transcript

Speaker 1:
[01:07] And we're actually not in Kansas anymore. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to NWP. We got a lot on the docket tonight when it comes to talk about this past weekend at Kansas, whether it be Cup or O'Reilly, which started just really weird. Comments from Stephen A. Smith that have went viral on the racing side of the Internet. EVs, CUVs, just craziness when it comes to the O'Reilly series and possibilities. But it's Talladega week. Guys, how are we doing on this fine Wednesday evening where I think for the first time all year, it's like bright and sunny outside as we go live.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] Yeah, it actually looks really nice. We're all rocking our favorite NFL team stuff before the draft tomorrow. I think me and Claudia are actually going out to Nissan Stadium to be at a Titans draft party tomorrow night.

Speaker 3:
[02:03] Is there going to be a live stream or they can like on ESPN, will they cut to you guys when you make your pick?

Speaker 2:
[02:09] I mean, probably they're doing it like in the stadium, like people like getting down at the field and probably have it up on the jumbotrons there in the stadium, I assume.

Speaker 1:
[02:18] We're just going to cut to Danny either go in like you said, or just going, no.

Speaker 2:
[02:23] Why do we take a paper bag?

Speaker 3:
[02:28] Bring the paper bag like a couple of years ago, just in case, just in case you need it.

Speaker 1:
[02:34] Have you been good for you?

Speaker 3:
[02:38] I'm happy to wear this Texan stuff and I never thought I'd say that because all my other teams are embarrassing the great city of Houston the last couple of weeks, unfortunately. Excited for some football stuff tomorrow. More excited to talk racing today and Talladega this weekend, baby. Arka, O'Reilly, Cup, the real draft. Thank you very much. It's all draft. We're just drafting through the week, frankly. Love it.

Speaker 2:
[03:03] We already got a flip out of the way before we even hit Talladega.

Speaker 1:
[03:07] That's just the appetizer for the weekend and Dega is going to take a bite out of every field. But let's talk about Kansas. So the Cup race, we can dance around and talk about different aspects of it, but let's just take everything head on when it comes to the biggest story here. Tyler Reddick is a quarter of the way through the season with an over 500 win percentage on the year, which is not impressive in many other sports, but in racing that's not Formula One, that's actually accomplishing something.

Speaker 2:
[03:37] Gee, it's almost like someone in a show thought he would win at least seven races in a quarter chase.

Speaker 1:
[03:41] You're looking like a genius right now, honest to God.

Speaker 3:
[03:45] And you did predict that at two or three wins, I believe.

Speaker 2:
[03:48] So this wasn't exactly the third one.

Speaker 3:
[03:50] Yeah, it's not like he said this last week. No, Danny's been on this train for a month or two now.

Speaker 2:
[03:54] And he was with the pick last week.

Speaker 3:
[03:56] That's right. It was a good week.

Speaker 2:
[03:58] Two cups in a row for picks.

Speaker 3:
[04:00] It was a good week for Danny B. It was a good week for Tyler Reddick. No, he's just on fire. It's so interesting because he's not dominating most of these races. I think COTA may be the one exception where you're like, yeah, he was dominant, held off Shane Van Gisburg in most of the afternoon. But other than that, he led one lap in the Daytona 500. Atlanta, it was a last lap pass. Kansas, it was a last lap pass essentially. I think he led 10 laps at Kansas. I mean, he had a great car at the end. He ran down Denny Hamlin before that final caution and overtime. But a lot of these wins are requiring late race heroics. He's not winning them by eight seconds. So I think that's what makes it maybe the most improbable is not only has it been a variety of tracks, he's also winning these races in dramatic fashion in Kansas. It's funny, this Kansas race, I think we'll get into it. I'm sure it was not the most remarkable race. It was fine. But somehow even the least remarkable Kansas races find a way to become remarkable with this car, this package. NASCAR rules, NASCAR overtime. We still got ourselves another thrilling Kansas finish. It's just par for the course at this point.

Speaker 1:
[05:10] Well, and I won't go as far. Well, I actually don't have any tin foil. I think it got robbed by NASCAR Twitter this week but at my house. But I'm not gonna go as far even to say that he's like a fraud or something like that because he did have, that when you talked about at COTA, he did lead I think 77 laps at Darlington. And a win is a win on the book. Doesn't matter really how you get it or where you get it. But I will say, I don't think that like, even though statistically on the win column, it's similar to like 1987 Dale Earnhardt, it's vastly, vastly different. Just because of 199 laps led on the year. When you compare to some of the others in the field, his team owner, 575 already with Denny Hamlin, 499 for Kyle Larson, 272 for Sebel, and 244 for Blaney. So it's like he's still up there statistically. And I do think he's a championship contender. And if anything, the favorite with how I'd made the prediction he wouldn't lose the points lead for the regular season. He's got still a ways to go on now in 17 races, but he's got 105 point lead. It's just, it's impressive that in the next gen era, yes, maybe luck at times might have fallen into place for him, but that this team has executed and put themselves in position to win at pretty much every kind of track on the schedule now.

Speaker 2:
[06:44] It's definitely given me early feeling similarities to 21 Larson and 17 Martin Truex Jr. in terms of just how consistent they've been. And maybe even more so because Larson, especially in 21, took him 10 races to win his first one, and he looked dominant after that. We haven't really seen a driver start off this consistent in a long time. Nine starts, seven top 10s. Forget the fact that five of those seven are wins. He's still in the top 10 for majority of these races right now, which is what you need to be a championship contender. The only other driver who equals that is Ty Gibson, four of just not as many wins in top 5s obviously right now. They're really close on top 5s actually, but the wins is the biggest kicker because of how many extra points you get for winning races right now, which is why I am glad we're in a position this year where points matter so much this season. We're seeing, there was obviously a reward in the last system for winning, but we're seeing the true reward in a point system that rewards winning right now in Tyler Reddick, and it's kind of awesome that we're getting to see that right now this early in the season. I'm very satisfied to see how Tyler Reddick has done, especially considering how last year went for him.

Speaker 3:
[08:10] Yeah I think right now everything's just coming together perfectly for Reddick. Obviously the Toyotas are fast, and I think some of that again has to do with Ford's inconsistency and Chevrolet having a new body, a little slow out the gate. Obviously half the Chevy's, the ECR Chevy's, Trackhouse, RCR, they're just struggling period. I don't think even with the old Camaro, they'd still be struggling a bit. So kind of everything's just sort of working out that this is like the perfect conditions for Reddick or any Toyota to have this kind of run. Though to Jaret's point, like I know everyone wants to say, hey the 45s obviously cheated up. Look at that extra horsepower. Look at how much more speed they have. But again if you look at some of the underlying stats, he's fifth in laps lead, fourth in stage points earned. Again it's a lot of late race, dodge the wreck at Daytona, only minimal cosmetic damage on that wreck at Atlanta. It's you know, had a teammate behind him to push at Daytona when the dust settled. It's you know, over time at Kansas, Cody Ware doesn't spin out, Tyler Reddick blew this race in that final green flag run when the fuel stumbled and he hit the wall. So like it's kind of just been a lot of dominoes falling perfectly into place for these late race heroics. And Reddick's no stranger to late race heroics. I mean, we watched him win back to back O'Reilly championships at Homestead, Homestead in the Cup car. Remember what he did there two years ago, that pass in turns three and four in the final lap. Like everything's kind of just come together perfectly for Reddick these last few weeks. And the odds of that continuing through a whole 36 race season are slim. He's definitely a championship contender, probably arguably the championship favorite at this point, because he'll likely start the chase with a 25 point advantage. But he's not dominating these races the way you would expect when you just look at the stat sheet and see five wins in nine races.

Speaker 1:
[09:58] I mean, I'm just thinking about this week and having football in the brain, it kind of reminded me of my team a couple of years ago. In 2022, the Vikings had 13 wins, competing for the number one seed, had like the amazing heroic comeback victories against like the Colts and the Bills. Every single win of theirs of other than like one or two was single score. They got bounced in the first round. I'm not saying that Reddick's going to be that way because he has had more, you know, he's had impressive wins. He's impressive runs everywhere, even places that he might have struggled in the past. But I do think it's closer than a lot of the tin foil hat side or a lot of the people who are like, oh, he's dominating. Like it is much closer. And I don't think he can keep it up the entire regular season. The big thing is, can you keep it up with minimal slip ups in those last 10, which to be honest, do play decently for him after what we've seen these first nine races. So we talked about the finish a little bit. And this kind of surprised me because I saw a lot of people talking about it. I didn't really talk too awful much about it Sunday night, but there's been a lot of talk now I've noticed about Overtime and about its place and things like that again. And I think we had this conversation after Nashville in... That was an extreme. Was it 23?

Speaker 3:
[11:25] 24.

Speaker 1:
[11:26] 24, that's right, because we had five Overtimes on the show.

Speaker 3:
[11:29] The Lugano Championship season. That's how I remember it.

Speaker 1:
[11:34] I mean, that's right. Yes. So what, I guess, what are your guys' kind of takes on that? Because for me, like, I have the theory that people are kind of likening Overtime finishes and like the entire race before it. In a weird way, it's almost connecting it to like how the championship used to be, where it's like, oh, we went all race and now it just, you know, we two laps or whatever. I'm just, I'm surprised that it's this much of a talking point since I think it's like the second one of the year for Cup or something.

Speaker 3:
[12:05] I saw a tweet somewhere and I don't remember who it was. I can't remember if it was just a random fan or if it was another talking head or a driver or media or who it was. But someone I thought made an interesting point. What if Overtime went away at all tracks besides drafting tracks? Like those are the races because those are the races. Think about it. We get the most frustrated when they can't race back to the checkered. Think about the recent 500s that ended under caution and then we applauded them when they finally said, all right, we'll hold the yellow if we can. Because you're exactly right. If we're being completely honest, let's say Overtime had never existed. If NASCAR tomorrow announced, hey, if the race has a caution late, we're going to go beyond the scheduled distance and the second, third, fourth place guys are going to restart right next to the leader. Literally door to door with the guy who might have just had a six second lead. Because that's the thing, like Danny and Reddick had an 11 or 12 second lead over Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell. Overtime, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson decided this race. In a lot of ways, I mean, Larson damn near almost won it. So no, it is a total gimmick if we're being completely honest. It is in a lot of ways very similar to how the old championship format was. I made that comparison last year actually when defending having a playoff format. Because I'm like, hey, we're cool with overtime, at least I thought we were apparently we're not anymore. So I'm surprised we're not cool with a similar championship style format. But no, I think realistically, if we wanted to do away with overtime at a track like Kansas or road course where big leads are common, maybe we keep them for super speedways where fans really want to see a green flag finish if at all possible. And typically at a super speedway, the leaders never more than a car length out front anyway. So what's the harm in just having another restart and trying to finish the race under green? I don't remember who said that. Maybe someone can link it to Twitter.

Speaker 1:
[13:52] I think it was someone on Reddit might have said it to you.

Speaker 3:
[13:54] Maybe it was Reddit. Maybe it was then linked to Twitter. I don't remember where I saw it, but I thought, hey, that is an interesting perspective. And maybe in the future, that could be a rule change that people can get behind.

Speaker 2:
[14:07] I feel like I kind of like this idea of who would.

Speaker 3:
[14:10] I still haven't finished Embleman's latest video, guys. I'm like, it's 20 minutes in. I haven't had time.

Speaker 1:
[14:14] It's awesome. But all of the stuff you vented about on this show a few years ago is all in that video. But it's so eloquently put. It's amazing. Sorry, Danny.

Speaker 2:
[14:24] Here's the idea I like. Zeke Turnbaugh, one overtime for CUP, then two for O'Reilly, then three for Trucks. I like that idea. That just puts it in order of should-be experience.

Speaker 1:
[14:40] For me, the way I was thinking about it was like this. At the end of a lot of races, there's always the urgency, but there's a lot of times where you know, if a caution comes out, you get bailed out. Or if a caution comes out later, for instance, like a super speedway, you can get bailed out for different things. It works in different ways, but for instance, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick were so far ahead at the end of that race. They had earned that spot, and whether it was the car or Reddick, because Reddick had said that there was maybe a fuel pick-up issue or the ran out of fuel he thought he did, he got into the wall, lost the lead.

Speaker 2:
[15:23] He had to go over to the second port or something like that, they said.

Speaker 1:
[15:26] Yeah. Lost the lead to Denny after they battled back and forth. It's like that's a huge screw up. The way I think of it is, and again, there's pros and cons to both ways of it, but that mistake at any moment, if a caution could bring out the finish of the race in the last couple of laps when they're that far ahead, that finish is that much more urgent because you know at any moment the race could end, or you could have those extra three laps, two laps, whatever, to make it up on each other. Then I get a super speedway. You see so many times now people will just wait until the last lap to make the move or right before the last lap. Because they know, if I make the move with two to go and I make it back to the line, the race is over. Whereas I feel like there could be more urgency if you're thinking like, shit man, I got six to go. Maybe we could get it going, but if it's a big rack or red flag or any of that, I know there's downsides to it too. But I think that the reason the fan base is harping on this so much is one, the Big Bad Wolf has been slayed with the playoffs for a lot of people and that's out of the way. But I think it is NASCAR has talked about going back to our roots and we're going back to what we like before and stuff. Honestly, I think if something's going to change, they're going to do it across evenly all tracks. So I'm fine if they went to just one. That way we don't have the absurdity, but you can have the balance. NASCAR is trying to do balance right now.

Speaker 3:
[16:58] Well, I would say one overtime still doesn't change what happened at Phoenix last fall. Now, obviously, the new format changes that. But there is still the problem, ultimately, of restarts in NASCAR. Restarts in other member sports are similar, but they're all single file, usually. There's sometimes lapped cars in between. It's a little different. But in NASCAR, again, the second place guy gets to restart literally right next to the leader, regardless of how far behind they were. That is a little gimmicky. I think we can all admit that. I've been OK with it. I've accepted it all these years because I like door-to-door NASCAR action. That's when NASCAR is at its best. So the more of that we get, the happier I usually am. But at the end of the day, when it comes to these late races, a guy like Hamlin at Phoenix with a huge lead, a guy like, I guess it was also Denny. Maybe everyone's just Denny Hamlin fans. Now we're just finally learning that. Denny Hamlin loses back-to-back races in overtime, and now we got to abolish overtime. Maybe the fan base has quietly been on Denny fans this whole time. But it is a little silly. So I don't know. The only thing I will also add, as you said, if they make a rule change, it will probably be across all tracks. You're probably right. Although they've shown in the past stage yellows, they did get rid of those at road courses, but not everywhere else. I do think it's smart in some ways to not treat all tracks the same because the style of racing is so different at road courses versus Talladega versus Bristol, for example. So if they did want to have modified overtime rules for different track types, I don't think that would be too difficult to keep up with. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they could figure out some sort of balance.

Speaker 1:
[18:32] I'm fine with doing it differently at different places. I'm okay with that. NASCAR, I feel like in the past has either had controversies come up because of said differences, like at 2015 at Talladega, or has abandoned it immediately because a lot of fans will then get upset. Like the stage yellow thing at road courses when they took them away. I was fine with it. I came on this show and I was like, let it play out just because the car sucks, doesn't mean we have to get rid of it. Now, all of a sudden, we're back carping on, get rid of stage yellows and all that. But shifting to another topic, you talked about style of racing. We alluded to it at the start of where, even when Kansas isn't 100 percent where we wanted to be, it still can deliver something crazy at the end. The racing was, I don't think, what a lot of fans were expecting it to be or wanting it to be. I saw a lot of people in my chat were saying like, first 80 percent was boring and then like the finish was good. My notes that I took for the race, half of my notes were from the last 30 laps. It was pretty paint by numbers like restart, so and so gets ahead, end of stage, rinse, wash, repeat, go into stage three. Do we think after seeing this, after Las Vegas feeling like in my words like a 550 race a little more, is the intermediate package falling off in your guys' opinion?

