Bristol: A record-tying 19th winner; the Next Gen durability gets exposed; short track shortcomings, Brad Keselowskis belief in Chris Buescher; Round of 12 preview

Greetings. Welcome to the NASCAR TV. Podcast your host Nate Ryan here with the NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett. We're here on the Monday after Bristol Motor Speedway first round cutoff race. DJ and NASCAR gets its 19th winner of the 2022 season. It's fourth straight first time winner of this season and now they've had Austin Dillon, Eric Jones, Bubble Wallace and now Chris Bussier all win

for the first time in 2022. So fourth straight bring us to 19. I think it's a certainty. We get to 20 and Truex doesn't want yet. He's been running well. Blaney hasn't won yet. I'm glad you're on as our guest because you took some grief for predicting early in the year that there were going to be 16 winners and I'm not pleading guilty here because it

was our other analysts. I think you disagree with you. Maybe we should blame KP for disagreeing the most. And there were some other drivers. I know Denny Hamlin also said no way NASCAR was going to get the 16 winners. So now we're here at 19. So I'm going to give you a chance to like take your victory lap and tell us how do you know? Did

you know that this was going to be this kind of year because of the car? Was that the reason why? You know, when I said that actually it, we had had a number of new winners at that time. And it just looked like that this car was going to present a lot of different options for drivers and teams and opportunities. It's probably a better word that

we hadn't seen before. And it just seemed to me at that time that if we were ever going to get in this situation before teams and drivers figured this car out that we could get to that number, I just threw it out there that I believe this is the year that we can actually see that. That happened really not thinking that it would go over that

number. But as we sit here now with, as you pointed out, you'll be there as Martin Truex Jr. Ryan Blaney we think is going to win at some point in time. Among others, I mean Brad keselowski ran great at Bristol and you have to think that he's going to be a factor when we go to Talladega. And so opportunities are there. So it's been fun to

watch and see all of this. And that's just free advertising for NASCAR racing whenever you can boast that you've had 19 winners. And the thing that we have to look at now will a playoff driver ever win one of these races again this year. That's the conversation that we all expected to have along with. Well, we break the all-time record for winners in the season, which

by the way, we just tied it with 19. Yeah, also how many non-playoff drivers will win races? We're up to three in a row now with, as I said, Eric Jones, the Darlington, Bubble Wall, as a Kansas, now Chris Boucher at Bristol. I was going to get to this later, but let's bring it up now to Jim. It seems to me as if what we're seeing

here, again, it's of course related to the next gen car. But whenever we used to talk about the playoff starting, it would always be Chicago Lant's Speedway, the top 10 speeds in the opening practice where I'll play off drivers or the top 10 finishers where I'll play off drivers. And it seems as if this year we're not seeing that level of dominance. And I asked Ross

Chastain and Joey Ligano about this at Bristol this past weekend. And they made points that were probably obvious to something like you, but not to me. Ross said, it's different. This car has reset that whole thing where you can't bring different headers here. You can't bring a new arrow package. You're trying to maximize everything, but we all have the same parts. You can't build a new

right front spindle and save it for the playoff. And you can't build, you know, bring different brake pads that you've found and testing to be better and bring them now. Like, there's nothing else to bring. We all order the same stuff. And this has been the greatest reset this sport has ever seen ever. From the very first race, you could build a better car. Now you

can only assemble a better car. We all build off the same control arms, chassis, body panels. We all scan them in our hot guys and we bring them here and we try not to let the sun hit them and we get them through tech. And then we race them and they're so equal. It's been the greatest reset. So really there's geometry and setups, but you're just

moving stuff around on the car. You can't bring different materials because we all buy the same stuff. Legato said, I mean, there's only certain areas you can develop, right? And there's not really many parts on the risk car that is so it's smaller and so it comes down to setups. You know, we're all playing with the same, you know, the same deck of cards when we

