S2 Episode 5: Viva Lars-Vegas

[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is raids rowdy racing with caleb Conrady and Dawson Edwards. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Good morning beautiful people. [00:00:17] Speaker A: It's a little bit into the afternoon but it's fine. We'll make it work. [00:00:21] Speaker B: It felt right to say it. [00:00:23] Speaker A: We'll take it. Heck yeah. It's weird because you're like actually here for once. [00:00:27] Speaker B: We're together. Yeah. We are recording in Nikki t's, ray's, rowdy's brand new luxurious studio. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Luxurious is definitely the word. [00:00:37] Speaker B: It's incredible. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Actual wood tabletop. Yeah, it's kind of cool. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Feels awesome. It looks great in here. I mean, I was telling nikki t on Sunday, I was like, dude, this place, the first time you showed it to us, I was just blown away. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And now that we've been able to see the actual changes and everything that have gone into it, all the posters on the wall, the big table in the middle, all the podcast arms sticking out. [00:00:58] Speaker B: The first time we were in here, it was just the gray paint on the walls. There was nothing else. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Now it's like the raised rowdy racing experience in here. Like the Joe Rogan experience for just two idiots talking about NASCAR, acting like we know what the heck we're talking about. I love it. It's good. I love it. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Me and kelly wrote a song this morning. Mr. Stephen Paul. Yep. We tried to recruit him to come on today. He's a brand new NASCAR fan, but he's going to come on. I think it's April 15 16th. He is singing God bless america at the Xfinity race in Texas and then. [00:01:35] Speaker A: Going over to the dirt track afterwards to sing the national anthem over there. So he's going to get the full on experience, vip passes and hot passes and everything. [00:01:46] Speaker B: So we're going to have him on. [00:01:47] Speaker A: It's going to be awesome. [00:01:48] Speaker B: I have some guests that have reached out to me actually about possibly coming on. I told Nikki t about a couple of them on Sunday. I have a new one that I haven't told you about that I'll tell you about after this. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Heck yeah. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Reached out to me the other day. [00:01:59] Speaker A: We're going to be all guesticled up. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:01] Speaker A: It's going to be wild. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Interesting word. [00:02:04] Speaker A: You make them up off the top of your head. Well, let's get at it. [00:02:07] Speaker B: Las Vegas. Heck yeah. How about it? Caleb was on the road this weekend. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Where'd you watch your was? [00:02:12] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Trick crew back in action. Half of us are at least April 1. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:17] Speaker A: We had our first acoustic weekend, so all these shows are just Travis by himself. I know you've seen a couple of them. [00:02:25] Speaker B: I'm getting ready for the one next Saturday. Yeah. [00:02:27] Speaker A: And you're coming out next Saturday, too. [00:02:28] Speaker B: We are pumped up about that. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be a good time. We do a lot of really cool shows when the acoustic tour comes around because we can get into venues that we, most of the time, wouldn't be able to. I know we've been back to one of them. So we started off at Belmont in Nashville for the first show, which is a weird experience because that's where I went to college. So I graduated from there in 2015, and so now getting actually. [00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:55] Speaker A: A lot's changed. Like, this venue that we played, the Fisher center, didn't even exist back then, so it's just wild to come back after all this time. It was like a weird, full circle moment that you don't see coming, but it was really neat. I didn't even take a lot of pictures. I just kind of took one at the merch stand, and I told everybody merch toad was back. Yeah, I saw that. [00:03:15] Speaker B: Bud sent me a picture of you and called you the stitch bitch. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah, the stitch bitch. That was pretty good for him. [00:03:20] Speaker B: He shot me a picture of you over there with all the stuff. It looks good. Yeah, I'm excited to get back out there and. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Where'd you watch the race at? [00:03:30] Speaker A: I watched the truck race that night while I was working the stand because it was just on, and so I just put it on on the side while he was playing. Then the second day, we were at Charleston, saw the xfinity race in the dressing room there, and then for the last day on Sunday, we were at Myrtle beach. So somewhere we've been back to a thousand times. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. You've been to Myrtle Beach a bunch. [00:03:51] Speaker A: I think I was telling my dad it was like my 7th or 8th time being down there, which is so weird out of everywhere that we could be going. A boatload. It's somewhere that's like eight, 9 hours away. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:01] Speaker A: So we've been there a it. I watched most of it before the show happened. And then, of course, once the show starts, I'm stuck at the stand now because I'm selling merch for Travis on the road this year, and so I get to talk with everybody out in the crowd, which is a lot of fun. But when you're trying to watch a race in the middle of it, I kept having to lean over and pause it and just wait till this customer was done and then hit the play button and just sit there and kind of go back and forth. So I saw a lot of the first half, the second half, like the third stage, I didn't have any sound, but I had it on. In catering, we had this big tv and a u shaped table that was all facing the tv, and somebody had it on the history channel. And so I got there first for dinner, and I changed it over to the NASCAR race, and I had everybody in the venue and everybody on our crew all watching the race and asking me questions. It was hilarious. And then had to leave straight from there and go to the stand. So we had a good time with it. Yeah, we got to see most of it. So I got to see the very end. It's another exciting finish. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we're on a roll. NASCAR is on a roll. Yeah, we're going to get into kind of the audience numbers. I feel like here in a minute. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Oh, without a doubt. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Me and Lindsay, we watched the race. We hung out at live oak all day. We were there all day, then watched the race. Rowdy round, hung out for all of that. It was great. I watched the race. I watched from lap one to the end of the race just with no sound, like we were sitting there at the know, it's kind of cool. Just picking up on, just going off what you're thinking and questions that the bartender might ask because we're the only people in there watching NASCAR. There was another, sure. I'm not sure who he was. There was one guy that was about our age that kept coming over, and he would stand and hang out with us for a few minutes, and then he would go off and then come back, and there was an older gentleman towards the end of the race. Yeah, older gentleman at the in. He came over and hung out and know, it's always a joke. Like, you go into a bar, and a lot of times they don't have the race on, which it's kind of sad. [00:05:58] Speaker A: It is sad. I mean, you got to ask for it every time you got to it. But what else is going on? [00:06:04] Speaker B: You got to know the channel, too. They're like, you know what channel it is? Yep. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Fox. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah, Fox. And they're like, what channel is Fox? And you got to know that probably really low. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Just put it on your local channel, skim through them, and if it's not there, it's fs one. [00:06:18] Speaker B: I don't know when the last time I watched a race was with absolutely no sound from first to the end, but did that, and it's different. Like on the beach last year, I watched or listened to the whole race, no visual, just all on the ears. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:35] Speaker B: It's an interesting way to take in a race, but it's fun. Kept up with everything. I mean, we were literally dead on. The tv was right in front of us. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Hell yeah. I've definitely been there before when I was working toots, watching races on the tvs while I was working the day, and I would tell people, do not change that tv because everybody would ask to change the tv. When you're in toots and you have a NASCAR race on one of the channels, people would just get so pissed. They're like, there's football on. Why are we watching this NASCAR race? Nobody's watching this. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Suck, dude. Sorry. [00:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I just look back at them and be like, actually, I'm a manager here and I'm watching that, so we're going to leave that on. You have the tvs everywhere else focused on that football game. Let me have my one thing. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Speaking of toots, I got Lindsay hooked on toots. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Hell yeah. [00:07:20] Speaker B: She is all about every time we. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Need toots sponsorship at this point. [00:07:24] Speaker B: Toots is so good. It is so not as expensive as every other place there is. Like, it blows that genre of food out of the water anywhere. So shout out to Toots Murphysboro restaurant. [00:07:38] Speaker A: But it's so good. [00:07:39] Speaker B: It's just great. [00:07:40] Speaker A: It's great. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Great food and not crazy expensive. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Great food and fun, man. Yeah, it's awesome. I know the whole shebang. I should just call up one of my old managers down there and be like, hey, we got a podcast sponsor this. Yeah, it'd be a lot of fun. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Razor racing presented by toots. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what we should get? We should get a blank 164 car. And as we get sponsorships, we just add stickers onto that thing. [00:08:00] Speaker B: To what? There's so many great custom makers out there now. We could just get somebody to really make a custom one. [00:08:05] Speaker A: Hell yeah. And we just need to have it with me hanging out the side of one, you hanging out the side of the other, doing like the logo. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Say we can get one made with the actual logo that's on the podcast. On like Spotify, the album artwork for the podcast. [00:08:17] Speaker A: Hell yeah. If anybody is listening, one of our 17 listeners, Randy, if you know anybody, if somebody could just get us a hookup with somebody that can make us a car like that, we'd love you long time. [00:08:28] Speaker B: We did jump up like last week. We went from like eleven to 17. That's pretty good for us. [00:08:33] Speaker A: I know. I kind of have to increase it. It's kind of like watching people try to get on the all time wins list in NASCAR. It's really hard to get to mark. [00:08:42] Speaker B: It is. [00:08:42] Speaker A: So that's what we're working for. [00:08:45] Speaker B: I've told both of you all today already, but, man, last week, I felt like the race wrote the podcast itself. I mean, the race was so good. It was all over even more mainstream media than I even talked about last week. It just ended up being all over the place. And I saw more people that have those big posts or big pages that are like, man, I want to post about NASCAR. I want to get into NASCAR. Stuff like that. So between that and then, I think the podcast was one of our best ones, I believe. And then I had way more people than normal. I normally have a handful of people text me. The people that I know that listen, they text me every week and, like, man, enjoyed it. Listening, whatever. I would even go out and say, triple the amount of people that normally text me about the Atlanta. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Damn, that's awesome. Yeah, that's just wild. [00:09:33] Speaker B: The racing is just kind of the podcast and the interviews and the hype. Nothing is forced right now. It's writing itself. [00:09:44] Speaker A: It very much is. That's the best part about you have the Netflix series come out, which obviously. [00:09:49] Speaker B: And the crocs. The crocs have also interest that people have sent me. I've had 20 people send me those crocs. I'm a croc guy between Netflix and. [00:10:00] Speaker A: Those two things get started. Then you have the biggest race of the year to start the season off. Let's call the quip finish. A little bit weird. Questionable, but it got people talking. It had a lot of interaction on social media, and then people had no. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Idea about what overtime, how that all. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Worked, all that he had collected, the white. So that introduces people to more weird pieces and gets you to learning a little bit. And then you have the best finish of all time pretty much the next week right after it. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Race as a whole. Just incredible. All the way around. [00:10:31] Speaker A: And then you follow that up when we're finally getting back to our bread and butter, the mile and a half track, the thing that everybody kind of dreaded go back, like six, seven years. No one wanted next. Gen three and Gen man, going back. [00:10:46] Speaker B: I have Gen three in my mind because I just bought a Glock nine. Gen three. I was talking about it yesterday. It's like, gen three is like the most recent Gen thing that I've talked about. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah, but, yeah, so you have us go back to our bread and butter like that, to a track that could honestly flop or make people lose a lot of interest because you get out there and you're spread out. You got Kyle Larson who's completely dominant on that track. There's just no beating him there and you put him out there. And honestly, it's so easy to see that turn into Kyle Larson wins the race by 5 seconds and have one of those things that everybody always gets mad at Formula One for. Have one of these wild ass finishes where somebody just dominates the whole day. You didn't have that. You ended up with this huge battle at the end where Reddick was coming on every stage. [00:11:33] Speaker B: There was a lot of coming and going. Yeah, even with, like you talk about Larson. [00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah, even with Larson doing as well as he was, it never felt like the race got away from three, those three right in a row where we could have really seen a drop off in interest. I don't think it's going to do that. I think we're going to keep this momentum flowing and I mean, we're going to Phoenix. Hopefully they've done something that is short track package that can make it look a little bit better. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Maybe they have new stuff coming. This is the first weekend of it. But then hearing guys like Justin Haley and some of those guys that they said last year, is it going to be that different? I don't know and we'll just know. I want it to work so bad. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Oh, you and fix. [00:12:20] Speaker B: If they could fix the short track and the road course thing, the next gen car is a home run. Racing wise, it's great. I'm not the only person that says that the proofs in the pudding, if they can just get that figured out. We are hitting home runs weekly and. [00:12:43] Speaker A: I think that's something that gets talked about a ton is how much change that they're putting into this car. And yeah, it needs a little bit of work in those two areas. It's a little bit of a philosophy problem. I feel like because they want these guys to have the same car, that's kind of NASCAR's goal right now, is to put every single driver in as identical of a car as they can. One that's just impractical to think it's ever going to happen that way. Realistically, what you're ending up doing is you still have your back guys that aren't going to drive as fast still have your front guys. All you're doing is just narrowing the spread of one to 40. And realistically, it sounds like a good idea because they're all going to be racing around each other. But when I am better than you, but only by 0.1% compared to the used to 3% to five to 10%. Sometimes somebody be coming up so much faster than you, you can block them for a couple of corners. If you just happen to pick the right line and they're racing you clean nowadays. Kind of what happened to Reddick there at the end and kind of what happened with Blaney and Chastain to cause all the feud drama that they've been having this week. [00:13:56] Speaker B: It just tailoring from last season. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Exactly. And you just can't expect people to make really crazy moves because you don't have the disparity and you have the ability to fix the problem in the center of the corner due to the shifting issues and other lack of actual power that you can put down in the middle of the corner. All of that being said, we've really set ourselves up to have certain things work out really well. But I think the philosophy of what they're trying to do with this car is a little bit inherently flawed. And I think that there's some work they could do there as well. Open it up, let the manufacturers have their way with this car. Let them do a little bit of different stuff. I understand the idea behind it, but I don't think it's going to implement just because it sounds cool on paper. I don't see it necessarily translating to the track. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, there's a couple of things in that. I think. What's a better way to get manufacturer more involved? Let them have more freedoms and design and whatever that is. Now, I say that I also don't want to have like a 1980s kind of race where there's like four cars on the lead lap. I don't want to have that. But then that is one of the most common questions I get asked once someone kind of starts watching the race or racing in general, is you hear guys like Kyle Bush, Denny Hammond, especially now they're on his podcast. Like, we're in the same car, we're in the same car, we're in the same car. Well, then they go back and they're like, well, if they're on the same, like, why is this guy so far? Like, why is this so far? Have to. It's kind of an interesting thing to explain to someone. They're the same. They are getting all the same parts and pieces and such. But Gibbs, Hendrick, Penske, whatever, they do have those resources and engineers and all the things. So you have to explain that to someone and it's hard for them to. If you put Kyle Larson in that 44 car that JJ Yale they was racing this weekend in New York race, whatever that team's name is, that didn't have a wrap on their car this week, which I could care less about that. But some people have freaking hell out. [00:16:11] Speaker A: They were not. I could care less. [00:16:13] Speaker B: But it's like no matter what, if you put Kyle Larson, whoever, Denny Hammond, the best drivers that are the tip top, best of the sport, if you put them in that car, they are not going to win the race. Yeah, it's the car. You know what mean? [00:16:26] Speaker A: Like very much so. [00:16:28] Speaker B: There are definitely drivers that you can. That driver edge does matter, obviously, but the car is so off. The driver is not going to make that up. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah, very much like they're going to finish somewhere 15th to 35th. But a driver that is a top driver can skew that a little bit and maybe push it to 10th to 30th, but it's not going to overcome the top ten that are just in another stratosphere. [00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Of ability. [00:17:01] Speaker B: And another thing, to your point, I saw that that was the most cars to ever finish on a lead lap. On the lead lap at Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, history goes to prove the point. What, you're sure? And it is true. The field of there's not really back marker like, yes, that 44. Yes. Someone like BJ, like whatever. But dude, Rick ware for the first time ever on a mile and a half track had two cars in the top 20. You know what I mean? So I believe that was told to these guys when the charters came about. We're in it right now. When the first contract, whatever came up, you had to prove that you're making moves to better your car, better your position, whatever. [00:17:53] Speaker A: You don't just get a charter and you can run crap equipment and make. [00:17:56] Speaker B: A ton of money. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:17:57] Speaker B: And that's like the thing. You got to show up every race and you have to prove that you're trying to get better. And I do believe that those guys are doing that. But something that I enjoy listening to on like door bump a clear. They talk about this all the time. Every like five spots in a NASCAR race. Like in the field, if you are a 30th place car, getting that car to 25th takes a ton to get it to 20 to run. Average 25th and then from 25th to 20th. And then they talk about when you get from like 15th to top ten and then top ten to top five. It is insane how much more, whether it be the driver or engineering or whatever. It may be on those cars and talent to get it to that next spot regularly. Yeah, it's almost insane. Obviously, TJ is on there, and they kind of talk about that with RFK. Like they made leaps and bounds in one season. [00:18:55] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's going to take so much more insane. Ability and equipment and time to do what they did already. Do it again. [00:19:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:05] Speaker A: It's going to take even more than it did the first time. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Exactly. And that's one of those things it's, like, hard to explain to a guy. [00:19:14] Speaker A: It's almost, like, used to. Those huge teams would have to manufacture everything about the car. [00:19:21] Speaker B: Every nut and bolt. [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, every nut and bolt. Putting them together, they were able to build the car the way that they wanted it to, within specifications. There's a reason they all looked the same once you actually put them on the track. There was a specification to be met, but how you met that specification was really up to you. And that was a part that was from the front bumper to the rear bumper of the car, everything in between. You had different things that you could do. Nowadays, I almost wonder if it's even harder for these small guys because they're being limited on what they can do to the entirety of the car, and they're limited to only working on how your shocks work, how you set up the car, different ways that you kind of mess with a few things suspension wise, that you're still allowed to play with. Well, now all those engineers and all those people that Hendrick was once using to do the entire car, they can now laser focus on smaller pieces of the car and really dial in to a point that you're eliminating possibilities of finding speed. But those teams still have the same amount of resources to mess with now. Even fewer parts. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Never thought of that. [00:20:35] Speaker A: But I wonder how much those backmarker guys are struggling because they're still having to put every bit of their resources into a smaller number of things. It makes it easier on that front. But now Hendrick. And instead of putting just 1 million in suspension, now we can put. And obviously the numbers are bigger than this. But now that 2 million that we were putting in aerodynamics, that we don't even need to worry about anymore. Let's just focus that on the shocks, too. So now let's really laser down on these different pieces and parts. You're never going to be able to compete with the big teams in just that way. But it's just interesting to see how the changes in the car has changed the way that everybody has to philosophize their building practices. [00:21:15] Speaker B: Totally. And I've always heard this has been a thing that's been said since I was a kid, but it's like how do you go faster in racing? Spend more money. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:23] Speaker B: That's the only way you got to have. The more money you have available to spend, the faster you're going to go. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Look at spire. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah. For example, like everybody's talking all last year about all the people, all the right parts and pieces that they're doing, getting this together. And Corey Lajoy just had his best average running position in a NASCAR race in his like 200 and however many start career, the best average finish, best average running position he's ever had. And then a guy like Carson, host of our dude, he is impressing the. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Shit out of me. Yeah. He has gone from one of our most vehement hack of the weeks. [00:22:02] Speaker B: The OG. Right? The very first. [00:22:04] Speaker A: Yeah, the very first one. And I think he almost got it multiple times and we have now, like, I agree he has completely overstepped his abilities and crazy shown what he actually can do. [00:22:16] Speaker B: I almost just like texted you during the race, is he like this just like ungodly talent? Is he really? I don't know if he is, but dude, coming out he had more top. Okay, something like more top tens in a legacy car in his little stint there was like half a year last year than the other two full time guys. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:39] Speaker B: And then comes out and then, I mean, yesterday ran incredible. Yeah, I'm used to Monday, Sunday ran great. I mean, top 15 in a cup car. In Aspire cup car. That's tough. [00:22:49] Speaker A: As a new guy at a team that's still building, they've obviously thrown a lot of money at it. But I agree he is impressing. I don't know enough about him. [00:23:00] Speaker B: I'm just going off what I've seen. [00:23:02] Speaker A: Totally get you. [00:23:02] Speaker B: I'm just like, wow, what is this? [00:23:04] Speaker A: I'm always the one that's slow to jump on to wagons like that. I'm not even going to call it a bandwagon. I don't think you're a Carson host for Bandwagon guy, but I agree with what you're saying. He has improved his ability to finish races because he doesn't do as much stupid stuff. And the thing is, when he does finish races, he finishes really well. But yeah, there's a lot to watch there. He's definitely somebody to keep an eye out for going forward. I could definitely see plenty of top tens, maybe a couple of top fives in his future. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Totally. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Just at the beginning half of this year. [00:23:34] Speaker B: Totally. So, to get back on Las Vegas, we always like bringing up the Jeff Gluck poll. It's a good range. Was Las Vegas a good race? 77.8%. Yes. Number six of Las Vegas races out of 15 that have been polled. [00:23:52] Speaker A: Damn, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's solid good. Right down the middle. Las Vegas race, nothing. [00:23:58] Speaker B: 2022 spring race, got 90%. So it's in the 90% club. So that was this race two years. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Ago when Bubba Wallace attempted murder. [00:24:07] Speaker B: No, that was not. It. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Was that 2021. [00:24:11] Speaker B: I think it was 2020. No, it was in the next gen. It was a fall race. It was in the playoffs. And the worst race. Now, listen to this. We're talking about a couple of years ago before the next gen. The worst race, 2021 fall, was a 23.4%. Yes. So that's the jump. [00:24:31] Speaker A: That was when mile and a half were bad. They were terrible. Terrible. [00:24:38] Speaker B: We talked about it last year. We said this last year, but we're going to say it more this year as we're getting into the season. They have fixed mile and a half. We talked about how awesome Kansas and the Coke 600 and those races were last year. I mean, I'm pretty sure the title for one of our podcasts was this the best race ever. Yeah. Talking about Kansas last year, and. [00:25:00] Speaker A: I. [00:25:00] Speaker B: Don'T know what it is. I do not know what it is, what on the car, what makes it do it. But the mile and a half have turned into how people got excited about short tracks in the next gen car or in the old car. People are, like, pumped for mile and a half races now. Yeah. [00:25:15] Speaker A: It's like we're chasing our damn tail. I don't know a single time outside of, like, four seven where the car was great on every track you put it on. And it just seems like since then. I know. I think I've said this before, maybe even on this podcast, I've said this before, but it always seems like there's one style of racing, and right now, we kind of got one and a half styles of racing that are kind of broken, that just struggles with any version of a cup car. And right now, mile and a half went from being, like you said, the worst covenant racing to 20 percenters. [00:25:48] Speaker B: That's a huge jump to have multiple to go from to being from 75 to 90 percenters to when they used to be 20 percenters. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So now we just got to work on, like you said, the short track package and the road course package. I really think with the road courses, they just need to put 1000 pound weights in the car. I think the car just needs to be 1000 pounds heavier. Hell yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be a great way to do it. Give them all the power, but make the car 1000 pounds heavier. [00:26:12] Speaker B: I'll never forget when Matt Weaver, one of the best riders to follow on Twitter. If you don't follow him, he posted last, not last year, before the next gen came out. He was like, the coolest thing in the world is watching a car that wasn't made for road course racing race at a road course. And he was like, I have a feeling since this car was made to run, kind of has a sports car feel made to run at a road course that it'll take away that badassery of a big, fat, heavy stock car running around a road course. And he said that before anyone even saw a next gen car touch a road course. And that is the most dead on thing ever. [00:26:51] Speaker A: That couldn't be more true. [00:26:53] Speaker B: He nailed it. And then, I don't know. Obviously, we do know the short track thing with the shifting and the no like, and then boom. That immediately translated into short track racing as well. So it's just one of those things. I really do think they're in a spot. Like, I don't know how much I believe Steve Phelps when he says, like, we're willing to do whatever. I take that with a grain of salt because I don't think he is. But when you have guys, like I talked about, it might have been this year, I believe because this statement was out, David Wilson, Dave Wilson, the headman at Toyota, and he's like, we will literally do anything. Yeah, we will literally put a thousand horsepower are in these cars. We don't care. We would do whatever it takes. Like, you just let us do it kind of goes back to what you were saying about letting the manufacturers kind of get more involved or whatever. I think that's a great way. And they already put a ton of money into it, but let them have that creativity. I don't know what all they can do, but something. I'm 100% with you. [00:27:48] Speaker A: I just don't know where the roadblock is. Obviously everybody's on board. You got Denny saying the owners are on board. You got Dave Wilson with Toyota saying everybody's on board. You got Steve Phelps who says he's on board. Says he's on board. Okay, so if everybody's on board to figure this the hell out, then why is the last time I heard about a test for a short track. Was that in the been phoenix of all mean? Yeah, if you want to make your championship race better, absolutely. I totally see why you're doing that. But maybe go to somewhere close by Charlote. Just tell the teams, like, design a damn test car. Do whatever the hell you want to it all things are considered. Go ahead and just throw the entire plate of spaghetti at the wall. Why are we wasting our time? Okay, we'll give you two different times you can test in the offseason. Hope to God we figure it out because we got the whole rest of the season. We got a long season. We could fix this. In the meantime, we don't have to wait until the middle of the week. Whenever things are going on. Hell, even grab these xfinity guys that come up and race cup races, have them run the damn car around the track and try it out. [00:28:54] Speaker B: I'm with you, dude. You're not the only person that has this thought. Like, I see that thought on Twitter. And not even just from fans. I've seen that from mechanics and not owners, but mechanics and people I follow on Twitter that say that exact same thing I saw. Was it. Who was it? Somebody was like, maybe it was Jamie McMurray somebody. But it's like, even for the all star race, the all star race has proven to be that race where they kind of just let a new idea or whatever it just. It might have been Justin Marks. Somebody was like, let's just give him a thousand horsepower at Charlote and let's see what run the race. He's like, I'll put my name on the line. He's like, if it's terrible, you all say Justin Marks is an idiot, but at least I went down trying. [00:29:35] Speaker A: Exactly. I mean, how many fans have to ask for a thousand horsepower back before we finally just. If you're right, NASCAR, if you are right and a thousand horsepower isn't going to fix this problem, prove it to us. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:29:49] Speaker A: And shut us the hell they. [00:29:51] Speaker B: That's what everybody says. [00:29:52] Speaker A: I mean, God dang, that's as simple as that. If we're wrong, show us that we're idiots. Hold us up to the mirror and tell you this is why we're not doing this. Now can we please shut the hell up about this and move on to the next thing? [00:30:04] Speaker B: 1000%, dude. [00:30:05] Speaker A: And obviously, you can't judge everything off of one race, so give it to us for three or four races. Let's call it a day. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Totally. And why do they go to Phoenix? This is the thing that Denny Hamlin loves to bring up and I agree with him so much. He was like we talk and talk and talk about saving teams money but we go to Phoenix to test and we go to LA to start the race that only pays 25% of what we get paid at a normal race. In a race that doesn't pay any points. Yeah. That's his biggest thing of like make that make sense. Yeah. All that money, all that gas, all that hotel. Let's take that money that we're already going to have to spend and put it into the car. Like the new research, new development, whatever. Put it in that. And I could not agree more with what he says. And he's an owner, he's got the books sit on his desk every Monday. You know what mean? So like he knows what the dollars and cents and like the other day it was Dale Jr. And Ray Everham on their podcast and that was kind of what they were talking about. It's like we don't have the books for all these teams and what to say this should cost or what they should do here. So our opinions are just what we think. When Denny Hamlin says it, you have to believe him because he runs the team, he has the books. He knows what the dollars are to do all of this. Yeah. The owners are such in a tight group and on the same page I'd be willing to bet 99% of them all think that same thing. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Probably. And the more that we hear from each individual one of them be it on their own podcast. On Junior's podcast. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Had a lot of good stuff to say too about the just so there's. [00:31:52] Speaker A: So much easy ways for information to get out nowadays. So we're in the best possible spot to see major change happen because there's no more hiding it if you're trying to block it. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:04] Speaker A: And if you're trying to block it, someone's going to come out and tell us that you're blocking it. [00:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:09] Speaker A: So balls in the court. Let's see what happens. I want to see it. I want to see a thousand horsepower again. I just want to hear it. [00:32:16] Speaker B: Honestly. [00:32:17] Speaker A: I want to know what this car would sound like with a thousand horsepower coming out. [00:32:20] Speaker B: Totally. So one thing I wanted to bring up insane stat here. Chevrolet has won eight out of the nine first three races. Never has happened before. [00:32:34] Speaker A: What in the unbelievable Chevrolet is just coming out and whooping some ass right. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Now and do you think we talked about on this podcast and they've swept the cup series but we talked about before the season know, Toyota and Ford had these awesome looking new cars. And week I, me personally, I kind of had the thought that Chevrolet might get left in the dust if these cars they're building to be better. Like Denny Hamlin's exact words were, you don't build a new car to be. Would just almost had a thought. I was like, dude, Chevrolet, they might just blow their doors off. I even posted on Twitter. I was like, that Ford. I love how that Ford looks. And he was like. I posted, I was like, ford's going to win every race. They're going to run like dog shit. I don't know which one's going to happen yet, but it looks so incredible. I was like, something's going to happen. [00:33:27] Speaker A: It looks great. [00:33:28] Speaker B: And then I saw another thing that didn't even cross my mind. And I think Denny might have talked about this on his podcast, but other people talked. It's like Chevrolet still has all their old notes and they're just going off of what they've been doing. They know how to work on that car. They know the specs, aerodynamics, everything about that car. And all these guys are learning new stuff. I guess I was just, like, overconfident. They were going to come out and just had it perfected almost, if that makes sense. That's just being like the rough speed. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Of the car itself was going to propel because that's how it used to be. Even go back to 2018, 2019, you'd have teams that would make major changes and they would just show up next year having run like third or fourth best the year before, and they'll just suddenly WHOOP some ass for a couple of weeks because they just have all this stuff that they've just added to the car and it was like they added so much speed to it. But I think we're getting back again to the restrictions on what you're allowed to do with this car. I think they did change up a lot, and it's probably, in the long run, going to benefit them a lot more than it is, right? Mean, they can only do so much to the car. So probably even these changes are. It feels almost more cosmetic than anything because I really feel like the first three races of the year, Fords are fast at plate tracks. Chevy are really good at this mile and a half track. They're very balanced out all the way around, same as last year. Toyota at the plate tracks qualified poorly, raced well. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Somebody said about Toyota is just a good mix of the two. Ford so fast at plate tracks and Chevy does good everywhere. Not everywhere else, but Chevy is just kind of all around, whatever. And then I've heard people say, like, toyota always had that perfect combination of both of those, however that may be. And no matter. I mean, Chevy's not going to win every race. Denny Hamlin's going to come out with his three or four wins, Toyota is going to get wins, and that'll all happen. And then, as we know, Ford has won every championship with the next gen, and then last year won all three. So it's not like they're not just going to run away with it. But I just wanted to bring that up, like coming out and nothing changed with the. To my knowledge, nothing changed in trucks and xfinity, but still, just like having three Chevys. The only car that's won was John Hunter and a Toyota of any race this year. It's crazy. [00:35:48] Speaker A: And the only weird skewing you can even give Chevy is that in xfinity, almost every other car is a Chevy. So they definitely had the ods there. But to still make it happen, I mean, it's the only series that doesn't have a complete Chevy win the entire way through as well with the Toyota winning last week. So at the end of the day, Chevy is just coming out and knocking doors off and having great start to the year, and it'll balance out as the time goes, but really strong showing. Anybody driving with a bow tie in the front right now should be walking a little taller. [00:36:20] Speaker B: I would even go out and say, you make a great point there with the Xfinity series. You can see it from the naked eye. But then to have Dell Jr. Comment on it on Twitter in some of his interviews, dude, JRM is not it right now. [00:36:33] Speaker A: They don't have speed. [00:36:34] Speaker B: The cars are not. We're used to those cars all being up front. And I don't know if drivers whatever, but they don't have the speed in those cars right now. Three races into the season. Yeah, and they're Chevrolets. I think RCR is running circles around Dell Jr. In the Xfinity series right now, without a doubt. And it just is what it know. So even with Chevrolet kicking ass, you got the biggest name in racing, and his team is not. [00:37:02] Speaker A: It just goes to prove to you that owning a team is just. It's not just going to run itself. You got to be there. You got to be present. You got to be paying attention. I'm not saying that he isn't, but I'm just saying, look at this guy who is whose entire life is NAScar, and even he struggles to have these teams. It's competitive. [00:37:20] Speaker B: It is. [00:37:20] Speaker A: It's tough. And that's a good point. You bring up that he's not running that great because I hadn't even really thought about it that way. Yeah, I know last year was mostly self inflicted with them wrecking each other all the time, but I don't know. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Even last year they talked about it. He came out and saw my Josh Berry and he was like, one of my biggest regrets is, like, I didn't give him the car that he needed. And then the year before that, dude, Noah Graxon had, like, ten wins that season. That would be 2022. Like, ten wins. Barry had two or three at least. Barry won in those cars before he was a full time driver. Like 2022 and previous. It ain't the same. Something's different. I don't know what it is. [00:38:01] Speaker A: Something is different. Something has definitely changed in there. Like loss or mojo or. [00:38:04] Speaker B: They all have different drivers except Algar, Algier and Algae freaking. He wins multiple races a year, too, in that 2022 season. Dude, I bet they had quite a few just by the guys that they had in the car. Yeah. So I don't know. Just interesting point about Dell Jr. Man. Yeah. [00:38:25] Speaker A: He's got it going on until he doesn't, and this has been definitely a tough one for him. [00:38:30] Speaker B: So what was your overall thought, like, Las Vegas on the race? Did you enjoy you? Was it a good race? Cup race? [00:38:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was a good race. I genuinely thought it was a good race. You had your favorite to win. You had Larson runs a perfect race, but it never felt like he didn't have someone competing. [00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, he never ran away with it. Yeah. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Always somebody coming back up, whether it was him battling with Kyle Bush for those laps, having ruddock that was constantly coming up there and chasing him down. It was really cool to see how that all kind of shook out towards the end and it gave you something to kind of watch for and pay attention. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Kind of. What was kind of cool is Kyle Larson was the favorite, but you had Kyle Larson, you had Kyle Bush, you had Tyler Reddick, and you had William Byron, who led some at the beginning. Okay, Byron has the big trash can, messes up his nose. Ended up having a beer can, pours. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Along in the hair filter. [00:39:29] Speaker B: You have the eight car slots through his pit box, the 45. Like I said, I didn't even catch you earlier. I was like, I didn't even catch the 45. Having the pit trouble. I did not know what happened having. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Us one slow stop, and then one time where he was up against the wall too close. One that was on him, one that. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Was on the crew. So you had all of those guys. You had four cars, I think could have won that race. Three of them had problems. And the one that didn't won. Yeah, that feels very old school to me. [00:39:53] Speaker A: There's execution. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:55] Speaker A: All the way around. And, I mean, just being talented as shit. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:58] Speaker A: That also helps it out. [00:39:58] Speaker B: That helps. Having Kyle Larson behind the wheel always helps out. [00:40:03] Speaker A: Without a doubt. [00:40:03] Speaker B: That gives you a little mean. [00:40:05] Speaker A: They're just. They're locked in. Right. They. It doesn't matter what week you're showing up. Him and Cliff Daniels. [00:40:11] Speaker B: Cliff Daniels is the man. [00:40:12] Speaker A: They all take it so seriously. I mean, it's just like the difference between different teams, but they obviously take it so serious. They're there to win every week. Their expectation every single time they show up is, we're going to win this race. And if it doesn't happen, that's a disappointing result. I mean, they're shooting top five or higher. [00:40:30] Speaker B: And one of my favorite points was, we've talked about on this podcast. I know when first time I listened to dirty Mo Media, he was talking about betting, and he was like a guy like Kyle Larson, Denny Hammond, those guys that are going to run up front all the time, he was like, always bet them top fives, because if they have top ten cars, they have a better chance of getting all they can to get the top five, or something will happen to where they don't get the top ten. He's like, if they have a top ten car, you have that little small group of guys that they got a better chance of running top five than top ten. Because whether it be pit road or them driving the hell out of it, something happens or whatever, mistake. Could be anything. They have a better chance of finishing top five. And to be in that group of drivers, I mean, what a compliment. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Yeah, extremely. [00:41:12] Speaker B: To be those know. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Rounding out the top five, Ty Gibbs ended up having a really good day. [00:41:18] Speaker B: He did. I saw some people picked him to win. That was kind of like his first. Like, this might be Ty Gibbs first race win. Yeah, he kind of had high hopes before the race even started. [00:41:30] Speaker A: I feel like he's getting close. [00:41:31] Speaker B: He's knocking on the door, dude. [00:41:32] Speaker A: He's knocking on the door for sure. But if you weren't the five, the 45 or the eight, I really didn't see you winning this race or the 24. [00:41:40] Speaker B: The 24 had winning. [00:41:42] Speaker A: He led some enough. [00:41:44] Speaker B: He led some at the beginning. [00:41:45] Speaker A: He did eight person pass. [00:41:48] Speaker B: I loved it. I told you about it earlier today. [00:41:50] Speaker A: I thought that one of the coolest moves I've seen, watching the replays of it, it looked like he was on, like whenever we used to play NASCAR heat and we'd take a pit stop when everybody's like a lap down and you start 10th or 11th, you got fresh, but you got fresh tires, and you could just zip around the field. It's exactly what it looked like. It was so much fun to watch. [00:42:08] Speaker B: And I told you earlier today, when I was sitting there watching on tv, I can't Hear AnYthing. I was LIKE, oh, Reddit just Hit the wall. And then he did the mean. He was mean. He was this close to hitting the wall. But the way Byron drove downhill, the angle he took, everything about it was just perfect. He had so much momentum. And that was a group of four cars. I think that was, he was in, like, 6th. I want to say, like, the 45 was in fifth ISh, somewhere in there. And then he took four cars, and I think he went from eigth or 9th to first by the FiniSH line. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yeah, one laP. [00:42:38] Speaker B: When you see it happen, even like, when he's doing that on the n car camera, you are like, those cars will cross that finish line before he does. If that was the last lap, he won the race. I MEAN, it was one lap. He crossed the finish line in first. That laP, it was insane how fast he Just, EVERYThing ABout it. Just the stars ALIGned for him to just come off that spot there in the dog LEG that las vegas doesn't have. But you know what I mean, in. [00:43:07] Speaker A: The Dioval trioval, I guess, is a technical trioval. Yeah, it was really neat to watch. I agree with you. I mean, it's William Byron. It's the 24 car right now. You put them on any track, they kind of had the same goals as the five. You were going to bring up something. [00:43:21] Speaker B: I was just about. [00:43:23] Speaker A: Because the five and the 24 are out of the same building. [00:43:26] Speaker B: Correct. I'm not sure. [00:43:28] Speaker A: I'm thinking that They, I know back. [00:43:29] Speaker B: In the day, they Used to be split. It was like this car and this CAr Were Here, this car and this CAr. [00:43:34] Speaker A: And I think it's still the SaME Way. [00:43:36] Speaker B: I just DOn't know whiCh. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Those that don't know, if you go to Hendrick motorsports in Charlote and actually visit the facility, most of the teams have one giant building where all of their cars, be it the two cars they have or the four cars they have, they all work on them pretty much in the same location. They're all built out of the same shop. Hendrix is a little different in that they have two buildings that are right next to each other, but they are two separate buildings for each building to have two teams located in it. So I don't know which exact teams are mixed up there. [00:44:11] Speaker B: I'm not sure. But you have the 24 and the five who are right now, those any given Sunday kind of guys. And then the 48 and the nine are not running good at all. I'm pretty sure. If you could check for me here. I'm pretty sure the 48 car finished like 18th or 19th. I know you have the pulled up on your computer there. [00:44:33] Speaker A: Which ones? [00:44:34] Speaker B: The 48, I'm pretty sure finished like 18th or 19th. Correct me if I'm wrong there. And then if you could tell me where. Tell me where. Chase finished outside the top ten. [00:44:42] Speaker A: Chase ended up finishing in twelveth. [00:44:44] Speaker B: Outside the top. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Starting in 11th and finished in twelveth. Bowman started in 23rd and ended 18th. [00:44:51] Speaker B: They're not running good. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:53] Speaker B: They're coming off of missing time in this car, just from what I've been told from, like, Dell Jr. And guys like Jane McMurray, Kevin Harvick, guys who retire. You miss one race, you are missing seat time in this next gen car. And both of those guys came off last year missing multiple, multiple races. [00:45:09] Speaker A: That's a really good point. And I think Denny even said it. It's like, was Bowman hurt to a point where he didn't feel. He didn't feel great and he couldn't feel all the inputs that you would normally feel because he's worried about his back. [00:45:22] Speaker B: So on top of that, missing races and then driving. Yeah. So they've missed all these guys that have started every single next gen car. They're a half a year behind. [00:45:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's true. [00:45:37] Speaker B: They're like a half a year behind. [00:45:38] Speaker A: On experience and you're just now. And also, you're a little rusty because the offseason just ended, and this is your first downforce track where you really have to handle the car, and it's all about the runs that you make and not how you fit into the draft. It is a completely different style of racing. I could totally see them struggling for a little bit. I don't think that Chase stays down there. I don't think that Bowman stays that low. I don't think Bowman is as much of a driver as Chase, necessarily. I haven't seen that from him yet. Chase obviously has the win total to back that up. [00:46:11] Speaker B: And the championship. [00:46:12] Speaker A: And the championship. I see Elliot pulling himself back into the top ten conversation at some point. I'm not going to say he's going to have an immediate turnaround and all of a sudden blow our socks off with the way his season goes, but I see them both improving. But I completely agree with you, they are lagging behind right now. [00:46:30] Speaker B: You want to hear a stat that I got? That's insane. [00:46:32] Speaker A: I love stats. [00:46:33] Speaker B: Chase Elliott has never finished top five at a mile and a half track. That's not Atlanta in the next gen car. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Damn, that's mind blowing. You know, I think you might have told me that before, but how many mile and a half has he really had a lot ton of success on? [00:46:51] Speaker B: I don't think he's won at know, but a lot of his wins came at road courses and like Dover and other tracks like that. Something to. I just want to pull this up. So they posted the top ten. Just kind of. We're talking about like wins and stuff here. Let me try to pull this up. Sorry, it's going to take me 1 second. It's a win total thing with like current drivers right here. Active list. I'm going to read this because there's only ten active full time NASCAR Cup Series driver win list. This is guys that are in the series right now. Kyle Bush 63. Denny Hamlin 51. Big jump here. Brad Kesalowski 35. [00:47:34] Speaker A: That's wild. [00:47:35] Speaker B: Martin Trex Jr. 34. Logano 32. Logano hasn't been racing anywhere near as long as any of those other guys that we just talked about. Yeah, no. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Is a generational kind of guy. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Joey gone. I think we've talked about on here before. I've heard people say it. He's going to be a 50 to 60 win driver easily. He has like 15 more years of quality in his prime racing to go. I just see it happening for Joey. [00:48:03] Speaker A: He's freshly unbalded. He's like got years back because of that. [00:48:07] Speaker B: This is the one right here. We're going to compare. There's two things here that blow me away. You're going to have 300 guys in a row. Kyle Larson 24. Chase Elliot 18. They started racing at the same time and Kyle Larson was in the 42 car for all of that except the last three seasons, he's got was that six more wins. William Byron eleven has one more win than Ryan Blaney. Just thinking of that in my mind, I would not have thought that. [00:48:36] Speaker A: No, I wouldn't have thought that either. But it makes total sense. Now that I think about it, just because of the last two years, your entire mindset about the dude has to completely change based off of how last year went. [00:48:44] Speaker B: But six of those wins came last seven if you count last year and this year. And then I think about, know, Blaney had the all star race or whatever it was at like, so he does have some wins that register in your mind don't count towards. These are just points paying wins by the like, that doesn't count. Like, Larson's three all star races, he's one. This is just points paying wins. And then Alex Bowman has seven. That's props to Alex Bowman. I don't think about him having seven wins in my mind. [00:49:13] Speaker A: No, you know what I mean? [00:49:14] Speaker B: So I can see guys like a chase Elliot I think you would have. In my mind, it's like he has. [00:49:18] Speaker A: More than 1818 feels right for him. Right. Everybody else, I completely agree with you. I don't think of William Byron as being higher up than Orion Blaney in terms of how I feel about their ability. But whenever I actually look at the stat sheet, I feel like you got to pull that preconceived notion out and put yourself back in the shoes of like. But for real, who has the better chance of winning each week? And right now, William Byron definitely has a better chance of winning than a Chase Elliott, an Alex Bowman and Ryan Blaney. [00:49:49] Speaker B: You put them in order from HMS, you got the five and the 24. Who I'm not going to give either one the advantage. They're freaking both winning races right now. They both are. And the advantage, even in the last 18 months, you could probably give it the 24 car. [00:50:04] Speaker A: Oh, easily. [00:50:05] Speaker B: I mean, if you had asked me. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Last year, at the beginning of the year, I would have said Alex Bowman all the way, dude. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Alex Bowman. What? People forget Alex Bowman. Whenever he didn't get hurt early in the year, it was like on into the season, like halfway through, he was leading the points by a thick margin. Yeah. And then it just ain't been the same since. [00:50:22] Speaker A: Which it's big. There's a reason these guys get limited on what they're allowed to do off the track, and it's because big injuries like that can seriously affect your ability to drive a race car. It's just like football. It's just like basketball. Injuries matter in this sport. [00:50:37] Speaker B: It's crazy, man. And so that's mind blowing. He was leading the points by a big margin before he got hurt last year. It's hard to even think about, but the 48 was killing it. They were finishing top ten every week. It seemed like last year until he got hurt, but then, so, like, we're in the last 18 months, you probably give the edge to Byron being the number one Hendrix guy, Larson being a close second and then chase third, maybe. I don't know. [00:51:08] Speaker A: I don't even know if I would say that I have a favorite between Byron and they're. I think honestly, you give Larson a couple different things, luck wise, and he would be head and shoulders above what Byron's doing. Byron is consistently winning the races. Larson is consistently who you think is going to win the race. [00:51:29] Speaker B: You know what a Larson big problem Larson is. [00:51:31] Speaker A: He's got a finish. [00:51:33] Speaker B: He has a lot of dnfs. [00:51:34] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got a, most of these. [00:51:36] Speaker B: Drivers, historically, a guy like Denny, Kyle Bush, Brad Kezelowski, all these guys. Kevin Harvick was a great one. Like, he only had like one last place finish in his whole entire fucking 20 year career. You can't say the same about Kyle Larson. He is a big splash, or he's going to overdrive it, overstep it, and he. [00:51:59] Speaker A: You'll have more fun watching Larson win than you'll ever have watching Byron win, because Byron will just. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Byron's going to finish more races, though. That's what I was getting at. [00:52:07] Speaker A: It's kind of like walking into your Christmas tree and there's like five presents of identical size. That's a Byron win. You walk in and there's like a couple little small things in your stocking, but there's one giant box that's the size of the entire tree. That's Larson winning. Yeah, it's like he's going to have those little tiny things that you don't really give a shit about. And then all of a sudden there's like this big grand one. It's like, holy shit. [00:52:30] Speaker B: That's even been a more drastic thing in the next gen car with Larson. Larson has always had somewhat of a problem, but it's been more under a microscope because it's happened more often in this next gen era. [00:52:45] Speaker A: It's a harder car to drive. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Well, when you overstep, like, they talk about the sidewall, those tires, you just overstep, and then it's like, out from under you. [00:52:52] Speaker A: Yep. It's so easy just watching them go around Atlanta and how hard they were having to fight those cars. I mean, even almost, it was almost like Harvick was relieved he wasn't racing. And I never thought I'd hear that emotion out of Kevin Harvick. But it was like he was so glad he wasn't having to do that again because it was so difficult, so nerve wracking and so dangerous and on the edge the entire time. [00:53:14] Speaker B: Where did Byron finish? Did he finish 10th? [00:53:17] Speaker A: No, he finished way down there, I think. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:53:20] Speaker A: No, you're right. 10th. I could have sworn that, but I could have sworn he was lapsed down. [00:53:23] Speaker B: So here we go. Here we go. You have a disaster of a race. [00:53:28] Speaker A: And he comes still finish and get a top ten. [00:53:30] Speaker B: That's exactly what a Kevin Harvick would do. Yes. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Closer stuff. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So all that to say that last ten minute section there, props to William Byron and what they got going on. And it's so cool that Rudy came in and then this is when it's all changed. Yeah. Not saying I know. [00:53:47] Speaker A: Rudy Bugle is one of my favorite crew chiefs of all time. [00:53:50] Speaker B: Same. And he was with him in like trucks and xfinity or something. Trucks, I think, when he raced for Kyle Bush, I believe. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Yep. He spent a ton of time down there in the truck. [00:53:58] Speaker B: It's been so cool to see him come down or come up. He's kicked ass. You have a lot of factors going to this. Yes. William Byr, more experienced. Yes. More mature, all the things. But then there is something about it all clicked when Rudy comes in. And Rudy, since being a crew chief, which has only been since next gen, is this his third season? [00:54:20] Speaker A: I couldn't tell you. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Me neither. But it's been a lot of highs. [00:54:23] Speaker A: It had a lot of highs. I mean, that's what they were doing with him down in KBM. Whenever they were having the trucks that he would go in, he would be the guy that they would put with the new people. Like anybody that was having a first race or anybody that was kind of stepping down into the trucks for the first time in a while, he was the crew chief, and he was always having to basically be the voice of experience on the box. So to pair him up with someone young that is up and coming like a William Byron, I think, is a great decision. He has always been proven to put. [00:54:53] Speaker B: It on that like it's perfect. Something else I wanted to bring up. And he ran up front in the top ten, top 15 all day long. Noah Graxon. [00:55:03] Speaker A: I loved it. Shout out to Shr and their name or their roof rails. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Big fine. [00:55:08] Speaker A: I don't know what the heck they're doing over there, but they are obviously down to try anything at this point. They're getting caught cheating. They're running up front, finally with an exciting driver. I want Noah Grax to do well. I want him to do well. [00:55:22] Speaker B: He's exciting. He does crazy shit. [00:55:24] Speaker A: He punches the crap out of Sam Mayer and Ty Gibbs every now and then. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Gets in a fight with Ralph Chastain. Gets punched. [00:55:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, takes a punch, too. So you got to give it to. [00:55:34] Speaker B: He can take it. [00:55:35] Speaker A: I love that. I just love it. He's a polarizing figure. He's going to either piss you off, you're going to love him, you're going to hate him. He's going to do stupid stuff. He's probably going to drink more beer than he should. And we need more of that in NASCAR. I love everything about it. I want that ten car to do well. Let's go, Noah Graxon. [00:55:54] Speaker B: So there was things, though, about Shr that I'm still confused on, like, with this race, literally, specifically first mile and half of the race. So I got a stat here. All three of their drivers finished in the top 15 in the. No, wait, this is. They were running top 15 in the final stage. Briscoe was fifth. Graxon was 11th. Barry was 13th. [00:56:19] Speaker A: It just didn't end like that. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Exactly. So Briscoe qualified well, and he had shape. He would come up and run good, but then he would fall back down. It was like, literally, the day was like this. Like, just certain things worked and they didn't work. And then I'm pretty sure all the other three ended up finishing in the 20s. [00:56:35] Speaker A: Everybody's right around each other. Briscoe finished. Sorry. Josh Berry finished 20th. Chase Briscoe 21st. Ryan Priest, 23rd. Okay, so they're all right there in. [00:56:45] Speaker B: The top of each other. When I was watching the race, I mean, like, multiple times looked up, dude. Josh Berry was running 32nd. [00:56:53] Speaker A: Yeah, he was struggling. It was at a place where he's run really well in xfinity. [00:56:59] Speaker B: Multiple xfinity wins and has a top. Was it top ten or top five in that nine car at his first race in Vegas when he came in for. It was this race last year, which you're talking about stepping into a Hendrick car from SHR car. I know. That's completely different, and that's totally fine. I am just saying, like, there's a big portion. That race where Josh Barry was running freaking 20 eigth to 32nd, and that is just not it. [00:57:24] Speaker A: I don't get it. I know that they've been struggling. I know we've talked a lot of shit on them lately. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Spire outran them the whole entire race. [00:57:33] Speaker A: Other than Graxon, I think Spire is getting the cash inflow. That's just making that possible. [00:57:39] Speaker B: You are very correct. I just wanted to point it out. Like, if you said that three years. [00:57:42] Speaker A: Ago, people laughed at you to your idiot. [00:57:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:46] Speaker A: No, it's just strange. I don't even know what more. We have talked so much trash about them. I don't feel like it's even right to keep doing it. We're just kicking a horse is. It's amazing to me that one car, it's kind of like Pinsky at the end of last year, where Blaney was running up front all the time and the other two guys couldn't figure it out. It's like that's going on, but they've all been running so poorly. What did the ten figure out? Was it the hometown effect for Noah? Was it something that that crew chief or engineer or someone on that team figured out that they didn't share around the garage? I don't know. It's just wild to see the disparity of one team doing so much better than everybody. [00:58:33] Speaker B: I agree. And then you had the 41 was in a backup car because he had a brutal driver's side hit during qualifying. I don't know if you got a chance to see. I didn't, but I didn't literally just unloaded in the center of the corner, backed it in driver's side and it destroyed the driver's side of the car. Ripped the tire off and everything. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Speaking of tires getting ripped off, old. [00:58:51] Speaker B: Bush 17, hard hit. Really hard hit. Yeah. [00:58:54] Speaker A: Rip that section of the safer barrier. It is no longer safer. It is barely a barrier. [00:58:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a hard hit. [00:59:03] Speaker A: First victim of the tire fall off this year. [00:59:05] Speaker B: I was confused when it first came off, because even when they showed it right when it happened, you missed the lug nut because it was the smaller thing, but the inside of the wheel was gone. And I thought like, yeah. I didn't really know what the thing. I actually screenshot it, sent it down. Like, what in the hell would. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Cause this was a brake rotor. Just machine basically lathing out the wheel and just slicing it. [00:59:24] Speaker B: So what it looked like on the thing. They had that little b thing that comes up that kind of locks that on. So it was never actually all the way locked. And he drove for a while with that wheel kind of moving around. [00:59:35] Speaker A: I feel like the brake rotor can opened it. [00:59:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's what happened. So it split that thing in half. But it was because it was just over time, just probably, and I'm sure he felt that. But know what? It was or probably didn't feel like a tire going flat or anything. [00:59:51] Speaker A: Who knows how fast that happens. Yeah, but, yeah, that was sad to see. So we got a couple early vacations this year for their Jack man, their. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Crew chief and the tire changer. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Is it all three? I thought it was just the Jack man. [01:00:03] Speaker B: And it's two pit crew guys and the crew chief, I believe. [01:00:09] Speaker A: Well, RfK man, I know y'all figured. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Out Nikki T. How are we doing on time over there? Budy? 1 hour. [01:00:16] Speaker A: Just in an hour. Look at that. [01:00:19] Speaker B: I feel like now I can kind of fill it when we're getting to that. [01:00:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we're getting. Well, let's, let's think on this. Do we have bump up hack of the week? [01:00:30] Speaker B: Dude, I haven't been doing good with hack of the man. Like you've had them. [01:00:34] Speaker A: Honestly, this is a tough one. Almost every car other than every car other than Busher finished this race. Every single one. It was only the one DNF, really. Everybody else was running. So this is a hard one to even say that. There is a true hack of the watch. [01:00:50] Speaker B: I watched all three races. [01:00:52] Speaker A: Can you think of any person that screwed up? [01:00:55] Speaker B: I don't know, but I just remember this. I want to give Raja a shout out. I thought it was great that he won the truck race and all the way around. The dude is so well spoken. He just is such a humble, well spoken young guy. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Good to hear. I haven't seen any of his interviews yet. [01:01:12] Speaker B: He was on door, bumper clear. [01:01:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I need to listen to that. I would love to listen to that. [01:01:17] Speaker B: Young guys, we have the joke called Wreckham Raja. [01:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah, after the Daytona, Daytona race. [01:01:24] Speaker B: So it's just like, he just seems like a very level headed, knows what he's doing, what he wants, like that kind of guy. Shout out to him. I was still thinking about hack of the week, but while I was thinking about hack of the week, I wanted to give him his flowers there. [01:01:39] Speaker A: No, that's a great note. I don't know hardly anything about him whatsoever. [01:01:44] Speaker B: There was a lot about him I didn't know, too, and I didn't realize. It just didn't even cross in my mind. He's actually raced some xfinity races, raced some other things. [01:01:54] Speaker A: I know what our hack of the week is, okay. But yeah, I'll have to look into it because I know my twitter. When he won that race, everybody was like, congratulations, this is awesome. I love this for NASCAR, this and that. And I was like, I did not know that everybody loved Raja Karuth the way that they do loves him, which is cool to see. I guess I just need to get to know the guy a little bit. I had zero opinion on him before this other than calling him Raja. It's just easy to do and hilarious. [01:02:24] Speaker B: I just want to confirm as well it is to the front tire changer and the jackman are suspended on the crew. [01:02:32] Speaker A: There you go. Well, I figured out our hack of the week and I just thought of it and it's freaking hilarious. And as soon as I say his name, you're going to know why I picked him. [01:02:41] Speaker B: Okay. [01:02:41] Speaker A: Matt Krafton. [01:02:45] Speaker B: To Travis Pastrana. Matt, did you see what I posted? I'm not going to. [01:02:50] Speaker A: I didn't even see what you posted. I just know our hack of the week easily is Matt Crafton. If you haven't been on NASCAR Twitter or anywhere else, Matt decided that he wanted to come out. And I've heard Matt say things that I really agree with, but I've also heard Matt say things that I just look at him and say, what an idiot. This was one of them. He come out and said, there's no way you put a female into the same car as me and they're going to outrun me. I'm always going to outrun a female driver when I'm put into a car. Now, granted, they put him into a race. Was it a rally cross kind of style race? [01:03:34] Speaker B: I think so. I don't know a whole lot about it. I just saw the Travis Pastrana, his post. [01:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah, there was a race like a. [01:03:42] Speaker B: $100 bet on it. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, he got put into this race and they went out and there was a woman in there. Her first name is Gray. I don't know what her last name was without looking it up, but it was basically Travis Pastrana organized this race for them to go out and race against basically each other. But she ended up finishing in third place and Krafton ended up finishing in fifth. And I have never seen someone get universally drugged through the mud on Twitter in NASCAR for a non NASCAR related race in my life. Typically if somebody goes out and has a poor race in a different series, there's a little bit of understanding they're in something that they're not familiar with this or that. But when you come out and you say something like that, you already look like a jackass, but then you go out and prove that you're a jackass. Matt, what are you doing, buddy? [01:04:36] Speaker B: Why would he talk like that when he hasn't won a damn truck race in like three years? [01:04:41] Speaker A: I think it's like 13 or 18. I don't remember what the number is, but he has, like in the teens wins as a truck series driver and somehow has three championships. One of those championships. He did not have a single win on the entire season, by the way. [01:04:56] Speaker B: What kind of. I mean, big confidence guy, I guess. Honestly, though, Matt crafting could be my hack of the week every week just for being Matt Crafton. Honestly, just throwing that out there for the world. Yeah. [01:05:08] Speaker A: He has not had a great track record on this show. Between his sucker punch of Nick Sanchez, alleged sucker punch of Nick Sanchez last year, and now mean. Come on, man. Let's grow up and assume that you just don't need to say shit that makes you look like an idiot in front of God and everybody. [01:05:30] Speaker B: Totally. [01:05:33] Speaker A: Got anything for trading paint. [01:05:34] Speaker B: I was just about to ask, you have any good paint jobs this week? Let me tell you what's not a good paint job. What Denny Hamlin is running this week at Phoenix. It's like lowercase. It is solid red. And people want to comment, say, well, Dale Jr's Budweiser car was solid red. [01:05:52] Speaker A: That car had car had stripes. [01:05:55] Speaker B: Budweiser is such an iconic brand. I don't even know what brake plus have one. I don't have one off top of my head yet, but I don't know what. And I know that's not Denny Hamlin's fault. That is not Joe Gibbs fault. Everyone is posting like, what is. That was the specs they were given. That's what they wanted. Yeah, that's fine. But holy cow, it is brutal of a race car. I don't even know what that is. [01:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I forgotten about that. You sent me that last night and it had me rolling, man. [01:06:27] Speaker B: This week's Larson's first race. The year with that. I love the valvoline scheme from the way to today. I am a valine car. I like next week, too. Reddick's car, the mobile one. Mobile one is also another paint job that is hard to mess up. Like it is a good one. [01:06:45] Speaker A: It is a hard one. You just really don't mess up anything with the blue, white and red. That's just the way to go, man. I have a tough time picking these because there's a lot of them that look really good. I think the one that catches my eye the most is Ross Chastain's kubota scheme. I just want more tractors in NASCAR. I really want a John Deere green machine again. I really miss. So you know what? I'm going with that number one car. It's orange like our logo. Y'all go look it up. Big kubota guy. Today. I've always riven John Deere's, but I'll take an orange tractor if I have to. I don't know if you have anything else. We're pretty much at the end of this. [01:07:25] Speaker B: I think it was just first podcast in the real studio. I mean, this is cool. [01:07:29] Speaker A: Send it on back. [01:07:30] Speaker B: This is incredible. [01:07:31] Speaker A: Bring it on back to Lickerville. [01:07:34] Speaker B: You can follow all of us on the Internet. I'm Dawson Edwards. Music under everything you can follow, follow me. [01:07:45] Speaker A: Caleb Conrody across all the platforms. Just don't follow me in real life. That's weird. [01:07:51] Speaker B: We got raised rowdy racing on everything. Raised rowdy, raised rowdy. Nikki T. And Matt Burrell on all social media platforms. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Give them all a follow. [01:08:02] Speaker B: This has been incredible. [01:08:03] Speaker A: It has been awesome. We love the new studio, Nikki T. [01:08:06] Speaker B: We're going to get some phenomenal, some new people in here, too. I'm excited about. I think we should have about three or four guests in the next month or two. [01:08:15] Speaker A: We'd love to hear it. [01:08:16] Speaker B: I'd say we're working on it. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Bring them all in. From the new guys to the old heads. Yeah, we'll have a little bit of. [01:08:22] Speaker B: It's going to be cool to hear Steven's perspective of being literally a NASCAR fan from the Netflix show. He is legit. Never watched NASCAR. Love the Netflix thing. And he told us today he is all in. We actually wrote with Steven. I don't know if I said that earlier. That's who we wrote with this morning. It's going to be cool to hear the vision, what he sees as a brand new NASCAR fan. Yeah. [01:08:46] Speaker A: Every race we've been texting with him on that three way group. [01:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a group chat. He has a lot of questions, as anyone would, as you. Yeah. [01:08:55] Speaker A: And if you ever have questions during the middle of the race, just give us a text and we'll answer them. Yeah, I'll probably be a little bit slurred, but you'll get an answer. But don't you worry, y'all. Either way, we're looking forward to another Phoenix race. Hopefully they can fix this short track package. We're going to find out in four short days. [01:09:13] Speaker B: We might come back on Monday and be like, this blows the first blow race of the year. Yeah. [01:09:18] Speaker A: If you're looking to bet. Bet on Blaney. It's going to be an easy win for Blaney and Chastain. [01:09:22] Speaker B: Dude, I'm willing to put money on both of them. I think it's going to be awesome. And they hate each other now, so I hope they just have bang the whole time. [01:09:28] Speaker A: Let's have a freaking Denny Hamlin Ross Chastain rivalry. Let's just get some skin in the game and make it plenty. [01:09:34] Speaker B: I'm ready. [01:09:35] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. All right, y'all. We all have a good rest of your week. We'll talk to you all again next week. [01:09:40] Speaker B: Deuces. But you can hear me coming from a mile and a half away these good years can't handle dirt don't need no curves with bikes what I like in horses, I make up with four by four I'm in and out of traffic till I make it to your door checkers record my foot hammered on the gas I'm making my way to you, girl earn hard, fast you but.