Speaker 2:
[20:05] Let me decide after the Coke 600 is my answer to that because last year's Coke 600 was pretty entertaining for majority of it. Let me decide after that one.

Speaker 3:
[20:15] Yeah, I think maybe it is a little, and I think that's just because the teams continue to learn and get smarter and have optimized their intermediate setups. Because if you look at Las Vegas and you look at Kansas minus the overtime at the end, it's almost the exact same race. It's JGR 2311 and Hendrick up front. Rauch Fenway Keselowski literally finished 6th, 10th, and 11th in both races. And Penske sucked in both races. They were the exact same races. It's clear at this point that the Toyotas and some of the Hendrick cars have figured them out and that's why you're going to see Kyle Larson dominate a stage. You're going to see Danny Hamlin and then Tyler Reddick dominate a stage. It's the same thing we saw at Las Vegas. I think it really just comes down to several teams have hit on it perfectly. They've reached perfection and others are still struggling. So what you get then is what I compared to an Arca race, where there's like 10 cars that look really fast and could maybe have a shot at the win, and then 20 cars, they're off the pace by comparison. I mean, Joey Lugano was off the pace compared to the leaders on Sunday, and I know we saw that at Darlington, but that's not usually the case.

Speaker 2:
[21:26] Joey Lugano seemed off the pace a lot this season though, to be fair.

Speaker 3:
[21:29] He has been up and down. That's true. Darlington was rough as well.

Speaker 2:
[21:32] He lost most power off his hair, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[21:35] He was Sampson.

Speaker 3:
[21:38] That's all I'll say. I don't know that it's the package yet, because we still saw multigroove racing, fast cars could pass, tires mattered. That played a role in Reddick running down Hamlin, so it still had elements of what we'd like to see, but because some teams have hit on it, just like at Las Vegas, it's becoming predictable, and I think that's the problem.

Speaker 1:
[21:55] Yeah, I mean, you look at the finishing order, did get jumbled up by the overtime and the difference of tires, but either the guys that were up front all day, outside of, I would say, Kyle Larson, and then the ones that finish up front, Reddick, Chase Briscoe, Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Ty Gibbs deserve better than ninth, Corey Hyme was running top 10 pretty much, I'd say 70% of the day, Riley Herbst, 14th place finish. I mean, it was, my own halves have been Toyotathon this year.

Speaker 3:
[22:24] It's always on.

Speaker 1:
[22:26] It is, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[22:28] That's funny, that's a running joke in me and my family. I always joke, it feels like Toyotathon is always on, man. I feel like I see commercials for Toyotathon year round. I know I don't, but it feels like it.

Speaker 1:
[22:37] Yeah, they got, what's her name? Jan from Toyota. It's Toyota.

Speaker 3:
[22:41] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:42] The only good member I have at Toyotathon was it was my first year in, it's my first month as a salesman in car sales. And I made a lot of money in Toyotathon.

Speaker 3:
[22:54] You probably were happy if Toyotathon was always on.

Speaker 2:
[22:56] Toyotathon was a good time with the car salesman. The months after that, that's why I don't do it no more.

Speaker 1:
[23:02] Well, and then on the flip side here, Trackhouse and Kyle Busch, it's just more of the same struggles. When you look at Trackhouse this past weekend, looking at the finishing order, Ross Chastain, 26th place finish, Connor Zilich, 29th. And honestly, he didn't deserve even that high with how they ran, 36th for Shane Van Gisbergen. And again, Mild Thing, 35th. It's just more of the same. I mean, I'll put the points down in the bottom and I'm not gonna wait till he comes on screen because he's so far back, but Kyle Busch is 27th in the point standings. And he is seven times closer to being 30th than to being in the chase right now.

Speaker 2:
[23:48] No wonder he wrecked Riley Herbst at Bristol. That's his closest competitor. They're one point different from each other.

Speaker 1:
[23:55] That wreck made the difference apparently from 27th through 28th.

Speaker 2:
[23:59] He's rafing with who he's around because that's who he's around.

Speaker 1:
[24:03] It's just, I don't, the Kyle Busch stuff, we kind of beat to death last week, but I wanted to have to talk about Ross because we talked about there's a big silly season coming up. There's, we really haven't heard too much. I went on the J-Ski Team Driver Chart and Ross Chastain, it says 2026 plus, which I'm assuming means like possible more years.

Speaker 3:
[24:25] He's in the, we don't know category.

Speaker 1:
[24:27] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[24:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[24:30] I'm gonna be honest. If the opportunity's there, I think he should jump ship with the kind of what Corey LaJoy was talking about, of how Trackhouse is basically like in the same bin as RCR at this point, which they really are. I know everyone's gonna look at the 48, but what if, and I don't think he's the same driver as he was in 2022. What if it's the two? Cause Austin Cendrick this year, and Cendrick could move to the 21 cause Josh Berry hasn't performed. He had a multi-year deal starting last year.

Speaker 2:
[25:05] Chastain is a cleaned up Penske guy would be something interesting.

Speaker 1:
[25:09] He ain't the same guy who was though three, four years ago. Like he really, he's, he's mellow.

Speaker 3:
[25:14] He's pretty mellow.

Speaker 2:
[25:16] He would take the one. That's my question then.

Speaker 3:
[25:18] Well, I, let's start with just, yeah, that's, that's, I know that can be another question, but yeah, Ross is the A plus free agent in all of this. He's the headliner. I mean, let's just ask a question. I think it's obvious if you're Ross Chastain and the 48 is available, would you take it? Yeah, yes. If the two is available, I think we all say, yeah, you would take that.

Speaker 2:
[25:38] Like, if a spire seat would be offered is my question.

Speaker 3:
[25:41] If a spire seat was available, would you take that over the one car right now?

Speaker 2:
[25:45] No. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:47] See, that's why I'm kind of split too, because I do think spire is trending up a little. The Hendrick Alliance is valuable, but you do have a good thing going with Trackhouse. You hate to sever that relationship. You have to think about that too. That's a tough call.

Speaker 1:
[26:02] I'll ask a question. Would Ross Chastain have one more top 10 this year if he were driving the two car? Would he have one more top 10 than he scored this year, which is one? Would he have two top 10s or more if he were in the two car?

Speaker 3:
[26:18] Probably, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:19] Well, Austin Sinterk has the same amount of top fives as Ross, two top 10s.

Speaker 3:
[26:24] Oh, if you're asking me, no, I think Ross Chastain is a better driver than Austin Sinterk, 100%.

Speaker 1:
[26:29] Yeah, but my thing is, I don't think it's necessary what makes sense to Ross. Whatever is the best option he should take, does it make sense for Penske? And would they do it? And I don't know if they would do it.

Speaker 3:
[26:44] Tim said it makes sense to me.

Speaker 1:
[26:47] Then move Austin to the 21.

Speaker 2:
[26:50] Yeah, because I mean, is Josh Berry really going to be the best long-term option there in that car?

Speaker 3:
[26:57] I mean, yeah, I'm kind of, I don't know, I'm kind of out on Josh Berry ever being much more than what he is.

Speaker 2:
[27:03] I'm thrilled that the little guy from Hendersonville, right here in our town, won a cup race, legitimately won a cup race. I'm happy for him. He seemed like just a career light model guy. He got to have a good experience in the Xfinity Series. He won a cup race. If that's all he turns out to be, then so be it. It's a fun up and down ride for Josh Berry. But if you're Penske, I've said this for a long time, the two is your flagship car. Kozlowski won them their very first championship in the two. The two was synonymous with Rusty Wallace for a long time. That too, in my opinion, is always going to be Penske's flagship car. But for now, with the success of Legano and Blaney, it feels forgotten.

Speaker 1:
[27:57] On traveling down this hypothetical road a little more, if Ross were to leave, would Kyle Busch perform better in the one car than the eight car? It's a tougher question than it was nine weeks ago.

Speaker 3:
[28:15] I would say yes. I think being a three car team, you divvy up data and resources better than a two car team. I'd go yes, but only slightly.

Speaker 2:
[28:25] I'd go it may be on par. I mean, Jaret, you sent us something earlier that what Corey LaJoy was saying, and it gave some good points that when the next-gen car first come out, teams like RCR, teams like Trackhouse, they had better availability to a lot of the top stuff that GM was putting out. Now, it doesn't seem like they do as much, and early on in the next-gen car, we saw Tyler Reddick win three races. The next year, we saw Kyle Busch win three races. It's a clear difference now between both those teams from where they were a couple years ago.

Speaker 1:
[29:04] So I only ask this, and I only say that I honestly don't think he'd perform much better for a few reasons. One, I think Ross is a better driver right now than Kyle Busch. I think Kyle is starting to age out. I'm still on that side of it. The other one is Kyle Busch is getting outrun in the same equipment by Austin Dillon. Austin Dillon is not a bad driver, but he shouldn't be better than Kyle Busch, even in bad equipment.

Speaker 2:
[29:30] Yeah, there's a clear difference in talent between Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon.

Speaker 3:
[29:35] My only pushback will be Busch has a new crew chief who, I mean, based on some of the radio transmissions, I don't know that I love his. I don't know that he might be in over his head a little. I don't know he's new to the Cup Series. I don't know. I'm reading a lot into a couple of unsavory radio comms.

Speaker 1:
[29:52] And maybe it's unfair for me to put this on Kyle, but I think that's where Kyle is the veteran driver and needs to take the leadership side. And at least over the radio and through interviews, Kyle kind of just passes the buck. And I get he's frustrated. He deserves to be in a better ride, I think, than the eight car and RCR equipment. But he's just, if he hasn't given up, he has apathy, he has fallen into apathy, I would say at this point. And it's just, I don't know at 42 years old if he's got it. I don't think he's at Kevin Harvick's level at that age. I don't think he's at, you know, a lot of different guys that excelled past 42, 43 years old. Hell, I don't even know if anything will be available to him that's better than the eight car next year. That's the craziest part about it all.

Speaker 3:
[30:40] That's the real thing. I hope he gets one more shot because again, last time we saw Kyle Busch in a competitive car, he put up the same numbers Tyler Reddick put up in a competitive car. Right now, we're talking about Tyler Reddick as a championship contender. Now, Reddick is younger and maybe is ascending still has been ascending. Busch, to your point, is older. Maybe he's on the descent, the decline. But I'm just saying last time he was in a good car, he won three races and 15 starts and it wasn't that long ago. So I agree. I don't think Kyle is 100 percent of what he was in his prime, but I think he's still good enough to match Ross Chastain and Equal Equipment. But to your point, are we going to see him in a good enough car where he can show that? Maybe not. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[31:22] As long as we're talking about Trackhouse and stuff, I'm just throwing out some wild ideas. There's a lot of investors that are banking on Zilch doing well, and if they're not too confident it's going to happen at Trackhouse. I mean, I know they technically think announced that he's on a longer term contract for a rookie with Zilch over there, but what if Hendrick and sponsors want to buy that out and just get him, keep him in the ADA, but the Hendrick fought ADA and just get the 48 a break.

Speaker 1:
[31:54] I mean, I made that prediction earlier this year that I thought Hendrick in the next two years would buy out, would buy out Zilch's contract.

Speaker 2:
[32:05] Maybe Zilch and Bowman do a ride swap and Bowman's in 99 next season.

Speaker 1:
[32:10] Or Bowman.

Speaker 3:
[32:11] We're only nine races into this season, guys. I mean, I feel like we're a little, I know it's our job to debate these. We're keeping it interesting. The chat, I mean, the chat's invested. I see it. People are calling it trash house, whack house. I get it. But it's only nine races.

Speaker 1:
[32:29] Yes, it's nine races this year, but it's years of seeing the same track down. No pun intended.

Speaker 3:
[32:36] I'm just saying, I think it's early to give up completely. Kid's 19 years old. If he struggles for a couple of years, I mean, Kevin Harvick had a deal with RCR equipment for 12 years.

Speaker 1:
[32:45] I'm not saying, I don't think Danny's saying it either. I don't think he's 33rd in points because Connor Zilich sucks. I think he's 33rd in points because the team is failing him. I think Corey O'Joy said this too. This is his learning curve right now. It's just a 90-degree angle. He has no room for any error whatsoever. We saw what he could do in top-tier equipment and he went out and showed the generational talent and I don't use that phrase lightly that he is. He ain't going to do that with Spire. I mean, Ross, who is a tenured driver, championship caliber driver, is mustering up 20th in points, barely beating out AJ Almendinger with no factory support on the year. I don't think that's the drivers.

Speaker 2:
[33:31] Just another idea. I'm floating out there right now. What if Trackhouse is not pleased of how things are going with Chevy? What if they're going to position themselves in a good opportunity ahead of colleague to be the face of Dodge whenever they come in?

Speaker 1:
[33:49] That would be smart.

Speaker 3:
[33:52] That's the reason if you're a zillich or whoever, I don't panic after nine bad races with Trackhouse. It's like Trackhouse has been slowly declining since their peak of 2022. I think that's facts. SVG obviously inflated their stats at road courses last year, but they're declining. But yeah, that's one of the options is there's at least one OEM knocking on the door of getting a cup. Could Trackhouse be that team and boom, maybe suddenly Trackhouse gets a boost in the next couple of years.

Speaker 2:
[34:17] There's no offense to them, but for Dodge, it's like they're going to want something better than Almaninger and Ty Dillon. Almaninger is okay.

Speaker 1:
[34:26] I don't even know if Ty Dillon goes with, but let's look at the points. Since we're talking where people are at. So Reddick leads, Reddick leads for those on the list, on the audio side, by 105 over Hamlin, 120 over Blaney, then 138 over Gibbs, Larson 143 back, Elliott 152, 182 back for Byron and Bubba, Tyde 193 back to Brad Kozlowski. Ninth in points, Brad Kozlowski, starting the year on a broken femur, probably only gonna get better as the year goes on, you would think. Impressive run for him. Bell minus 196, Buscher 198, and then Hosevar has jumped up into this group now, minus 220. So who stands out outside of, I brought up Brad, but who's standing out or needs to get the move on or anything from this group? Because this is kind of the group of like, who's going to try and get up to that top three or four?

Speaker 2:
[35:20] I mean, even though we shouldn't be surprised, Hosevar is still outrunning his equipment, in my opinion.

Speaker 3:
[35:28] Yeah, maybe a little bit. No, Hosevar stands out, him being on this list, but you took it, Brad Keselowski is the big one, like from missing the chase last year. I mean, this time last year, he was like 28th in points or something. He off to a terrible start in 2025 for whatever reasons. So for him to bounce back this year, I think he's like this year's Chase Elliott. You know, he's not really showing winning speed consistently. He's come close here and there, like Darlington, they had winning speed maybe, but he's just top 10, top 15. He doesn't have a, I think his worst finish this year is 20th. So he's on a nine race top 20 streak, plus whatever he, however he finished last year. Like he's just not making mistakes, smooth and steady, getting good points.

Speaker 2:
[36:10] He's pretty much how many times after a surgery, he's the bionic man.

Speaker 3:
[36:14] He really is. Inspector Gadget, man, discovering new heights for RFK racing.

Speaker 1:
[36:20] Well, and I'll point out one that I think needs to get a little giddy up more, and that is, and it's not his fault, he probably should be seventh in points right now, but Christopher Bell, 196 back, plenty of time, and I honestly, he can easily be seventh in points, leaving Talladega, but he's a championship guy. I'm looking at Bell as somebody who's gonna be competing with Reddick, Hamlin, Blaney, basically the left-hand column on this screen, and they're starting to run away a little bit. 44 points between himself and Elliott, and I think right now this top six, if they keep pulling away, that's going to be your battle for who's gonna be up there with Reddick.

