Reporters Roundtable

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1:19All right, everybody. Welcome to episode 29 of the Glut Casting. I'm going to have a look at the show. Last week, I made a memorable appearance on the show. That interview was actually not confirmed happening until late the night before the show was going to go on. In the meantime, I started panicking about not having any guess if the Dickerson interview wasn't going to come through. I took two of my friends, Matt Weaver and Kelly Crandall, and asked if they'd be willing to be my emergency backups. They both said yes. And then Dickerson agreed to come on the show.

2:20But I still really liked the idea of doing episode with both Matt and Kelly. I haven't done a reporter round table type of show so far on the Glut Cast. And with a triple box with three people on at one time, this seems like a good week to do that. So let me introduce our guest for today. I first met Kelly Crandall, I think almost 15 years ago, when she was working for popular speed, now defunct website. At least if it still exists, it's news to me. But she since then doggedly pursued her dream with the relentless tenacity that you might expect from a Jersey girl. And she has since risen through the ranks and I only become racers and ask her right about ESPN.com contributor, serious XM, Philan host, two time NMPA writer of the year. So she's doing it all now. And she's one of those people that has gotten herself there, certainly didn't have anything handed to her whatsoever and just kept grinding.

3:27And that is a similar theme as well with our other guest as well, you know, Matt Weaver. I met him. I believe in 2010, when we were both at espnation.com. And since then I've watched his journey as he's gone from sleeping in his truck for races to taking the same truck. To make an appearance on the Dale junior down mode. I think it's time for an upgrade, Matt. But he is now leading motorsports and ask car coverage and even makes appearances like a big shot on NASCAR's inside the race in the studio. In addition to a short track work, of course. So please welcome to the show Kelly Crandell and Matt Weaver in our triple box. Look at that. Look at how wonderful we look in our triple box. Are you guys professional? The lesson I learned is that popular speed had it going on. Yeah, that's right. You killed me both. That's right. I mean, you what it's telling you. It was good stuff that came through there. Yeah. For the good and the bad. There was a lot of good stuff that came through there.

4:29And it is dead Jeff. Just so you know, unfortunately. Yeah. What happened to your articles? Are they all they live somewhere or they like they're just gone? Anything you wrote is gone from that era. They're pretty gone, right? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I haven't found anything. I though. I will say I pat myself on the back though a little bit because I had the. I had the the foresight. A couple years removed from being there of going back and grabbing some of the ones that I wanted and just copying and pasting them into our documents. So I don't have every single one, but I believe I still have like a lot of the feature articles and like the in depth stuff that I really enjoyed doing. So I was able to hang on to some of those. Do you had the luxury of taking stories that were not edited after I left to then say I love me some me. Yeah. I. I'm still salty because when I got laid off from NASCAR scene, we had a website seen daily and we had been starting to write stories at the time that were only.

5:37For the website like pretty decent like feature type stories, which was different than we had been doing for the magazine like stuff that didn't appear in the magazine. And then when they shut down NASCAR scene and ultimately seen daily, they just redirected it to the sporting news and like everything was wiped all everything that was like. From scene daily, it was just gone and like I had some I think like my article, for instance, about writing in the desert with Kyle Bush or something was like only on scene daily. And it's just like it's just like lost a history and I'm very set like there's stuff that I would love to go back and look up but. And it shows you all all the stuff we're doing now all the stuff we're putting on to the. Website world on the internet like it's all just we're all just like sand in the hourglass right that's that's just. Good way to start. It's a lesson that it actually doesn't live forever on the internet like there are things that disappear because I as I said, I mean I was I was smart enough thankfully to do it with popular speed and I've done it ever since like I've.

6:42When I wrote for NBC sports, I kept that stuff and now if you look at their website it's very hard to go back and find stuff or it doesn't if you do find it it doesn't have your name on it anymore you know just. Ranges right website and technical changes so. Yes some stuff unfortunately does not live forever on the internet a couple of weeks ago I was at the the cars tour race where Shane van Gisberg and Connor Zillich and Dell junior. All race and I was kind of hanging out in the junior motorsports hall or in Connor comes in and we were having a conversation with him about just his maturity and how you know he just doesn't take things too seriously. Even the bad moments like this season it hasn't affected him and he said something that was so wise for his age though I think applies to this conversation to he just says. We're just on a rock floating through space Matt that's all it's all we're doing. That's true I mean impressive for a guy that age to know that but yes it is true well good news then my kids once you tube turns into something else and what's apple podcast would have turns into something else nobody there'll be no record of the show in 20 years but right now.

7:57Our listeners have. I assume enough curiosity to hear what we like to say so why don't we start with some news from last night I was like I was sitting in a target parking lot. And I was like wait there was no penalty report today so I texted Mike Ford and I was like hey is there no penalties at all or is it just you just waiting till tomorrow and he's like no penalties at all. And I was like oh well okay well that's it then that means William so I'll not penalize for the the cori day incident as we had been hearing on the other podcast in the NASCAR podcast universe that they they want to self police and that's apparently what NASCAR is going to do now NASCAR apparently is looking at this is like. It was intentional contact but not intentional wrecking because just an outgair was there and you know if he hadn't been there he wouldn't have spun it would have been a more of a door slam I guess that's how they're viewing it.

