Roval: Larsons massive disappointment; Suarezs physical toll; Briscoes mad dash; the Next Gen and road courses; Formula One salary cap controversy

Hi, welcome to the NASCAR NBC podcast. Nate Ryan back here in our Charlotte NASCAR NBC studio on the Monday after the roval round of 12 cutoff race where we are joined in Charlotte for I believe the second time this season. Yeah, Parker Kligerman is here. So not often the way you get you down here, so to what great honor do we owe your presence? I had

to go do some simulator work. Had to is like she the wrong word got to had the opportunity, which is cool. So that was nice. Did about three and a half hours of simulator. Somehow my hair didn't get affected because we were in the helmet in there. It's perfectly impressed with motor mouths. Yes, but it's still it did not get affected. So that was perfect. But

that brought me down North Carolina. We mixed in the NASCAR NBC podcast and now motor mouth afterwards. Yeah, works out great. Full day. Really well for both NASCAR NBC and I'm allowed to ask who the simulator was. No, okay. All right. And undisclosed. Just because I like him and manufacture or just because I like to just things up. I'm just going to say no. Okay. All

right. We won't ask any more simulator questions today until after I hit the stop button on this recorder. Let's talk roval then and we'll start obviously with the winner. Christopher Bell. We had him on motor mouths. I think it was coming out of Texas like you and I were on that program where we were talking. And I was like he was in good spirits going into

Talladega, but then he tells us after he wins the race yesterday, second victory, the year advances into the round of eight in a must win situation. Christopher Bell tells us that he's been down in the dumps pretty much since Texas all the way through Talladega. Didn't get the home run. He needed a Talladega and obviously goes into the roval knowing to others have run so poorly

on road courses this year. Granted, it was a very opportunistic thing where there was a lot of chaos at the end of this race that put him in position to win on much fresher tires, but he ran the top 10 for much of this race and kind of put himself in position him in Adam Stevens to win it. So what did you make of that? Did

it catch you off guard? The Christopher Bell was able to do this. I thought there's a while that they pulled it off. I'm not surprised. I mean, speaking to Adam Stevens and C. Bell for the last couple of weeks and months, they've had such a positive attitude, a confidence going into playoffs and then we went that first round and they were just like, by far the

best and that really, I don't want to say it surprised me because they were telling me this each week as I was doing the pit reporting thing. And then we go to Texas and it's like it unravels and then Talladega continues downward spiral. And so I think this one, I sort of wrote them off like probably have what else because I just felt like you mentioned.

Road courses have struggled for Toyota. I spoke to Chris Gapard after Talladega. He's like, you know, we did what we needed to do. We did what we need to do at Talladega because he's like, I'm not confident about the robo. You know, they've had the engine issues or the rev limiter on the TRD motors in terms of like when they hit the rev limiter, it was

point put four tires on. There was a lot of fall off, which was great. And that vaulted them in, you know, through a couple great moves by Christopher Bell on the racetrack. So I didn't expect that by any means for them to pull this off, but I'm just not surprised because they just seemed to exude this confidence that is now propelling them to round of eight.

And two Toyota's in the top three. Again, I know a lot of things happened. Just come this race. But actually, you know, three in the top seven, you look at Christopher Bell first, Kyle Bush third, double Wallace, who has certainly shown improvement on road courses, but is generally not known as a road course racer finished his seventh. Did Toyota maybe find something that we didn't see

for see or know about? I mean, speaking of the crew chiefs, I don't know if there was a lot of confidence, but I know or believe that they may have, you know, figured out some of their motor issues and were able to sort of turn up the way there for the road courses. So could that have been it? Maybe a little bit in the uptick and

performance. But, you know, I think there's still, there's obviously still work to do there in the speed department potentially. So it's just been an interesting thing to follow, you know, just that struggle on road courses this year. We just don't historically see that, right? Where a single manufacturer doesn't have the speed. Can just completely miss it, especially when it's just a completely new car. It's not

like Chevy and Ford went in with any sort of advantage. So it's just like, we just showed up and like, oh, Toyota's just that much off, which was sort of crazy. But it doesn't really matter, no more road courses left in the playoffs over the final four races. We're done with that. Yeah, we're done with that. And we'll get to that a little bit later. We're

going to talk some more road course racing and the next gen, which interesting discussion to be had there. On the flip side of Cebow, we've got Kyle Larson, who was almost disconsolate after the race parker after being eliminated as the defending series champion does not even advance to the round of eight. And Larson said after the race, I just made way to new mistakes all year

long and made another one a day and ultimately cost us an opportunity to go chase another championship. So just extremely mad at myself and you let the team down a number of times this year and let them down in a big way today. So you'll keep fighting, we'll come back stronger and all definitely come back stronger. And smarter, make better moves out there and just mad

at myself. So there's definitely no other person to blame about myself for today. So I feel like our team put ourselves in position as well as we could on points today and got as many stage points as we could. It was I think plus 27 or 8 at the time when I screwed up. So just for no reason either. I wasn't even pushing that hard at

that moment and it got loose and caught me off guard. So yeah, I just got to keep working on my craft, just be better and make a lot less mistakes. Like I said, I've made way to many mistakes this whole year and you can't win a championship like that. So yeah, no surprise that I made another mistake today and took us out of contention. So Kyle

Larson does bear some of the brunt here because it was him brushing the wall that bent this broke this toe link or whatever and caused him to go five laps down and pretty quick destiny out of his hands where he can alarm us or to control his fate. But does he deserve all the blame? I mean, did you think he was almost almost shouldering too much?