Speaker 2:
[37:06] You said he should be seventh. Wait, can you guys hear me?

Speaker 1:
[37:10] Yeah, I hear.

Speaker 2:
[37:11] Okay. Sorry, I didn't know if it was in that thing where it was lagging.

Speaker 1:
[37:13] You're good.

Speaker 2:
[37:14] You said she should be seventh. Who is seventh? It's like the most quiet seventh place I think I've ever seen in my entire life. Me and Claudia was just talking about this the other day. It fooled me that William Byron is in seventh place because it's been the most quiet seventh place. I think I've seen all year, just five top tens and nine races and two top five. I mean, I feel like I don't see him in the front that often, but yet there he is seventh in the standings.

Speaker 3:
[37:40] I mean, he's been bad the last two races. He was bad at Bristol, ran thirtieth, and then he ran fifteenth at Kansas, put tires on like Briscoe at the end and squeaked out a top ten. But he was not a top ten car at Kansas. So they've been just kind of off for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] And then on the other end, the bubble cut line here. So Preece is up thirty-eight, Lugano, fourteenth up twenty-eight, seventeen up, Chase Briscoe has jumped in. Suarez on the cut line, plus thirteen over Sindrick. SVG out. Sondrick, god damn it.

Speaker 3:
[38:14] That's okay.

Speaker 1:
[38:16] Collin Drake. Minus thirty-two for SVG, thirty-six back for McDowell, and then over forty back, forty-six back for Chastain and Almendinger, and then sixty plus back for the rest. So outside of Condrick, who stands out up here?

Speaker 3:
[38:36] SVG dropping out of the top sixteen, that's a bummer. That's happened a little quicker than I was thinking, but he's had a couple of finishes lately outside the top thirty, Las Vegas, Kansas. The intermediates that we thought he'd figured out, one reason or another, Jack House, I guess, hasn't figured them out. So he seems to be the victim maybe of his equipment right now, but other than him, I think, I guess Daniel Suarez, the fact that he's still holding on to a top 16 spot a quarter way through the season.

Speaker 2:
[39:03] Yeah, I thought we'd only see one Spire car make the chase, let alone two.

Speaker 1:
[39:09] I'm surprised.

Speaker 3:
[39:10] Because they're 19th. They're all on the bubble.

Speaker 1:
[39:13] Yeah, I'm surprised that McDowell is the third one in that far back. I will say 32 back for SVG. It only hammers home my thoughts that I laid out last week, like Watkins Glen must win, San Diego must win, and Sonoma must win.

Speaker 2:
[39:32] He's being a foreign in his side, like it is for whatever reason. That's got them behind the eight ball here.

Speaker 1:
[39:37] I think it could be the difference with how close the points could be at the end.

Speaker 2:
[39:44] They're going to have to hang on to hope that they can win those three road course races and get those points.

Speaker 1:
[39:51] When I saw a chart, I don't know if it was Daniel Sespedes that put it out or who it was of like most improved running position and finishing positions this year. And it's like SVG and Herbst were the two highest in that. So he's still, what amazes me is outside of, again, two disastrous weeks in a row for SVG, like he is still out running and being a better driver this year than he was last year. It's just, I think the competition is a little tougher, I guess, around that 16th place line, but plenty of time to go. There's 17 races until the chase. So we're going into double digit races in the year this weekend. All right, with that, let's look at the ratings. Cup got 2.926 million viewers on Big Fox, up 26% from last year, which was on FS1, though. It is the highest Kansas spring race since 2016. It comes at the caveat that all of those races between then and now, and including that one, which was on FS1, it is actually the third lowest non-delayed Fox race in the network's history. Only, I think, two Sonoma races, I wanna say, were lower than it in viewership. So it's like, on the surface looks good, maybe not as good as some people were trying to spin it on Twitter. The O'Reilly series still keeps doing its thing. 1.18 million viewers peaked at just under 1.3 million. I believe it was up 12%. Was it up 12% from last year on the same weekend, which I think, though, was Easter. So take that as you will either way. But it was the most watched O'Reilly-Kansas race since 2023's race on NBC. So still in good company, still up double digits.

Speaker 3:
[41:54] One note I wanna make on the, or one observation on the cup ratings. I think it is noteworthy that this race earned more viewers than any Kansas race since 2016. I know there's a wrong cable, but cable races in 2017, 2018, 2019, you're telling me not one Kansas race got over 3 million viewers. I think that does drive home the fact that Kansas has historically not been a ratings win. So yeah, 2.9 million on network TV doesn't look great. And like you said, third lowest in Fox's history, NASCAR history. But I think some of that is Kansas has just been, sounds like Kansas has never been a big ratings draw in the spring for whatever reason.

Speaker 1:
[42:36] I think it's that. And I do think it's that when you take it out of people's vision for a month and a half, people forget. Because I think it was two, I have to check my notes here, but I think it was two or three years ago, might've been two years ago. Richmond was on a similar weekend in April. And it got on Big Fox and it got 3.3 million viewers. And then was it, was it 2022 on a very similar weekend on Big Fox? Richmond had almost 4 million viewers.

Speaker 3:
[43:10] That's crazy to me. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:13] So it's like, I mean, if you look from just four years ago, like that's a quarter of the audience, not there. Which drives home like, yeah, I mean, they're gonna spin it plus 26% year over year, but it's like, yeah, it's not good.

Speaker 3:
[43:27] Like you said, it's mixed. It's not good. It's not a good rating, but I think it comes with the caveat that Kansas for a decade now, even on cable has trended lower than the average cup series race for whatever reason, which I don't, maybe it's because there's two of them a year. I guess Kansas City, it's not a huge market, not a huge NASCAR racing market historically. So I mean, I guess by comparison, Richmond is in the heart of NASCAR country. So I don't know, but yeah, I just thought that was noteworthy. I'm surprised that no Kansas Cable race in like, I mean, the 2017 Dale Jr., that was his farewell tour. You're telling me that didn't get three million viewers? I'm just surprised to hear that.

Speaker 1:
[44:03] For the poll though, it was roughly around 10K. 11% said it was a great race, 50% said good, so 61% net positive on that, 30% average, 9% negative. Looking at previous polls, this was the 14th of 15 polled Kansas races. The only one it beat out was that cursed race in 2020 in fall, which I unfortunately attended.

Speaker 3:
[44:30] Look at this, this is Harvick.

Speaker 1:
[44:32] Yeah, the Aero race of Aero races. Ninth out of 10 polled 2026 races, it only outrated the Clash.

Speaker 3:
[44:41] That surprises me a little.

Speaker 1:
[44:43] Of mile and a half races, it's 45th out of 61 polled since 2019. So in general, people were not as happy with this race.

Speaker 3:
[44:56] That's lower than I would have thought, cause there's a lot of 550 races in those, in that 61.

Speaker 1:
[45:02] Well, I mean, to be fair, the first one in 2019, we all were like, oh my God, this was great. And it just went downhill from there.

Speaker 3:
[45:09] 2019 had some decent ones. So yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:12] So Napa Racing fan got the top comment. Is it positive, negative or meme? I'm pretty sure I saw him in the chat a minute ago.

Speaker 2:
[45:19] I'll say meme on this one.

Speaker 3:
[45:21] Meme, which means Danny, you're getting it wrong because I never get this right.

Speaker 1:
[45:24] We need more power. 900 horsepower.

Speaker 2:
[45:29] That's a meme.

Speaker 3:
[45:30] That's kind of a meme, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[45:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:32] All right. I'll take a half victory on that one.

Speaker 1:
[45:35] Nenu, 008 is the top comment, says, I think Trackhouse is still out on the track trying to finish.

Speaker 2:
[45:43] We kind of talk about that.

Speaker 1:
[45:45] Sbg says, I do not ever want to hear Tommy Baldwin talk about drivers being hazards racing for nothing ever again.

Speaker 3:
[45:55] It's Luke.

Speaker 2:
[45:56] Did he cause the...

Speaker 1:
[45:57] No, he's involved with Rick Ware Racing.

Speaker 3:
[46:01] Oh, I thought it was Tommy Baldwin.

Speaker 1:
[46:03] Tommy Baldwin had the call to keep him out 20 extra laps longer. And he took, to his credit, he took full responsibility for that on DBC.

Speaker 3:
[46:13] So I hadn't listened that far into DBC yet. I thought he was referring to, I know his son, Luke, has had a couple just rough breaks the last few weeks in the O'Reilly series. Really, I don't as far as I know, they haven't been his fault. Just wrong place, wrong time.

Speaker 1:
[46:24] Ross crash stain, Alex Bowman lead lap finish. Hang the banner.

Speaker 2:
[46:29] Hang the banner. Let's go. Let's freaking go.

Speaker 3:
[46:32] He was top 10 for a minute.

Speaker 1:
[46:34] Hey, man, I lost the hang the banner thing to pop up on the screen. I don't know where it went.

Speaker 3:
[46:41] I can just put this up in there instead.

Speaker 2:
[46:43] Ha ha ha.

Speaker 1:
[46:44] That is a cursed double on that one.

Speaker 3:
[46:49] Oh, man.

Speaker 2:
[46:50] Art of a VUCA.

Speaker 1:
[46:54] Maddie says, I am loving this season so far, mostly because of the resell market. I have cornered on tin foil hats. NASCAR says race was a snooze fest until the final 20 laps and Cars Boy 95 was one of the gutter comments this week. So that comment said, school walkout for Denny Hamlin, 1230 Monday afternoon.

Speaker 2:
[47:20] Oh, come on. Why are we just like, that's a meme.

Speaker 3:
[47:23] Denny Hamlin.

Speaker 1:
[47:25] We're showing empathy towards Denny. It has to be voted. So there was the O'Reilly race as well. And just as soon as we get into talking about it, Carson Quapple flipped.

Speaker 3:
[47:38] Yeah, I don't remember what I was doing Saturday, but I watched the Arca race and then I went and did something, I guess, and I got back to my TV late. I flip on the TV and I just see the underside of the number one car. And I'm like, what did I mean? I look at the corner, I admit it's lap three. And I'm like, what? How? So that was glad he's OK. But that was a jump scare. That's like when that's like the cold open in a horror movie where they show the like monster like viciously killing someone right off the bat. Just to set the tone for what this movie, what this is about to be. That was the NASCAR equivalent.

Speaker 2:
[48:15] The worst part and it kind of made it very clear that the production crew, the commentary crew is not at the racetrack. They're just reacting, whatever's on screen. If they are, if they are at the track, they're just looking at the screen. They were reacting to the 07 spinning and all of a sudden they're like, oh gosh, the one's upside down.

Speaker 1:
[48:37] Well, that's how I reacted watching it. I think I even tweeted it. I was like, oh, mundane spin is going to bring out the caution on lap. Oh my God. My best Rich Evans voice. I mean, I'm glad he's all right. I'll say that, but that shocked the hell out of me. But I guess at this point, we've kind of beat it to death that when it comes to Kansas, man, you're going to see some wild ass crashes. A couple O'Reilly trucks, you name it. Like there's going to be huge hits, flips, guys riding the wall, like the ride in the Dente. I mean, it's just nuts.

Speaker 2:
[49:14] We have seen, Al Moral was wrecked where he got hurt. We have seen Chris Busher nearly flip there.

Speaker 3:
[49:26] Priest had a crazy one, right? Am I wrong?

Speaker 1:
[49:28] He has one too.

Speaker 2:
[49:30] It was one of the JTGAs. I can't remember if it was Busher or Priest. One of them-

Speaker 1:
[49:34] It was Priest.

Speaker 2:
[49:36] Okay. Priest nearly flipped there. Zane Smith did flip. Anthony Alfredo flipped there. Now, Carson Quaffle has flipped there.

Speaker 1:
[49:44] Did Eric Jones have one in 2017? I know there's a big-ass crash or somebody damn near went into the fence in the backstretch.

Speaker 2:
[49:51] Yeah. Let me look at that one.

Speaker 1:
[49:56] They're saying it in the chat that yeah, he did. Yeah. I mean, that's just this track. It sneaks up on you.

Speaker 2:
[50:03] Yeah. He tried to go upside down, but it didn't go all the way.

Speaker 1:
[50:07] Well, someone who snuck up on a few people, not me because I've been in this guy's corner for a while longer than most people, even though I didn't pick him this week because my pick decided to sell at the end. Taylor Gray gets the win over Creed and All-Guyer. Had to hold him off towards the end, but another solid run for him, a much needed victory for sure, vaulting him up to ninth in the point standings. Pretty good gap, but we'll look at the, I'll talk about the points in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[50:34] Taylor Gray ruining my perfect weekend sweep because I had Creed, but he finished second.

Speaker 3:
[50:43] Taylor Gray, that's his first top five of the year. So he's been okay, but yeah, hasn't been as good as I was hoping because he finished last year pretty strong, thought year two in that car. I love his crew chief, Jason Ratcliffe. I think he's still the winningest O'Reilly crew chief ever. Won a bunch of races with Kenseth back in the day. He made the call here to short pit, get out in front of the double zero, the 20. The 20 of course had their pit road penalty that helped. But yeah, a much needed win, like you said, Jaret, because he was, I think, 12th or 13th in the standings. Now he's comfortably in the chase for the time being. Hopefully just going to continue to move up.

Speaker 1:
[51:22] Well, and too, when it comes to Taylor Gray, he did run top five at Vegas too. So they have that mile and a half program figured out. He just got, you know, crashed in that one. But overall, I mean, JGR was on it. Brandon Jones, my pick this weekend, just a wheel getting out of the box was what cost him a shot to win. And I honestly think when you look at the intervals at the end of the race, he made up the amount of time that he was behind before serving his penalty. And then some, again, old racing saying one thing to catch him and another to pass him. But he was about the only one that could pass in any lane at any point, even with the aero issues that was going on.

Speaker 2:
[52:02] So we we have seen time and time again. We get to Chicagoland later on, Jaret. I wouldn't be shocked if Brandon Jones gets redemption and wins there because those tracks are very similar. Remember in 2019 how close Bowman was to winning Kansas and then he did win Chicagoland like and he and he was actually one of the cars that was on track for testing this week, too. So he's already got some track time on it.

Speaker 1:
[52:26] So that's if Kyle, if Kyle Larson is not in the O'Reilly race at Chicagoland on July 4th, I'm picking Brandon Jones if I have the opportunity. Like I'm just letting y'all know way in advance. He's my number one pick going into it.

Speaker 3:
[52:39] Hopefully you do have the number one pick and you're still in the basement.

Speaker 1:
[52:42] I don't know. I made a pretty good effort to stay there this past week. Same with RCR, man. It wasn't good across the board for RCR this weekend, whether it was their poor performance in cup or this little civil war on the racetrack with Jesse Love and Austin Hill. Love kind of going down the track, pinching the 21. I believe kind of messing them up arrow wise. On top of at the same time, if you really slow down the replay and watch, Austin Hill kind of goes onto the apron a little bit under the white line too. So it was just a horrible, might have been even the arrow issues that caused him to do that. Terrible RCR turn of events there. But do we think this, obviously, I don't think it's going to carry on this weekend. Maybe one of them leaves the other dry.

Speaker 3:
[53:32] I don't feel like they work together very well at the super speedways. Those cars are so damn good. They kind of just are their own lone wolves. And it doesn't seem to matter.

Speaker 1:
[53:40] What would you think?