start and it's just kind of how you play that hand. It varies from track to track and especially I said, come in the Bristol for the first time, someone can hit it that's not really expected to, right? It's hard to have just a clear advantage going into where you can miss your setup a little bit and still be pretty good, right? That's how it's been in

the past. Someone's just got better cars, more capability in their car. They can miss the setup and still run 5th to 10th. Now if you miss your setup, you're probably running 15th to 20th, right? Which is just a lot different now and then because of that you have different winners because there's more capable cars out there and no one has a clear advantage in a lot

of different ways. There's some tracks that, you know, certain manufacturers may have advantages over others but it's not huge. Like it used to be, it's teams that might have a little bit of an advantage here and there because they figured something out for a little bit. You know, it's just keeps changing, right? And everyone's trying to figure out not only the setups but where is the

low hanging fruit on this car when you're developing it from a, you know, at the wind tunnel and those type of things. What can and can't you do? You used to have teams that were strong for three to four months at a time. Now it's three to four weeks at a time and it just seems like that cycle happens a lot quicker now. The remaining seven

races, will the powerhouse teams ever figure out how to get that advantage just with setup related cars? I don't think that advantage exists right now. I believe that they're so concerned about the parts and pieces that they have to work with that they know exactly what they can and can't do with it. They're trading lightly because of some things and penalties that they've seen people get

by trying to tinker with these things just a little bit. So those advantages that they could once get because they were bigger teams with more employees, more opportunities to work on things and to give them an advantage just don't exist now. So I think it's the opportunities are endless for what we could see as far as drivers because we keep talking about, you know, I mean,

don't think that we would have sat down and said that Chris Boucher was going to win at Bristol. Was he going to win anywhere? Yeah, maybe Daytona and Talladega. We saw him run really well at Sonoma so might pop up at a road course. But, you know, before they just couldn't find themselves in that position as much and you're right. The speed charts look completely different

now, what little practice time they get. The running order through the races. We saw a lot of the playoff drivers migrate and get good finishes into the top 10, but a lot of the race is not what you saw there where we used to see in, you know, 12 of the 16 would be in that top 15 or something. But that didn't happen at Bristol and

hasn't happened in the other races. So I really don't see that happening this year. Now as they get a winner to look over these cars and I know there's going to probably be some changes coming because I really believe that the new car is great as it's been for competition and what we've seen and we talk about 19 winners. Some things were exposed about the car.

They have been at some other places, but at Bristol. And there is no other track like Bristol, but you had to think that these things would eventually happen at other places to where the loads were this high and the speeds this was faster to the corners. There's some work to be done there after that Bristol race. Where do you think the low hanging fruit might be

on set up? Look at O'Connor saying that that Team Penske hasn't figured out the clear advantage with this car. Is it a mindset shift for teams and drivers where it used to be like, hey, we'll save our best lightest stuff for the playoffs. How do you do it when it's just set up related, I guess? How do you do it where you that low hanging fruit,

that suspension stuff? Because I guess if everybody's working on set ups, it's different than working on parts and knowing that we can save this for the last 10 races and no one else is going to have it. Yeah, I think that we saw some teams and drivers probably through the regular season after they got themselves solidly locked in and it was quite obvious that nobody was

going to have a tremendous amount of playoff points to benefit them a lot going through the playoffs with each round. That we saw teams trying some things. I think there were probably more failures than gains and a lot of it. I thought at one time that maybe Chase Elliott and his team had figured out a lot of stuff but if they did, they haven't brought it

yet. Yeah, really struggled. I mean, I know he finished second at Bristol. He didn't qualify well. He didn't look at a dry title. No, he just didn't. They performed as everyone else had problems at Bristol. He didn't have any problems and they took advantage of that. Which is partly what you have to do. So I don't see that there's a lot there. Yeah, it used to