8:57So I guess how do we interpret math I feel like Matt and I have the same reaction how do we interpret this rule into the latest of interpreting NASCAR rules of what you can and can't do to retaliate now if you want to go first. I guess I will. Listen listen I am I'm cool with this if this is the standard I am totally fine the problem is is that I just don't know what the standard is like I I feel like we need like a flow chart of some kind to say did you do this then yes did you do this then no did you do this yes but if this was the reason why then no and so I don't I don't really know what the standard is other than then vibes and this is always a vibe check. I've always I've always said that to me the worst thing that's ever happened in recent memory of NASCAR more than the evil 550 package that I hate was the $75,000 fine to

9:58to Ricky Sinhouse after the all surveys because to me this this thing between Corey day and William so wallets could have been solved at Darlington it could have been behind all of us because William went over to have the conversation with Corey and Corey was not going to give William the answer that he wanted and if William felt so inclined he could just punch him in the jaw been separated by officials and security and he could have been a lot of people. They're not in a way with a little bit of a lot of social issues and security and by the way no crew members this is the way to solve all of this hockey rules one-on-one if a crew member touches a driver you're out for three weeks but because all you can do is go I'm mad at you and we'll just see what happens the very next week that's that's inherently the problem Again, we're trying to in real time map out this flow chart to determine whether or not something is and isn't a penalty and when it's okay and when it's not.

10:59And I really do not know what is which. Kelly, what do you think? I largely agree with Matt. I think that's where I'm at with it right now, which is just you don't know what NASCAR is going to do until they do it, right? I mean, this is exactly what we're talking about. Because every time something happens, fans, media, other drivers all start speculating about what the reaction is going to be or what the reaction should be. And we just don't know until NASCAR comes out on Tuesday and Wednesday and either hands out a penalty or doesn't. I guess I'm not surprised overall, but I'm still confused to Matt's point, right? Because it's just like, if they admit, if NASCAR admitted and I have to get caught up on all the interviews, I'm a little behind this morning. But if NASCAR admitted, oh, well, it was an intentional contact. Well, you're now contradicting decisions you've made in the past where you went by what's

11:59saying stuff was intentional. I mean, the whole Ryan Priest penalty, which I know everybody uses that as an example this year because that was a very high profile controversial penalty. The ground that NASCAR stood on with that was, well, it was intentional because he said he was going to do it and then he did it. Well, according to Cory Day, Cory said at Darlington that William told him, I'm going to wreck you. So again, like it just, there's just too much muddiness here to Matt's point. And as I said, I completely agree with him. It's just, you just don't know what they're going to do until they do it. And then when you think you know what the reaction should be, they don't do it. Like in case. I thought there would be a penalty because he, William, affected negatively the chase for the championship. Two teams racing for the championship were negatively affected because of that. Well, and here's the thing. That's the second part of the conversation, Jeff. I'm sure you want to get to.

13:00My biggest thing is just, you knew it was intentional. These guys, we all have eyeballs. We all have ears. We have all watched this all year, including seven days beforehand when it happened to Darlington. So if you know it's intentional, but you're now claiming, well, he wouldn't have wrecked if the seven wasn't there. Well now you're just getting too much in the weeds of trying to judge, well, what would have happened? That to me is just as dumb and just as infuriating as the, as the appeals panel from the priest's penalty saying, well, they didn't prove their case, but he said he was going to do it. And he didn't cut his competitors a break. Are we, are we using SMT to determine intent or are we not? Right. I just, so I, not, not that we needed it for this instance. I, I'm right. And that's my whole point is like clearly it feels like sometimes still in this sport. Common sense doesn't win out.

14:00But yet I can also understand the whole well. It should be self policing. William should, you know, he's, he's mad at, at Cory and he should have done something. I guess for me, the reason I felt overall there should have been a penalty is because of the, the strong nature of Williams reaction, which is I, I don't think he had to be okay with Cory running into him. But here, for me, my line is this. Cory didn't wreck him. Cory stuffed his car in a hole and, and turn one or turn two. And there's nothing illegal about that. This is a contact sport. We have fenders on the car for a reason. Now you as the other driver doesn't have to like it, but that doesn't stop you from going down, down in the next corner like we have seen so many drivers do that doesn't mean you have to wreck them, but you can just shove them right back up the corner and say, okay, message delivered. You did it to me. I'm going to push you right back. We have seen that time and time again. So for me, it was the, I call it an overboard reaction of, I'm just going to swing my car

15:02to the left and whatever happens to you happens to you. And I just, that, that to me felt like an overreacting. I think there's a couple of things there. First of all, you know, I respect Dale and Denny's point that, hey, let, let them sell police and, and Cory should have stayed away from him knowing that, you know, he was especially hot. But like, to your point, Kelly, first of all, this, you know, I see guys door each other. This was more of like a, I'm just going to ram into you at all costs. I don't care. I mean, this was, that was a pretty aggressive one, first of all. So to say that wasn't an intentional wreck because all guy was there. I tend to agree with you guys that like, I don't, I don't love that reasoning. Number two, we were constantly left to sort of pick up the pieces here and interpret. Like, okay. So if you don't hit the radio, that goes a long way, apparently. If you, as long as you don't say anything, that goes a long way. If you don't wreck two people at the same time, like Austin Dylan said, that seems to go a long way.

