Talladega: Tamer because of concussion concerns? Whats next for making the Next Gen safer? A sublime superspeedway showing for Chase Elliott

Hi, welcome to the NASCAR NBC podcast. We're host Nate Ryan here with Steve Wittart on the Monday after the NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega Super Speedway where you're at the NBC Sports Charlotte studio. Stevie here about to do NASCAR America Motormiles to talk about what I think you would agree was a pretty decent super speedway race if you're into really compelling moves by really

good drivers in the draft because I think what we saw Stevie is the race came down to two best drivers I thought in the race. Ryan Blaney win stage one, Chase Elliott win stage two and then the duel for the win comes down to both of those guys. You know, it was the same dish that's always served at Talladega just a different flavor. I mean, that's

how I would explain it. It's not completely different. It's not like all of a sudden the draft didn't matter. It's still speedway racing in my opinion. I thought it was a captivating race. I thought that it was a difficult race for the drivers to try to navigate to figure out where to be at the right time, where to make the right moves. I didn't need any

more carnage. We had one single car wreck with the seven and one multi-car wreck with the 21. But in the end, I think this bingo ball approach of speedway racing is kind of morphed into this new storyline that I don't really like this whole. I do think it is unpredictable. And in our production meeting, I think Brad Dordey said it the best. You have to be

lucky to get to the finish of the race at Talladega, but you shouldn't have to be lucky to win it. And that's a very different thing. You have to be lucky not to get caught up in somebody else's mess for 495 miles. But when I watch the final five miles, I want to see the guy who performs the best, who makes the best decisions, who understands

what he's doing. I'm not completely ignorant to the fact that his decision could be good or bad by what somebody else does. It's still a ripple down effect, but it isn't random. What we saw in that green-white checker is not randomness. You and I aren't going to go do it. That's really the key. It gets positioned where you and I could go do it. And I

think that's unfair to the drivers that are asked to go do it. I think it's not random. What we saw were the best stock car drivers in the world proving who was the best at that style of racing. 100% agree. I mean, Ryan Blaney made a move to win stage 1. I believe around Hamlin. Chase Elliott made a move on his teammate, Kyle Larson, to win

stage 2. Essentially, just hung him out and cutthroat, but hey, he won the stage, picked up the extra playoff point. And then the closing laps, Chase Elliott certainly made the really aggressive move to get in front of Eric Jones in the 43 to get the push he needed to win. Is there something about Blaney and Elliott that you think makes them good chess players? Well, I'll

add that before speeding penalty, we had the six-time talent egg of winning a Brad keselowski in second. Yeah, good point. Off from Pit Road, high-rion Blaney in second. It's the same guy. So that's my point is the list is I got Hamlin, Blaney, Chase, Brad, Harvick was up there. There are these guys. So Blaney is just really good at it. When I watch him out the

window, he is really efficient. His blocks are reasonable, not overkill. He knows when it's time to give up a spot. It's really good watching him get to the end of a couple of the stages are really like the beauty of it. And Dale Jr. and I had this debate on when Ryan Blaney lost stage 2, I think it was. You know, and the blah, no, it

was Hamlin. Hamlin losing stage 1 was the debate. He Blaney beat him to the line. There was communication from Hamlin's crew chief to the spotter that said something like hey, you said he wasn't going to get there in time. Obviously, he did. And it might have sounded accusational. It didn't to me. It sounded to me like something they had been working on during the week where

it was like hey, you and Denny need to review that because politely from Pit Road, you were wrong. It could have been a point of view. Your information was wrong or Denny's choices were wrong or the combination of your information and his decisions lost us that stage. Not, Nana, you were wrong. I'm at it you. It's hey, in 120 laps, we're going to do it again

for all the money. So let's review what we're doing. Let's dress for hers. Which just like it's not random. When you start dress rehearsing at 60 and in or what was the stage, yes, 60 and 120 for the final stage, like it was the same guys come into the line every time. A couple of removing themselves at the end of stage 2 really by choice. Hamlin

was one that kind of just bailed out and had had enough, but it was the same player. And you name the major players that we're always talking about. It feels like it's super speedway races. Blaney, Elliott, Hamlin, Kislawski. And now I think can we add Eric Jones to that mix over the last couple years? Michael McDowell again. I mean, Mike McDowell and Eric Jones, Eric Jones

in the next gen era has definitely shown up. Now I don't know if it's the next gen era, the Dave Ellen's era, they run concur. Is my word concurrently? There you go. There's the word I'm looking for. I had to go to my Thessaurous name, Ryan. But they run together. So is he good at super speedways because he now is Dave Allen's or is he good

at super speedways because he has the next gen or is it the combination? But Dave Allen's and Eric Jones in that 43 car look good when we go play race. And is it as simple as that these drivers are cerebral or more calculating? I mean, I don't want to paint with too broad of brush, but all drivers, I guess have a certain level of native intelligence.