be that, okay, everything that we learned for the first 26 races, we're incorporating that into new cars to build for the 10 race playoffs. There's no advantage to that now. I know they're having to build and rebuild a lot of the parts and pieces that they're mandated to run from a standpoint of making sure they don't have more failures. But getting things that have given them

an advantage. I think it's more about there are going to be tracks that certain manufacturers are going to run better at than the others. So I think you try to manage whenever you go to where you're not and you're not as good at certain places and types of tracks. And you really have to step up and take advantage of your driver and the advantage that your

car may give you at certain tracks. Like the Toyota's at the mile and a half. They have to be, any hamlin has to be outstanding at Texas. They just have to perform because they know that's an opportunity because when they go to the roval at Charlotte, they know there hasn't been a road course yet that the Toyota's have performed well at. So this shapes up as

a very interesting round for the manufacturers if you look at it simply because of those things and drivers that do better at Talladega. And then some like the car the Toyota hasn't performed well at the roval. So those drivers, Danny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, they understand they've got to make hay when they can and that'll be certainly at Texas and at Talladega before they get to

that. Texas is next and then after that Talladega and then the roval. So certainly a lot of opportunity here for another surprise winner. I mean, I think you're right. I mean, obviously the way the Toyota's ran at Kansas and there's still a first time winner possibility there with Thai Gibbs. I mean, it would be a gunner. But at the same time, it's not like he hasn't

run well enough to be there. Make sure you focus on what DJ says. You called the winners of Darlington and Kansas. Is that right? I believe so. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I jumped out on the limb with Bubba a little bit at Kansas. I knew that I did not know at the time that I picked that. I do know now that that was the same car

that Kurt Busch drove there. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, so to win, but I did not wasn't privy to that information before. I just felt like that Bubba ran well that day that Kurt won at Kansas also, but he had two penalties that sent him to the back because of his pit crew. And he was never really given a fair chance to run right up there with

his teammate at that race. Don't know that he would have outrun Kurt Busch, but I knew that he had run well enough that, hey, he's in a situation now. We've seen him perform well. And I just felt like that it was a good time to take a big underdog and he went and performed there. I think you could see another scenario at Texas to where these

Toyota's are going to be very strong, hard to beat in that situation. Yeah, a tie Gibbs is very capable of winning. Martin Truex Jr., very capable of winning at Texas. So, you know, this trend, if you will, may continue for sure. All right. Well, I don't make my fantasy lineup until I check in with the Jaret and associate's pick. On the pre-race show is Kyle Petty,

cause your predictions slash betting service. So definitely paying attention to that and again, you were on with 16 winners, 16 winners plus. And you also picked Ryan Blaney to win Saturday at Bristol and certainly seemed like he had one of the best cars. Right? Yeah. I think he and I both were disappointed in the things that happened there. And, you know, it didn't even take, you

know, to get to a lap 100 for him to have his problems. And I think he did. I mean, we saw a Ford win. I thought going in that the Ford's were going to be the ones to beat on Saturday night at Bristol. But having that issue early on, you have to applaud them for going in and being able to repair that car enough to get

back out and make laps and gain a few more spots. I think he would have made it through whether they finished last or next to last anyway, with everything that transpired. But they did a tremendous job. And, you know, I don't think that he's, that it's going to be a Daniel Himmrich from 2021 not winning all year until the championship race comes along. But that could

very well be the case with Ryan Blaney. You know, they're solid enough everywhere that he certainly could be that driver that could maneuver his way through the rounds and be part of the championship for without ever winning the race until he got there. Yeah. So he was one of many guys who had problems. Normally we don't go this deep. And the podcast about talking about the

race. But unfortunately, DJ, not a lot to talk about, positively, about the racing in the car. And you already said it that the next gen got exposed. You said that on the post ratio as well. You said it's been fantastic racing for most of the year with the next gen. Had a lot of close finishes, a lot of outcomes in doubt until the final 10 laps.

