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 TVC 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 true X 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. 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 to 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? 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 happen. 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's 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. So Kansas now Chris Boucher at Bristol. I was going to get to this later, but let's bring it up now. I mean, it seems to me as if what we're seeing here again, it's of

course related to the next gen car. We used to talk about the playoff starting. It would always be Chicago Lance Speedway, the top 10 speeds in the opening practice are all playoff drivers or the top 10 finishers are all playoff drivers. And it seems as if this year we're not seeing that level of dominance. And I asked Ross Chastain and Joey Lugano about this at Bristol

this past weekend and they made points that were probably obvious to somebody like you, but not to me like Ross said. Different this car is reset that whole thing where like you can't bring different headers here. You can't bring a new arrow package like 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 playoffs and you can't build, you know, bring different break pads that you've they've found and testing to be better and bring them now like there's nothing else to bring. And this is the same stuff and this has been the greatest reset this sport has ever seen ever like 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 like we all scan them in our hot guys and we bring them here and we try to let the sun hit them and we get them through tech and then we race them and they're so equal. So there's 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. And then the same thing that we do is we're all playing the same deck of cards when we start and it's just kind of how you play that hand and it varies from track to track and especially I said come in the Bristol for the first time. And hit it that's not really expected to right is

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 is 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 it's not huge like it used to be is 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 I can 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 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. It just seems like that cycle happens a lot quicker now for the remaining seven races will the powerhouse teams ever figure out how to get that advantage just with setup related cars. I don't I don't think that advantage exists right now I believe that you're they're so concerned about the

parts and pieces that they have to work with that 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 can do. They're trying to think or 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 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 that Chris Boucher was going to win at Bristol you know 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 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 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 were you used to see and 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 and 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 where the loads were this high and the speeds this fast to the corners so 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? Lugano is 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 when 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 didn't show if they did they haven't brought it yet. Yeah really struggled. I mean I know he finished second at Bristol but he didn't qualify well. That was a

good turn. 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. 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, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell they understand they've got to make hey 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 runner 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. 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 so well 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 it Martin Truex

Jr. very capable of winning at Texas so you know this this trend if you will make continue for sure. Alright well I don't make my fantasy lineup until I check in with the Jaret and the Sushi It's Dick. On the pre-race show is Kyle Petty cause your predictions slash betting service so definitely you paying attention 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. Yeah 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 is going to be a Daniel Himmrich from 2021 not winning all year until the championship race comes along. 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 positive wise about the racing and the car and you already said it

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 out 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 have 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 you know martin trick 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 right with this

you know they as you pointed out if they had problems in the past then they only had to look at what they were doing that that may have created that by making the majority of the parts and pieces that they raced that they can look at this now but there's really no change 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 to 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 while 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 you know and 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's 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 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 you know I think it's more now about surviving these rounds it's not just the things that are happening with the car you we see the pit crews make more mistakes than we have ever seen and we know that the pressure wraps 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 you know they're being put in a very uncomfortable position and they don't want to put their drivers in a worse position because you know 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 pickers 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 we do see this and especially you know the majority of the things that we see now are happening on the left

side and that is because the the jackman is basically either being told or this is how they practice it that he's expecting those tire changers and 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 and they're just taking their chance that 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

not 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 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 they were doing that and by doing it and having the problem took any chance away yeah another discussion entirely yeah yeah yeah it seems like a chance worth taking until the jack goes down and the guy's not done because once the cars

on the ground you can't change it at that point that's yeah that's the yeah that's the driver's cue to take off you know and yeah since he moves and so yeah there's a lot of issues there still and this isn't going to fix itself over these next seven races so you know somebody's going to once again in these next two rounds going to 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 yeah good even be we see quite a few changes in pit crews within organizations that may be trying to you know 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 Denny Hamlin now will have the 18 pick crew we've learned of 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 is 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 yeah 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 where it puts that type of load on everything you know it with the old cars 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 well with the concrete surface and relatively high banks but nothing like what the Bristol track is and by with it being on dirt it wasn't even a comparison yeah the speeds exceeded anything and everything that the drivers and teams thought that they may and the the continuous speeds I think was the biggest things that they were able

to keep attacking this racetrack lap after lap after lap and you know that also created the situation of not having a lot of passes for the league you know 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 yeah that there were a lot of things and as far as nice car being able to make changes can't because of the supply change change it yeah because it had to be for every team it can't just be that oh okay we got these 12 drivers are still in the

playoffs we'll get them to change there's a can't can't be done that way yeah so that they're in a box now certainly they will move forward with better information and take this and 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 changing things up and adapting to something you were lying on companies to do this across the board for every team and the teams their hands are tied as you said I'm glad you did bring up the arrow and the speeds Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick both said that that they were running faster in the center of the corner than on the