I went wrong this year. What went wrong this year? Did he maybe just make one too many mistakes to defend this time? Yeah, I think only they know, right? The team to level mistakes that either he made or they've made or just not been able to hit it in terms of execution throughout this year because I mean, we see the very visible stuff, right? We see

the hit in the wall, that sort of thing, the issue at Indy. But more importantly to me would be more of like, is there things we haven't seen, right? Is there small hiccups or stuff in terms of preparation, whatever it is, right? So I think that's probably him being a little harsh on himself, knowing his level of skill and talent and just, I mean, the guy

is unbelievable. I see him do things all the time and I'm just like, I don't understand. I was all met Watkins Glen, just, I don't know, he was so good there in both races that I just sat there and all, just like, how does this guy do this all the time? And I remember talking about it and just being like, all right, what points he used,

he's like, I don't know, just drive it. I'm like, all on feel. All natural building. So I have a tough time and I don't like this sound like, oh man, I just love colors. I just have a tough time putting him down because to me, he's a generational talent that will continue to submit that legacy for a long time. And if he believes he's making more

mistakes than he should be, then I'm sure that something you know, he clipped angles and go talk about and figure out how maybe it's in the preparation side of things, it's in the mental side of things who knows. I've always had that question about how many different race cars he drives all the time if that could get him distracted at some point. But clipped angles told

me that it's not really the case normally. So I don't know, I sure that you come off a season like he had last season, which was incredible. You don't have that same success and chance to go fight for the, you know, to back up your championship. That's probably a frustrating place to be. But I think that he, he's such an incredible talent that like, I don't

know, even if he is making mistakes, he's probably 10% above just about everyone else. I mean, the guy is clearly all world. And we're already talking about him possibly running the Indy 500 next year. Of course. And it'll do great. Yeah, he'll be awesome. He'll be awesome. Wow, everybody. I'm sure getting into that car like he does in every vehicle he gets in. And this is

not meant to cast his versions on his talent whatsoever. But I thought it's interesting what you brought up there about Cliff Daniels saying that, no, we don't feel as if him running out of series would impact him in the Cup Series. Because last year, the narrative was very much, we wanted to run all these other series. There were all these questions about when he went to

Hendrick Motorsports in that first year in 2021 and how much will they allow him to race. But then I'm race all the time and he won the Knoxville Nationals. It seemed like he won dirt races all the time. And it did seem like it was helping him on the Cup side. I think Daniel said on motormouse here once that he thought that it helped his restarts.

But all that being said, it does seem as if he's maybe not winning as much. I don't know, maybe I'm not paying enough attention to dirttrack.com. Well, no, he definitely, he had an insane win record last year. Right. And now I think he's at like 12%. You know, most people that's like a career high slash Hall fame where the percentage and race, you know, in racing,

you're going to lose normally a lot more than you win in Motorsports. Yet he's like, oh, 12% is what is I think I'm at like a 2% win rate in my life right now. Yeah. This is the terms of stock racing. So, yeah, I just think that's his bar. That's his level, right? It's just that too high. It's set so high. It's the guy, you know,

this is the day job, right? That's fun stuff. This is the day job. It's the day job that you're going to lose. And I think, you know, there's potentially a bit of with this car and just the parity we've seen, it's going to be more often than not that you're not able to even really clearly cut run away from people, right? Where, you know, we've seen,

you put a guy like Carlerson with an incredible car like last year and they win an amazing amount of races and a championship. It might be more about the minutia and the little things now as we move forward. And that might just be a mentality change he has to make and, you know, he and Cliftoniel's have to look at and sort of figure out how they

need to approach that because it's just a changing form, you know, how this racing is changing in its form. Yeah. And I'll give him credit. He was so inconsolable in that interview. Like, there was no question that you don't, you didn't watch what he said after the race Sunday, I think. Oh, NASCAR is just a nine to five thing. He'd prefer to be dirt racing every

night. Because that, myself included, that was somewhat the knock on him earlier in his cup career is a, I think some of us, again, I'll put myself in this category question. How much of a priority was NASCAR for Carlerson? I think you saw from that interview after the roval that NASCAR very much is a priority. And it almost seems as if that championship last year maybe

galvanized him a little bit or maybe just driving for Hendrick. You just sort of is more appreciative. I mean, have you gotten that sense being around him in the last year and a half that maybe he's kind of changed his view of being in the cups here. He's obviously he went through a lot of other things that transpired that maybe he changes his perspective as well,