But as you said, it kind of got exposed at Bristol Motor Speedway. I know Bristol presents challenges in terms of the loading and everything like that. We're probably not going to see hopefully the steering problems that we saw Saturday night again through the final seven races of the season, but you had all those steering issues that especially the Toyota teams seem to be affected by. You

have many tire problems. I'm not really sure that was necessarily car related, but certainly is affected by the setup they're using. And what's interesting is this now happening in this situation that NASCAR and its teams have never been in before. They essentially have spec cars. The teams can't just fix this. They're at the mercy of what's being supplied to them by these single-source vendors. And Mark

Tricks Jr. on our broadcast Saturday night was the latest to be very critical. The way Kevin Harvick was at Darlington. So I know you didn't race in a spec series type environment the way the next gen has created in the Cup series, but what do you make of what this must be like for teams to be wrestling with all of this? Well, I think it's a

difficult situation because it is something that's completely different than what they've ever faced before with this. As you pointed out, if they had problems in the past, then they've been in a bad situation. They only had to look at what they were doing that may have created that by making the majority of the parts and pieces that they raced. They can look at this now, but

there's really no change in it. I mean, there is still somewhat of a supply problem with everything. Most everybody now has enough cars and parts and pieces, but if you really get in a bind, everything's still not there. And even what you are getting and what you do have, you can't do anything too. So if there's issues with it, it's not like it can be fixed

from one week to the next because you're not allowed to do anything there. So I think this really has the teams concerned and why we do see a lot more things happening than what we have in the past. And I think that that's not being able to get that advantage for the top tier teams is something that they're not accustomed to. So they're having to battle

and fight and figure things out as they go along. We shouldn't have expected that this would, we would just all of a sudden bring a completely new car with all new parts and pieces to the racetrack. You have to think back that when this car first started being developed, all of a sudden the pandemic hit and this was kind of put to the side. Right. So

the testing that actually was done and the parts and pieces started being made, it had to be done quickly because they had this time, 2022 is when they wanted to start running this car and they weren't going to change that. And so a lot had to happen quickly and when you do things quickly, sometimes everything's not up to par and some things get overlooked. And so

then you start getting things exposed. And so the teams don't like to be put in that situation, but they are. And I think it's more now about surviving these rounds. It's not just the things that are happening with the car. We see the pit crews make more mistakes than we have ever seen. And we know that the pressure ramps up when you get into the playoffs

and we know that now each position is harder to gain back if you lose that on pit road. And so they're being put in a very uncomfortable position and they don't want to put their drivers in a worse position because we've heard some of the conversations over the radios and those aren't pretty either. So this has become difficult for them. And the pit crews are dealing

with something different as well and we're 29 races into the single lug nut era, but it's still obviously creating problems. I didn't foresee it would go this long, but I understand why. Yeah, you know, the one thing is that the teams try to get better and faster at these pit stops understanding what's at stake. And we do see this, especially the majority of the things that

we see now are happening on the left side. And that is because the Jackman is basically either being told or this is how they practice it that he's expecting those tire changers and the tire carriers to do their job in a certain amount of time. And they're not taking the time. If you watch these, they're not taking the time to look and make sure that both

tire changers have completed their job. They're looking in one direction. And when they see that, they assume the other one is done, especially they're looking at the rear now that he should be finished and they're just taking their chance that he has done. Because if he takes that split second to look before he drops the jack, then you've lost time. And that may be one, two,

three spots. And they're willing to take the chance that everyone did their job and there wasn't an issue, but we saw it with Kevin Harvick steam the other night. That was the left front tire once again. Jackman's looking at the left rear, never even looking at the left front. And all of a sudden you have an issue and you have to take any chance away that

they shouldn't have been changing the left side tires to begin with. We know that. But if they were trying to win the race, but they were doing that and by doing it and having the problem took any chance away. Yeah, another discussion entirely. Yeah, it seems like a chance worth taking until the jack goes down and the guy's not done because once the car's on the