16:03Like, maybe you can only wreck one at a time. So maybe you can wreck one at a time as long as you don't hit the radio. But then this, this part about the chase drivers thing that, that does get me a little bit because I would have thought that, that, hey, the chase is back. This is an opportunity for an Asgard to send a message about how we want non-chase drivers and chase drivers to race. They're looking at it as like, it didn't affect it. And that's one, that's maybe one thing for, for day. But when you have all guy are involved, all guy is an, completely innocent by a saying, he has nothing to do with this at all, in my opinion, right? So like, that's, you have a guy losing his temper and intentionally creating an action. And it affects another driver who is racing for a championship. I would have thought, maybe NASCAR would want to at least send some sort of message. Like, hey, don't, we're not going to do that. But all, because all these competitors are doing the same thing we are, right?

17:05They're all, they're all trying to read between the lines of like, okay, well, you can do this, this guy can get penalty, they're looking at, oh, okay. They're good, self-policing. Game on. So, so again, the flow chart says you can't wreck two cars, but if it's unintentional, it's okay, because he did wreck two cars, but he didn't intentionally wreck two cars. So again, we're flow charting all of this. Yes, and I think the flow chart has a big part about the button, certainly, or comments. Did you say anything after the race? So really, William Solalge is we're chasing him down Pit Road. William, you know, have any comment? William, William, he did the right thing, because as much as we would like to hear him say, at least something, like more than he just said to TV, I guess. I guess. I guess. Well, I'm not saying I, I, well, you just said he did the right thing. He did the right thing for him not to get penalized apparently. Yes, but, but, but he, but that's where I, that's what I disagree with.

18:06Okay. Because, because you already wrecked the guy. So what are you afraid of now? Like what, what are you afraid of saying? Like, either NASCAR is going to judge you because you wreck the guy or they're not. Like at that point, if you said it beforehand, right? Like we all were under the assumption. If you say it beforehand and then you do it, that's what gets you in trouble. But what if you do it and then admit to it? Like the, the, the action on the racetrack is should be what gets you in trouble in, in this case. It should be, but you know if he says any sort of sort of a hint. Right. And then he says, I'm walking away. It's like, we all, we all know what you did. It's like, it's like Austin Hill at Indy last year with Eric Almarola, right? He didn't say anything. He wrecked Almarola and everybody's like, well, we have eyeballs and we have, we have cameras that can show your hands turned yada yada, right? And he came out afterwards and, you know, well, that's not what I was trying. I was, you know, I didn't meet, you know, whatever it was. But NASCAR still penalized them because of what happened. So in this case with William, I looked at it as, you already wrecked him.

19:07You already did what you said you were going to do. You already showed that you're mad at him. We know you're mad at him. So him walking away at that point for me, I looked at it as if you're going to do it stand on it. You did it. You did it. Stand on it. Well, we also didn't mention on the flow chart the, the right rear hook part of this. So this, there, now we know, okay, if you only door someone, but you don't right rear hook them. Okay. That apparently goes in the flow chart. If you hire someone, I still love that so much. Justin was like, he hired the 17. You guys know that gif of, you know, the guy standing in front of the board with string and like all the, right? And it's like trying to, that is, that is literally what this sport has become of trying to figure out penalties and what is acceptable contact on the racetrack. So by the way, don't we want William to, to give a, a spicy quote? I think of course, we'll selfishly. Yeah. But even like, altruistically for the, the, the, the health and betterment of the sport

20:12and drama and storylines, I just think at some point we need to, and I say, we, the royal, we all need to have this big industry wide conversation of like, what is okay? What is not okay? What do we want? What do we not want? We probably don't want people using cars as weapons. We want people giving really passionate, fiery quotes. We should probably prefer fighting over weaponizing cars. We don't want crew members getting involved. Whatever that flow chart is, there just needs to be a very, you know, directed conversation about what, what do we want as opposed to it just being kind of knee jerky, flip floppy, being reactionary to whatever Twitter is saying at any given time, but there needs to be more proactive rather than reactive. Like, who are we? What do we want? What are we okay with? And what are the very clearly defined red lines? It's all fun and games until somebody punches somebody and knocks their lights out and they

21:13go down and hit their head on the concrete and then there's like a lawsuit and NASCAR back in session. But anyways, you know, 85 miles per hour into a wall. That's pretty bad too. That is. That's true. With the Discovered Cashback card, it's payback time when you earn cashback on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cashback at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cashback at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas and at restaurants.

22:17It pays to discover. Terms applying. See Discovered.com slash 5 for details. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying. Athlete, creator and YouTube Maxer. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads so I could download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus I get ad free videos, background play and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for 2 months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Speaking of controversy and what we want and don't want, I'm a little bit confused because I thought that everybody wanted personality and superstars and rivalries and all the stuff. So we're covering this carcinose of our stuff and there's posters of it and I think it's pretty interesting. But then as social media does, maybe I'm reading too much of it but you start to get some

23:21blowback of okay, shut up about this, stop talking about carcinose of our, don't, you know, blah, blah, blah. So now I'm a little bit confused. So from a media standpoint, how should we, how should we then ask our media be covering carcinose of our on a week to week basis? I think the exact way that it's being done right now. If he, from a media perspective, if someone is talking, whether you agree with them or not, whether you think that they're what they're saying is the greatest thing ever or absolute BS, if that driver's talking, if that driver's putting themselves out there, if that driver is standing on business and has something to say and is actually engaging with the media, why are you not covering it? Right? Because at the end of the day, that's what the job is. The job is a two way street, in my opinion, which is it is our job to talk about the big stories or to talk to the people who are talking and taking the time to talk to us.

