Homestead: Kyle Larson's best Cup race?; what happened with Martin Truex Jr.; another Ryan Blaney gaffe; a possible split driver-team championship

Hi, welcome to the NASCAR TV, some podcasts. I'm your USDA Brian here with NASCAR and NBC analyst Kyle Petty, direct from Homestead Miami Speedway. We're talking on the Monday after the middle race of the Round of Eight, which was won by Kyle Larson and Kyle Petty. Let's talk about Kyle Larson. You said after the race, I thought you had some great post-race analysis, and you were

talking about how Larson gets eliminated from the playoffs, obviously gets eliminated from the championship race, not from the playoffs itself, by making the big mistake at the roval. Yes. And that was clearly an example of he just lost his focus in the last 15 laps. At Homestead, I was just looking this up. So the race was three hours and five minutes. Kyle Larson led 199 laps.

I'm guessing that for more than two hours, he was six inches from the wall, or whatever, 180 to two miles an hour. And you talked about this post-race. I mean, how mentally draining it must be to run the wall that much, and still made it through unscathed. Yeah, I can't imagine. I don't have anything in my career to gauge that type of focus too. You know

what I mean? Because it is just hit your mark, get an in, hit your mark, pick an up to the gas, and it's a feel thing, and just power off. And he said he touched the wall a couple of times. If he did, it's spading up. It didn't slowing down. But the thing is, that is the enigma, sometimes, that is Kyle Larson. You can't, who is

Kyle Larson? Right. Last year, the greatest race car driver on the face, the earth. If you listen to Jennifer Irons and some of the things that were said, you can drive anything, anywhere, anytime. So here, we give you a brand new next-gen car, and you don't show up all your long. And when you do, you make mistakes. So who is Kyle Larson? You know, and that's

the funny part to me. I mean, and he said it, and when you watch the roval, it's in a place, he's not being pressured by anybody. There's nobody in front of him. And it's that split second lack of focus that it steps out, he's in the wall, and his chances are over. Then he goes down here, and he puts it on the wall on the first

lap. And he hammers it there all day long. And like you said, leads for a good two and a half hours of that three hours, three and a half hour race, or whatever it is, and never made a mistake. Never made a mistake coming out pit road, never made a... Never put a foot wrong as far as I was concerned. So it has to be incredibly

mentally taxi. More so than physical. But that's the Kyle Larson we've all expected. I said yesterday just all fair while we were talking. I said, finally, Kyle Larson was born. Six months later, they had him win in homestead. And he's never won. You know what I'm saying? And he's never got there. And finally, he got there, so thank goodness for him too. Right, yeah, that's good.

The track that it seems like it was Taylor made for the guy who runs the cushion and dirt races. Like, knows how to rip the fences, they say. And for whatever reason, well, there were a few good reasons. I mean, one was in 2016, you should have won this race and got caught sleeping on the final restart by Jimmy Johnson, who won the race and won

says about Larson's ability to be able to do that? And I think you're right. Like, you framed it really well. He's just a nigma of, sometimes I think we think he's not cut out to run these long races. I know. Because he's come up sprint cars and the feature races, the 30 lap heats and that kind of thing. But then he goes and does this, which

is just, as you said, like it's so mentally draining. And he just, he barely put a wheel wrong. I mean, I think you can almost make a case that this might have been one of the best races he's driven in his career. I think you can definitely make that case. We've seen him win races, pulling away on a track that he was just, he should have.

The car he had where he was at, he made this car fast. Yeah. He made this car. Listen, there were moments in this race that he was two and three tenths faster than the field on 25 and 30 lap tires. I mean, not just a little bit. That's two and three tenths against Denny Hamlin. Two and three tenths against Martin Truex. That was impressive when you

start looking at some of that stuff. So that is the part for me. You watch these guys and they come out of sprint car racing and it's like, yeah, men are going to be good truck drivers and exfinity drivers because those are short races. They got that short attention span. They'll get up on the wheel, elbows up, all these cliches that you used to describe, grabbing

a race car. And we're going to do that. But then they move to the next level and it's like, what happened to that guy? You know what I mean? But he moved to that next level and that was the knock on him. He'd go to Charlotte and lead for the first three hours of the 600. You know what I mean? And then get them all. Casey