ground, you can't change it at that point. That's the driver's cue to take off. As soon as he moves. There's a lot of issues there still. This isn't going to fix itself over these next seven races. Somebody's going to, once again, in these next two rounds, take themselves out of contention of moving forward and being a part of the championship for. Don't know who that will

be, but we've seen a number of teams and, you know, could even be we see quite a few changes in pit crews within organizations that may be trying to put their very best there. I think you're on a slippery slope when you start doing that, but we've seen it before. Yeah, we heard of one by one today that Danny Hamlin now will have the 18 pit

crew. We've learned that today from Checkers Racing, which is certainly interesting. The problems with the next-gen car, DJ, do you think it's a wake-up call for NASCAR? Probably he's not going to pop up again. You would hope at the tracks that NASCAR will go to here the last seven races. But can they hold some sort of emergency meeting with their suppliers and like just say, hey,

we can't have situations like this. I don't know. Maybe the counter argument also is like the fact that the first race at Bristol was on dirt, the potential was always going to be there. This is going to be a wild card. Yeah. Yeah. They had no idea that because there is no other track like Bristol to where it puts that type of load on everything. But

with the old cars, you used to do things differently with the cars just so they would be able to withstand everything that Bristol brings with the high banks, the fast speeds. This car had not been tested to that point. I mean, you think about Dover that it could be somewhat the same type with the concrete surface and relatively high banks, but nothing like what the Bristol

track is. And by the way, they're being on dirt, it wouldn't even a comparison. The speeds exceeded anything and everything that the drivers and teams thought that they made and the continuous speeds, I think, was the biggest things that they were able to keep attacking this racetrack lap after lap after lap. And that also created the situation of not having a lot of passes for the

league, being out front. It wasn't necessarily that the air was great. It's just the speeds we heard a number of drivers talk about that the cars were going through the center of the corner. So fast, you couldn't even gain an advantage unless somebody made a mistake got loose going in or right in the middle or something like that. So there were a lot of things. As

far as NASCAR being able to make changes, because of the supply change, it has to be for every team. It can't just be, oh, OK, we've got these 12 drivers there still in the playoffs. We'll get them to change. There's a can't be done that way. So they're in a box now. Certainly, they will move forward with better information and take this and make things better

for the future. But that the future means 2020. Yeah, that's one of the downsides about having a spec series with 36 essentially full-time cars is you can't be as nimble as the teams could be in changing things up and adapting to something. You were relying on companies to do this across the board for every team and the teams that are hands are tied, as you said.

I'm glad you did bring up the arrow and the speeds. Danny Hammond and Kevin Harvick both said that they're running faster in the center of the corner than on the straightaway, which unfortunately you never want to see this type of track, especially. Fewest lead changes in 13 years. Scott Graves, the crew chief for Crosbushers, said it was no brainer for him to take two tires. He

felt like you get out front. I mean, we saw it with Bushers teammate, Brad Kislowski, ran the first hire in 25 laps on the same set of tires, never pitted one the first stage. And he had a fast car, but it was also true that the leader could really, it felt like control this race and was more track position. Unfortunately, similar race at Martin'sville, next gen's

been great, certainly on the speedways. I think this is sort of the backwards than I think what we expected. I'm looking forward to Texas. It seems to have improved the mile and a half racing, but short tracks have been a little bit of a challenge for next gen. Yeah, but if you think about it in reality, and I didn't think about this until just recently as

to why that may be, but the old cars were all developed. So they were, the cars were offset. So you can make the left side is straight and have more weight there and everything. These cars are built and they're all the same for every single racetrack. They're basically a straight up car. That's why they perform well on the road course. And it doesn't affect them as

much on the bigger tracks because on a short track, every short track racer in America will tell you he wants to offset. That's why they had to put a limit as to how much it could be offset in years past with the old cars because you would just keep doing it as much as you could and making that left side way and control more of everything.

