:08:50] Speaker A: And put in anybody else that's in that management group, anybody else that they represent. They'll probably just keep you out of all of them. [01:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's my, uh, that's my hack of the week first. [01:09:00] Speaker A: Dude, that is hilarious. [01:09:02] Speaker B: Not NAScar, but I had to, I had to give it. [01:09:05] Speaker A: Wow. I love that, man. Yeah, I absolutely love that. Um, so my hack of the week, and I'll, I'll give a backup hack of the week that you will appreciate. My hack of the week is one that I almost give with hesitation, but I just have to give it anyway because of the absolute just craziness of what went down. But I'm sorry, Josh Barry trying to make that block. Well, I don't even know if he was necessarily trying to make, he wasn't trying to make a block in the moment. I thought he was trying to make a block on Eric Jones. Come to find out, it was more. I think he was just hearing from a spotter that Bubba Wallace was about to be barrel rolling back into the field from the dirt and just diving down that low. I don't see. This is why I'm hesitant to give this as a hack of the week. So if anybody wants to, to throw me some hate in the comments, I get it. But I will say that I understand that he didn't necessarily mean for this exact thing to happen. [01:10:04] Speaker B: That's what I was gonna say, but he buries mine. This is not his fault. [01:10:08] Speaker A: This is not his fault. And I 100% get why he would say that. But at the end of the day, I have to give it to him for just barrel rolling in there and just taking out 17 cars in the same, in the same turn. You know what? I might even kind of reel it back. But anybody that managed to, like, hit the inside wall in turn eleven kind of gets my hack of the week. Tiger Ty Gibbs is a great example of somebody that just turned into the damn inside wall of turn eleven. Now that it's an actual wall and not a tire barrier, and maybe I want to get, I'm going to get my hack of the week to turn eleven. You know what? I'm just going to take it all out. My hack of the week goes to turn eleven because the wall in turn eleven. The wall in turn eleven. Whoever decided that? Obviously I'm deciding on my hack of the week as it goes, because the more I think about it, the more. I don't want to give it to Josh Barry. I just wanted to give it to whoever the dumb MFR was. Put a concrete wall on the inside there. We have so many different ways to create barriers at NASCAR tracks. We got guardrails. We got safer barriers. We have concrete walls. We got tire barriers. We've got those little plastic looking red and blue things that they'll put out there and fill up with water or sand or whatever. We could have done anything with that turn, but we decided to put down concrete blocks that come to fricking hard angles and stick out directions. [01:11:34] Speaker B: The hard angle was the issue. [01:11:35] Speaker A: Like, who in the. Who in the good holy Lord decided that that was the best possible way to put an inside wall down there because it ruined Ty Gibbs's race, and he had a strong car. Car bush, like you said we had. [01:11:50] Speaker B: I love that you say Josh Barry hit it. It hit Cobb. [01:11:54] Speaker A: Well, the white bush sticks out like that, man. You even see AJ Almandinger, who is a phenomenal road course racer and could easily, easily pivot that car and keep it within an inch of that wall, even he is giving it, like, six to seven inches just to make sure that if he does diamond the corner in a small little bit away and chop this corner a little bit, he doesn't hit the inside wall. So whoever decided that a concrete barrier was the best possible alternative to the tire barrier, that's the guy I want to give the hack of the week award to. So, hell, yeah. Sorry that it took me forever to get there. I thought I had it figured out. The more I said it, the more I decided that I was wrong. The hack of the week award got transferred at the last second. It was a surprise upset win by the concrete barrier internal up. [01:12:39] Speaker B: My favorite part of the jot Josh Barry situation is Josh Berry. They even say it in the thing, like, from his perspective in that race car, he got hit from all four corners of the car. And in his mind, he's like, this thing's destroyed. He's like, no, it doesn't look that bad. And then he's like, oh, no, you'll see it when I get around there and they're showing on the camera, it looks like this car is perfectly fine. And obviously, Barry can't see his car, so he's like. He just assumes that car is destroyed. [01:13:08] Speaker A: And it was enough cars without composite bodies that are built like, freaking submarines that think that he was done. [01:13:15] Speaker B: That cracked me up, dude. He's like, no, just wait till I come by. And they're like, no, the car looks