Cane, same way. All those guys, they would just do that. And he said, don't worry about them, man. They don't worry about that guy. Let him go. Let him go. He's going to take care of himself. And they would. But last year, he took care of a lot of stuff. But this was a drive. This was a drive that no matter how fast that car was,

he had to put it in the right position on the racetrack to find that speed. We're going to run that speed around the bottom. We're going to run that speed in the middle. It had to be up there next to the wall. This was, for me, one of his finest moments. And we talked about it a little bit before we went on air post-race. That this

was one of the best put together races all the way through. And he talks about, he talked in his post-race about Cliff giving the speech. Right. You know what I mean? And I think they were, this was a team effort. And they went into this saying, we've got to turn this thing around at some point in time. And I think they did. That's a big statement

going into these last couple of races. But I think it's a bigger statement to say, we might have figured something out going in the next year. I think there is something to be said for that. You said that you can't really compare what he did at this track to tracks that you ran during your career. Would Darlington be the closest facsimile to what homestead is in

terms of running the wall? Yeah. You could say that, but not like this. Not like this, not like this because you had to do this every lap. You know Darlington, you go in turn one, which is turn three, which is now turn one, I guess. And you know, you'd let it slip up and you'd get up on the gas and you'd bounce off the wall a

couple of times and it wasn't a big deal in those old cars. But you knew what was going to happen. You knew things were going to, but it wasn't a tear that we ran out of. Wouldn't going to do a lot of things. You know what I mean? But you didn't have to run up there every lap. You could drop it down the middle. We see

Kevin Harbick. He still runs the middle of the racetrack down and what is one and two more so than up next to the wall. You could find different places to run at Darlington. You didn't have to run up there. And I don't think you have to run up there today at Darlington. There's not many racetracks that we ever run that you had to go to that

place. But I think the new gear rule and a lot of things that we have has forced the hand of drivers where they say, I can't run bottom anymore. I've got to go up there. That's why it's such a hard place for some other guys because they're like, I just don't know how to run up there. I don't know what I'm doing when I go up

there. So, but I think I don't think there's any place we ever run. It was this way. The other factor here is the next gen, which is aligned as it's been this year. This might be one of its big upsides. You mentioned that Kyle Larson did say he hit the wall three times during the race and he said that would have killed the Gen 6. Would

have blunted the old car from having any moment of it all. And in many ways, like to your point, like maybe he goes faster with this car because it's so indestructible. Jeff Burton's been talking about that since last week that he felt as if this would be an opportunity for next gen to shine, even to everybody's worried about, oh, everybody's just going to run the fence.

It's going to be the difference between who is willing to really go over the edge and know that they can trust this car more than they could with previous versions of the car. Yeah. We heard it when the Xfinity cars went from steel body to the car, composite. Yeah. Composite. Yeah. Then we heard it from Tyler Reddick. I think I'm going to be able to lean

on the wall a little bit more and not worry about bending the fenders and not worry. And he did. And he wanted two championships down there. You know what I mean? Do one exactly that. One with, I think one was with a steel. One was with a composite. So, I think he looked at it different. And I think all the drivers have anticipated that. And to

what they didn't anticipate was the weak toe link and getting that right rear end to the wall and busting that toe link. But they beat that up as the year has gone on. They've changed that. So I think that has been the big deal. But I think the other thing is that we saw on Saturday that we didn't see on Sunday was that guys would get

into the wall and with the really wide side walls. They would just burn the side wall off. On the tire. And then have a flat rear. I don't know if the smaller side wall helps that. I don't know if the tire was a plus. Because we saw guys getting the wall just as hard on Sunday as we did on Saturday. But we saw very few flat

right rear. So very few flat tires from guys rubbing up against the wall. We're on Saturday. We saw multiple tires. So I don't know if that's the tire. I don't know. Again, if it has something to do with the symmetrical car where the front is just as close to the wall as the rear is and the gen 6 where the Xfinity car is yalled. So the

rear is right there at it. So it's the one that's going to get up on it and just stay up on it. So I, listen, I failed physics and geometry. So angles and physics, I failed both of those. But there's got to be something in there that while one had trouble and the other one did. You know, way more about race cars and certainly a map.