Now they don't have that. So that every, at every short track that you go to across America, drivers and teams have figured these things out. And that's what they do to make their cars drive. And that's what creates the competition. And so it makes it more difficult when you don't have that ability to do that now. Is that maybe a potential solution that NASCAR could use

to fix it? I think, I think that has to be in the discussion that because they realize too, obviously, you know, they don't want to see that. They want to see competitive racing. You know, we do, surely to goodness, we can do something on everything under a mile or a mile and under if we really want to enhance the racing, help we put stuff on the

race track to help it to end that, obviously, didn't. So yeah, why shouldn't we be able to make that change? Oh, that's certainly hopefully something that will be addressed ahead of Martin'sville, which is the third round cutoff race. So one thing about Bristol who's interesting to me, DJs, it did feel kind of old school, you know, attrition. Cars competing against cars that are already out of

the race. Like Austin, Cyndric being several laps down from the tire problems. He had him trying to make up laps to pass Kyle Busch, who had an engine failure. Daniel Swarez having to drive this completely undravable car. Yeah. It was, I think, five or six laps down just to make the playoffs. What did you make of that? Because I'm not trying to date you. But when

I started falling NASCAR, I was like mid to late 90s and I missed out on the era when not every car was as bull proof as they are now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you had engine failures, parts failures, crashes. You literally, at a place like Bristol, you would want to just survive those first 300 laps if you could because you knew then there were going

to be fewer cars on the track. And, you know, I don't care how fast a car you ever have there. You're encountering traffic almost every single laps. Once a restart was put there, then you're catching cars within five, ten laps at the most. And so you're always around cars. But as that attrition started in those races, it made it somewhat easier. And I think we saw

some of that the other night. That's the big wreck happened on the back straightaway after the restart with Daniel Swarris. I don't know how he held onto that car for that long, but he was at that point making it work. And he eventually made it work and moved himself on into the round of 12. But I think that that is one thing that we will see.

Probably, I don't know that we'll see it everywhere is the thing. But it did bring back memories of that type of racing and how it changed the racing and the things that you looked at. And drivers and teams doing whatever they could to complete every single lap. Most of them did. I think Martin Truex told his team, I ain't driving the thing anymore. Just load the

damn thing up and we're going home and we'll see you in Texas. I'm out of the playoffs. I've already watched there this season really to be over. So I also had a surprise winner. Chris Boucher wins for Brad Kizlowski, Roush Fenway racing. Are you surprised at how tough this year has been for Roush Fenway Kizlowski racing? Did you know this was going to be a slog

when Brad went over there? I can't say that I was surprised. I wondered how the new car may affect them. Could it be in a positive direction since they didn't have to build all the parts and pieces like they were before? So was this going to help them become competitive and more competitive quicker than what the task might have been because they had fallen pretty far

down and were having a hard time competing over there. But I will have to say I'm still surprised that they are this far. I mean, we've seen them at more tracks and at more races be competitive and Brad probably more just recently that we've seen him. But Chris Boucher has been there a lot and it becomes very evident as to why they wanted to sign Chris

Boucher and keep him there. A very talented young race driver. And I think that he's showing us that there's even more talent there than maybe what we thought as he won his Exfendede Championships and what he's been doing to keep himself in contention here. So good to see for them. Really, really good. And these are the good things that the new car has brought up with

track house winning with their two drivers getting them their first wins into Cup Series. And then for Brad to be able to have this as an owner now as a winning car owner, really cold to see and was fun to watch him. It is cool to see and it has brought some new faces to the front like Chris Boucher. And that's been the surprise for me

that he has outrun. Brad Kizlowski more often than not in the 2022 season and perfect set up by you. This brings us to our motor mouths of the race presented by eBay Motors, which is where we take a quote from the past race weekend and talk about the length. And this week the quote is from Brad Kizlowski on Chris Boucher after the win at Bristol. Brad

Kizlowski said, I wanted Chris Boucher to drive the 21 cup car about five years ago. I thought that highly of him. And there was a number of reasons why I didn't come over timing and so forth. But I thought that was a natural fit for him. And I thought a lot of his talent then. I went to a Ford driving school with him somewhere around 2015.