fine. He's like, what? [01:13:23] Speaker A: No way. [01:13:24] Speaker B: That was so funny to me. [01:13:27] Speaker A: So, my backup pack of the week, you'll agree with me because we kind of alluded to it at the very, very beginning of this podcast. But having to work a festival in June Heat in Florida for the rock the country festival this weekend, that's my back hack of the week. Every single member of our crew, at some point almost or did have heat stroke going on. [01:13:51] Speaker B: Not just our crew, but everybody out there, every person that was working, people in the crowd, the whole shebang. [01:13:57] Speaker A: So I get off the bus in the morning. It's Friday morning, probably 09:00 in the morning, and already the moment I got off the bus, I sat and talked with our steel player Leroy for about ten minutes. By the end of that conversation, I was dizzy, and I had no idea why because, I mean, I farmed in Texas and direct broiling sunlight heat. I've done a lot of outside work. So have you. We've all done a ton of physical labor. We're just. You were used to doing stuff like that, but something about that heat was just a whole different animal, and we're having to do it in direct sunlight. The humidity is, I think, 157%. It is just absolutely miserably hot, sweaty. Nonsense. I probably drank a whole case of water to myself that day. Yeah, our monitor engineer, Mike, bless his heart, man, that dude was having a rough go at it. He full on heatstroke. The rest of us at different points had to take a moment. I told you all from the beginning, like, keep an eye out on me. I may pass out. You at some point got super overheated and was having to lean over a case. But our guitar tech, he was overheating. Every single person on our crew and every crew involved was just miserably, brutally hot. So having to work outdoor festivals in the middle of Florida and Alabama, that's my hack of the week. Anytime I have to show up and sweat my backup hack of the week, anytime I have to show up and sweat like that. [01:15:28] Speaker B: Sweating is fine. Sweating is fine. But what you just said, the working and attending, like, who, who thought or who thinks, like, we got, like, why don't we go to Maine in the summertime and then go to south Alabama in like October? [01:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we have March or April that we can do these things in, but we're doing it in the middle of the damn heat. [01:15:57] Speaker B: Dude, I was. I was sitting with a cop, like one of the security. This was an actual cop, not just the security. People. But he was sitting there and he's like, listen to this. He had his radio. They called for six emts in the crowd. He's like, dude, people are falling out like flies out here. And I was like, I believe it's just, you can't. [01:16:16] Speaker A: I don't. [01:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know if it's because I'm getting old or what, but, like, I could not stand in that heat. I mean, people get there when the gates open at what, 02:00? Yeah, 02:00 and then kid rock's not done till midnight. [01:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the gates open were supposed to open at three, but I was going out to merch at 215 to go count in to make sure that my counts were correct. They had already opened the gates early just simply due to the fact that the line was so long at the gate and nobody had access to any water or anything. It's just what they had on them. They actually opened the gates about 45 minutes early so they could get people inside the concession areas. They had little mister tents set up, and already people were just flocking immediately as soon as people were walking in. Normally it's a mad dash to get to the front, and maybe a few people were doing that, but the sides where all the concession areas were, we're already lined up and full because everybody was going there to get either a drink or go to the misting tents or whatever, but it was. It was a nightmare. I'd be surprised if we didn't have somebody die in a heat stroke at some point in the middle of that festival. It was. It was just brutal. And, I mean, I know the promoters are doing their best and are trying to figure out what they can do to keep people safe out there, and they did do their best effort because we've opened the gates up late when we needed to at a rock the country festival. Now we're opening them up early for a safety protocol, so they're doing their best. But, man, when you got 50,000 drunk people running around in that kind of heat, we were totally sober, didn't have a drink of liquor all night, and already we were heat stroking out. We got done. I got done taking a shower, and as soon as I stepped out of the shower in that shower trailer that they had, I was immediately wet again after I dried off because it was like a sauna in there after it was just. I