Speaker 3:
[53:41] I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think, I mean, Jesse Love kind of owned up to you. He said, hey, like Austin was like racing me harder than I thought he was going to. So I was trying to race him hard, went a little too far. Like he owned it, I think, for the most part. I'm sure it's one they'll talk about. I don't know. I mean, Austin Hill, I don't know that he really gets along with anyone on the track, even his teammates. He's had issues with teammates in the past. I feel like Jesse, I mean, I think Jesse Love's part of me thinks he's just kind of one foot in, one foot out. He's already looking ahead to try and get a cup series ride. Yeah, I think this is more just indicative of, and I talked about this in my show today, but like Dale Jr. has even said at JRM, a lot of these young drivers come in there and it's the me show. There's no real sense of, this is my teammate, I'm part of a team. They're all about themselves because they see the O'Reilly series as just one step on the ladder. They're going to move on hopefully before too long. I think that's just what you get. I think even teammates in O'Reilly, our teammates only in name only. At the end of the day, Jesse Love's got his own agenda. He wants to go cup racing next year. He's the defending champion, Austin Hill, 30, 31 years old. He's got his own agenda. They're teammates, but they're not afraid to race each other hard. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone in the O'Reilly Series really has each other's best interests in mind. It's every man for themselves. They'll probably race each other hard going forward. Maybe RC will whip him into shape and tell him you can't do that anymore, and maybe he'll get through them. Maybe he doesn't. I guess we'll find out. Time will tell.

Speaker 1:
[55:14] Well, I have them on the bottom here. Justin Allgaier with 520 points is 131 over Sheldon Creed now with his points lead. Creed has not cracked the 400-point mark yet, and Allgaier is in the 500s. It's a runaway freight train, nine top tens in 10 races. To be fair, Corey Day and Sheldon Creed have eight top tens in that span, but just absolutely dominant by Allgaier. I know CUP is much more competitive than O'Reilly, so I'm already just putting in Penn unless there's a major penalty. Justin Allgaier is going to be the number one seed. There's what? 13 races, 14 races to go until the chase in O'Reilly, I think 14. I don't see them collapsing.

Speaker 2:
[56:03] It's amazing the way the standings look. You have your top two, Allgaier with three wins, Creed with one win, but then you got one, two, three, four, five driver gap with zero wins before you get to three in a row to each have a win. And we're not seeing that even become close to the case in the Cup Series because all the guys have wins are pretty much taking up the top six spots right now.

Speaker 1:
[56:30] And look at the eighth, ninth, and tenth are those guys Hill, Gray, Swalich. Retzlaff unfortunately caught up in that early wreck, so he falls back to eleventh in point. Still a good decent gap.

Speaker 2:
[56:42] I believe he could be a player this weekend to watch out for.

Speaker 1:
[56:45] The wild card and this whole deal. It's not Sam Mayer. It's not Ryan Sieg. It's not Brennan Pool. It's Brent Crews, sixteenth in the points. Maybe he's got a ways to go to make it up, but he's got time though.

Speaker 3:
[56:59] I think he's going to get there.

Speaker 1:
[57:01] This is crazy because I thought Sam Mayer was going to be a championship caliber driver this year. Brent Crews is only 35 points away from him and he's made four less starts.

Speaker 3:
[57:10] The difference between Creed and Mayer's seasons so far cannot be overstated. That is second to 14th. Feels like Mayer's in some mess every other week. It's crazy. I think Brent Crews is going to get to the top 12.

Speaker 2:
[57:26] I think Rajah's season is going to be impacted by just not getting the JRM ride for the entirety of it.

Speaker 3:
[57:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[57:35] Because every time he's in it, he's running top 10, getting stage points.

Speaker 2:
[57:40] He's in a good game, so he's got a legit shot to win this weekend.

Speaker 1:
[57:44] To be fair, he had a lot of speed at Daytona. If that carries over to the tail of Dega, he's a threat to win. But I agree with you.

Speaker 2:
[57:52] If anything happens to, well, ironic enough, if anything happens between Jesse Love and Austin Hill, like if they just crash each other, then he's got a shot.

Speaker 1:
[58:06] Well, I think that'll cover it when it comes to Kansas. Let's head to our first Super Chat stage break of the night. I think we'll do it. Start off with Bailey here. Kyle Busch, I'll make life hell for the 11. Buddy, you got to try and keep up with him when he's lapping you first. So mean.

Speaker 3:
[58:32] Brutal.

Speaker 1:
[58:32] Sloth Nerd, my Jaco Flacco pick is a big one on the last lap.

Speaker 3:
[58:38] I like the monkey.

Speaker 1:
[58:42] Snapback says NWP intro better than anything Fox can do. Well, there's no way.

Speaker 2:
[58:48] That's all Jack. Go give him a subscribe to pay him back.

Speaker 1:
[58:52] Tag to his channel down below in the description. I had meant to mention this last weekend after the O'Reilly Bristol race, but look out Connor, the clumsy zilich has a sword now.

Speaker 3:
[59:06] That's dangerous.

Speaker 1:
[59:08] Would he be falling on the sword? But my first dad joke I've made since having a kid on here. Alex, why do I have the feeling that Ride The Dente song was written by a subtle version of Conn from King of the Hill?

Speaker 2:
[59:31] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[59:35] Pacman, Rumor Has It Skoll is... What?

Speaker 2:
[59:39] It's a cold train.

Speaker 1:
[59:40] Okay. Rumor Has It Skoll is Minnesota fan speak for Okay, Green Bay 1, we can leave now. God, I hope this reversing of the stages works. Well, the thing is, in the last 10 years, y'all have lost to us more than we've lost to you. So, you know, get good. Didn't they have the same amount of wins as a team that was led by JJ McCarthy last year? And same amount of playoff wins. To correct the Super Chat from Sunday, in the nine next-gen races, the 45 car has won four of them and his... That's good.

Speaker 3:
[60:22] Talk about snapping back to reality.

Speaker 1:
[60:25] Oh, man. Overtime needs to go. I'm biased as a Hamlin fan and had six wins taken away, but if the race ends under caution, so be it, fans will never be happy.

Speaker 2:
[60:38] That's true. We will never be happy.

Speaker 3:
[60:40] That is pretty true.

Speaker 1:
[60:41] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[60:43] Wait.

Speaker 1:
[60:44] Would you say Kyle Busch's worst start of the season is bad as... Oh, is as bad as Brad Kozlowski's last year in the first half or about the same? Imagine Kyle Busch pulls off a strong second half.

Speaker 2:
[61:01] That's a thing. I can't imagine that because he's just been bad the last few years now.

Speaker 1:
[61:06] Yeah. I mean, Brad was at least, there was a lot of upside beforehand and there was a clear reason why he was bad. And there's, you know, when it comes to just the shakeups at RFK for the 60 team. Kyle didn't have that excuse. Let's see. I think Mitch is next here. Says, I'm all for restoring the legitimacy of the sport with the format stages, et cetera, but I'm torn on the overtime debate. Deserving winners should win, but damn, green white checker finishes are entertaining as hell. That's the balance.

Speaker 2:
[61:37] That's true. They are entertaining.

Speaker 1:
[61:39] That's the balance. Let's see. Who here had the ERB reference from Sunday?

Speaker 3:
[61:48] I don't know. Is this like a Kevin Harvick Word of the Week or something?

Speaker 2:
[61:52] I mean, we're probably not even sure what ERB means.

Speaker 3:
[61:56] Oh, man.

Speaker 2:
[61:57] Are we unk?

Speaker 1:
[61:58] We're unk. Unk status.

Speaker 2:
[62:00] I am unk. I'm 30.

Speaker 1:
[62:02] I'm unk. We'll do a couple more here. Ross Crastain. For the first time since 2025, Alex Bowman has finished on the lead lap. Hang the banner. Oh, it's a joy plays in the background. I'm sure I'm sure Ceto can add that in in post. PalmTree says, I was almost sympathetic for Bush, but he's back to being that bit-key-douche. I grew to hate over the last 15 years.

Speaker 2:
[62:33] I think he's just cranky at this point.

Speaker 1:
[62:35] I think he is too. The frame of MJ choking Ham when Hilaric. I should have put that in this week. I should have.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Danny looked livid, like not mad at MJ. He was just mad that he lost that race. And imagine Michael Jordan being there at your lowest to rub it in your face.

Speaker 2:
[62:53] It's crazy. It's like, I won, but I also lost. Like, how do you feel?

Speaker 1:
[63:02] Oh, PalmTree, by the way, in the chat says they censored my comment, so I had to split it up when it came to bit.

Speaker 2:
[63:07] Oh, that makes sense. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[63:09] Um, let's see. I think we can do, yeah. This one, then one more. Also, anyone who says 2311 success is rigged, must have forgotten about Front Row, which is easy to do considering their sub 20th most weeks. Sadly true. Outside of Todd. Todd's done well to get up there at times. At this point-

Speaker 2:
[63:29] There's less distractions with them now. That's why they're doing better.

Speaker 1:
[63:33] At this point, with how much shit is going on with Kyle Bush, I wouldn't be surprised if he flips like 07 at one of the only tracks he can win.

Speaker 3:
[63:44] Let's hope he keeps all four wheels on the ground.

Speaker 1:
[63:46] I hope he keeps all four wheels on the ground. But it's like this total modern Kyle Bush luck. But that's the first Super Chat stage break. We'll cover the rest at the end of the show. So don't worry. We'll cover them if you've left some. But guys, I'm going to be honest. I can't. Oh, well, I'm actually hearing a little rumbling from plane outside, but I can't hear too much rumbling. But let's bring it on in. I think we're going to have a little bit of a stormy weather here. Let's go to the lightning round. Of course, we have the NWP channel, which I keep forgetting to do this. I don't even know where the hell I put it. I think we still have that one QR code we can pop on screen. I've completely lost it. I don't know where the hell I put it. You have a lot of buttons.

Speaker 2:
[64:34] Let's go stop to our other channel already. What are you all doing?

Speaker 1:
[64:37] We're 59 away from 1K. We can probably figure something out that will be fun for people.

Speaker 2:
[64:42] I know what to do. I haven't got to do this a while since we just always play Random Driver now. If you guys want to, you don't have to. We would appreciate it.

Speaker 3:
[64:54] We're not going to make you do it.

Speaker 2:
[64:56] It's there as an option if you all want to. You know?

Speaker 3:
[65:02] Please, sir. Please support our second channel.

Speaker 1:
[65:05] Please, sir. Can we have some more subs? Also, some news for the NWP 400 fan crowd out there because we're already starting doing stuff for that and testing. We actually, and John has it up, testing, because we're using the Gen 6 again this year. It's this part of the cycle. We're testing a package for the Gen 6 that the setup that's tested allows for around 210 to 212 mile per hour laps in the draft. It's wild. You can see the speed difference, crazy crashes, but that'll be sometime in late August around Daytona week. But I figure I should let everybody know now, so that they can plan accordingly four months ahead of time. We're already planning stuff out. Honestly, it's pretty damn awesome. So there is that. I was actually doing some research and I found out the land outside of Chicagoland Speedway that was sold off by Hillwood is being turned into one of the largest AI data centers in America. $20 billion being put into it's a size of Central Park. And according to WGN, these data centers also have a very loud 24 seven high pitch ringing sound.

Speaker 3:
[66:26] So yay, the size of Central Park will be from space.

Speaker 1:
[66:33] They'll be right across the street from Chicagoland right next to the drag strip. And if you've been to the Chicagoland Speedway and been near there, it's really close. And the people in the neighborhood are pissed. And their government, their government, as is very often in America, sold them out for money. And I'm not happy as a race fan either, because I stay at Chicagoland Speedway throughout the whole weekend. And if my tinnitus wasn't enough white noise I had to hear. Also I wouldn't be surprised if they use all the electricity and we have like the lights go out like gateway.

Speaker 3:
[67:13] Yeah, no more night races at Chicagoland ever, ever.

Speaker 1:
[67:17] Gate, not gateway, Cletus McFarland. His next race will be at Nashville for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. So, you know, if you want to see Cletus, there you go. Hey, you know, hopefully you'll run better than you did last time, I hope.

Speaker 3:
[67:35] He had 300 laps of practice at Rockingham. He'll have about three minutes of practice before Nashville.

Speaker 2:
[67:43] Knowing how Cletus's persona is. Go on Broadway after the race. He'll probably be out there.

Speaker 3:
[67:49] Oh, Cletus on Broadway. That'd be a fun video.

Speaker 1:
[67:53] The next week will be on Danny's channel, April 29th.

Speaker 2:
[67:57] See you there.

Speaker 1:
[67:59] Eastern Time. All right. That will do it for the lightning round. And I guess we'll head right on into headlines. I love these graphics. Jet's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[68:12] I don't have a sound effect for headlines.

Speaker 2:
[68:14] Headlines, headlines, headlines, headlines.

Speaker 1:
[68:18] So there was some talk in an article, I believe, that was published by the Sports Business Journal and Adam Stern. And it was a lot of the future of stock car racing. I'm just going to be a bit general with it. It was talking about, you know, the identity of the top three series, that while Cup and Truck has their identity for the OEMs, O'Reilly really doesn't. And I find this interesting because the three of us had the same conversation when it wasn't a big news story. I want to say two weeks ago, we were talking about this.

Speaker 3:
[68:51] Yeah, it came up briefly, I think.

Speaker 1:
[68:53] Said that there's a possibility of compact vehicles, CUVs in the future, maybe EVs, similar to what NASCAR and ABB tested at Chicago. We're going to test at the Coliseum before the rains came. I actually have been able to see and look into that car. It's wild. If you have ever had the chance to be near it, it is so different. I saw it was that car right next to the original next-gen design, right next to the car they had in Le Mans. And it's insane how different this car is from the other two. But there's a possibility of five, 10 years in the future, depending on which way car culture goes, that maybe we see a crossover O'Reilly series when it comes to the cars. Maybe they use EVs, maybe they use hydrogen combustion engines in the future. Those are all things that basically they said they could do, they could talk about doing, they're keeping as options to do. NASCAR fans ran with it and were pretty vocal. And it wasn't just NASCAR fans, it was people that work on the cars, people that are driving on the racetrack, Dale Earnhardt Jr., both on Twitter and his show, was very vocal against this. I believe he's even said before that if they went like EV compact vehicles for O'Reilly, he'd be tempted to just pull JRM out of the series entirely, which is, we'll see if he stands up. He does. And I don't think he says that stuff lightly.

Speaker 3:
[70:38] I will add this real quick because there was some confusion. So most of John Prope's quotes in that story were about using, potentially using in a few years, the crossover body in the O'Reilly series, on whatever platform they come up with. There was a line in the Sports Business Journal article that indicated he had also said they could use electric vehicles in the O'Reilly series. But then NASCAR Communications Director Mike Ford came out afterwards and said, Oh, no, John never said anything about using electric vehicles in a series. He was only talking about the body. So I don't know if Stern misquoted him or if that was just a misinterpretation or what. But that's part of what I think Dale Jr. and a lot of folks were reacting to is electric vehicles in O'Reilly in the next few years. After the clarification, it sounds like that is not even being considered as a possibility. Crossovers are. So I think for the time being, this conversation is more centered on the O'Reilly series platform. The car might change in the next few years. And if it does, is it possible they switch it to a crossover type series to more closely match cars? OEMs are actually selling on the streets because we've seen it. A lot of the classic sedans or even the Camaro left. And now recent rumors suggest it might be coming back like sedans. Some types of cars are not as popular in America as they once were. Crossovers are much more popular. So I don't know. I get where NASCAR is coming from in the sense of, hey, it'd be great to have a sedan crossover and truck series as far as brand identity. All that makes total sense. But I also understand fans immediately being like, what are you doing? The O'Reilly series is arguably the best racing today. The cars are delightfully old school. It's still the old gen six chassis and platform. There's still five lug nuts on the car. You can still slip and slide them around. Like it's such a delightful racing product. Now, why are we talking about changing it? So I get both sides of it. I do think the reality is they probably will need to update the O'Reilly series car in the next few years, simply due to, you know, a lot of O'Reilly teams used to get their parts and pieces as hand-me-downs from the cup series. But now the cup series doesn't use those parts and pieces because they've got a next-gen car now. So some O'Reilly teams are still, it sounds like, building new parts and pieces, obviously. But we've heard Jude Dale Jr. tweeted about it. I've heard from others, or like what smaller teams have talked about, hey, it's harder now to get parts and pieces for some of these cars than it was even just a few years ago. So we'll see. Maybe the economy, maybe the business behind the scenes can change and they can find a way to keep something like what we have now going well into the future. Otherwise, NASCAR may step in and we could see a completely revamped O'Reilly series in just a few years. I don't know. I just hope the racing is good.