So I appreciate that insight. I also appreciate the fact that Kyle Larson wins the race. Your man, Ross Chastain, still dig it finishes second. Not just still digging man. He's 19 points up on the cut line. He's second in the standings. First of all, before we get into this, have you heard anything from Ross about does he know you picked him? Oh, yeah, yeah, I text

him. I text him all the time man. I text him congratulations. You're making me look like a genius dude. Keep at it. Listen, it's so funny and I got to know Ross and be a little bit closer to him when he drove trucks and xfinity. So many times I'd get up 536 clock in the morning and I'd go to a restaurant and have breakfast. You know,

whether it was rich man, whether it was dover, water, there'd be Ross. He was setting it. I mean, he's watermelon farmer. He's up early. I'm sorry, that's the way it is. So we had we started, we'd have breakfast together. So this is like in his Johnny Davis day. Yeah, yeah, long ago, not just when he got to this point. Yeah, I mean, and he just, he

had that, I'm going to make this happen. I don't know how I'm going to make this happen, but I'm going to make this happen. Then he got to going to ACDO and so many things kind of started to turn right for him. You know, I mean, I just like his, I like everything about him. I like his attitude. A lot of people don't. That's okay. You

know what I mean? I mean, it's just that way. You know, and I've said it before, a lot of his jealousy because he's winning races. Yeah, threatening the establishment. Yeah, that's exactly right. So when you get into some of that stuff, there's so much petty jealousy and back biting and politics in this sport, you know that. So that that's that little cesspool known as the garage

area. Hit it. Fipers. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, but, but yeah, he's had another great race, two great races in this round. He has two solid races. And that was going to be the point I was going to make. I mean, you seven beginning call. I mean, I'll just say this K.P. picked Ross Chastain to make the championship for before Darlington. I believe the date was

August 29th sitting right here at this desk on Ask our American modernauts. Ross Chastain was in K.P.'s championship for everybody else besides Kyle Petty. He picked him and you said that one of the reasons you did it was you didn't think that any of this revenge, retribution, people are going to be talking about was becoming back on him. And what struck me about homestead was, I

think you're right. I think Ross has been racing differently Vegas and homestead since Round of 8 started. But he raced around Martin Truex Jr. Denny Hamlin, AJ Almond Day, all the history from Koda earlier this year. I mean, three guys who could have paid him back and he ran them tight and hard and there was no payback. So is he racing seemingly a little bit differently

this round after realizing maybe he could race other guys that hard and not get it back because he's kind of learned how to race around them and then know how to race around him. So here's what I think. I think a couple of things. I think A as a driver. It's a driver. We all have one favorite driver and that's ourself. Okay. That's the way it

is. It's all about us. So it just so happens that some of the guys that he's racing with are still trying to make something happen for them. Truex still wants to win a race. Why am I going to mess around with Ross Chastain? I need to win a race. I'm not going to take, I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize me just to get back

at him. Denny, I'm below the cut line. I don't have time to mess with this kid. You know what I mean? I got to go get some points. You know, you look at AJ. This is a big day for me, man. You know, this is our step into next year. You know, this is my team full time. My team full time. I got to show them

that we can go out here and do it. So I think the farther away we get from that, the opportunity and the desire to pay back becomes less weekend and week out because our focus goes from Ross Chastain back to who I am as a driver. You know, I mean, I remember it. I'm not going to say. And I thought they all raced each other. It

was crazy. I thought Denny, he and Denny had a good race. Denny bumped him and listened. We see that a thousand times during the course of the year. Somebody slides up in front and the car's got to run in the back and it bumps you just to say, I don't appreciate you cutting me off. Understand it. Don't appreciate it. See it at Atlanta. See it at

Darlington. You see it. So many places coming down the front stretch and we saw it there with those two. But he and Truex, he and AJ had a great friggin' last eight or ten laps of the race, man. I mean, you still didn't know coming when they went off in the turn three on that last lap. You didn't know if they were A coming back or

who's going to come back. And AJ did a great job and so did Ross. So honest to goodness, if we could take back the raccontinion from Daniel Suarez at the roval, they may have two cars in the state. We may be talking about track house with two cars. They have, if you go back and look at theirs and look at their playoffs, there were moments in