24:23And the driver's job, in my opinion, and I know this is a separate conversation, but in addition to driving a race car, your job is to put yourself out there, talk about yourself, talk about your team. And if you are surrounded by controversy, as I said a minute ago, stand on it and stand up and accept it. So Carson is doing all of that. So why would you not talk to some, what, I don't understand that, Jeff, to your point of, oh, it's over done or why are you talking to him? Because he's talking. He is talking. You know, like there's other drivers that it's like pulling teeth to get 15 minutes of required media out of them a weekend, right? And so if he's the guy that is talking and if he's the guy that's at the center of attention, I in the world would you not be talking about that? In addition to who's winning the race and what's going on in the chase, right? Like it is a story. He, his name is coming out of so many drivers, males at this point that he is a story.

25:27And if he's going to talk about it, we're going to post about it. All I ask for out of fans is just to be intellectually honest. And we get accused sometimes with Carson or anyone for that matter of manufacturing a story. Like we are somehow creating Carson hosts of our star power that we're responsible for it. And I got to tell you guys both and I got to tell everyone watching and listening that if we had the magic wand to create this sort of polarizing, you know, big character, we should have done this a long time ago because I think for all the conversation of where NASCAR is right now, it's health and it's perception in the greater sports and entertainment lexicon, the biggest challenge is not the racing product. It's not horsepower downforce, the rules package, the playoff format.

26:31It's do we have characters and personalities that people want to see? And if you care about TV numbers and attendance, there is a very clear correlation between is Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr., Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, racing or not. And that number does this with each one that goes away. And so whether you like Carson hosts of our not, he's someone that makes the trend go this way. And we did not create that. And if we could, we would have probably tried to create a lot of stars because it's an our best interest to have stars to people that care about and for us to talk about and write about. And the sport holistically needed more Carson hosts of ours. So I just I pushed back on this narrative that somehow we're just responsible for sending him to Met Gala. We are responsible for him getting out of the car while celebrating while it's rolling, trying to catch a beer.

27:31We're responsible for him telling a security guard, hey, all those fans that are cheering for him, let him come down so I can sign for him. We did too that. We were just we were just present for it. And we thought, hey, that's that's interesting. We are in the business of finding things that are interesting because we think that you guys care about it. And that's not us just shoving him down your throat. I mean, listen, I feel like I have the most intellectual consistency in saying this because I operate on the side a website that talks about this super niche form of racing that no one cares about. And I try really hard to make people care about it largely unsuccessfully because there's not a lot of stars in short track racing. But if I see something that's interesting, I cover it and I got to tell you, Carson Hosevar is the most interesting thing that we've had in like 15 years. He just is. I think it's a great point because we're all in like the web traffic business or content business, right?

28:32Well before any video elements of this or podcast elements of this have come into play. And how many times would you think, man, it'd be great if we could get people to be interested in whatever we're writing about and talking about. But you look at the numbers and nobody cares. And it doesn't matter how many times you write about or talk about it, but you cannot make people care about certain drivers or certain topics or rules changes. If people aren't interested, they're not going to click on it and they're not going to read it. Clearly, there's interest here in Carson Hosevar. So you tend to follow what the audience is telling you that they want more of essentially. So I think that's largely it. I think people are in for a long journey if he's the only one doing this because I think there's a great opportunity because what he's shown is there is an opportunity for other drivers to he wasn't anointed as anything. He wasn't he didn't come in with like as a lot of hype or a lot of money or a great

29:39ride or what he took an opportunity and like sort of created this for himself, this horrible, this meeky media ecosystem and all that stuff. I don't wonder why couldn't other drivers in the Cup series do similar things. Be as active on social media. Be as engaged with the fans. What's stopping them? The one thing that I really respect about Carson and I think I've mentioned this to you, Jeff, you and I have talked about it. The one thing I respect about him and then I will give him credit for is to your point. Carson understands that in today's world you have to do more than just driver race car. Now, there's some drivers that probably disagree with that and there's some drivers that think it's only about I just want to show up and drive the race car. But I give Carson credit for believing that there's more to being a race car driver than just getting in the race car on Sundays. And he's made himself a content creator. He is a content creator. He's a little bit of a troll at times.