but I think he just respects it's the top level, right? You know, this is the highest level that there is in America that, you know, highest competition level you're going to run into in that sense and that there is a weight that comes with driving for Rick Hendrick and Hendrick cars.com on your car, right? Like, they want to sponsor you and be a part of this

because, you know, that comes with immense weight to be driving for the most successful teams in NASCAR. So I think that is not lost in him. I would not for a second, you know, believe it, that's lost on him in any way, shape or form and that, yes, there's an enjoyment level out of the other stuff, but I also think to me personally, he's just a

guy who likes to race drive race cars and race and that other stuff allows him to do that. And I think no matter what it was, he would want to do it if the opportunity was in front of him to go race. Another driver who is eliminated Daniel Suarez, which I think coming into this race parker, if I would have told you that Daniel Suarez was

going to finish third in stage one, sixth in stage two, come in with, I believe you, 13 points up on the cut line. And then he was going to get eliminated. I think we're all going to have questions about how could that happen. He's a great road course race. We won it. Sonoma earlier this year and he essentially got victimized by a park failure with the

steering problems. And after we're Daniel Suarez told Dave Burns, Daniel, when you knew that you were going to lose power assist 100%. What did you tell yourself mentally and then how in the world did you do it physically? I guarantee you something. I'm the only driver in the field that could have finished the race the way my car was. My arms are completely destroyed. I have

never felt like this in my life. My shoulder is very bad. My hands destroyed. It was tough. It was very, very tough. We did what we needed to do in the first half of the race, getting a stage points and everything. But once we lost the steering, it was pretty much just hoping for a little luck, which we almost got it right there at the end.

It's difficult to just relate in a lot of 100%. It's what it is. We have to continue to get better. I think we are the only car that actually has the same issues. So maybe something that we did, I don't want to say is a crappy power because I was the only one that had the problem. But we have to come back to a shop and

look well and run and try to get it better. And I told this could be about the worst place for it to have an infield flat. But when you hit the banking, all the forces are tugging against you. I noticed it was very, very bad in the everywhere. I mean, there were a couple of times, actually more than a couple of times, I was just screaming,

I just needed to get it out. I mean, I was, it was for sure the most difficult race I had in my life. But I wasn't going to give up. You've driven one of these cars. What would it have been like to have essentially not just no power steering, but essentially, he had literally manhandled this thing around the roval, which didn't look very easy? I think

the only place harder would be like Bristol, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was getting ill watching. I am Texas buddy of my landing castle and I said, hey, I'm getting ill looking at this because it's just like, I know what he's going through. And there's just a helplessness, the weight of that wheel and the sinking feeling that it's all going wrong at the same time and you're

trying to power through and all you're begging for is a caution. I've driven a car one time without power steering and it wouldn't even be as hard as these next gen cars. You know, it turns to where it failed, right? Now cars are designed without power steering all the time. Those are different, but when you have a power steering car that fails, it is just one

of the most excruciating experiences you'll go through because you saw him. He went from driving the car normally, it's slightly, to eventually towards the end, he's literally putting his hand over the wheel and just tugging on it, using his weight, just trying because his shoulders are destroyed, his muscles are destroyed and I don't disagree them. That guy is an incredible shape. He's one of the very

few that could do that. I think there's many drivers. I self-encluded, I have to look in the mirror real deeply and be like, could I do that? I don't even know. So that is heroic effort just to get that thing around there because you also all the load to the panking of the robo, which makes it incredibly hard. The slow speed corners, it's just that it

is such a hard thing to do, you know, more power to him and finishing it, but in turn to the playoffs, such a scenario, devastating. Trackhouse has been awesome to watch and see them go this far and obviously they still have one going for it, but that is, that has got to be heartbreaking because they basically did everything in their control right and just one thing

goes wrong and I'm sure they'll dissect it and hopefully not let it happen again, but we've seen that this year, right? There's just been stuff like that that everyone's had and it's just trying not to have it the wrong time. And Suarez said, he made the reference to the crappy parts that Kevin Harbick and Martin Trois Jr., who both talked about, I don't think that NASCAR

took the 99 after the robo, which is good, but he was somewhat making light of the fact that they were going to have to go back to the shop and diagnose, was this another one of the part failures that the next gen unfortunately is experienced and there were a lot of concerns going in the robo because this was where the steering issues first cropped up a

year ago at the test and Suarez ultimately was the only one that was affected, but there were several at Bristol that was like maybe the first time that the cars got really exposed. What do you think NASCAR needs to do to look at this for 2023? Did the quality control issues just get sort of out on their own or are there things that they need to

do with the supplier or the vendor in this case who can bulk these things up? I think it should be a constant evolution. I think this process, it's just we're at too high a level to have failures of parts if it is the part failing, right? Or if it's user error, that's different, right? It just seems like we, this is the second biggest auto racing, for