the playoffs. They pressed for stage points, pressed for stage points, run third, run fourth, run second, in a stage. And then at the end of the race, run 12 to 13th. That's okay. I'll take my 12th and go home with my 19th stage points. Right. I'll take my 15th and go home with my 15th stage points. I'm good with that. And that's what kept moving them

from round to round. And Ross has done the same thing. I mean, in these two races, yes, he's had an opportunity and they put themselves in an opportunity, but they also put themselves in an opportunity for stage points to put them where they needed to be. So I think, listen, Justin Marks in track house, everybody else was doing it this way. He came in this way

and everybody else has run the playoffs this way and they run it this way. And it really looks that way to me from the outside that they have tried something different and they've been successful. Will it get them to Phoenix? Well, no one would get to Marsville, but they have taken a huge step forward these last two races. I think Marty Snyder reported at Vegas that

Justin Marks had sat down with Chastain and said, look, you did the things we needed in the first two rounds. Now, I want to take the reins off a little bit more and have you go for it. Have you noticed, is Ross driving a little differently or is the cars a little better suited to him? You know what? I would say, and if Marty reported it

and that's, if that is a fact, if that is true, then I think it's a combination of a lot of things. I think it's a combination of Ross driving like this, waiting for somebody hitting, and then it didn't happen. Then you do this and then your owner says, go. He's like, okay, let's go. I think it's time that has healed all this stuff. Another driver that

I look at, another driver in another series, it's a little bit like to me in some ways, like Noah Grayson. Noah was the outcast of the garage area after a road America. Somehow Noah was able to go stand in front of a mirror and talk to himself, and he came back a different person. He came back a little bit more mature, he came back a little

bit more in control, he came back a little bit more focused, not a lot of any of that, but a little bit, and all of that has moved him to a different place. I think Ross probably went inside a little bit and looked at himself and said, okay, what could I have done different? What should I have done different? How should I be? I think that's

what got him lost for a few weeks, but he finally found that place and he said, okay, here's my beach hit. Now I'll go again. I think it's probably a combination of a lot of things as far as that. Going back to Kyle Larson's victory, the race pretty much turns on this pit lane incident between him and Martin Tricks Jr. Tricks had cycled in the lead

on this ill-timed caution flag for Kyle Larson, but then there's another caution flag, and here they are both pitting and Larson's behind Tricks, and we were just talking about this before he started taping that it appeared to both of us as if it was just Tricks didn't realize where he was. He kind of alluded to this in his interview that like, hey, the sun's in a

different place, we've got debris on the windshields. This race is starting at a different time of day and a year that there hasn't been a race. I don't think at this time in October, at Homestead, normally this is the finale would be late November after the time change, last year was in February, so. Great point. Do all of those factor into why... Everything. This wasn't happening.

We were talking about it because you'd already heard the drivers say, I can't see the choose cone, it's just reflecting all of that paint on the asphalt, you just can't see it. So they had the cone and the fence so you could see where that's it. So there's so many things, and the sun, they took down grandstands in turn one where the sweet area is. So

all those grandstands, so as the sun goes down, now it shines under it and over it, so it's even worse. It's worse than it's been. That's not everything that I've been used to before. Yeah, not been used to that because there used to be grandstands. So they took those down. I mean, there's so many factors that come into that, it's not an incredibly wide pit road,

by any stretch of the imagination. Everything is that teal, turquoise, blue, whatever, so I mean, it's like you can't duck or raise drunk. Yeah, it's that. So, I mean, the colors and everything together, and then you've got all these pit boards waving and you've got all this stuff, and you've got a dirty, pitted windshield, it's the end of the race, you've got rubber build up. We've

already talked about it most of the race, how much rubber was little chunks of rubber debris up next to the wall and how it was tough to get these guys to go up there and pick it up and try to run it all. So there's so many factors, and then he's leading a race. And you know, he just compassed his pit stop, and every driver has

done it. Every driver has missed your pit box. Drivers leading before have missed their pit box. He just missed his pit box. There was no way he was going to get into his pit box. He got hit from the rear, spun all the way around, and stopped, and the rotation of the car slowed the car down more than he could have slowed it down with the

brakes. You know what I mean? So if he had just turned left and sit on the brakes, he's going to end up at least one pit, maybe a pit and a half past his pit, which messes up these guys behind him because they're trying to get in their pits too. So it's, Larsen was just an innocent bus. If Larsen checks up, if Larsen even knew it