30:41But he knows how to keep the attention on himself and some people don't like that. Some people think it's great. Some people will say, well, it's negative attention. But what he's doing is he's showing that, well, I want to be successful on the racetrack and we're going to work towards that. But if we don't have anything going for us on the racetrack, I can still engage with you this way and I can still reach out to fans this way and I can still put myself out there to create a following because I understand that there's other ways to relate to race fans and to engage with them. And I give him credit for that. You know what's really interesting to me is that this isn't new. It feels new because in some ways he's like the first social media era content creator NASCAR star. But it's a very similar playbook to Daryl Waldrup in the late 70s. And the pushback, because I'm a big time a story into the sport and I love that 1970s,

31:471980s era of NASCAR. They called him JAWS because there's a reason he was called JAWS. Yes. And he was the first guy to realize that he could use those microphones and those cameras to build a brand to attract sponsors to build what became a hall of fame career. And it wasn't just because he was a really good race car driver, it's because he was a great personality. And all I would tell the critics, if you don't like Carson, that's fine. People didn't like Daryl until they did. But Daryl had a way because of his larger than life persona being JAWS of elevating Richard Petty at the later stages of his career. In some ways he's responsible for creating Dell Earnhardt in a sense because he made Dell Earnhardt more interesting when he got into rivalries with him with Rusty Wallace. He elevated everyone around him. And let me tell you, Saturday was a lot of fun.

32:47I had so much fun at the racetrack because what Carson single handedly did was kind of encourage all these really good sound bites from Brad, from Ryan Pries, from Chris Busher. We got Kyle Larson telling us that if it happens, I hope it happens right in front of me but I don't want to get involved. And that's all because Carson made everyone around him more interesting. So you can hate him. You can boom. That's good for business. But again, we didn't create this. We are just we're witnessing what he's doing and recording it and talking about it. Yeah, it's definitely for me a throwback to when I might, you know, earlier days in NASCAR when it was really, I felt like you had a lot more of this. And when it became overly corporate and you had drivers sort of like running away from controversies, especially on, you know, honestly in the social media age too where you have people tweeting at people's sponsors and saying, well, I hate your driver now and stuff.

33:52And it's just like, oh, great. But I think that, you know, I was thinking about Bristol this week, right? With the Kyle Busch is an ass stuff from Kaisalowski back in the day. We got to see a little bit of that flash from Kaisalowski again. And it's been a while since we saw him in a rivalry, you know, with somebody like that. So it's fun. It's fun for me. To Matt's point about how this isn't new, you know, how Carson's acting and Carson being kind of like the center of attention and the guy with the bulls eye on his back and suddenly he's the guy that older drivers want to make an example of of what not to do. That's not new either. The difference I feel like is that we just, we don't see it every year. It's like every five years, every six, seven years, someone like Carson comes along. And we get these rivalries and it's a chance for the younger drivers to be like, well, you know, I'm going to be me and I'm not going to change her anybody.

34:53Whereas the veteran drivers are like, well, this is not how you do things and this kid bothers me, blah, blah, blah. And why I say that's not new is because what's ironic about this whole thing is Carson Hosevar has pissed off Brad Kizlowski who at one time we were all talking about how Brad Kizlowski had pissed off Danny Hamlin and had pissed off Kevin Harvick and had pissed off all these other drivers, right? And Carson Hosevar has pissed off Danny Hamlin who at, you know, back used to have problems with Joey and used to have problems with whoever. And then, you know, Joey Ligano thinks that younger drivers shouldn't do something. And oh, by the way, Joey Ligano and Kevin Harvick made a killing in T-shirt sale. How many years ago, right? Like it's just, it's cyclical. This sport is cyclical in everything that happens, including young drivers coming along every so often and making somebody mad. And nine out of 10 times the drivers are making mad, you can trace their history back to

35:54when they came in of who they made mad. So I just, I absolutely, I absolutely love what's going on right now because I'm like, this, it's just history repeating itself. It's just history repeating itself of a young driver coming in and everybody thinks what he's doing is wrong. And eventually, maybe Carson will quote, unquote, settle down. And in 10 plus years, he's going to be the guy that somebody's going to come in and make him mad. Yeah. Who is I say? Not as I do. Right. Listen to the heartbeat. Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason with SUVs made to move with your rhythm. The versatile equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend. And tracks bring style with value you can count on. All infused with tech that has your back. So your drive always hits the right cord. Let's do the heartbeat. Adventure awaits in a new Chevy.

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37:57Applacard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at Applecard.com. We are already only at time for one more topic because it's totally flying by and I had like whatever, 10 questions and we're going to get to like three of them or something. We obviously could talk for a very long time. So I guess- Listen, you're the one that wanted to stay on a time limit. I knew coming into this. I'm like, hey, I'm here for however long. There is a media, you know, Ryan Blaney media zoom coming up in less than 10 minutes. I have to get you out for that. I cannot affect your work with you guys. Showing me a favor here. But let's just talk about where we are in the chase at this point, I guess, because

39:01Denny Hamlin opened his sort of like the guy to beat and he still has the points lead, but he's had two very wobbly races. He and his team at least to start the chase. And now it's brought some real contenders back into this, right? Like, I mean, yes, Bell had a bad day this last week, but Bell's very much in it. Carson, boy, that's somebody you don't want to let get hot. I mean, especially going into Bristol this week, if he has a big day, he's right there. Blaney, you know, despite blowing the break road, I mean, I don't think he's out of it at this point. So, you know, if you had decided today with eight races to go, are you going with Denny to win the championship or has the picture changed for you if you had to pick somebody? Well, for me, I still think that this entire season has run through Denny Hamlin. I mean, before the chase started, he was either the guy that was winning races or you had to beat him to do it.