Speaker 2:
[73:34] Here's where I'm at with the EV. I like the idea of NASCAR having an EV option and an EV type of race. But I don't like the idea of forcing it to take over something that we already have. The way I would run an EV series, the problem is EV step is not going to be cheap by any means to do. I wish it could be like what used to be the goodies dash series back in the day. That was a six-cylinder race car, I think, but it was just something fun. It was separate from really what NASCAR is. You got the Toyota Celica to have a race car. I mean, it was a unique piece in terms of racing history. That's how I would see the EV series, personally, being something more fun like that. We're running like 100 lap at Topps races on some short tracks, maybe some big tracks with it. But I don't like the idea of forcing it to take over something else.

Speaker 3:
[74:38] Which is what they're not going to do, it sounds like. I do think at Forth, if they want to do some exhibition EV races, that'd be cool. Danny, how would you feel if instead of Supras and Camaros, there was RAV4s and Chevy Equinoxes in the O'Reilly Series one day? Still gas-powered, maybe hybrid, I don't know what they'll have in five years. But like I say, still gas-powered, how would you feel?

Speaker 2:
[74:59] As long as they roar and the racing is good, but I'm really scared just you elevate the top of it and make it, I don't know if a truck can do that. I don't know, but maybe it's good, maybe it's not, I don't even know.

Speaker 3:
[75:11] No, it's hard to say, it'd be weird.

Speaker 1:
[75:13] Well, and I question too, like the aero side of it too, at the speeds you would want them to go, does that make sense?

Speaker 2:
[75:19] The OEMs would like it because it's easier, it's easy to say like, oh look how good that Rant 4 is on the racetrack, God, you wanna buy one? You wanna buy one now? I'll sell you one out back.

Speaker 1:
[75:30] The dirty side of it all.

Speaker 2:
[75:32] Toyotathon.

Speaker 1:
[75:34] The dirty side of it all is whether it's two years, five years, 10 years, like because NASCAR has moved past the old platform that was the COT turned Gen 6, which is what the O'Reilly series is. They're gonna run out of parts. They're not making as many as before. I mean, when I was at the R&D Center, they talked about that and about how much they try to reuse different parts. If it's not compromised in a crash, they'll make sure it can be reused. And that's only gonna go down to Trucks more. It's gonna go down to Arca more. I saw, I think it was either a tweet or a post on Reddit of an Arca car that was used either at Kansas or gonna be used this weekend, that the chassis for it was used in Danica Patrick, one of Danica Patrick's then Nationwide Series races. And before that, had originated as the 2003 Dale Jr. Budweiser Shootout chassis. And you can't, you're not gonna be able to do that with a lot of these major components because of how different the next gen is. So you're gonna have to next genify the lower series at some point, just because of how the way that the racing flows all the way down. Dale Jr. said even down to the late model scene, it's gonna start, you know, having issues with that. That's the bad thing, like, or the sad thing about it for us fans is that it's going to have to change at some point. It's been the platform for this series for 16 years. Most generations of cars in NASCAR on the Cup side don't last that long anymore, ever since the COT and Gen 6 are basically the same thing with different bodies. But I'm just going to hold on to it as long as I can, because it's the best racing series at NASCAR. I'd argue it's probably the best racing series out there right now consistently, that's on a big major stage. And I just, it's going to have to happen eventually. And I hate saying it, and I don't want it to.

Speaker 3:
[77:42] But I think the message that I would put out there is, you know, maybe, maybe a crossover body would race great at Kansas or at Talladega. Maybe they can convince us that would be the case. And if so, okay. But I hope when they have to change the car, their number one goal is, hey, how do we make a great racing product? If the cars don't look exactly like their showroom counterparts, if it's not the exact, you know, CUV that that Toyota and Ford want to sell, like that's okay. Create a car that's going to put on an amazing show. And I hope the OEMs get on board with that sign up. You know, maybe they get like a sports car series. You know, the Toyota Supra right now in O'Reilly series looks kind of silly to me. Make it actually look like a Toyota Supra. You know, make it up. Maybe they could mess around with that. Make it look like a Corvette. That would be kind of cool. Maybe that could be the O'Reilly series new identity. I don't know. I just more than anything, I want them to focus on making the racing good rather than constantly trying to appease the latest auto industry trend that I mean, we've seen the Hemi is gone. The Hemi is back. The Camaro is gone. Now the Camaro might be back. EV is in. EV is out. Like they change so rapidly. I don't want NASCAR to put on to feel like they have to put all their eggs in one of those baskets. Just build an awesome race car that drives good and hopefully the OEM sign off on it.

Speaker 1:
[79:02] I won't dive into it outside of a surface level, but I mean, the car industry and regulations around it have been seesawing back and forth every four years. Yeah. And it's gonna be at the whims of politicians basically. And that's just gonna trickle down through racing, through the auto industry, through all of that. So yeah, I don't know what direction it's gonna go in because if we're just switching things up every four years for all the people that are gonna be in power over regulations for it, we can have four years where EVs are the big push. We can then know, well, hydrogen fuel, well, okay, maybe we should really push hybrids. It's just, it's all over the place. At some point, there needs to be alignment. Like what direction are we going in? Because I can't imagine the automakers at this point are happy about the fact that we're having to seesaw like this. NASCAR can't be happy about it. I feel like this article in part was put out there for the feeler to see where the fan base was to about it. I think NASCAR could be a big part of that at times, too. But we'll see. That's all we can really say at this point, because at this point it's a thing.

Speaker 3:
[80:10] Yeah, at least it's at least two to three, maybe five years down the line. So we'll see.

Speaker 1:
[80:14] So you know what we can talk about in here. And now we can talk about Stephen A Smith. Never thought I would say this on a NASCAR show.

Speaker 2:
[80:21] We go from being divided about something to being united on something.

Speaker 1:
[80:25] Yeah, Stephen A Smith managed to unite all of the anti-Toyota people with the pro-Toyota 2311 side.

Speaker 2:
[80:35] It's really not worth going into it too, too much, because if you're close minded to NASCAR, you're just close minded. I feel like Stephen A Smith at this age, at his career, he is very close minded in NASCAR.

Speaker 1:
[80:46] Well, I'll give the rundown at least. So Stephen A Smith was on, I believe, his serious show or one of one of his million shows.

Speaker 3:
[80:54] He's got to earn that billion-dollar paycheck or whatever he has to pay.

Speaker 2:
[80:58] He does soap operas. He does the most random stuff.

Speaker 1:
[81:01] He's on General Hospital. I saw his clips too and it's funny as hell to watch because he's trying to be all serious. Blasphemy. All I'm thinking is him staring across the table, dead-eyed at Skip Bayless in 2013. But they were talking about the GOAT conversation and LeBron and all that, because of course they were. It's been the same conversation for 20 years, or for those ESPN folks. And somebody had called in and said, well, what about Richard Petty? To which Stephen A. Smith said, basically that NASCAR drivers, he specifically zoned in on NASCAR drivers and golfers are not athletes. You can be, quote, you can be behind the wheel of a car in your 60s and 70s, for crying out loud. A golfer is not an athlete. A NASCAR driver is not an athlete. Just because you got to walk the course for 18 holes for four days, that don't make you an athlete. And then I think he had doubled down on the NASCAR side too.

Speaker 3:
[82:01] I love that he just throws shade at golf out of nowhere, just randomly says, by the way, Rory McElroy, you're not an athlete.

Speaker 1:
[82:09] Does ESPN have any golf coverage either?

Speaker 3:
[82:12] It's a good question. I don't know what they do.

Speaker 1:
[82:14] I thought it was CBS that had the masters and all the big tournaments and it's NBC and Fox Sports that have NASCAR plus Prime, which is to ceiling away from a lot of the ESPN and Disney side of things.

Speaker 2:
[82:25] And then ESPN lost F1 even so they can't really even be like, well, we love F1.

Speaker 1:
[82:30] They have no, they have no racing, no high profile racing. But I, I think we're all in agreement. We can, you know, anyone who's actually in the know about racing, whether it's Indy car, F1, NASCAR, Supercross.

Speaker 3:
[82:43] Everything goes into it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[82:45] Yeah. We all know that. I think the bigger picture here is that this is again, that mainstream sports discussion, basically dismissing NASCAR and racing in general. It's just sort of a sideshow to a lot of them. It's not that big on the big stage.

Speaker 2:
[83:03] If they would take time to truly look at some of the best drivers and what they do to stay at that level, they would shut up. If they would take a look at the pit crews and what they do, like most of these pit crew members we have, a lot of them are like former D1 football players. Like these guys that these guys came to NASCAR because it was going to be their next opportunity in professional sports. Like it is crazy where some of the backgrounds these guys come from. But, you know, we'll say this. Do we have some drivers who are just fat AF, a few? But how are they doing compared to some of the others?

Speaker 3:
[83:47] So I'll say this to your point there, Jaret. Yeah, it's a shame that the mainstream sports gatekeepers, if you will, because in a way that is kind of what Stephen A Smith is. He represents the worldwide leader. I mean, really, that they're so dismissive of NASCAR. And that is a shame. It's where I kind of do hope and where I was where I think a guy like Michael Jordan has been valuable, especially this year with all the success. Seeing Michael Jordan, like a lot of like normal mainstream sports fans and and channels and accounts, highlighting Michael Jordan at NASCAR, highlighting Tyler Reddick, doing historic things to start this season, Tyler Reddick's a fit dude. He's in shape. Yeah, this is also not that it sounds like gonna sound like I'm patting myself in the back and I'm not. But this is why when NASCAR came to me and said, hey, we have an idea for a show where we like break down film with the drivers. I would love for you to help host it and produce it. I would like yes, because anything that shows the amount of prep and precision these drivers that are that's demanded of these drivers week in, week out, how thoughtful is how methodical they are. It's not just mashing the gas turning left. These drivers train, these crews train to Danny's point, and the drivers have to study, have to be aware of any and all situations. It is not simply mashing the gas and turning left. I'm hopeful that guys like Michael Jordan being more involved. I even think to a degree Cletus McFarland. I think his struggles at rocking him. He's a better driver than the three of us.

Speaker 1:
[85:18] We all have to say that.

Speaker 3:
[85:19] He's a great driver, but he's so new to NASCAR, he can't just show up and be great. NASCAR is a lot harder than that. It's harder than it looks. I hope some of these stars, some of these new narratives will infiltrate the worldwide leader and will hopefully change the minds of the Stephen A. Smiths of the world. But yeah, clearly we still have a ways to go.

Speaker 1:
[85:40] Yeah. But, hey, one person at a time. That's, yeah, that's the best way we can do it. Well, guys, let's have some fun. All right, we've gotten all the serious stuff out of the way. Let's have a little fun. Let's go into our prediction segment this week. So, for the predictions, each host will make two NASCAR motorsports or show-related predictions. Again, we play fast and loose with that, especially on weeks like this. Predictions, we'll keep track of them in our accountability session. We'll try and keep them concise, but if they're a fun prediction, they can go either way. Eric said, Toyota will lead more laps Saturday than the Lakers will score points in game one. Got that correct?

Speaker 3:
[86:21] Problem is the Rockets scored even less.

Speaker 1:
[86:26] You did say Cleus McFarland would finish eighth or better in the Kansas Arca race. He was running tenth when his engine blew hell of a save on his part. But that save only got him to the garage. I said Toyota would lead the most laps of the whole weekend combined. And yes, that probably was a layup in all honesty. I probably should have done a tougher one than that. All right. And Danny said, Corey Hime will finish top 10 in the Kansas Cup race. He was on track until about that last round of pit stops and run. But he ran top 10 for a decent part of the day. So this year so far, Eric at 62 and a half percent. I'm at 47.62, Danny at 31.82. All time I still lead at 37.62, Eric at 34.4 and 32.27 for Danny. So Eric, I believe you lead us off.

Speaker 3:
[87:18] I just thought of my second one. I'm going to start with this. No, I'm going to start with the second one. Both of my are Talladega related. First prediction, RCR, no top 10s yet this year on the cup side. RCR gets a top 10 at Talladega.

Speaker 2:
[87:33] Not for your prediction, which driver you think it is.

Speaker 3:
[87:36] I would say Kyle Busch.

Speaker 1:
[87:41] I'll do a Talladega one. Daniel Dye will be in the grid walk with Michael Waltrip.

Speaker 2:
[87:45] It has to be.

Speaker 1:
[87:49] I mean, he's got to make the race. There's 41 cars this week, so he could miss it in qualifying.

Speaker 2:
[87:56] Energy drink fun here. Monster Energy, Red Bull and Rockstar Energy will all finish 2026 with at least one win as the primary sponsor of that car. Monster Energy already has one.

Speaker 3:
[88:12] That's a bold one, but I like it. Thoughtful. I just thought of this one. This one sounds cynical, but with all the way the stages are lined up now, there's a good chance drivers are basically mashing the gas and go in the entire stage three. I think that's what we're hoping for. But unfortunately, that could result in gridlock hard to pass those final 40 some laps. So my final prediction is that whoever is leading the restart to start stage three is ultimately going to win the race on Sunday.

Speaker 1:
[88:42] Other one about the ratings, Talladega will have under four million viewers for the first time in the spring race, one way or another, whether it's rain shortened, rain delayed, rained out, fully run. I think it goes down in ratings. Last year had, let me get my numbers out here. Last year had 4.041 million. I think we're going to have less.

Speaker 2:
[89:08] Denny Hamlin is like me, he loves, he loves bass fishing. And for that, I'm going to say, Denny Hamlin will drive a Bass Pro Shops car sometime before the end of 2027, any series.

Speaker 1:
[89:24] That'd be so cursed, but also I feel like it looks so good. All right, that'll do it for predictions, which means we're going to our next fun segment. You got to hide the chat for it.

Speaker 3:
[89:39] Random driver of the week, week, week. We have the weeks.

Speaker 1:
[89:49] I think I've told, I've said it before that, like my grandpa has a story of meeting Ving Rhames in an RV store or something. He just like went in to get something for his RV, like 10, 15 years ago, and Ving Rhames was in there getting work done on his. He's like, aren't you? Yes.

Speaker 3:
[90:07] That's the guy who does the Arby's voiceovers?

Speaker 1:
[90:09] Yes. That's such a badass.

Speaker 2:
[90:12] What else has he been known for? I definitely know that name.

Speaker 1:
[90:16] He was the big muscular Black dude after Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction. He was the cop in Dawn of the Dead in 2004. He's been in Mission Impossible movies, too.

Speaker 3:
[90:30] Was he in Lilo and Stitch? Wasn't he the voice of the character? Yes.