was coming, which I don't believe he knew was coming on. No. Then we have a major pile up because now we've got that pile up, six cars, D. The accordion effect is, you know, the seventh or eighth car is the guy that's got his hood bowed up and can't see anything. Everybody else gets a bump, but that's seventh or eighth guy. So you know, and the

big picture, it has to be, this has to be, and I heard Trix say, so it has to be a little bit, my fault. Yes. 99.9% is a little bit. You know, it is. And there's nothing that Larsen could have done if it had been Chastain behind him, nothing Chastain could. No matter who was behind him at that point in time, I don't think you could

have anticipated or seen it. So in a way, like, he almost caught a brake. He did catch a brake. He was spun into that stall. Cautie huge brake. Yeah. Yeah. Cautie huge brake. The bad part about all of this is, you know, is the safety of pit road. And I thought his crew did a tremendous job. I mean, they were throwing stuff and getting back over

the wall. They reacted, but you don't always have that. So we're, we were, they were very fortunate. The whole sport was. There's only so much you can do to save cars, the pits. Thankfully, no one was hit in that instance. So Kyle Larsen wins, and we have this interesting situation now, Kyle, where Larsen, his car, his team now are in the championship for this is the

first time we've had this scenario in the current NASCAR playoff era that started in 2004. This has always been a possibility, but until this year, we had never seen it come to fruition. So after the race, Larsen actually says, yes, mine, if I say we were to win Phoenix, like my name isn't going to be on the, the championship, but having our team be the champion,

I think is, is honestly better than that. You know, like I would hate to be in Ryan Blaney's position. I think he's the one that's only in on driver and not owner. I would hate to be in his position and say he wins the championship. And he is credited with the championship and not his team. So if I was to have it one way or the

other, I would rather be out on my end and be able to celebrate the team championship. So I'm happy that we get to go compete for that again. And honestly, that's, that's the paycheck too. So we're going to go for that and you were fired up about it. I don't know if he looked at this race differently, but the fact the way he closed this out,

we talked about it earlier that he did seem to have that extra motivation. Yeah, maybe this was motivating him. And you're an NASCAR historian. As I mentioned, this is a serious chance of a split cup championship for the first time since 1963, which was with Joe Weatherly. So I happened to only one other time before that. That was in 1954. Yeah. That involved your grandfather, Lee

Petty. Yeah. I was one of the sides of that. So put this in the perspective of what would this mean to have a split championship for the first time in 60 years. You know, so here's the thing. And I hate to, I hate to put it this way. Here's the, here's the difference. Here's the, here's the difference between then and now. Okay. Is this the way

this has played out and the way it is, we got here because of the 45 team. So we got here because of an injury. We got here because of an accident for all intents and purposes as it ended the full-time career of Kurt Busch. And that's not where we were in 63 and that's not where we were in 54, 53, 54. At that period of time,

you had guys that would, Kyle Petti would take his race car. I'm an owner and I'd pull in to actual wheel reveal and maybe six drivers stand here. And I'd pick whichever one I thought was going to be the best driver in my car that night. And Glenn Wood won the championship. Glenn Wood as a driver or as an owner in 63. But Weatherly drove for

Glenn Wood, Curtis Turner drove, I mean so many guys drove for Glenn Wood and Joe Weatherly drove for Cliff Stewart, he drove for, but more I think he drove for a lot of different people that year. Yeah. Five or six people I think he drove for. Yeah, I'm looking at this up weatherly drove for nine teams in 1966. And when I tweeted that out like somebody

tweeted back, wait, he drove for nine teams. It's like, yeah, it was 1963. That's exactly right. That's exactly what it was. So how you got there in 63 and how you get there now is two totally different things. Yeah. Take the funny part is one of those things where we'll have a sastras and it will just be an anomaly that this happened. And you hope it

never happens again because the only way it can happen is if you have a driver entered or if you have something really tragic happen to change to shuffle the playing field because you're not going to get 16 drivers. You're not going to get nine drivers drive one car for Rick Hendrick. You know what I mean? And put it in there. And then you know, you know,

with the Penske stuff and with with the JGR. Yeah, yeah, we've seen those guys do it. And that's a different but at this level, you just don't see it anymore. So I think I think it will be more than historic. Okay. And I look at it this way more than historic. I think it will just be an anomaly where you look at it and you just