was just sweaty all over again. There was no not sweating. [01:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was up there with one of the, like, just roughest ass kickings I've ever had. [01:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:16] Speaker B: I mean, it's like, this is why I'm still, like, all the sinus and all this stuff. It's, like, all stemming from that as well. It's just like, yeah, Dean, our front of house guy, he told me we were loading in the next day. He was like, how do these one day shows kick our ass so hard? Like, it's just like, the amount of work I finally, like, me and Lindsay talked last night, and I finally, like, made her understand how there's more work involved in a. In a rock, the country show or a festival show in general, because at a normal show, you set up and your stuff's there, and you do your sound check and do all your stuff, and you have ten, 4 hours, four and a half hours to do. Unload the truck, set it up, do all this stuff. Okay. [01:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:07] Speaker B: At these shows, festivals, you. You unload, we unload. Everybody's getting pushback, and for some reason, they think it's cool to take our extra time and give that to other people. [01:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:22] Speaker B: To take up for us, because they think that. I don't know why they do that, but it. That kind of drives me a little nuts. And you have to. Every show is a little bit different, but for the most part, we have to set all of our stuff up on either an incline or down in the. Down on the dock, whatever. Okay. Then they say, go. You have to push all of our. We have to push all of our stuff up on stage. Okay. [01:19:47] Speaker A: Already built. [01:19:48] Speaker B: Already built. Push it all up on stage. Gotta hook up all the power, run all the looms, get all the instruments out, do a sound check. Soundcheck is done. We have to unhook all those looms, all that power, all that stuff, unlock all of our risers and push them back around, back behind. Okay. Then. Then that's where it sits. The next band comes in, does the same thing. Yada, yada, yada. Okay. It gets down to changeover, is what we call it, from the one band in the next. [01:20:15] Speaker A: Typically, there'd be, like, a five to seven hour gap between that and your changeover when you go on. And at these festivals, like this last one, I think we had maybe, like, a three to four hour gap. So now you don't even get as much break. [01:20:29] Speaker B: If that, then that doesn't count. All the other little stuff that we all have to do to get the show ready. Batteries, towels, waters, all the other stuff. [01:20:40] Speaker A: That you can get ready in the main stuff. [01:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Just the stage stuff. So then changeover happens. They have to pull all of their stuff on. We can't put any of our stuff on until they do. We have 30 minutes. The last show, the one before this, we got our changeover knock down to 20 minutes. So they have to get all their stuff on. We have to push all of our stuff back on. We have to hook it all back up, and then we have to make sure all the instruments work again. [01:21:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's all done within 20 to 30 minutes. While you have 50,000 drunk people yelling at you the entire time, and you have an emcee that's up there trying to talk about stuff in between the sets. So you're having to scream over the top of 50,000 people and a PA to make all this stuff happen. In the end, you didn't even say the best part. [01:21:27] Speaker B: There's a DJ up there playing the loudest music you've ever physically heard in your life. [01:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, DJ Silver up there just going to town. And DJ Silver's a nice dude, and he will make sure that he does everything you can to make your life easier, but he has to be loud as hell and excited, too. [01:21:44] Speaker B: Yes. And so you have all that going on. Dude, I got off, and this was our first show on Friday. Yesterday we had another show Saturday. Come home, dude. I got out of. This is. I got out of the truck and, like, everything. I just sat on the couch do. My head was. I was just ringing. Yeah, my ears are just ringing. Like, it did not go away. It's, like, last night just from all the stuff, and, like, it's just. I just hope we can, like, give y'all back, like, a behind the scenes of, like, how that goes on and comes off and, like, still to this day, and I've. We've been doing this now for, like, three years, and still to this day, it blows me away that we can do all of that. Yeah. And it, like, definitely does put on, and it all gets plugged up and it all makes noise, and it all happens because, like I've said before, like, no's not an option. Like, it's gonna happen no matter