Speaker 1:
[90:33] He was Bubbles. Yeah. He's awesome. I'm a big fan. Anyway, I think we're tied, if my notes are correct, at 39 all between first to 40. Danny, yes. In the last five, going from furthest back to here, Eric got Brad Sweet and Tony Stewart. Danny got Nelson PK.

Speaker 3:
[90:59] Junior.

Speaker 1:
[90:59] Then David Starr for Eric and Dave Marcus for Danny.

Speaker 3:
[91:05] That was a good one.

Speaker 2:
[91:06] Hopefully we can actually get free of a few clues. We've been getting them very early here lately.

Speaker 3:
[91:10] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:12] Yeah. Yeah, we have.

Speaker 2:
[91:13] Unless it's that made up cars character that Jaret had for us.

Speaker 1:
[91:20] Speedy Thompson deserves respect.

Speaker 3:
[91:24] He was on the 75 greatest drivers list, wasn't he? Or was he not? I don't recall.

Speaker 1:
[91:28] And 50.

Speaker 2:
[91:30] I know, I just keep making fun of that situation.

Speaker 1:
[91:33] All right, well, let's get to it. This random driver is a third generation racer. This random driver also is a Florida man. Florida man. Making the buzzers and everything ready. I actually got them all put in the right tab so they don't repeat on a loop this time. This random driver's daughter actually is a current member of the South Carolina Gamecocks equestrian team.

Speaker 2:
[92:03] It's like horses and stuff.

Speaker 3:
[92:07] A horse girl.

Speaker 2:
[92:08] Like University of South Carolina, you said? Yep.

Speaker 1:
[92:11] The Gamecocks.

Speaker 2:
[92:12] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[92:15] This random driver's career began on Dirt Modifieds. I like how they're like, Eric read the chats. No, they're hiding it. Both of them are hiding it.

Speaker 2:
[92:28] We can't look at the chat.

Speaker 1:
[92:30] In fairness to the game.

Speaker 2:
[92:31] If we know what you're saying, then that's a problem.

Speaker 3:
[92:35] No, I'm not going to. I'll wait. I have a guess but I'm going to wait for more clue.

Speaker 1:
[92:38] Give it a shot.

Speaker 3:
[92:39] No, I don't want to burn it yet. Give me one more clue because I don't want to sound like, I don't want to sound foolish.

Speaker 1:
[92:43] This random driver made 79 career truck starts.

Speaker 3:
[92:47] Made. That makes it sound like he's retired. So that might not be. I'm just going to throw up. We may have even done this guy already. So I'm going to throw him out there anyways. I'll say BJ. McLeod.

Speaker 1:
[92:57] BJ. McLeod.

Speaker 3:
[93:00] Okay, that's fine. Got two more guesses.

Speaker 2:
[93:03] I don't think I'm thinking of a guy from Florida. His accent does not sound like Florida to me.

Speaker 1:
[93:08] This random driver has one career truck win. This random driver had 127 O'Reilly starts. Chat's kind of all over the place. Some got it, some don't. We'll see where it goes. This random driver also has one career O'Reilly series win.

Speaker 3:
[93:35] Okay, all right.

Speaker 2:
[93:37] So it's like a guy who had some success, but not much. I think it should get off the door.

Speaker 1:
[93:46] But this random driver's highest O'Reilly points finish was second.

Speaker 2:
[93:55] Can you tell us what year that was?

Speaker 1:
[93:58] I might give it away.

Speaker 2:
[93:59] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[94:02] This random driver also had 235 cup starts. I can hear shox's never like this.

Speaker 2:
[94:12] Can I call timeout? Just let the cat in for a second. Get in here, rascal.

Speaker 1:
[94:21] This is going to be one of those top 15, 16 moments that Ceto puts up at the end of the year.

Speaker 2:
[94:27] That's the first time we ever had to ask for a timeout.

Speaker 3:
[94:31] You have two remaining, Danny, and two challenges.

Speaker 1:
[94:36] I forgot to add this one in the truck side. This random driver's best career truck points finish was third. So second in O'Reilly, third in trucks. This random driver is one of the few that did get wins in all three nationally touring series.

Speaker 3:
[94:55] So they've got a cup win, at least one.

Speaker 2:
[94:58] I bet it's wrong. I'm just gonna throw out Ken Schrader, because I know he did modifiers and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[95:02] Ken Schrader is wrong. So one in one. Let's see. As for OEM, this random driver ran in Chevy's, Ford's, Toyota's, Dodger's and Pontiac's.

Speaker 3:
[95:20] This is a 2000s guy.

Speaker 2:
[95:22] Like everything possible.

Speaker 1:
[95:25] Also ran for Morgan McClure during the time in Arca for this random driver.

Speaker 3:
[95:34] Morgan McClure, but exploiting a gap in my Arca knowledge.

Speaker 2:
[95:42] One win in all series at least.

Speaker 3:
[95:45] Not that is he going to help me, but did he win in Arca or do you know?

Speaker 1:
[95:49] I'm not going to answer that.

Speaker 3:
[95:53] So disrespectful.

Speaker 1:
[95:56] This random driver became a dirt track driver and chassis builder after his NASCAR career.

Speaker 2:
[96:03] Oh my gosh. This should give it away, but.

Speaker 1:
[96:08] This random driver recently actually had brain surgery.

Speaker 2:
[96:13] I don't recall anything like that here recently.

Speaker 1:
[96:17] Relatively recently, I should say.

Speaker 3:
[96:18] Has the chat figured it out by now? Are they consensus?

Speaker 1:
[96:22] Not consensus.

Speaker 2:
[96:24] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[96:24] Some have figured it out though.

Speaker 3:
[96:26] It's a tricky one. All right, not an easy one this week.

Speaker 2:
[96:28] Okay. Sorry, did chassis work for what kind of cars?

Speaker 1:
[96:33] Dirt track cars. This random driver has two career cup wins.

Speaker 2:
[96:48] Oh, hold on. Who would have ran that many and had two cup wins?

Speaker 1:
[96:57] Someone put in the chat Kyle Larson.

Speaker 2:
[97:02] Sad morning to you, buddy.

Speaker 3:
[97:04] Known handyman.

Speaker 1:
[97:06] Not in the last year he hasn't.

Speaker 2:
[97:09] Everyone remembers when Kyle Larson drove a Pontiac.

Speaker 1:
[97:14] It helps. I actually got to see this random driver win.

Speaker 3:
[97:19] Oh, Chicagoland winner maybe. Maybe Michigan winner.

Speaker 1:
[97:24] I've been in a lot of races, man.

Speaker 3:
[97:26] You have.

Speaker 2:
[97:26] David Rudeman.

Speaker 3:
[97:28] Correct. Oh, good pull. Well played.

Speaker 1:
[97:32] I was.

Speaker 2:
[97:33] Honestly, you said Chicagoland winner. That gave it away.

Speaker 1:
[97:38] That's why I was saving the numbers, because there's no way I could do it out of order without double zero being there.

Speaker 3:
[97:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[97:45] Yes, I'll play Danny. There weren't too many clues, actually. We actually got far this week.

Speaker 3:
[97:51] How about that one?

Speaker 1:
[97:52] Danny takes the lead at 40, a healthy segment, 40, 10 away from that 50 mark.

Speaker 2:
[98:00] Yeah, I've got a prediction on the line.

Speaker 3:
[98:03] All right.

Speaker 1:
[98:03] Let's head on in to Talladega, baby. We got a few notes coming into it.

Speaker 3:
[98:09] So, Danny's already in our Google Doc. I do it every time. Every time he goes right in, he immediately is like, let me just update this real quick. I'm now in lead. Wasting no time. Okay. Sorry.

Speaker 2:
[98:23] I do it for you too when you get an error.

Speaker 3:
[98:26] He does it every week.

Speaker 1:
[98:27] It is funny, though, immediately. I'm like, oh, there it goes.

Speaker 3:
[98:31] Okay. So Daniel Baldwin over here just changing the leaderboard. Look, I'm like, damn, all right.

Speaker 1:
[98:36] We will have full fields for both series this week. Forty one entries for Cup, which I believe is the first time we've had forty one entries, like over forty entries, I should say, for a Talladega race since like pre covid.

Speaker 3:
[98:49] Oh, cool.

Speaker 1:
[98:50] So, yeah. And I think it's like outside of Daytona. It's like only the second time in that span, the only other time being the Chicago Street Race, the last one there. So Jesse Love will be in the thirty three for RCR, Joey Gase in the forty four for NY Racing. Beard has Casey Mears in the sixty two, Fincham in the sixty six. Danny Dye for LiveFast. Those are your open cars this week. As for the O'Reilly Series, a couple notes here. Carsquop will be in the one for JRM. Tyler Ancrum making his first start with Jordan Anderson in the thirty two car. Natalie Decker returns in the thirty five for Joey Gase. And Raja Carruth will be in the eighty eight this week. How much Mike talked about could be big for Pix this week. As for the races, we have the AgPro 300 for O'Reilly, 113 laps on Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern time. 25, 25, 63 are the stage lengths. The CW has the coverage on TV, MRN and Sirius XM on radio. Austin Hill, the defending winner. And then Sunday, the Jack links 500, 188 laps, 98, 45, 45 the stage breakup. It's just so weird to say. 3 p.m. Eastern time on Big Fox. Last over the air race until the end of August. This season, when it comes to the regular season, at least Fox won. Also, you can get the coverage. MRN, Sirius XM radio. Austin Kondrick, Cindrick, the defending winner. Danny, tell me something good with the weather, please. Please.

Speaker 2:
[100:29] Well, unfortunately, it's not really the greatest situation in the world, but here's what we got from our good friend Jeff Borek, meteorologist. The end of April brings a typical pattern for the Talladega weekend. Reference James Spann on Twitter for the best local and third-order forecast details. He said that he will be updating things at X-Way can as well. A pair of storm systems move through Alabama for Friday into Saturday, and the other one will mainly be Monday into Tuesday. The stronger system will be the second one, bringing a severe weather outbreak across the Plains, Deep South and Ohio Valley. The first system impacts the race weekend, bringing waves of scattered storms from late Friday through at least portions of Saturday. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series qualifying will be in jeopardy, and then Saturday's on-track activity is on hold through the afternoon. If timing speeds up, there is more hope for Saturday's activities. Unfortunately, the front stalls out, and it will be difficult to entirely clear out East Central Alabama until drier air tries to move in as soon as Saturday afternoon. Campers, of which there are a lot of you, need to be weather aware on Friday and Saturday for the potential of strong wind, frequent lightning, heavy rain, a quick spin-up tornado, and small hail. Have sturdy shelter in mind the second you post up, and be ready to act on a severe weather plan. For Sunday, quick moving mid-upper level ridge, clear skies out, and brings more opportunities for sunshine and drier weather. The second system swings through the region Monday, bringing scattered storms as soon as midday Monday, and the potential for severe weather late in the day, as the Storm Prediction Center always has the area outlined for it. Certainly try to leave by noon or so. And, yeah, basically what Jeff is saying there, there's a big focus at the start of the weekend and then after the weekend, but because stuff is going to be messy at the start of the weekend, we may see a race have to push to Monday and things still get shaky right there.

Speaker 1:
[102:37] Hopefully we just thread the needle. A little more positive for everyone but me, pick points, which we have in the style of the NFL Draft this week. Danny Leeds with 164, nine over the chat. Eric is 11 back and I am 25 back looking just like my Minnesota Vikings logo there.

Speaker 2:
[103:01] I'm glad to see the Titans logo first in something for once.

Speaker 1:
[103:07] Yeah, well.

Speaker 3:
[103:09] Yeah, this means you get the first overall pick.

Speaker 1:
[103:11] Yes, it does. And that means that we are going straight on into the picks for the O'Reilly race. And my winner pick for the O'Reilly race is Austin Hill.

Speaker 2:
[103:24] I'm actually, I'm shocked. Are you shocked, Eric?

Speaker 3:
[103:28] I'm a little surprised. I really thought he was going to go with JJ Yehley. He's the only Ford in the field, so he has no drafting help. I thought that was going to be as a win pick.

Speaker 1:
[103:36] But that OEM support with that, you know, being that only car, like that's a super powered Ford.

Speaker 2:
[103:41] But chat wants Jesse Love.

Speaker 3:
[103:44] Well, hold up.

Speaker 2:
[103:45] I'm next. Right.

Speaker 3:
[103:46] Am I next?

Speaker 1:
[103:47] Yeah, Eric's next.

Speaker 2:
[103:48] All right. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3:
[103:49] Maybe I want Jesse Love. Yeah, I want Jesse Love. Thanks, chat. Appreciate it. Oh, man.

Speaker 2:
[104:01] Whoops. Sorry, chat. I just screwed you.

Speaker 3:
[104:04] You want instead?

Speaker 2:
[104:07] I see a lot of Brennan Poole.

Speaker 3:
[104:09] Brennan Poole, baby.

Speaker 2:
[104:11] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[104:11] Are they actually going to do? I mean, he was almost there at Daytona.

Speaker 2:
[104:16] There's actually a day's amount of 44s coming up.

Speaker 1:
[104:18] Do I need to put 88 v 44 poll?

Speaker 3:
[104:21] It might be at the level you need to go.

Speaker 2:
[104:23] I was saying more 44 than I thought it would.

Speaker 3:
[104:27] All right.

Speaker 1:
[104:30] I'm going to put 44 and 88. All right. Danny, are either those in your picks or you want to put one up? Jesus Christ, I'm seeing how many are coming in. All right.

Speaker 2:
[104:43] This one's not going to be close, is it?

Speaker 1:
[104:46] Ah, how about that? I'm going to have to find if they got the PNG ready for the number for the tweet on Saturday. I don't know where to look for that one.

Speaker 3:
[104:55] I was going to need this one.

Speaker 1:
[104:59] All right.

Speaker 2:
[105:00] One of those is in my 30. All right.

Speaker 1:
[105:04] Well, I'm going to give them on my end. Five, four, three, two, one, end poll and Brennan Poole.

Speaker 3:
[105:18] Wow. Shout out my guy, Brennan Poole. He's going to be very happy to know that the chat picked him unprompted. Did you see the tweet from Alpha Prime Racing the other day? Whoever runs their Twitter account, they're like, hey, last week as a team without a win, as a winless team.

Speaker 1:
[105:38] Should I just tag all of them?

Speaker 3:
[105:41] Maybe they're just bringing the most illegal O'Reilly cars that Dega has seen since Marty Robbins.

Speaker 1:
[105:51] You might need to text him like, hey, this is who's tagging you. He's not like, why am I getting tagged and liked and all of this stuff?

Speaker 3:
[105:58] He'll get it. That's fun. Well, I'm pulling for Brandon. I'm conflicted this week now knowing the chat has picked the 44.

Speaker 1:
[106:07] Well, that was going to ask why didn't you pick me? You were the pick before.

Speaker 3:
[106:10] I know. Now, you guys are going to look bad. Sorry, I had to take Jesse's off. What can I say?

Speaker 2:
[106:16] I have three options here and all of these could be fun stories.

Speaker 3:
[106:23] But I do find myself just picking stories at Talladega.

Speaker 2:
[106:31] One of them was the 88, but I just don't know. I don't know if any of these guys are going to win this weekend. That's the thing. But you know what? I think my favorite of these stories is Parker Retzlaff. So I'm going to go with Parker Retzlaff.

Speaker 1:
[106:46] Oh, man. I like that.

Speaker 3:
[106:48] Parker Retzlaff gets the last laugh.

Speaker 1:
[106:51] I like that.

Speaker 2:
[106:52] He's the one I had in the highest, like, priority of these guys anyway. My three were Parker Retzlaff, Jeb Burton, and Rajah Careef.