say, yeah, but here's why that happened. It shouldn't happen. And we hope it never happens again for these reasons. But this is about the only way you can get there. So it's not something you can really celebrate as much as you could. No, you know, but no, because you didn't, you didn't, you were put in this position. Right. Yeah, you didn't race your way into this

position. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, you didn't. The only time that we're going to get into that is I think if we're going to team race, if everybody's going to team race, then give, take the top two finishers of each team and give them points because now you've included track house. Now you've included petty GMS, take those teams and then have a team championship,

but it's just the top two players. You know, that's one constructor championship. Yeah. Yeah. And even if I'm, even if I'm Rick Hendrick and I have to declare my two players at the beginning of the year or I am, you know, still, Austin, I have to declare at least it gives a team something to celebrate because you've done it as a team and it gives teams

like front row or somebody like that. I've thought about that before too, just because of the same reason of the Formula One stuff because it gives you, it does give you that sense of accomplishment that you've done something that we put a small team in the top four, you know, with it, that we at petty GMS or we at, you know, front row that we scored

it more points than two of Rick Hendrick's cars all year long, you know, I mean, that we put ourself in that position. That is a nice motivating factor. And of course, on the team on our side, the big money comes from the championship. So if we, we talk, we give a driver a trophy and we talk about it and all that stuff, but that's the beauty

pageant. The real money goes on behind the scenes. Kyle Arson wins the team on our championship and Rick Hendrick has a driver in the championship four. He doesn't win it. Rick's going to be a little bit disappointed, but that check will probably make that a great one. A lot of them on the team on our side. So Martin Truex Jr ends up finishing in six places.

Six places. Yeah. So a pretty good rally, but you talked about this in post race, KP, I mean, just another instance in which I don't know what Martin Truex Jr. is done to deserve this kind of like this year. And you mentioned it, like the start of his cup career is much like this. We're just, that's exactly right. Nothing ever broke his way going all the

way through the Richmond Fiasco. And then him losing his ride. I can walk to Brisa. All of that. But then he goes to first year row. And to your point, like from 2015 to 2019, it felt like everything, everything was way. And now this year, he's back to New Hampshire, Nashville, in the playoffs. We've got Darlin, Tinkanzas, Texas, all these instances in which he could have

been the latest winners trying to become the season's 20th winner. How do you think it's weighing on Martin right now, knowing that he contemplated retirement this year? And he said, like, I just want this year to be over. And yet it's just like he just keeps getting beaten down every week. It seems like still. So that's a, that's a great question. Because so listen, I got,

I'm Kyle. I got all kinds of theories. So I have you. Yeah. But, and I've said this before, I think Martin, the first part of Martin's career was, you know, he was, he was, in a lot of ways, he was EOR. Thanks for noticing me. I run second again. I don't think I'm ever going to break through it. You know, that kind of thing. And it

was. You felt so bad for him, because you knew he had the talent. You knew Martin Truex was a race car driver. They could race. They could win races. They could do great things. And you looked at where he was at and you thought, he should be doing great things. What is the problem? Why is it 99.9% of the stuff is going right for him. And

it's that 0.1% that takes him out of all these races. And it's just like getting spun on pit road. That's 0.1% of something that should happen to you at a racetrack. So you look at it and you think, man, it's never going to happen. And then he and Cole Pern and Furniture Row, and you look at that and it's like, oh my gosh, this is the

culmination of all the work he's put in of everything he's done. This is it. And then he ends up where he's at again this year and you look at it and you think, how did he get back to this? How did we progress back to this? And this is a Cal Pety thing. So I won't blame this on anybody but Cal Pety. Okay. And third person

is I believe in a lot of ways as a professional athlete. And I've seen it with other guys. And I'm not saying this has happened in the Truex, but it's got to be in there somewhere. When you ask me, I'm Martin Truex and you say, are you coming back next year? And I say, I'm thinking about it. Then I'm done. Yeah, your decision's already been made.