what, but it, like, blows me away that that amount of work and that amount of stuff can get put into a space in that short amount of time. It just blows me away that it happens every single time that we do it. I'm just like, how did that happen? [01:22:59] Speaker A: All of that's being done by the six guys in our crew that know everything about that setup and about 25 people that are local stagehands who have been baking out in the sun even longer than we have, who have never seen our stuff before in their entire life. So we're having to instruct 25 different people on how to build our stuff that quickly, in 30 minutes, super fast and accurately. And it is genuinely a miracle that these things happen every single week without a hitch. If you go to a festival and you don't have a technical difficulty at some point in the day, it's a miracle for us. Now, as a fan watching it, you've got seven bands potentially with all varying levels of experience at doing this, that all manage to make this work every single week. [01:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that. [01:23:47] Speaker A: Trust me, a festival is a mind blowing event. If you ever got to actually see the back half of it, it's just, you'd have no idea how crazy it is that this works every week. I completely agree with you. [01:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah. It's that many, that many bands, that much equipment, that many people like, there's just so much going on, so many moving parts. [01:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:10] Speaker B: And then, like, you're only cared about your moving parts, but there's all these other parts moving on around you that. [01:24:15] Speaker A: It'S like, that you have to fit in. [01:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's like my favorite quotes, like, I'm not getting paid to care about your shit. So, yeah, I came up with that exact year in Myrtle beach, but it. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Was like getting paid to care about your shit. [01:24:26] Speaker B: It's like, I have. You have so much stuff to care about that, like, you don't have the mental capacity to care or think about someone else's stuff. And that's how everyone thinks. Every person out there, you have to stand your ground, or you will get flat run over, and I don't. [01:24:43] Speaker A: You will. [01:24:43] Speaker B: I mean, physically and mentally, they'll run you over with something if you're not standing your ground. Yeah. [01:24:48] Speaker A: You just have to, like, paying attention. [01:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, you got to stand your ground mentally and physically to make it all. [01:24:54] Speaker A: Happen without a doubt. And then right after we get done doing that, which is easily the most physically demanding show that I can remember us ever having in the last three years, we have to turn around and do a show at a sold out arena for, like 3000 people the next day. [01:25:11] Speaker B: Yep. [01:25:12] Speaker A: So not only did you just get your tail whipped for an entire 24 hours period, you got to wake up and do it again at 09:00 a.m. the next morning. [01:25:19] Speaker B: And God bless, thank God, went to the country, Carolina country music fest the next day, because I think I would have passed away. [01:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Gavin Adcock immediately left there and went straight over there. [01:25:31] Speaker B: God bless. [01:25:32] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:25:33] Speaker B: Because I would have just been. It's, it's, it had been so much. [01:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so funny because I've been putting so me and Dawson have I this, I know we're rambling on about this. We're late in the podcast, but if you've made it this far, God bless you. We love you. But we, me and Dawson introduced me to this app called Pen Traveler, and pin Traveler is basically one of those pushpin maps that you have that you hang on the wall and you put a pin in it everywhere you've gone. So every single time we show up to a new place, we put a pin in our map. Well, every single one of these rock the country festivals, I have started putting the different thing that that show was the most difficult show we've ever worked because of. Because every one of these rock the country festivals has had one major factor that has made it absolutely miserable in some way, shape or form. And it's a different factor every single time. These festivals have genuinely tested us to the limit this year. The very first rock the country festival was our very first full band show of the year, and it's a major festival. It's their first festival of the year for the series. So it's the big cluster of. It's everybody's first time, and it was. [01:26:47] Speaker B: Jason co Wetzel and our