auto racing in the world, why are we dealing parts that maybe aren't up to snuff, right? That should be a quick evolution, work through system process, evaluate, see more than one instance of it, okay, quick resolution, financially there should just be a slush fund at this point. I don't know how you do that. I'm not going to get the deal of that, but I'm sorry, this

is the top level of American auto racing. Find the money to fix it. It's ridiculous when I hear about money and I'm just like, this is why just make the car's work that should not be an issue. Yeah, I think that should just be a constant evolution process because the car is something that the teams can't touch themselves. Then it has to be up to the

sanctioned body to, you know, deems us the race car, you have to race to find a process to make that happen with those suppliers in real time. If a supplier can't create a part that's good enough, then you have to go find another one to figure it out. Because it's just, I just think it is too much at stake. You have too much, too many people

who rely on the, you know, the actions on a Sunday, their livelihoods, their, you know, their careers or futures for it to come down to parts that maybe aren't up to stuff. Right. Because you just said it really well. I think a slush fund makes a lot of sense in an industry that literally has hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through it annually. If there are

problems at Bristol, then maybe the next step should be, hey, emergency test at Charlotte Motor Speedway two days from now, or we make sure this doesn't happen again at the Ruralville. And whoever, you know, working with suppliers, and I know there's constraints to making things happen. And I know that's what we've gone through here with the safety situation, with the rear of the car, and it's,

you know, it's gone as quick as it possibly can. But to me, that's where there's an issue, you know, where, where there's a will, there's a way. And I just, I think in the modern day, knowing what, you know, these amazing, in the private sector in terms of, you know, companies creating going into issues and being able to fix them in fast, rapid fashion, and designing

new fashions, like this should be no different. It should be, it should almost be looked at as like an opportunity for NASCAR for motor racing to once again show its relevance. Okay, how quickly can you design a real clip, get it tested, and put it on the race on cars and design and made factored and all that stuff. Could it be done faster than we've ever

done before, right? And could be done right. Like that's the thing, like can you make a whole new steering system in fastest fashion possible? I know I'm not an engineer. There's a ton of engineers out there who be like, oh, it's ridiculous. But I watched Elon Musk land a rocket from the sky literally multiple times without any sort of help. It's landing on the ground. I

think we can figure out how to make a better stream box. And if NASCAR can fix its steering issues in like two days or whatever, you know, maybe there are spin-offs or that kind of moonshot, you know, resources and energy and work that wouldn't have that. Maybe it does go to an OEM and like, hey, there's processes here we can use in a street car. I

don't know. It's just, I don't like hearing like that's all it can be done. Just like that to me that then we would all be, you know, if that was a case, we'd all be wide and round and horse carriages still. That's not how we beat the Russians to the moon. Damn, there you go. Yeah, like that. Okay, let's move on to the positive side of

the road. This briscoe goes from essentially being out after getting spun on the second-alast restart. Get fresh tires and then on the final restart makes this incredible charge back into the playoffs, makes this bonsai move into the chicane on the back stretch on the final lap. Your tweet, I thought explained it really well that he was breaking later and was also carrying way more speed into

the chicane than he had at any point. I think during the previous 111 laps. Seeing how difficult that is, because I know he was on fresh tires, I'm sure that had something to do with it, but explain how difficult that is for a driver. Yeah, so what he did, and it was aided by Johnny Cosmire, you know, pumping the tires up to qualifying pressures, which essentially

creates a ton more grip under breaking and a ton more grip through the corners. And we've seen this throughout the season where, you know, you can't really change which on these race cars, but when we go from practice to qualifying, they bolt in these tires on, but they pump up the air pressures and suddenly they go way faster. Yeah. Because you can't put tape on them

anything anymore, right? So it's pretty interesting how much grip that creates with this race car. And so when Chase was on that final lap, you know, he gets at the 43, he's trailing the three, and I watched this all on the data and, you know, watched the video as well. And what he does is the second, the three is sort of about to start breaking. He

pulls left and waits a second. And now a second doesn't sound like a lot, but at 160 miles per hour, I haven't done the math and so if the engineers listening out there that are really frustrated with the last bit of this conversation, do the math for me. Tell me how far he went. I don't know, but it was roughly a second further at 160 miles

an hour. He then nails the brake about 100 pounds more than he had prior on his, and I'm comparing this to his fastest lap in the race. He then carried five miles prior more to the center of the corner. Now from the point that he hits the brake and all the people were like, oh my gosh, you only looked that way because the 41 were slowing

up the three car. I said at the end of the braking zone, but what you didn't realize is that Chase broke vastly later than Austin Dylan and was carrying five, probably way more speed by the point, even if the 41 wasn't there, those two would have met most likely in the middle. And when the way I look at it, I think the 14 would have been

almost a nose ahead of the three by the time they get to the right hand of the chicane. So to me, it was like a moot point that the 41 was doing what he is doing other than he got around the 41, which he probably would have anyway because the 41 who knows what was going on. But my point being, so there's a lot of fans,

armchair experts that were like, no, it's just because of the 41. He didn't break that late and I went and found the data and initially saw that. And that's a tough thing to do because he had to just basically bonsai it off that corner and guess, right? You've been running to this brake marker into that corner all day for hours. And now, final lap, cars around

you, riding for your championship hopes, you have to just go on the gas and think, and I'm going to break now. All right, let's see if this works, right? And you get all the way down and it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, and then get out of the brake at the same point. So you're carrying five miles per hour more just to guarantee

that you get through the corner ahead of the people beside you. I thought that was a really impressive thing. And you even see him lock up a little bit just at the last bit of the entry because he just was totally had sent it in there and with hope that it stuck and it stuck. So I thought it was a really impressive move. It was cool.