And I was blown away by his talent and his fuel for the car. I just felt like he didn't have the support system around him to be successful with the teams he was with. And so I kind of felt like he was a hidden free agent gem that wasn't being scouted properly and felt that way for a handful of years. And so yeah, the first thing,

it was literally the first thing I did when I signed the papers at RFK was the next step after signing my papers was putting an offer in front of him to give him a contract extension. And I felt like he was somebody we could build around and get results. And today clearly shows that that was the case. And AJ, interested in your take on all of

that because you kind of find yourself, I think, in that situation, in the early parts of your cup career before you went to what brothers racing and had the success that put you on the radar of getting to Joe Gibbs racing and then Robert Yates racing. So some parallels there maybe with what Chris brochure has been going through. Yeah, and I appreciate that. And you know,

the efforts, if you're in that position, it's not a lot of fun. But if you don't know, is this ever going to happen for me? You don't know. I think that what Chris Boucher was able to do as people looked, they understood that the equipment that he was driving for a good while wasn't up to par. And but yet he was performing at a high level

at certain tracks. It wasn't a weekly thing. But you knew the potential was there and what you saw. And you know, that's great seeing that Brad was able to get a hold of this early on and understand what Chris Boucher was as the driver. So I appreciate that and the effort that he made then once he got his ownership deal done that, hey, this is what

we have to do. This is the first thing. And when you get high praise from a champion like that, it means a lot. You know, I think the one thing that helped me as I looked back on my career was having Kail Yorbera to sign me in 1988 as he was winding down his career. I drove a partial schedule for him and even though his team

that he owned wasn't one of the top tier teams at the time, they performed at a high level. And so people looked at you when you were able to compete very well, they saw that that potential was there. And so I think that helped me when the Wood Brothers had to find someone to sub for Neil Bonnet that they had seen enough with Drew Kail that

they were quick to call me in. And so we made a deal there and the rest is kind of history that it, that was the turning point of my career was being able to drive that 21. So I think that Chris Buscher is that type of driver that there's still a lot of wins in that talent of that young man. And I'm sure that they're going

to not only will Brad try to keep him there, but Ford Motor Company wants to hang on to him also. Yeah, maybe Bristol in 2022, be like Michigan in 1991. And that's right, and be the start of something big. That was our motor mouths of the race presented by eBay Motors at eBay Motors. You can be your own pit crew with 122 million parts right at

your fingertips. Get the right parts of the right prices. eBay Motors dot com. Let's ride. All right. So wrapping up the podcast here, DJ wanted to talk to you about round to 12 preview, Jared and associates. Always going to pick your brain for this kind of knowledge. So we lose Kyle Bush. We lose Kevin Harvick. And now we've got 12 guys left, interesting to me that

Chase Elliott, as you mentioned, kind of a lackluster first round. But because of the regular season championship, points reset. And he is now in first again, 15 points ahead of Joey Ligano on the basis of his four race wins, five stage wins, and the 15 playoff points to get for in the regular season championships. So even though the nine car maybe had a middling first round,

and to me, he's still a favorite to make the championship for at this point. It has to be an in strictly based, I mean, we watched the first round as you pointed out there. If we look at that, we would say, well, how do you make that guy favorite? But it's because of the playoff points that he's been able to amass at this particular time that

he gets through this round to 12. Then he's going back to the top once again in the round of eight. And so it's huge advantage. And I think it's a great point for the fans to look at that wonder about, well, what does that regular season championship really mean? Yeah. And why are they trying to get these wins at this time in the regular season and

taking those chances? Well, this is what it's about. You know, this is the closest we've ever seen since this was put into place this type of format that we've seen this be. But he has a sighted advantage to the other 11 that are in this round of 12 with that. I realized 15 points can go away in a hurry because we saw that happen to chase