first show of the year. [01:26:51] Speaker A: Yes. So everybody's figuring out their stuff all over again, knocking the rust off at this huge, crazy festival. We go to the second festival, and it's in Gonzales, Louisiana, and the entire backstage area is these giant boulder gravel rocks that take, that are like a solid. If you hold one in each hand, that's the only two you can hold. And that's what you're walking across for miles and miles and miles. So that was the rocks. Then the third one is Rome, Georgia, and it just pours down rain the night before. And the whole place is an absolute mud hole all the way around. So that one made that one ridiculously difficult because you can't do anything once you get off the stage. It's just mud for miles. Having to walk along these plywood planks that they've set out for everybody. By the end of the show, you couldn't tell where the plywood was because they're covered in mud, too. So that's. That was the mud show. The Ocala, Florida show we just had is the heat. So every single one has had a different reason why it is sucked horribly to be backstage working it. The next one we do is in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. So we'll see what that one has in store for us. And on top, every single time, it's different. [01:28:01] Speaker B: It rained in Ashton, Kentucky, and it rained before we got there in Rome, and it rained in Ocala last weekend. [01:28:07] Speaker A: Yes. So we've had rain three out of the five so far or three out of the four so far. [01:28:12] Speaker B: Yep. [01:28:13] Speaker A: So that's just the, the fun of working a festival. Trust me, if you want to get to this line of work, you better have tough, you better have some thick skin and a whole lot of don't give a shit because you got to go out there and do this kind of stuff in these conditions. [01:28:25] Speaker B: And then it's like, you go to these, our other shows and it's like, smooth. You got plenty of time. Uh, I got, we got to the next show the next day, and I was like, I feel like I told Mike, I was like, feels like the day is just dragging by. He was like, yeah, because you just had yesterday where you're just getting everything boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom the whole time. And then it's like you had time to do stuff. So you just feel like you're waiting on the next thing that's like you got to do, you know? [01:28:52] Speaker A: And it's never coming. [01:28:53] Speaker B: And it never, and it's never coming because when you're the headliner and you're doing these shows like this, like in a theater, normal show in a theater, it's air conditioning like the, like yesterday, the Saturday show, the loading docs right behind the stage. Like, all that stuff's incredible. [01:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:10] Speaker B: It's just all possible shows where it's like, wow. Gonna get my ass kicked today. [01:29:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And we did. No, did we? Golly. [01:29:20] Speaker B: But we made it just like we always do. So. [01:29:24] Speaker A: Yes, we did. We got an, I've got a hell of a lot more tan than I used to, I'll tell you that much. Yeah, I'm a lot darker than I was before Florida. [01:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:35] Speaker A: Well, anyway, we're hitting the hat. We are hitting the hour and a half mark, so I reckon that means we should probably call it a day. Otherwise, we're gonna have to just start up the next pod right now. But thank you all for all, for listening for so long. We really appreciate it. We love doing this every single week. It's something I definitely look forward to. It's a nice break from the norm. But anyway, you can check us out on social media everywhere. I am at Caleb Khan Rowdy Dawson, give your handle. [01:30:01] Speaker B: Shout out, Dawson Edwards. Music across the board. [01:30:04] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. And don't forget to follow raised Rowdy. Raised rowdy. Nikki T. Give Matt Burrell a follow. They all put in a ton of work behind the scenes. We really appreciate everything they do for us. And y'all just remember, just remember, if you are going to a festival and you see Dawson Edwards there, you're probably going to have a bad time because we never have a good time at a festival. But just try to make sure and stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water and you won't pass out. And we're proud of you all for surviving another rock the country festival. We'll see you at the second to next one. But appreciate everybody for giving us a listen. Y'all have a good one. [01:30:44] Speaker B: See y'all. 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 handle dirt don't need 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 records my rifle tapered on the gas I'm making my way to you, girl hard, fast.