40:01I mean, still the best average finish, I believe, in the series this season. The field has let him off the hook in a way that I think is very dangerous for them, because you had him. You had him. You had him twice. Yes. And he's still the points leader going into the meat of the schedule where I think it starts to benefit him again. Now, the thing that I think is interesting is that NASCAR did make that rules change to the splitter struts that we all know inside the garage was intended to take away a bit of an advantage that Toyota teams have found and kind of equalize things for the Hendrix of the world and to give Penskeback something a little bit. So I'm going to be very curious to see when we go to Kansas. Is Hamlin and Bell and Gibbs are still really good there that's certainly a place. Larsen is one. So I do think that Larsen has got such a great chance here because this schedule is very

41:05kind to him too if he can be more consistent than he's been all this year. I mean, he's had the speed even in this season where Hendrix has started to kind of struggle to figure out this body and there's just some inconsistencies. He's been fast all along. It's just, you know, is he hung money or not? That's the issue. But I still think this is Denny's championship. The schedule is very good to him and you can't expect him to continue to just making either his mistakes, the pit crew like this last week. Eventually he's going to get back to being Denny Hamlin and he's had too bad kind of middling races and he's still the points leader. Shame on all of you for letting him get away with it. What do you think, Kelly? Well, I agree with Matt in a sense of, you know, they were let off the hook. The team twice stubbed their toe, you know, the slow pit stop in Darlington and then Denny doesn't finish the pass on McDowell, which, you know, Denny kind of took part of

42:07the blame there, right? It's your responsibility. You have to finish the pass. But anyway, you know, you had him there and then gosh, I mean, world, Sunday in St. Louis, that might be the one that the competition's going to look back on and be like, holy crap. Because he was what? 20 years with about 16 laps to go and then we had what, four or five cautions and suddenly he's nine. I mean, that you definitely let him back into it then. So I agree with Matt there. I agree as well that, you know, we're coming up on a part of the schedule once we get out of Bristol, which not discounting Bristol, but to Matt's point about the intermediates, that is where Toyota and Kyle Larson, that is where you really think that they're going to separate themselves from everybody else, right? And that's where if you're going to bag a lot of points, that's those tracks. We've got Vegas, Kansas Vegas and Charlotte coming up. Those three weeks right there might completely separate the top, you know, two, three, four, five drivers at this point of who it's really going to come down to. So I'm looking at the same thing there, but I'm still not ready to say it's a Denny Himmler

43:11championship for two reasons. A, I'm going to stay intellectually honest to myself, which is, you know, in my racer preseason predictions, I said, I picked Kyle Larson. And as you guys both mentioned, I think it's dangerous to let the five team hang around in the sense of they have a lot of strong tracks coming up as well, because Matt pointed it out. I mean, Larson hasn't been a slouch this year, just because they didn't win. I mean, his consistency, he was top six, top eight in the points nearly all year. They've had this speed. They just weren't winning races. So I feel like they were getting discounted. But we're at the time of year where we saw this last year, where if you let the five, if you let the five hang around and you give cliff Daniels a chance to continue to get those cars better and to go through a 400, 500 mile race and he gets that car better. And then you put the ball in Larson's hands, nine out of 10 times, they're going to beat you. So I'm going to stay honest to that of why I'm not giving it to Denny Hamlin. I'm also not giving it to Denny Hamlin because we have seen this movie before.

44:15I mean, yes, it's a different format. And I do believe this format plays better into his strong suit. And I think that if this is a year that it's going to happen, it will be this year because he's been absolutely incredible. But we have seen this movie before and I'm just a little concerned that it's the same time of year where suddenly he's stumbling his toe and how many more times is the competition going to let him off the hook. By the way, don't forget, no one scored more stage points than the five team this year too. And who has scored the most stage points through the first two chase races? The five team. Wow. Interesting. Think about this. We talked about a lot about like if you let Blaney stay close or Wagono stay close, imagine going into home set, let's say Denny even has a 20 point lead over Larsen and it's Larsen at home said. It's almost going to feel like I mean, Denny would almost feel like he's beat. I mean, the amount of stage points and winning the race that Larsen could easily, oh, that

45:20would be so dangerous for everybody if Larsen at home said to win the championship. That's a good point about Blaney and I think that goes back to why I said the next past Bristol, however, Bristol sets up the three races after that. Those are the ones I think are going to make or break this championship because it's very clear who is good on the intermediates, which is we just talked about, right? Gives and Larsen. It's very clear who has worked to do on the intermediates and that would be right, the forwards and Blaney. Like they capitalize a little bit on all these short tracks coming into the chase and flat tracks and got their points. But those three races, once we get out of Bristol, if Blaney can can situate himself, get a bucket of points this weekend, he's going to need them because I think those three races, Kansas Vegas and Charlotte is what is going to make or break this championship for who's ever top five in the points. All right. You guys got to go because this Blaney media session is coming up, but safe travels to