Speaker 1:
[107:02] Well, Eric, you had that same reaction when I picked Jeb last year. Jeb Burton.

Speaker 3:
[107:07] And did it work for you?

Speaker 1:
[107:09] Better than at least one of the people on the show.

Speaker 2:
[107:13] If you look up average finish at Talladega for the O'Reilly Series, Jeb has a good average finish here.

Speaker 3:
[107:19] I don't doubt that, but it's bold. Still bold.

Speaker 2:
[107:21] But Parker, for what it's worth, has been doing good in that car at Utter Tracks. I feel like he could have a legit shot here.

Speaker 1:
[107:29] Well, let's go to the Cup Suck Pick. I was looking at the numbers and they are very bad for one Ryan Blaney. That would be my suck pick.

Speaker 3:
[107:38] Yeah, the Penske cars run good and then don't finish good. No, although I'm going to go William Byron. He's been slumping lately and it's been the last top 10 he had on a drafting track was this race a year ago. So he's had a hard time getting to good finishes lately.

Speaker 1:
[107:54] The chat's going Fox.

Speaker 2:
[107:56] Yeah. I'm like minded to Jaret, but I'm saying his teammate Lugano.

Speaker 1:
[108:05] Yeah, that I mean, they're probably going to lead a bunch of laps and then get caught up in somebody else's mess at the end.

Speaker 2:
[108:10] Yes. Ended up being upside down.

Speaker 1:
[108:13] So Dark Horse picks, and this is fun because you can just turn it on and Ted, I think I picked this guy as my Dark Horse pick last summer at Talladega, Kyle Larson because he's a Dark Horse at Super Speedways and he's been surprisingly consistent recently.

Speaker 3:
[108:26] I'm going to shock you guys. Riley Herbst.

Speaker 2:
[108:32] I can say it.

Speaker 3:
[108:34] I thought of making him my win pick, but that would be a little too spicy. That would have been bold.

Speaker 2:
[108:38] That would shock me.

Speaker 1:
[108:39] He's been up 40.

Speaker 3:
[108:40] He almost won the 500 and he had a couple of top 10s here even before he got to 2311.

Speaker 2:
[108:45] So I think I've got a win pick that's going to shock y'all, but I think that one would shock me even more.

Speaker 1:
[108:52] Is the check going 34 or 35?

Speaker 2:
[108:58] I'm seeing more 35, honestly.

Speaker 3:
[109:00] I'm seeing more guys spamming 19, but I don't think that's an underdog.

Speaker 2:
[109:05] I'm seeing 35 more, honestly.

Speaker 3:
[109:07] Yeah, 35.

Speaker 2:
[109:08] As it should, 2311 has got good super-speedway program. So 35. Then I'm going to go with Todd Gillan. I'm taking the 34.

Speaker 1:
[109:18] Solid one, which leaves one more. Who is going to win the Cup Series race at Talladega?

Speaker 3:
[109:28] Tough week to have the first pick, Jaret.

Speaker 1:
[109:30] Yeah, because I honestly, at this point, I don't even really care too much about like who wins, lead laps, all that. It's who consistently ends up at the front and who has been at the front this year too. And I feel like it's been kind of a wishy-wash, kind of just, not mundane, but just sort of like kind of paint by numbers, expected season outside of maybe just Reddick being dominant, but like the Toyotas are good at most places, Chevy's a little off, different stuff like that. I think we need to go pure chaos and no one embodies chaos like the Hurricane, Carson Hosafar. He's been pretty damn good here. I think his average in the last four is like 10.0 or something.

Speaker 3:
[110:14] He was leading at the white flag of the Daytona 500. No, that's a perfectly valid selection. I want Brad Keselowski. That's who I want.

Speaker 2:
[110:27] He was part of my list.

Speaker 1:
[110:29] Will that tie him or put him past Dale Jr. and wins at Talladega?

Speaker 3:
[110:34] What is he at? Like four?

Speaker 1:
[110:35] I was at like five.

Speaker 3:
[110:36] Is he at five?

Speaker 1:
[110:38] But he might be past.

Speaker 3:
[110:40] He's at four or five.

Speaker 2:
[110:41] I'm honestly not seeing anything consistent enough with the chat yet.

Speaker 1:
[110:46] I've seen 45s, I've seen 60s.

Speaker 2:
[110:48] I think 60 a lot.

Speaker 3:
[110:50] A few 12s just came in.

Speaker 1:
[110:57] He's at six.

Speaker 2:
[110:59] He's got six. I'm shocked there's not more 45s, honestly, I really am.

Speaker 1:
[111:06] So what numbers do I put in to pick, but I don't know why my...

Speaker 2:
[111:09] There's nothing that's consistent enough yet. I guess 60 and two is the most obscene. Someone keeps saying Condrick.

Speaker 1:
[111:17] They're just doing that for the... Well, I guess he won last year. If I say they're just doing that for the meme, I mean, on the...

Speaker 2:
[111:23] Poll 60 and 2 and 12. That's the ones I think I say the most.

Speaker 3:
[111:26] Yeah, I agree. 62 and 12.

Speaker 1:
[111:29] All right. So I'm going to start...

Speaker 2:
[111:30] It's such a weird wait for picks in every series.

Speaker 1:
[111:34] So you say 62 and 12?

Speaker 3:
[111:37] Yes. They're all aboard the Ford freight train.

Speaker 2:
[111:42] While you do that, my pick is none of those. I'll just go my number one pick all week, Eric Jones, and especially that Doritos car.

Speaker 3:
[111:50] Oh yeah, the Doritos car.

Speaker 1:
[111:53] If they pick the 60, this will be probably the craziest lineup that we'll have put up for win picks. Oh my God. It's like almost... I mean, the 60 is pulling ahead a little bit, but...

Speaker 2:
[112:10] I'd at least feel better about this one and then no offense to Brent and Paul, so...

Speaker 1:
[112:16] Ah, he's running away with it, man.

Speaker 2:
[112:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[112:21] All right, I'm going to end it.

Speaker 2:
[112:23] So let's review. Jaret has Carson Hosevar.

Speaker 3:
[112:27] Never won a race.

Speaker 2:
[112:29] You have Brad Kozlowski. I have Eric Jones. In the chat has Ryan Priest. Never won a points race.

Speaker 3:
[112:37] This is the most chaotic four. We didn't pick any Penske cars.

Speaker 1:
[112:43] We picked them to suck.

Speaker 3:
[112:46] Well, some did. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[112:48] Wow. Wow.

Speaker 3:
[112:50] Yeah. Good point here in the chat. Priest dequeued last year in this race. Don't forget that.

Speaker 2:
[112:56] Honestly, if he can just not dequeue and not flip, it's a win. It's a win in his book. So. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[113:07] Remember when Priest cheated in NWB? Don't do that. All right. Well, let's finish this baby off. I will let you know that again, next week we will be live on, I'm pointing the right way down there.

Speaker 2:
[113:22] I'll point at myself.

Speaker 1:
[113:26] His channel. There. That guy. I don't know why it's so hard to look at myself in a mirror like that. I will be on Danny's channel April 29th, Wednesday night, 8 p.m. Eastern time. All right. Super chats. I think we're picking it back up with 23 keys. Fans demanded overtime because, by the way, there's a lot of that, a super chat. Fans demanded overtime because there were races where yellow came out with five plus laps to go with no restart. If it ends with two left, most wouldn't complain. My solution, make overtime cut off two to go instead of the white. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[114:07] I mean, it depends by track. Maybe you can make it four laps, five.

Speaker 2:
[114:10] I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[114:11] Cause we had the Indy 500 had that drama a few years back and ended under caution. And it felt like maybe they could have gotten it restarted.

Speaker 1:
[114:20] Was that the one though that like somebody hit the end of the pit wall? Yeah, I think so. The COVID year.

Speaker 3:
[114:27] That might be right.

Speaker 1:
[114:28] Let's see. Imagine someone three years ago, hearing these conversations about Ross being talked about potentially going to Hendricks. Yeah. I mean, we were there. We were there. We saw it firsthand. Connor is a fetus compared to Danny. I said to Danny, I'm like, why are we picking on Danny? Oh, my God. My eyes got unk status. I can't wait for Carson Hosovar to take the lead at Talladega and then Clint Boyer to say, look, it's the new Dale Earnhardt. Then over 10 seconds later, Clint has that effect on people. Stephen A. Smith, NASCAR drivers are not athletes.

Speaker 2:
[115:10] We've debated that.

Speaker 1:
[115:11] Donovan McNabb on Jimmy Johnson. Do I think he's an athlete? Absolutely not. He sits in a car and drives. He's not an athlete.

Speaker 3:
[115:20] Where's Donovan McNabb now?

Speaker 2:
[115:22] Not on TV, that's for sure.

Speaker 1:
[115:25] I feel like now Donovan McNabb would be the pro athlete equivalent to Ben Stiller in the end credit scene of dodgeball. My take on EVs. I'm all for a separate racing series and more to what Formula E is. But as far as replacing the O'Reilly series, heck no. I've stood on this stance for a while that I want an EV series that can go and race inside domes around America. Go to like Minnesota and US Bank Stadium, go down to the weird ass one in Atlanta. Like you can bring it into cities as long as you're not having a million fumes. Elliot will be in the 88 at Chicagoland. All right, then Brandon Jones is my pick. From last still, I'll link that one in. O'Reilly is too good to botch, don't NASCAR. Well, they're not going to change it at least probably in the near future.

Speaker 2:
[116:15] By the way, Eric, Don Pugnab these days, he focuses on coaching, youth sports mentorship and philanthropy living in Arizona. He serves as a quarterbacks coach at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix.

Speaker 1:
[116:32] So I guess that might have been right or wrong, both. Hey, NWP, NASCAR, Kansas, O'Reilly, holy quapel, cars on its roof. Congrats, Taylor Gregg Cup, great finish, boring race mostly, unbelievable, Reddick and Jordan on five wins this early. NASCAR is another one here. Motorsport at Kansas and Long Beach, Arca, Good Thing, Cletus and Hosevar were in it. Boring race as usual, Long Beach IndyCar surprising, Alex Below has never won at Long Beach until now. And then back to Snapback. I'm more excited for Texas than Talladega. I mean, honestly, if there's a chance it could be the bigger wild card of the two. I applauded Ty winning last week, but then he threw a hissy fit in his car, slamming the steering wheel like a toddler, throwing a toy as soon as he got tight instead of persevering. And he's right back to a whining hippo baby. I'm not going to get too many people in the car being.

Speaker 2:
[117:38] I'm not going to stop him though, I mean.

Speaker 1:
[117:41] And he probably should have been better than Ninth, honestly. Ty Gibbs, so tight.

Speaker 3:
[117:48] Yeah, I guess that's the part in the race they're referring to. I don't know. That seemed to be the other things we've heard.

Speaker 1:
[117:54] Yeah, this showed him like hitting the wheel at one point, which I would be for one overtime attempt only. That would be probably the way I could live with that. That would probably be the balance side of it. I know they say Danny Gaslight, but to me it sounds like he's being passive aggressive.

Speaker 2:
[118:15] I mean, does it really sound like I'm paying passive aggressive? I mean, what do you guys think? I can say I am, but maybe I'm not.

Speaker 3:
[118:22] Either way, it's manipulative.

Speaker 1:
[118:24] I like it. Core AI CEOs. What? Human lives? What's that? Did see Haim and Herbst racing each other hard? Yeah. I mean.

Speaker 3:
[118:38] Yeah, I think I closed Haim, ran him up the track a little bit once.

Speaker 1:
[118:41] Herbst finished ahead of him. Okay, stage one. Now let's have a 30 minute charge break. That would, yeah, that would probably be.

Speaker 3:
[118:49] Yeah. Not fun.

Speaker 1:
[118:51] Indy Carson, another one here. I appreciate your show after enjoying every minute helping elementary students succeed in school and elementary church group every blessed Wednesday.

Speaker 2:
[119:02] Thank you. Thank you for including that and all that you do.

Speaker 1:
[119:05] Yeah. Micah, the only identity needed is damn good racing. That's where I like it.

Speaker 3:
[119:12] I like it. Yeah, we got hell yeah and cup damn good racing in O'Reilly and keep on trucking trucks. I don't know what they say. Guts glory trucks.

Speaker 2:
[119:25] It's ram thing.

Speaker 1:
[119:27] It's stock car racing, not SUV and EV. I mean, if that's the cars they're making, and if they think that's the cars they're making.

Speaker 3:
[119:38] I mean, yeah, I don't think that alone is a strong enough argument against. I think there are other ways to argue.

Speaker 2:
[119:43] I mean, if you could make an entertaining Toyota Forerunner racing series, I'd still watch it if it was good.

Speaker 1:
[119:51] Yeah, Blake's is finally able to watch live.

Speaker 2:
[119:55] Missed the last couple because of small group and seeing Christian artist Phil Wickham or Wickham. I don't know how to pronounce it.

Speaker 1:
[120:03] I think Wickham is correct.

Speaker 2:
[120:04] Wickham. OK, I was going to say it all once or not. Also, how many flips this weekend? I'm going to go one.

Speaker 1:
[120:13] I didn't want to go all in and make this a prediction. I'm actually going to say zero. I think we had one last week. We're not going to see none at Talladega.

Speaker 3:
[120:20] I think it'll be Saturday if it happens or whenever they run the O'Reilly Arca races. Because I think Cup with all the different flaps they're putting on these damn things every other week. It's like I think they're doing, they're probably going to stay on the ground. Knock on wood.

Speaker 2:
[120:34] See, EV as a new series is OK. Don't replace Bush. Agree. Could the next Gen 8 with Xfinity Quality Racing? Could the Gen, maybe he's asking, could the Gen 8 or the next Gen 8? I think he's mixing next Gen and Gen 8. So that tripped me up. Have Xfinity Quality Racing? I mean, I would hope so, but there's no guarantees with, unless it's just putting something new on what the current plan is.

Speaker 3:
[121:04] I like this next one.

Speaker 2:
[121:06] Wait a minute. Was Stephen A. Smith, Defend Strip Weathers, but not Richard Petty? That's right. I saw that rant.

Speaker 3:
[121:13] We're talking about the movie Cars, right?

Speaker 2:
[121:14] You thought I didn't know Cars? That's the thing about Stephen A. Smith for me is like, there's times he makes so many clown takes and you know, you know, when you talk sports three, six hours every single day, like you're going to make some bad takes.

Speaker 3:
[121:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[121:28] I mean, look at us. We have two, three hour shows and we've had some doozy bad takes.

Speaker 1:
[121:33] We used to have a segment for stupid hot takes. Remember that? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[121:37] And it turned into Luke Warm takes because we kept being so damn wrong on the hot takes. So it's like, he also can be really good with stuff and a fun personality. But my God, man, like talk about not knowing what you're talking about. I would love to see Stephen A try and race four hours. I mean, all this talk about the approval process, Cletus McFarland, put him against Cletus for an hour and Cletus would run laps around him.

Speaker 1:
[122:05] Let's get Stephen A Smith in an ARCA car. Come on, guys.

Speaker 2:
[122:10] It's crazy how people don't know there's a clear difference. ESPN in 2013, they should have just handed the Daytona 500 win to Danica. It would have made history. Why would any NASCAR fan want ESPN back? That was Skip Bayless that said that. I actually made a short and I think he got like a couple thousand views or whatever about that, the worst NASCAR take ever. They genuinely said that on the show and we're debating that. And it's just like, would you have ever said if you would have imagined someone's like, they should just come on. They should just handed Tom Brady the Super Bowl. Like he's the most popular Jersey sale guy. Like it would be good for the sport. Crazy wild Mark Martin had a six pack at 50. I agree with Stephen A. Smith. NASCAR drivers aren't athletes. They're finely tuned athletes. Go ask smoke. That one's all over the place. Drivers have lost many pounds in races. That's athletic. Yeah. I think the one I heard at one, I forgot who it was. Somebody lost 15 pounds.