It's been made. It's been made. No race car driver that I ever knew that one races and run up front consistently and did it all the time, ever had a doubt where they would be next year, ever had a doubt where they would be next week. You know what I mean? They knew exactly where they were going to be. We went through that deal with Earnhardt

where he had a had a flat time and everybody's like, well, is it time? And he's looking at us. No. It's not time. Richard Petty until the day he got out of one would tell you, no, it's not time. And that's the way Bobby was. That's the way all the great drivers that I grew up with, that I knew when they were retiring. It's like, once

they said, I'm retiring, it went someplace different. To that time, if you would ask them about it, they would just, they'd get in your face. I mean, that was an insult to ask, are you coming back? Are you, what are you thinking about? You know, that's an insult because you should know I'm coming back. Why would you think I'm not coming back? You know, I mean,

that kind of thing. And so we're just in a different time. So I don't know if that, I like to think that it's not playing there. But in my mind, I've seen it playing people's heads before. So listen, I didn't stay in a holiday and I didn't go, I'm not a psychologist, but I'm just saying that it seems to be that that's the way this year

is going. Since we've gone through that little piece of, I don't know, I don't know. I'm back. Boom, that's it. And we can say what we want to, but I'll throw Eric and we're all into that category too. I'm going home, oh, somebody's got some money, I'll stay another year. You know what I mean? And they've not showed up this year either. Yeah. And not that

Stuart Haas racing has, but I'm just saying it's a weird place to be in your head. You got to be 100% committed, not just a little committed. Well, maybe it'll turn around next year or even maybe next week at Martin'sville. Obviously, Truex has had a lot of success there. For sure. We're going to get out of here talking about Martin'sville. A driver that goes into Martin'sville

with a lot of work to do now, unfortunately, is Ryan Blaney, who for the second straight week, self-induced mistake. Now, 18 points below the cut line after, as he told Kim Kuhn, he downshifted like a moron when he meant to upshift, coming out of the pits. That spun him out, leads to this mediocre finish that has him, as I said, 18 points below the cut line.

You said something interesting in the post-race KP. He already asked you, how do you get Ryan Blaney refocused? And you said, I don't know if you can. Yeah. I think Truex and Rale that he's made this mistake and he's admitting it. What's your outlook for? What is the name of this podcast? The NASCAR NBC podcast. It seems like it's head cases with helmets. Okay. We can

rename it. That seems to be, I actually like that. I could look at some rebranding for it. 2023. Listen, I don't think you can. I don't think he can come back. Yeah. I think he's gotten so deep in his head that he can't. Listen, I think he has so much personality and is so good for the sport in so many ways. For that generation, for those

guys, he's just a guy. You know what I mean? Man, I want to be Ryan. I want to be Ryan Blaney. That's it. And I want to do the things he's done. I want to be that guy. But I think so many things have happened and he's allowed them to get in his head that now he's making things happen. And that's the problem. Okay. We grow

up in his first, second, third, fourth. It's an H pattern. You know what I mean? So in that strange way, it's muscle memory. It's muscle memory from the time he drove anything, any type of car. It's just a muscle memory. And when you go first, second, third, third, second, you know what I mean? Or whatever whichever gear he went to, it's like, it's muscle memory to

go to third, but you went back to second. You know, and it's a, you're lost up there somewhere. You know, because you bypassed what you know and just went back to something that was just ingrained in you. And that's where I say he's lost. He's overthinking so much up there that sometimes he defaults to what used to be. You know what I mean? Whether it's what

the cars do and whether it's how the car is driving, whether it's different things. He's the fault place is not a good place. And I just think that once you get to that place and we are, what is this? Any four races into a season, no wins, more stage wins than pretty much anybody else. Has won the second stage like six or seven times. You know,

I have, has been there. It's a great point. And you've done all this stuff. It's kind of like the true X thing where, well, what do I got to do? You know what I mean? Well, you got to get out of your way. You know, and you, you get, you just got to free it up and you, you got to get out of your way. And

I just, it's sad to watching because you won't even, they might, I still won't be having him. And I wanted him and true X to be 20 and 21. You know, as far as the winters, I don't think you're going to get that now because I think this other group is getting ready to play big ball. But I look at it and I think there's no

shame in calling a sports psychologist. There's no shame in trying to get help. We have Josh Wise who physically trains us. Why don't we have someone mentally train us? There's no shame in that, man. Get it done. Somebody needs to. If I, when I drove, if I could have gone and found somebody to help my head, I would, you know, I would have. Didn't exist when