It was visible. And it just goes to show that the 14 can't be stopped. Like they are the team that can. And I don't know if he goes all the way to the championship for it's one of the most unbelievable stories considering he entered the playoffs. I think with like out of top 10 in 21 weeks or something, I think he only has like six top

10s this season or something. But he's actually been he was my dark horse pick. I said I was looking us up today and ask our American motormouse on the Wednesday before Darlington. It was myself Kyle Petty, Marty Snyder sitting here. We had to give our championship for first four out and who's your dark horse surprise pick. And mine was brisco because yes, the results weren't showing

it. But even like if you look at races like Watkins Glen where when the track shifted from wet to dry and he and Kloss Meyer made that huge gamble to be the first out on slicks, to me, that was not by accident or coincidence that he was that fast and that that team sort of sees that moment. Like the results don't show it because chase brisco

does make mistakes on track and they have maybe made some questionable calls that have left him out. But I don't think there's any question he's shown that he deserves to be in the playoffs even if the results haven't always been there. He's got the way that Phoenix. I think yeah, just the system he's in the playoffs, right? So he deserves to be there. And I think

it's just been surprising to see this team, you know, we always look for consistency. They just haven't shown that, right? And to get the playoffs though. And then I think the impressive, maybe more so this race, the most impressive race I saw with Texas, they were legitimately not a top 25 car the beginning of that race. And for a major portion of it, they made huge

changes. The most changes I've seen done in a race in the next gen era. And I said that on the broadcast. I was like, I have never, I have not seen this yet this year. They throw all these changes at it. And he goes out there and finishes top five through all the crates this is the end. And I was like, wow, that was impressive. With

all these other championship teams battling with all these air pressure, I'm sure it was like tempting like how much do we push it? And they found a way through like you said, a finish top five with a car that was barely in it the first half. Barely in it. And so that was just really impressive. And I think he, I've spent a little time with Chase

and Johnny Klossmann are just hanging out with them. They have a great rapport together. Chase is such a laid back human being. I don't know if a lot of people know that, but the way he is on TV, that's pretty much him. Like he's the most laid back guy who then gets in the race car and just finds a way. And I think he did that

in the X-Meni series. We see him do that in trucks. He's just a very impressive race car driver that gets it done when it matters. And it doesn't really face him. Like I'm not surprised to see him excel in high pressure scenarios because he's just such a calm, relaxed person. I have trouble thinking about him bonsai and it often to a corner like he did because

I don't think of him thinking that way. Like I'm like, oh, he's just so laid back. What do we care? But he does it. And he does it really well. It's impressive. And it kind of dovetails with his backstory of like, I'm just going to move to Charlotte and just sit on couches and, you know, sweep floors for people until I find a ride somehow with

the architect that got him to Stewart House racing. And I agree that he's got a very appealing personality and great back story. So be interesting to see what you can do. You mentioned the 41 and want to get your take on that. As Carl said afterward, they're going to investigate the data and the radio chatter between Stewart House racing and coal custer and see if anything

fishy suspicious was going on there in terms of custer helping his teammate chase brisco. You know, I don't know. I'm not a driver, of course. But this didn't really strike me as rising to this level of necessary manipulation. Like to me, it doesn't enter into that category at all. Like I wouldn't put this in the category of what we saw at Richmond in 2013, which of

course is the specter that everybody's going to raise here. DJs and we have motormouse was on our production car earlier today and he said the same thing. Like he doesn't understand how this would be different than super speedway racing on a restart where two teammates on the front row one slows up to let the control car fall in ahead or whatever. Do you think there will

be anything that comes out of this? A NASCAR investigation with custer did or everything I saw. First of all, they have they'll always have plausible deniability with, you know, saying there's an issue. I had a vibration in custer did say that custer said he thought he had a flat flat tire going down whatever. Yeah, that's yeah, that's going to happen. And it was wasn't like it

made any difference anyway. Chase was going to be in anyway because he had the tie breaker. So it really did. I think the fans who blew this out of proportion was like he was blocking the three, you know, playing and I'm like, all right, let's just play this last lap for you for a second, where in some point there, you're telling me that custer was told

to block cars. Like have you driven a race car around the road? Like how hard it is to be like navigating the road and then think I'm going to block these cars that are coming. But I don't know where the 14 is because I haven't seen them the whole time and I have no idea how and I'm going to go on this headrest around me like