46:20Bristol. Thank you so much for hopping on here. Sorry, we didn't get to even half the things, but maybe in the off season or something when we're bored and I can bribe you again to come on here. Thank you for your all your time. I really appreciate it. Let's do it. Let's do it for sure. All right. Kelly Crandell, Matt, we have everybody. Two of the all-stars in the NASCAR media, of course, and appreciate them coming on right before they hop on this news conference. NASCAR has these midweek media sessions. Carson knows as far as last week and Blaney is about to come up right now. Then they're going to be driving up to Bristol because it's a short week. I was going to ask them about their biggest media center pet peeves, but maybe that's a topic we can stay for another race because I know mine. I want to hear theirs. Let's talk about TV ratings for a moment because those have now come out, and I think they're interesting, because we saw that NASCAR was not really having any sort of like

47:26amazing success ratings-wise and was a little bit down for some of the year, flatter down. Just the way things were trending, it's like, I don't know. Here comes the chase now. What are these going to do? What is the viewership going to do? As I can tell you, I remember in those playoff committee meetings last year, it was a real topic in the room at times. Multiple people were like, what's this going to do for the viewership though? If we take away elimination races, if we take away a championship race, if we go to a 10 race thing, especially if somebody runs away with it, what's it going to do to viewership? Some people in the room said, hey, it's actually going to make viewership go down the first year because this is something you build credibility with back into the sport. This is something long-term that you do to make people watch again.

48:28There's internally within NASCAR, I'm sure a lot of eyeballs on, okay, how are fans going to react? The chase is here, different format, people feel refreshed, but are they going to tune in? You had the Cup Series race at Gateway, which by the way is obviously going up against the NFL. Last year, it also went up against the NFL, week one. Both times, you have the exact same part of the year. That's very important. Both on USA, so you don't have one on NBC, one on USA, you had both on the same channel, both going up against week one on the NFL. Here's the results. Last year, 1.525 million this year, 1.635 million. Pretty much flat, but you had 110,000 more people, average viewers, shows to watch NASCAR this year. Again, while the NFL is going on week one, then last year. Again, 1.65 million people, as big as the NFL is these days, I'm not making excuses.

49:36Nothing compared to how it was even 5, 10, 15 years ago on NFL Sundays for the chase. It's not close, but these days to see an increase, to see, hey, that's not nothing on an NFL Sunday. I think a lot of people even NASCAR fans are like, I walked to NFL and flipped back and forth kind of thing. Overall, the chase, viewership is up slightly. It's up 6% over the first two races. It's not down. That's something. We'll see if it continues because I think a lot of people are paying attention to it. By the way, think about how different the conversation would be heading to Bristol this week. I'm actually writing something about this for the athletic that's coming out on Thursday. This normally would be an elimination race until we'd be talking about who's, you wouldn't be talking about the front runners at all. You'd already have Hamlin would be locked in with his points.

50:40Bell and Larson would have won their way in. Blaney had a bad week, but he'd still be pretty good. Pretty much an almost an off week for all those guys. We'll be talking about, will Ryan Priest be able to advance? Will Austin, Cindrick be able to advance? Can William Byron dig his way out of a hole? Can Chase Elliott hang on? Stuff like that. We'd be talking about the bubble. But the top guys would pretty much be going conservatively, just trying to make it. Then they'd do that for the next three weeks too. Instead, we're going to Bristol and you're talking about this heavyweight fight of great Bristol drivers, all who are at the top of the point standings, rather than, okay, well, can the guy in 12th hang on? Let's talk about Bristol real quick with a little bit of a preview here, because Bristol and tires have been a big topic in this next Shen era. You've seen them turn to tire dust with a couple races and what's going on and it's

51:42been unpredictable. I don't think we should expect anything weird this time. Good year is bringing back the exact same tire combination from the spring. Here's a quote, by the way, from Good Year NASCAR product manager, Rick Kinewreck. He said, Bristol Motor Speedway's high bank concrete services demanding and continually evolves as rubber is laid down over 500 laps. The good year racing eagles we have selected for this weekend are designed to effectively rubber in the racing service, creating multiple racing grooves. Teams already have experience with this combination from the spring race. I went back to the quotes from the spring race because I have a bad memory. I can't remember this stuff. The tires did not have much fall off, but they did lay clumps of rubber down on the bottom groove and they created a different progression of rubber throughout the race that drivers had to figure out how to navigate. It sort of changed the track. It just didn't have a lot of wear.

52:43Ryan Blaney, his quote afterwards, he called it a pretty good tire. Todd Gillin talked about how they made a two tire pit call on a late stop and they finished six as a result. Now, Ty Gibbs won the race by leading the final 25 laps, including overtime restart, but Kyle Larson led more than half laps, 284 and Blaney led 190. Those were the only three drivers to lead any laps in the race. You look at it and you're like, there wasn't a ton of lead changes. This was a bristle race where it wasn't crazy and chaotic and all that stuff. We'll see if it's going to be a strength on strength battle, Larson right now with momentum. I don't know if you guys saw the chart by Daniel Suspitus. He posted laps led by next gen drivers at Bristol in the next gen era, right?