Speaker 1:
[123:13] Can they burn like up to 3000 calories in like one, just a small race?

Speaker 2:
[123:18] Yeah. And like I saw somebody too was like, I think in an F1 race, an F1 driver lose like seven, eight pounds too. So it's like, it's not for the faint of heart. After reading the John Probst comments about crossovers, I got the image of RAV4s, Mach-E's and Blazer EVs racing around Charlotte Motor Speedway. Not sure if I would want to see that. Hope he was misquoted. Aloha, everyone.

Speaker 3:
[123:46] I see Jensen.

Speaker 1:
[123:47] It's one of those things that if you asked an AI to just come up with that, it would look like the most, it'd be AI flop regardless. It would look like way more AI flop because it's just hard to even imagine that.

Speaker 2:
[124:00] Yeah, it is. I can't imagine it, honestly. Like a field of those of like 40 or 38. I just, I can't do it. Not yet, at least, even if they weren't EVs. Scott says, Eric and Danny sure are lucky. I'm not in the random driver of the week game. They'd have a lot less wins.

Speaker 1:
[124:19] Probably right. What will you say?

Speaker 2:
[124:24] Only thing I remember from DR, I'm blanking, DR David Rudeman. David Rudeman is his wins, beef with Kyle Busch, his Texas truck crash, 2013 Phoenix crash, and Watkins Glen 2011 crash. You know what I remember, David Rudeman, the end of that 2012 Martinsville race. That's, well, that and seeing him win.

Speaker 1:
[124:48] The Watkins Glen flip was definitely something else.

Speaker 2:
[124:53] That was scary in the moment when they flipped to it and you just see him already on his side.

Speaker 3:
[124:58] Oh yeah, he was like flying across.

Speaker 1:
[125:00] Which?

Speaker 3:
[125:01] And it was such a weird spot to cause it was like before the S's, right?

Speaker 2:
[125:04] Well, you hit power lines too. Like if you watch back, Yeah, it's a weird spot. He hit like cords too above the track. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[125:12] He did that, he did that in the errands during machine. But you know what, he won in what was it? Tums at Chicago, is that the part he was in?

Speaker 2:
[125:22] Yeah, he beat Jeff Borton in like a 600 start or something.

Speaker 1:
[125:25] Yes, he won in Tums in 2010, right? 2010? Yes. One of my favorite paint schemes that he had during that time was actually his best Western scheme in like 2011.

Speaker 2:
[125:38] That was a good one.

Speaker 1:
[125:41] Michael Walter Racing in those years had like the best paint schemes in my opinion. It was really hard to beat them.

Speaker 2:
[125:48] That and the rims of the wheels looked really awesome too. Yeah. Just got Danny B. What was rougher for you to watch, any Alex Bowman race this year or Cody Rhodes versus Randy Orton at WrestleMania night one?

Speaker 1:
[126:02] I only got to watch night two because my wife and I, we were working a catering event for the catering company she works for. We were both working together, so I didn't get to actually watch that one. I only got to see the highlights and it was a bloody mess. I did enjoy night two, I really did, what I saw of it. Night one, I heard a lot of mixed reviews about it, just in the highlights I saw of it. Didn't look like it was that great. So I'll go with the Bowman win, sorry, with the Bowman races. What little bit they've got in the bay, they've been a little bit easier to watch because I did watch that.

Speaker 3:
[126:42] There I am.

Speaker 2:
[126:43] Fun fact, Dodge scored its first wins in NASCAR since 2012. Landon Huffman in his Broken Antler late model, won at Wake County and Tri County in the NASCAR Local Racing Series. Landon finished third in the Ram race for the seat. That's right.

Speaker 3:
[127:00] That's cool, good for him.

Speaker 2:
[127:03] Calypso. That wasn't Tommy Baldwin's call. It was mine.

Speaker 1:
[127:08] Oh, boy.

Speaker 2:
[127:11] Off topic, but it's over. The 12 game losing streak is over. God, I hate my meds so much. Going to the game Friday. Pray for me. You know who Blue Jimmy reminds me of? Have you seen the video that one like teenager leaving the Jets game? And he's like, I hate the Jets so goddamn much. I hate them. They're my team, but I hate them. And I'm just sitting here in purple pain for different reasons. Being like, kid, I feel you, man.

Speaker 1:
[127:40] But I can relate.

Speaker 2:
[127:42] It'll make it worth it. It'll make it worth it one day when your team goes all the way and take it from a Cubs fan.

Speaker 3:
[127:51] I was like, speak spoken as someone who's never seen his football team go all the way.

Speaker 1:
[127:56] I mean, for what it's worth, at least my team has made it to a Super Bowl. I might have been really young and didn't really remember it, but at least they've been to one in my lifetime.

Speaker 2:
[128:08] Yeah, I was about to say, mine's been to four. It's just in my dad's lifetime and grandpa's lifetime.

Speaker 1:
[128:13] And then to Eric's credit, they're still younger. They started up after mine left town.

Speaker 2:
[128:20] Oh yeah, your team is like super young. I mean, Titans, technically they're the Oilers, but the Tennessee Titans too are kind of the same young and they're existence for us.

Speaker 1:
[128:29] They started in 2001, I think, or 2002. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[128:34] The Texans, 2002. Yeah, because that was the last expansion.

Speaker 3:
[128:37] We're changing our stadium name back to what it was in the early 2000s. So maybe that's a good omen for us this year.

Speaker 1:
[128:43] What's that? What's that going to be called?

Speaker 3:
[128:44] Reliant Stadium.

Speaker 1:
[128:46] Reliant Stadium.

Speaker 3:
[128:47] It's an energy company in Texas. I think it's in Texas. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[128:51] I was just thinking my team is, I think, going into year 66. And so like of our teams, like mine's definitely the oldest. And then out of the NFC North between the Vikings, Lions, Packers and Bears, like we're the newest. Yeah, like two of those teams, I think, are over 100 years old. And I got it. Scott's in the chat still probably. Like, how old is Detroit? The Lions have to be, I have to think they have to be around that old, or at least because they've been around for so long.

Speaker 1:
[129:21] Thinking of your team and someone brought up wrestling not long ago, Minnesota, the Viking state is actually going to be hung with Summer Slam this summer.

Speaker 2:
[129:29] Hey, we got two WWE wrestlers that used to be Minnesota Vikings, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns.

Speaker 1:
[129:35] That's true. Well, no, only one now. Brock actually retired at WrestleMania.

Speaker 2:
[129:40] Okay, let's be, you know what I meant. I'm just funny because I look so tiny at the time. Where are we at? Where are we at? If the EV race in Dome's idea came to Toronto, I'd go, yeah, that's the thing. Like I would, I would go to it. I would want to see it. Like I'd probably do, if I couldn't go to the first one, I'd want to do a watch along. Cause I feel like that would actually be really a cool watch. Not so fun fact, Cody Ware, the Cody Ware of the lower series is back as Ryan Vargas has gotten tired of tearing up monster trucks in the Canada series will be in the arc race. Ryan, Ryan's a good guy.

Speaker 3:
[130:18] What has Ryan Vargas ever done to deserve haters?

Speaker 2:
[130:22] I remember talking to Ryan back in like, was it 21? I think where we're like, Hey, why didn't you make a move? Like the field kind of cleared up and he's like, there's some of us that's just, you just, you got to stay in line, preserve the car. And so I've learned to preserve the car better. And, and, oh my gosh. They're, oh my god, we just got three more in a row. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[130:47] Do you got that sound you showed me?

Speaker 3:
[130:49] Are you good Jaret? Do you need someone else to-

Speaker 1:
[130:52] Massey got me working.

Speaker 3:
[130:58] Fucking Gremlin just entered my ear hole.

Speaker 1:
[131:01] It's a snow park.

Speaker 3:
[131:04] Oh, that was Cartman, wasn't it?

Speaker 2:
[131:08] Oh, and it wasn't me or wasn't it me who stole Hamlin's fuel at Phoenix in 2010, gave the idea of tape on the grill at Miami and blew Byron's tire at Phoenix last year.

Speaker 3:
[131:22] The boogeyman.

Speaker 2:
[131:23] The Calypso lore is is interesting. I saw Danny's thoughts on. Is it Oba Femi or Femi?

Speaker 1:
[131:32] Oba Femi.

Speaker 2:
[131:33] Oba Femi first Brock Lesnar mania match on Twitter. I just wanted to ask Danny what was his favorite match? Mine was Dominique versus the Demon. They said those two are right. I feel like the Demon I should be able to say right.

Speaker 1:
[131:47] Dominic, Dominic Mysterio, Rey Mysterio's son.

Speaker 2:
[131:51] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[131:52] My favorite match of night two was probably the main event, Roman Reigns versus CM Punk. CM Punk, his whole big issue when he left WWE originally in 2013 was that he was never seen as a WrestleMania main event talent. Well, there was his chance. He got to do the main event, the grand finale of WrestleMania with the guy who has been the king of main events at WrestleMania since his entire career, Roman Reigns. So it put on a good show. It lasted a good amount of time, especially compared to some of the other matches. A lot of people complain all the matches were short this year, but that one was good and long, lengthy. There was no crazy interference in the ring. It was just a good match between two. There was a little bit of blood spilled in the match, but not too much compared to like the night before. Good story. Roman Reigns wins. It makes sense and CM Punk got to have his time as champion. I think it was an overall good result.

Speaker 2:
[132:50] It's just an ordinary cra- Oh my goodness, Quaffle.

Speaker 3:
[132:55] Accurate.

Speaker 2:
[132:57] I agree, Jaret. Make a separate EV series, but leave O'Reilly alone. Maybe a NASCAR EV series would solve the noise issues some people are having with tracks like the National Fairgrounds.

Speaker 3:
[133:08] I'll find something else to complain about.

Speaker 2:
[133:10] They honestly would. On Stephen A. Smith and ESPN, any company that cares more about AI and theme park money than their own animators and writers deserves no respect from us NASCAR fans. That's right. They laid off a ton of people on the Marvel side of things and animation and CGI. And it sounds like they're going to work to use the special effects to be more AI produced. Which I mean, all the AI looks like Disney already. So I guess like maybe that was it. Maybe that was like the Disney Psyop for them using AI as special effects. So they just put it out there and everyone. What's your guys' favorite NASCAR crash? Mine is Allgier and Gilliland, 2014 Kansas. Beed, Brendan Gaughan, 2019 Fall, Talladega, Chicago Street, parking lot, McDowell 25, the glad.

Speaker 3:
[134:05] I like when Boyer did like a 360 in the air and was still able to drive to pit road in the duels or whatever that, whatever that race was.

Speaker 1:
[134:13] My guilty pleasure is rewatching McDowell's qualifying crash at Texas in 08. Another good one, actually, 08 and 09, Watkins Glen had some insane crashes that happened in both Cup and the Nationwide Series, I think. Just whatever that was about those two years, like coming out of that one turn, especially, just acting up like crazy for some reason.

Speaker 2:
[134:43] I'm trying to think. I don't think too hard on favorite crashes.

Speaker 1:
[134:48] I guess it's one of those weird things that you're like, which ones do I go back and watch in awe? Not like, I love it.

Speaker 3:
[134:56] Yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker 2:
[135:00] I mean, the most iconic one I can think of is Edwards and 09 at Dega. I remember being at my grandpa's house, me and him watching it, and like, because they panned the camera away from Brad and Junior racing back. So for a minute, we're like, oh my God, did he win? And it's like, no, he didn't. But I just remember, that's the wreck that always comes into my mind where I'm just like, holy hell.

Speaker 1:
[135:24] And another good one is Casey Kane at Pocono in 2010.

Speaker 2:
[135:30] Yeah, yeah, that one was crazy. That was before they put the catch fence on this.

Speaker 3:
[135:35] He was in the bushes, he was in the shrubs. He was in the bushes.

Speaker 1:
[135:39] Bushes saved him from flipping basically.

Speaker 2:
[135:43] Because because that's I'm surprised they didn't put a fence back there when that dude ran across the track in like the late 80s, early 90s. Like, I'm surprised they didn't do it then, but it was a different time.

Speaker 1:
[135:54] Oh, that was a good one. Ryan Newman 03 Daytona 500.

Speaker 2:
[135:58] Played that everywhere for you.

Speaker 1:
[135:59] The wheels coming off of it. That inspired the opening to NASCAR 2006.

Speaker 2:
[136:05] I remember that, yeah. Let's see. What are each of y'all's favorite current Cup Series team? I had to switch from Steuart Haas Racing to JGR to follow Briscoe. Well, I don't really play favorites, but if the one that's most interesting to me right now is Spire.

Speaker 3:
[136:22] Yeah, yeah, that's true for interesting. I think 2311 is interesting right now, but I don't have a favorite.

Speaker 1:
[136:29] Spire is interesting, of course, until something changes with him. If he's no longer racing with Bowman fans, I guess it's got to be Hendrick for me technically. But when Bowman is done, I don't know if I'm necessarily going to have a new favorite after that. Kind of, you know, just pick somebody before I started doing YouTube after Junior left. So that's just kind of how I got into that place. But when he's done, it may be harder for me to get one.

Speaker 2:
[136:55] Mets win, hang the banner and dial F for a push. Made it just in time to spam dirt clash from soup crash. You wouldn't take a supra to soccer practice. Why would we race a RAV4? The only people who do are 16 year olds showing off in high school. When I used to race my 2001 Impala around the back roads of Illinois and Wisconsin over the weekends at times.

Speaker 1:
[137:27] So I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[137:30] Super chat of eternal pain and suffering. There's Scott by the way. Overall, the Lions are 96 years old. So yeah, I was thinking they got a long, rich history, especially you look back at those teams in the 50s too. Fun fact, I think it's long enough now that I can say it. My dad actually took care of a member that was on those championship winning Lions teams. The dude was still even really old, still apparently really strong too, which I thought was pretty cool. The Vargas 6 TikTok car, 2020 or 2021.

Speaker 3:
[138:06] Is that the reason people hate him? Is that why he has haters?

Speaker 2:
[138:10] I know that's when him and NRF got into a beef. Well, around that time, who wasn't? Also, they cut my favorite series, The Owl House, because it didn't fit their brand. I'm assuming that's where the profile picture comes from.

Speaker 1:
[138:25] I think that's talking about ABC and that stuff.

Speaker 3:
[138:27] That does look like an owl.

Speaker 2:
[138:30] Even though it was a show about Magic and Witches, great neurodiv rep, by the way.

Speaker 3:
[138:38] Yeah, you think Magic and Disney would align. That is true.

Speaker 1:
[138:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[138:42] The NASCAR Wrestling Podcast with Danny V. Toys is still NWP. Yeah. And 23 Priest Flip, M.R.N.'s call of it was or is memorable. Yeah, it was. And that'll do it. That'll do it. So again, we will be live next week, April 29th on Danny's channel. It would be a lot of fun talking to Aladega, heading to Texas, heading into May, month of May already.

Speaker 1:
[139:12] So, oh, yeah. Month of May. Month of May gets busy for racing. It's busy for me fishing. I've got some tournaments coming up here soon.

Speaker 2:
[139:19] Oh, yeah, man. It's going to be fun. And we can't wait to see all of you guys on Wednesday nights along the way. So I guess that's it. Have a great night everybody. Later. Bye.