that. It's just most ridiculous notion. He probably, if anything, thought if there was some way that that was, you know, instructed to maybe allow the 14 through, he just slowed up a little bit like, which is totally fair. Like we've seen teams say all the time, hey, you know, before a restart, he's probably told chase is like on the cut line or near it. And he's

just don't raise them so hard. Yeah, basically like just don't raise them so hard. Okay. Oh, you got to my side, which he did. All right, go ahead. But you know, it's just teammates race. You try to like that all the time. So, you know, I don't want to put put it down because it didn't maybe matter. But I think it's only natural if you have

teammates that there's going to be areas where teammates are asked not to race each other as hard. I think that's a very much different than what we saw in 2013 or was a 2013 and 2012, 2013, 2013 at Richmond where, you know, there was a concentrated effort and a plan. And you know, to me, like, to me, the difference there is, that was manipulation. They brought

out a yellow that affected everybody else's race. Yes. In this case, okay, yeah, maybe you want to argue that Custer slowed up doing. But for the most part, it was just Custer and Briscoe were the only affected parties. It's literally, you could be put as simple as just don't race your teammate that hard. Right. And that's what he did. So I see it not as you.

All right. Well, I don't want to do anything that detracts from Chase Briscoe's sublime performance, which you described as the ballet of driving a heavy stock car on a road course, which that was very eloquent to a few Parker. And that brings me into my next conversation that I wanted to have with you about the next gen on road courses. Interesting conundrum here because this was

a stock car that was kind of built as I understand it. And as NASCAR kind of framed it as a stock car being built on a sports car platform. And sports cars, of course, are designed to race well on road courses. And it seems as if this car certainly drives well on road courses. But I think the question is, is it racing well enough? And are

there things that NASCAR should do to make this car race better? Obviously, you have experienced a ton of experience on road courses. You've driven stock cars, you've driven sports cars. What do you make of the next gen on road courses in its first year this year? And does NASCAR need to do things to make them race better? I think it's been disappointing. You know, and I'll

be honest, I don't know why. It's been fairly disappointing to watch go around a road course as much as like I was very excited for this car. And potential on road courses knowing that it still kept some of the characteristics of a stock car. It's really heavy. It's 3,400-plus pounds, 3,600-or-so with the driver. This is a heavy race car. You don't run into an A-wheel. That

is unique to NASCAR and NASCAR only. It still has a lot of power. And you got to put that through the rear wheels. So I'm thinking, as I look at this thing coming into this year, I'm like, okay, this keeps all the same flare of a stock car. But maybe with some cool additions and sequential shifting, this could actually be really cool. And I think what

is interesting is it's not easy to drive. If you watch yesterday, they're selling at the wheel. They're doing things in there. It just seems like it has trouble creating a discrepancy in speed amongst cars around itself. And what I mean by that is like, if we look at the Xfiny car, which is essentially the old car, it's like a water buffalo in a China shop, which

I used to describe it as. Like, they just are not designed to go around road courses. They don't do anything well. And in that, there's a lot of area for different cars and drivers to make speed in areas versus struggle in other areas. That makes sense. There can be big discrepancies about how you can put the power down or how well breaks or how much speed

you can roll to the center. It just seems like one, you have the incredible talent level of the Cups series, which is the highest there is. That's amongst drivers and teams. So maybe they're set up really well. But it just seems like there is a, for every reason, there's a point where everyone's kind of running a very similar speed. And I know Chase has kind of

alluded to this. And I just think that is perplexing because, I know the other car had a lot of different differences from team to team. But it just seems like this is interesting compared to what we see in, you know, with the car like this design in GT3 racing around the world, right? Where they have ABS and traction control. So there should be very little differences.

And they have BOP and they can run super close together, you know, and make passes and have discrepancies in speed. You have the super cars in Australia, which is a pretty similar design to this car, especially their new one coming online. And they can run really close together and have a lot of discrepancies in speed. So I just, I'm a little confused right now. I'm trying

to figure it out. I'm talking to people and be like, what do we think has to be done here, right? Because it's still a NASCAR stock car. It's still really heavy. It seems really hard to drive. Why do we get to points where people are saying it's hard to pass, right? Like on a road course. And that's what I'm struggling with. And so I don't know

if I really have an answer here. I think, you know, whatever the answer is, I think could be a similar answer to the short tracks, right? I think the problem we're seeing racing product wise is consistent at the short tracks and the road courses. And I think the issue has got to be similar because I see the same thing where it's just like a stagnation amongst

the field, amongst speed. And that just is very confusing to me. For all the reasons I listed that NASCAR stock cars are hard to drive because they're big and heavy and, you know, those sorts of things. So, you know, it is hard to drive. I don't understand why we're all running the same speed, that doesn't sense. Yeah, no, it makes a ton of sense. And it

seems like, as you said, like there should be more discrepancies in speed there that should allow for more commers and goers. Yeah. And that's the term. And NASCAR obviously has battled this problem, unfortunately, a lot before. You know, mile and a half racing. For years, it was like everybody's stuck in the same spot. They spread out, they go single file, and then no one can game

position because everybody is running the same speed. And it seems as if what we hear when that crops up in the past is, well, maybe if we can figure out how to get good new design tires that fall off more, that seems to work sometimes to solve those problems. Is that something that would be effective here? I mean, it already seemed like, as we saw with