53:45You know what I'm saying? Anyway, the five is like all the way high up in the corner of the screen and everybody else is just like sort of down and it's like not even close. There's been some very dominant Kyle Larson races in this car at Bristol. Obviously, Danny can win there and have a good run. Blaney can have a good run. Bell can have a good run. And those are the guys in the point standings right now contending for it. So it could be very interesting, right? By the way, it was really weird looking back when I was looking at the research for this. And you're looking down at the running order and you're seeing Kyle Busch's name there. You're like, oh man, it just feels like he's been gone for a while now or something. But I was like, no, he was he was in this race like last time they were there. And obviously you think so much about Kyle Busch and Bristol. And we're certainly going to be doing that on Saturday night. Because Ty Gibbs is running the M&Ms throwback tribute paint scheme.

54:50Now it is 54, but it's the M&Ms. It's the classic M&Ms scheme that you all know. Just with pictures, if you zoom in, you know, a mosaic of pictures of Kyle and great moments through Kyle's career. And it's being built as the final ever M&Ms scheme. Like they're coming back for this one more time. Actually, Kyle Larson said he was going to run that number five scheme they just unveiled originally for Bristol. And they decided to move it to Vegas because he wanted to get out of the way of having like multiple Kyle Busch schemes in the same race. So he's going to run his five tribute scheme for Vegas and let Ty Gibbs have the the focus on this. And it's certainly going to be emotional. I'm sure Samantha and the family are going to be there. He saw Joe Gibbs racing posted. Samantha and the family looking at the car up close this week in the shop and getting a chance

55:52to look at all the pictures. Sure, it's going to be emotional. I was looking at the, I was going to tweet out some pictures and videos. One of my assignments in 2022 for the last race was to do a Kyle Busch's final ride, you know, story kind of thing. And so at the championship race afterwards, I went, I was at his car when he got out of the M&M's car and he got out of Joe Gibbs racing car for the final time because he was, you know, moving on to where children's racing, he lost his job. And so I have a bunch of pictures and videos from that and it's just like, man, just crazy to look back now. But you certainly know that the nostalgia and the emotions are going to be flowing with under the lights everybody seeing that scheme, the Tigib scheme, the M&M scheme. And imagine, I mean, this is the guy that won the

56:52Bristol race in the spring. Imagine if he's able to get up there and get up front and lead laps or even win to sweep the Bristol races. I mean, the the the cheers that would come for the M&M's car with the Kyle Busch tribute. At a place where Kyle Busch by the way was booed so many times. Um, that would be an amazing, amazing site for sure. So I'm sure everybody's going to be looking forward to that. I know that's going to be quite a moving moment and a big focus of the pre-race. So I'm looking forward to watching that on TV and seeing what they do with all that. It's going to be amazing stuff. Let's talk about the weekend race times. The truck series finally races again after their their long layoff here. They are now this is, you know, one reason we're doing the Gluckcast Wednesday. This is a short week, right? Truck series is racing Thursday night,

57:538 p.m. Thursday night on FS1. Then the O'Reilly series resumes their chase Friday night at 730 Eastern on the CW. We'll see how Salualich and Corriday race after believe NASCAR is going to be having a little chat with them on Friday when they get to the track along with the leadership from their teams. They'll all be in a meeting together and NASCAR will lay out what they want to see and play the role of therapist. Maybe I don't know. And then the Cup series will be racing Saturday night under the lights 730 p.m. Eastern on USA Network. So I think, and you know, by the way, too, this is the last time Bristol's in the spot, probably. I mean, I don't see them moving it back to September, ever. I mean, they're they're they're going to be moving it back to his traditional Augustate now. Remember, it was moved to the spot in the year because it was an elimination race

58:56and because it made for, hey, that'd be a crazy place to end round one, right? Let's put the Bristol night race in that spot. Wow. But I think going up against college football season and going up against, you know, school and hurting your campers and stuff like that, you know, I think that's that's hurt them. And I think it belongs where it was in the summer in August. So it will be leaving the chase after this. So probably seeing it this in the spot for the final time. And that'll be it'll be interesting. So should be a special night, should be a fun night. And we will be coming to you on the tear down very late on that one. So I will be having my energy drinks once again. I'm you know what guys? I'm starting to get a little bit addicted to the energy drink thing. I've been having too much Celsius lately. It's not an advertisement. I just have been. I'm not happy with

59:58myself better because I don't think energy drinks seem like they're like healthy for you, but I'm getting old. My birthday is Saturday. I've already complained about getting old. Do you guys how much I hate night races? And I have to have these energy drinks and then I don't feel so tired and cranky. I don't want to be cranky on the tear down. So I'll be having more energy drinks. But I can't I really don't want to have like one a day. Certainly not like multiple day like Jordan has for his Red Bulls. But man, they like perp me up. I mean, they they're like better than coffee. I don't ah shoot. So yes, not an advertisement, but I really don't want to get like hooked on these to where you like need them. That would be really bad. So I'm trying not to even do like one every day. What do you guys do for your caffeine that you can avoid? I mean, do you like isn't it bad for you to like get up in the morning and like have an energy drink? That seems like it's not good for you.

1:01:00I don't know. Am I is there any studies out there about this? I try googling, but it's kind of inconclusive. You know, you see what you want to see, right? But I'll try to stick my sick to my coffee, but man, when I need it for these night races, anyway, I'll try not to be cranky. And we'll talk to you guys Saturday night, very late on the tear down. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you that. See everybody. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect chiro. Skills First Hiring helps you see talent others miss. Like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage

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