straight ways which unfortunately you never want to see at this type of track especially few as lead changes in 13 years Scott Graves the the crew chief for Chris Bushers said it was it was no brainer for him to take two tires because he felt like you get out front mean we saw it with Bushers teammate Brad Kizlowski ran the first hire in 25 laps on

the same set of tires never pitted one the first age 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 martinsville next gen's been great certainly on the speedways I think the backwards then 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 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 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 or 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 you know 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 to enhance the racing help we put stuff on the race track to help it to and that obviously didn't so yeah I why shouldn't we make be able to make that

change that's certainly hopefully something will be addressed ahead of martinsville which is the third round cutoff race so one thing about Bristol is interesting to me DJ's with it did feel kind of old school you know attrition cars competing against cars that are already out of the race like Austin syndrome being several laps down from the 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 the 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 you it made it somewhat easier and I think we saw some of that the other night once 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 but it did bring back

memories of that type of racing and and how it changed the racing and and the things that you looked at and 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 in Texas I'm out

of the playoffs or this season really to be over yes 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 or 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 so was this going to help them become competitive and more competitive quicker than than what it might than what the task might have been because they had fallen pretty far down and and we're having a hard time competing over

there but I will have to say I 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 right but Chris Boucher has been there a lot and 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 that there's even more talent there than maybe what we thought as he won his Exfentity 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 you know with track house winning

with their two drivers getting them their first wins in the Cup Series and then for for Brad to be able to have this as an owner now as a winning car owner really cool 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 you know I want to afford driving school with him somewhere around 2015

and I was blown away by his talent and his fuel for the car and 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. DJ interested in your take on all of

that because you kind of find yourself I think in that situation 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 like what Chris Boucher 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 you don't know is this ever going to happen for me you know you don't know and 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 but you knew the potential was there and what you saw and you know that that's great seeing that Brad was able to to get a hold of this early on and understand what Chris Boucher was as the driver so I appreciate that and 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 means a lot you know I think the one thing that helped me as I looked back on my career was having Kel Yarborough 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 to sub for Neil Bonnet that they had

seen enough with with true kale that you know they were quick to to call me in and so we made a deal there and and you know the rest is kind of history that it you know that was the turning point of my career was being able to drive that 21 so yeah I think that that Chris Boucher is that type of driver that there's still

a lot of of wins in that the talent of that young man and I'm sure that they're gonna 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 and yeah 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 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 gonna 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 he got for

the regular season championship 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 has to be and and it's strictly based I mean we watched the first round as you pointed out there if we look at that we would say what how 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 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 you know why they

trying to win this stage and why are they trying to get these wins at this time in the regular season and taking those chances that well this is what it's about you know that 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 and

points. Yeah starting round of 12. Yeah so that did nothing for him. Yeah you know I think he won a stage or two so he might have one or two more points along the way there but 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 and 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 from him not just through that first round of playoffs but through the year maybe the best Joe Gibbs racing driver and car on a regular basis weekend and week out that he brings the speed and I think he and Adam

Stevens have a lot of good things going on there and there'll be someone that we have to watch which I need to to put in my championship for picks because I lost Harvick and Tyler Reddick so I've found only two people left and 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

yeah you figure if he gets through the first two rounds then homestead is sitting right there and then he I think exactly that was my thinking exactly that I thought that he definitely could go there and win but didn't make it that he might still go there and win yeah and you make a great point to 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 yep 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 Lugano 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 Lugano 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 yes start this round so yeah once again there I mean you look at Danny Hamlin he's only I believe I've written down

that he's only plus four is that right right plus car the cut line yeah so you just think about I mean he had two second place finishes yeah and then had a strong car until he had the flat tire and the issues at Bristol so but he's right back in the battle once again and you know 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 they don't any

Toyota uh at this particular at least he doesn't have to worry about maybe helping RCR cars no no that's right but yeah you're right I don't know how I think he's gonna it Kyle Busch is gonna drive for himself and the hell with the rest of you know yeah at this point in time so I think Denny is gonna put a lot of pressure on himself

to to perform at Texas and try to get that win there to because he he's not that far up as far as the company and especially how bad Toyota's have been on road horses yes the Louisville doesn't look like it's gonna save you for anybody no left on that front so you're right Texas certainly magnifiable definitely be watching for that this weekend and as always we

appreciate you joining here on the AskRnBC podcast absolutely thanks for having me tonight we appreciate Dale Jarrett for joining us on the AskRnBC 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 an AskRn America motorbaths and you can see the video version of the AskRnBC 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 AskRn as well as IndyCar imsa 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 230 pm Eastern on USA network check out NBC sports comm slash NASCAR for detailed schedules

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