Bell and Brisco, there is a big difference in tire wear, right? Right, America, and this weekend had a ton of tire wear. Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of fall off. So, I don't think that's the other thing. That's not it. There's a lot of fall off. And you watch, you know, I watched those on boards and coming off of turn four and onto the turn

eight, onto the banking. I mean, they're spinning the rear tires and they're struggling to get the power down. That sort of thing. It's just like, okay, that should equal passing. Right. Where one person is doing that better than the other person, but it doesn't. Yeah. And they end up all running and I'm just like, okay, what am I missing here? Like everything I know should be

right here. It could be simply arrow. You know, it could be the underbody arrow is not working the way we hoped or, you know, something along those lines or, you know, there's a very popular consensus out there. It's like just giving a thousand horsepower and it'll fix itself, right? Like, I know I say that facetiously sometimes and I know fans, it's an easy, you know, you

want a ton of engagement and likes on Twitter. Just put a thousand horsepower fixes everything. And like, I've been guilty of that. And I do agree. Like, as a race car driver, just give me a thousand horsepower. I'll figure it out. Right. Like, that's, that's gonna be awesome. Is that ultimate fix financially and all the things, you know, that go into that and with engines? I

don't know. Yeah, but it's like, I don't even know if that's the fix. Like, if you just gave these things a thousand horsepower, does that just totally instantly create that wheel spin and issue? I don't, I don't know. But just to correct, some conventional wisdom that was out there, it's not because these cars drive too well or have too much grip. I think that's just for

saying I thought that. I don't, I just don't see that. I don't see that. You know, I drove one at Gateway, which involved hard breaking to turn one. And I mean, the breaking could be some of it that's, it's like, still heavy car. There are a lot of breaks. I mean, that's one thing. You know, when I, when this car came online this year, I think

there was a lot of people that were like, oh, the breaking zones would be way shorter. It's sort of thing. They are some places, some places. I'm like, these are exactly the same length, which is wild, right? But it's just because it's a big heavy car. Right. I want to get to a round of eight preview. But before we go there, obviously, there was a lot

of talk about NASCAR financials in the news this past week with some representatives of teams and the race team alliance coming out and saying that they were pretty far apart with NASCAR in terms of their share of the pie with TV rights negotiations set to begin and a new deal coming in 2025. So with that is the backdrop, Parker news today from Formula One. I'm just

going to go to the story we have on NBC sports.com where Formula One team Red Bull, which won the championship last year, was ruled to have breached F1 budget regulations last season, was guilty of minor overspending according to the FIA, which of course is the sanctioning body for F1. And now we will see what the FIA does in terms of punishment for Red Bull. What do

you make of all that? Because I think there's probably a lot of people in NASCAR who are curious about how FIA F1 will rule here involving their championship team going over the limit when they put all this effort into like, how do we keep our finances? How do we get our arms around it and put budget caps in and like that? And obviously that's an ongoing

discussion for NASCAR in the future as well. Well, you hit the nail in the head that a lot of people are watching this. I don't think it's just NASCAR. I don't think there's a racing series in the world right now that isn't intensely watching this scenario in this situation because this has been discussed for years amongst all racing series. I believe NASCAR has possibly been the

most vocal about trying to institute some sort of budget cap or system because of how large the budgets are. But there's been a common consensus I think for years that no one's quite sure how to do that. And the reason being is that they view one race teams can be funded in so many different facets and ways. And sponsorship and where that sponsor comes from. And

if there's B2B deals and you have the OEM and how they fit into things, it's just very murky. And then because of that, I think there's a consensus that the accountants and the lawyers will be making more money than we'd ever be able to save. Because you're just going to pay these firms, New Gillians basically. I think you spend a lot of engines to see billbowers.

Exactly. To figure out how others are spending their money and it's like, well, is this the best way or should we just figure out a better system? So who knows. But the reason that's why it's so interesting what's happening at one. Their innovators in this case are the first to go down this path. It seems like from the outside, it has been slightly successful in creating

more parity amongst the field, at least closing the gap slightly. And from what we see in the media, team principals talking about the financial situation amongst full-one teams being better than it was a couple years ago. Obviously, they've had a big rise in popularity, which has helped their sponsorships. So who knows what side is helping. But what you alluded to, which is now that we know

two teams went over, how does the FIA respond to this? What are the ramifications for going over? What do you deem to be a large amount that going over? What do you deem to be minor? I know they say minor is within 5%. But within that, it was 1% of penalty, is 2% and another penalty is 3, up to 5% being some sort of massive penalty.