Elliott at Darlington. But he still goes in as the favorite there. You can't, Christopher Bell had three great races, all top five races in that round of 16, that first round. And he's going back to where he's down the list. He's seventh in points. Yeah, starting the round of 12. Yeah, so that did nothing for him. Yeah. I think he won a stage or two so

he might have one or two more points along the way there. But that essentially that's all that he got from that. Even though he was in contention to win all three races. He didn't do that. So he didn't get those five playoff points that would have come with that. And so now they're on that start back up. You have to say though that what we've seen

for picks because I lost Harvard and Tyler Reddick. I've found only two people left. So I'm basing it on Denny and Chase Elliott staying with me for a while. Tyler Reddick I think was a trendy pick because he figured if he gets through the first two rounds and then homestead is sitting right there, then he would have been a candidate. Exactly. And that was my thinking

exactly that I thought that he definitely could go there and win. But didn't make it. He might still go there and win. Yeah. And you make a great point too. The magnitude of the regular season, especially this year with the non-playoff drivers winning the first three races. No one has gotten an extra five playoff points from that. Martin Tricks Jr. missing the playoffs meant that playoff

points he would have gotten for finishing fourth in the regular season standings went away. So suddenly, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, three guys who again, like, I can't think of anything, anything those guys did in the first round. I mean, like you said, Chase Elliott finished second at Bristol. I think Logano had a strong finish. But I mean, Chastain had average performances at Darlington and

Kansas and then finished seventh, I think at Bristol. And now those guys are your top three to start this round. Yeah. Once again there. I mean, you look at Danny Hamlin. He's only, I believe I'm written down that he's only plus four. Is that right? Right. To the top line. Yeah. So you just think about, I mean, he had two second place finishes and then had

a strong car until he had the flat tire and issues at Bristol. But he's right back in the battle once again. And as I think he, along with other Toyota drivers, Christopher Bell, I think, with all of that, but he has to look at Texas as somewhere he needs to go get done. I know he's going to be good at Talladega, but at Talladega, the Toyota's

already in a short number as far as having teammates to help. Right. And I'm not sure how much you'll be able to count on Kyle Busch as a teammate. You know, any Toyota at this particular, at least he doesn't have to worry about maybe helping RCR cars play up. That's right. But yeah, you're right. I don't know how much. Kyle Busch is going to drive for

himself and the hell with the rest of you at this point in time. So I think Denny is going to put a lot of pressure on himself to perform at Texas and try to get that win there because he's not that far up as far as the company. Yeah. And especially how bad Toyota's have been on road forces. And the Louisville doesn't look like it's going

to save you for anybody left on that front. So you're right. Texas certainly magnified. We'll definitely be watching for that this weekend. And as always, we appreciate you joining here on the Ask Aren't you see podcast? Absolutely. Thanks for having me. We appreciate Dale Jarrett for joining us on the Ask Aren't NBC podcast. Thanks to producer Aaron Feldstein and Motorsports manager Emily Convoy for coordinating DJs

appearance. As you heard, we taped this on camera just before NASCAR America motorbaths. And you can see the video version of the NASCAR and NBC podcast on the Motorsports on NBC channel on YouTube. Subscribe if you visit. There's lots of great bonus content, highlights, features and interviews from NASCAR as well as IndyCar, MSA, Supercross, MotoGP, all on the Motorsports on NBC YouTube channel. The NASCAR Cup

series will open the round of 12 at Texas Motor Speedway. Coverage gets started Sunday at 2.30 p.m. Eastern on USA Network. Check out NBCSports.com slash NASCAR for detailed schedules, start times and coverage as always. And every Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern on USA, it's the new DocuSeries Race for the Championship. This is the inside look at the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. In the world of

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