I drove, you know, I mean, not in this sport, you know what I mean? But it didn't exist. So I think when you look at it, I think he's got to get out of his way, but I think with two races ago, it's way too late to get out of your own way. And, you know, to think that he is mentally strong enough or that team

is good enough to go to, to Martin'sville and have a walkoff, I just don't think they're in that place. I just don't see that team. It's a hard track to flip the switch at. You said it, like he's got to score maximum stage points, leave labs, possibly win. And that means he's got a qualify well. That's right. He said post rates at homestead that this is

the most important qualifying session for these guys in their career at Martin'sville. Explain why. I believe this is the most important qualifying session that these guys maybe have ever gone through in their life at Martin'sville, especially because we have heard, we go into Texas and you've got Chase Elliott in Texas. The guy with the most stage points, the most everything. Pre-race, they interview him and I

made a joke of it after they did the interview. I said, okay, today's drinking game word is points. Chase Elliott just said it 15 times in an interview. You know what I mean? Okay. We go to yesterday post-race, Danny Hamlin talks about points. Right. Ross Chastain talks about points. Everybody talks about points. I didn't hear a single driver say we're going to go there and win.

That's nobody said that. Nobody said we're prepared for Martin'sville. We're going to go there and win. That's what our goal is. Everybody said we're going to go up there and we're going to maximize our points. You know, we're going to run the best we can. You know, we hope, but we're going to maximize our points. So what that tells me is we're going to go stage

points racing for a large degree. And especially in that first stage, especially that first stage, if Ross Chastain comes out at first stage and gets eight or nine points, stage points, man, he's looking good. He's looking good. He's looking good. So why wouldn't you put it all in the line? But to get those stage points, you got a qualify out there because you're not going to

qualify at 21st like Danny Hamlin's been doing lately and find your way into the top eight or 10 or the top four or five at Martin'sville. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. Not in one day. I'm always

extenuating. But straight up racing. I'm just saying straight up racing because everybody will come back with you. Well, what about if and buts? But the thing is you just can't do it. And the first race we heard everybody complain, you can't pass here. I don't think this race is going to be that way because I think the guys have had 34 races with this car. So

they've learned different things about the car. They've learned different things. Tire is different. They've learned different things about all this stuff. So I don't think we're going to have that. But it's still going to be incredibly hard to pass each other. I mean, we talk about it in big tracks. Why don't we go through this? It's going to be the same thing here. So I think

to go up there for Ross, for Chase, for Danny, for William, for Seabale, Chase Briscoe, for all those guys, everybody that's on that list, those other seven drivers. Take Joey Lagano out of it. But for those seven drivers, they need to go up there and be one through seven. They need to go up there and just be one through seven, dude. You know, just eliminate it.

Just go in there and do what you got to do because that is going to be where your weekend starts. That's where your weekend starts. And chances are, if your weekend doesn't start good there, your weekend is not going to end well. That's a good plug to watch the Cup qualifying session this Saturday at Martinsville. And then the race Sunday will be on NBC. And after

this guy will be giving his opinions. Kyle Petty. Always a pleasure having you. Thank you. You're an NASCAR NBC podcast. Appreciate it. And we appreciate Kyle Petty for joining us on the NASCAR NBC podcast. Thanks to producer Aaron Feldstein and Motorsports manager Emily Conboy for coordinating KP's appearance. NASCAR heads to Martinsville Speedway this weekend. That hugely important cup qualifying session will be Saturday on the USA

Network at 1230 PM Eastern. And then coverage of the Xfinity Series Cutoff race to set the championship for field will begin Saturday at 3 PM Eastern on NBC. For the Cup Series at Martinsville coverage will get started Sunday at 1 30 PM Eastern on NBC. Check out NBCSports.com slash NASCAR for detailed schedules, start times and coverage as always. And every Thursday at 10 PM Eastern on

USA, it's the new docu series race for the championship. This is the inside look at the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season in the world of NASCAR every driver has their story. The new docu series race for the championship will give you an all-access pass behind the scenes like you've never seen before. Catch race for the championship Thursdays at 10 Eastern 9 Central on USA. If you

have any NASCAR NBC podcast feedback, you can send me on Twitter at Nate Ryan. Thanks again for listening to the NASCAR NBC podcast.