And so I just think everyone's watching this because they're the first to do it and how they sort through it. It's going to be really, really interesting to watch. So I did some things on social media about this last week and I had some fans being like, why should I care? And I was like, well, let me tell you why I should care. Do you watch

any other former racing groups? So I think you do because you follow me, which means I only talk about motorsports. I definitely don't talk about any other sports. So you like racing, you like motor sports. This is really key for all the motorsports to figure out how we're going to keep doing this thing of racing cars and making it financially viable without just running out of

money eventually and not doing the same work. And F1 is the big dog, they are the number one racing series in the world. And I should have said this at the outset just to give people some context. The budget cap last year was 145 million. So and the reports for speculating that Red Bull was there was about 5% over it. That would be around 7 million.

And this year the budget cap went to 140 million next year. It drops to $3.5 million. And to add on to that, Ferrari came out last week in some political posturing as the rumors were persisting. And I've seen that there was two teams over and one was Red Bull. They said that they believed that 5% could be worth half a second per lap over a season.

That amount of spend. That's significant. But you never, in Formula One, never quite trust what you read. Always sing with the greatest song. It's cut through. They were trying to achieve it. And I will just stand by saying the FIA said in a statement that they are currently determining the appropriate course of action to be taken with respect to Aston Martin and Red Bull. That's not

going over, but reporting in this AP story and other stories were that it's highly unlikely that Max Verstappen will lose his 2021 championship. Why don't you talk about it for me. Back to NASCAR. We'll wrap up by looking round of eight. So we've got Las Vegas, Homestead, Martinsville, Denny Hamlin said all of these tracks are P1 for him. I think DJ said earlier, Dale Jarrett said

that if they could have laid out a round of eight and Denny Hamlin would have choice of tracks, these would probably be like three of the four tracks you would have taken. Is he the favorite? Chase Elliott goes in with a big point, Liam. Does it look like those two guys or who are the other two guys that might join them? How do you size up

round of eight? So I had Denny and Chase in my championship four. How's it going? And Blaney in there. I'm pretty optimistic right now. The only one that I didn't, my fourth was Kevin Harvick. He didn't make it here. Yeah, I don't know if, yeah. Kind of missed out on that one. My four is still a lot, by the way, just to tube my own horn

here because I caught a lot of grief for this. My four are Hamlin, Elliott, Ligano, and William Byron. Wow. Drew a lot of derision when I made that prediction right here on August 29th or whenever that was. I also chose William Byron to win yesterday and it went out. Oh, did you? Yeah. No, I didn't do well. I still feel like he's going to win. Back

to your initial point about Denny Hamlin. I do believe that and I love to make the joke that it's Denny Hamlin's year until it isn't, right? So he's always the favorite. Same for me. I'm always going to put in the championship for until he wins the champion. Because he's always his year. Yeah. I know. I know. I know he said on the Dail Junior download that

when he will win his last race. I'm pretty worried if he wins the championship, we just say goodbye because I mean, how does he ever top that? I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. But that team, Chris Gaphart, to me is one of the most intelligent people in all of American motor sports. You know, every time I talk to that guy, I learned seven things plus

three or four things I don't know how to comprehend, at least without taking some time to go sit down quietly and think about them in this shape of the universe possibly. But that plus his, you know, work ethic and just ability to rise up in really high pressure packed moments. I just think that that that 11 team is such a core unit that's just been so

well oiled, you know, if they is only something doesn't bite them in speeding penalties, they have to be a favorite. And you then look at the tracks, his history, those tracks, especially Martinsville. And I feel very confident in being a part of the championship for and if he does, I without a doubt would put him very high odds of being coming to your champion. I mean,

fourth straight year he'd be in the championship for us. He may be at some point he's going to win it. Like you said, if he makes it, I might have come on just to do a special episode on Gaphart where I think he's like the intellectuals racer. Like no one combines like cerebral with true like short track racer mentality more than that guy. I'm selling so

in the end. I was telling to him, he was not enraicing about him. And I said, he's the type of guy that I wouldn't be surprised if he was the CFO of Apple one day. Yeah. Running a print team principal, the Formula One team or crew chief of a NASCAR. Like he's just one of those high performance individuals that every time you speak to him, you're

like, ah, this guy just knows way more than me. I get it. Yep. Well said, you know way more than me about NASCAR, which is why I always appreciate you coming on the podcast. Parker, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This has been fun. Appreciate Parker Kligerman for joining us on the NASCAR and NBC podcast. Thanks to producer Aaron Feldstein and

Motorsports manager Emily Convoy for coordinating Parker's appearance. The NASCAR Cup series heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend coverage gets started Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Check out NBC sports dot com slash NASCAR for detailed schedules, start times and coverage as always. At every Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern on USA Network, 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 NASCAR. Every driver has their story. The new docuseries race for the championship will give you an all excess pass behind the scenes like you've never seen before. Catch race for the championship Thursdays at 10 Eastern 9 central on USA Network. If you have any NASCAR and NBC podcast feedback you can send to me on

Twitter at Nate Ryan is my hair. Thanks again for listening to the NASCAR NBC podcast.