All drivers in that field have more ability to connect their brain to their hands and their feet to their butt to make a car do what needs to do. They all the weakest driver in that field Sunday is the top one tenth of one percent stock car drivers in the world, right? Like we lose this all the time. We kind of lost faith. We lost touching

that with them with the Danica era. You know, it was like, where's Dan? I'm like, okay, guys, you know, she's racing with the top one tenth of one percent of the entire work. Like, let's understand where she's at, right? Like your best club pro and put them in the, you know, master, see how he does. So they're all very talented. What makes those guys better than

the other? You know, I don't think it can be figured out, you know, like I always say, I don't know if we know every ingredient in the soup. I think it's preparation gets overlooked. You know, everybody wants to talk about simulators and setups. And I think there are ways to prepare for the speedways preparation, including your spotter preparation, including your crew chief, making sure he's on

the same plan. Even there before, you know, every time you get there, you're better. Sam Mayer lost hands down, lost six finishers race through the tri-oval with a move he will do better next year. Like he lost it to AJ. He still might have lost it, but if you go back and watch the two different races, the 12 goes to the outside of the nine and

the cup rates and the nine makes forces him to just keep chasing across lanes, which is making him point away from the start finish line. The one that doesn't force the 16 to do that is that the difference. You know, if he forces the 16 and I'm hit him, but like just, hey, I'm going to open my wheel up sooner than you and make you point

to the outside of the start finish line. Would that be the couple feet that Sam Mayer need? I don't know. I thought he did great job for 19 year old kid. My point is, you know, you can't unlearn what he's learned. He has it. Can't take it away. Doesn't matter what car is it. You can't take it away. He has it. Eric Jones, he has what

he learned in the spring. He looked better in the fall. You know, so I do believe it's clear. Some of it's also, they won't be there. Even if they say they don't, they act like they do. There were some drivers that was very clear did not want to be in Talladega. Some non-playoff drivers, veterans who don't really have much to race for, you noticed we're not

racing as hard. I'm not judging. It's a long season and that's a professional. He can do whatever he wants. And I'm not upset about it. I'm not judging it. But, you know, those drivers weren't in the picture by their own accord. You know, it wasn't a bad car. It wasn't bad choices. They just said, hey, I'm not doing this. You guys just failed out. I'm going

to get to one of those guys a little later. But first, I want to talk about, you'd mentioned the fact that it was a relatively tame Talladega race. But the end of the stages, as you described, I heard you described this earlier today, there's sort of this weird phenomenon where each stage has become its own race. And the end of stage one, the end of stage

two, the mad scramble between the playoff drivers. And you were interested by the fact that the non-playoff drivers, it's almost like they don't want to get involved in the mix of the playoff drivers battling it out when the points are on the line where it's a track position race. I mean, they can get in there and kind of really upset the apple card here, but they

kind of almost choose not to, it seems. So it starts with how the races are called. So the first stage had caution, so throw that one away. But the second stage where gas and goes in the middle, such a tight gas and go, Tyler retic ran out of gas coming back to the checkered at 120. So I was asking myself, why? Why do the non-playoff drivers

just say, too bad? I'm going to come take four tires because I want to flip the stage. And I think it just comes down to the manufacturer help. Right? They're still one of each manufacturer in there. So if you're a Toyota, we expect you to help your Toyota playoff drivers. Ford and Chevy. So when the Chevy's all came, they all take gas only because that's what

suited the playoff drivers. So I think they are playing along as should being good soldiers in this war between three manufacturers. And that, I mean, that's fascinating. Like these races are called only to get the lap 60, take a deep breath, four tires, fresh drink of rottles, run 60 laps, more. Another aim, Maine. Come back in, fresh drink of water, four tires. All right, now another

aim, Maine. 68 lap aim, Maine. So it is interesting. And the drivers, I think deep down, you don't want to be, and I mean, I can use any name. Tyler Reddick, Eric Jones. Do you want to be, does Eric Jones want to walk into the bus lot or the garage at the roval after catching the bumper of Tyler Reddick to win a stage in Rex six

playoff drivers? Man, I'd probably avoid being like, you don't want to do that. Yeah. And I think that's what you see. It's not like they just pull out of the way, but they have the mittens on for sure. They have their mittens on. Interesting. And as we mentioned, only one multi-car wreck, none in the last 150 laps. This comes after a week of discussions about concussions

and unsafe cars. And many of us were drivers racing more conservatively because that had been the narrative all week long. And I heard you and Jeff Burton both suggest earlier today that you guys felt this, this wasn't motivated by fear. And you in particular said maybe it was motivated by you being more physically responsible that the drivers drove as if they had to pay for the

cars they wrecked for the first time. And they finally kind of cared about their equipment. I think Burton kind of alluded to that as well, saying like, this season has been so unpredictable. So much has happened that maybe like discretion was the better part of valor here. Is that kind of what you guys are getting at? There's a kind of judgment applied here. I don't ever

want fear to be the driving factor to limit a driver's choices or ability. Like that's not healthy. Shouldn't be fear. But I am totally fine if consequences and the results do. And I want to believe after all the interviews, you know, Danny Hamlin told us after the race. Overall good day. I was able to get Chase to push right there to get to the outside. And

I thought about should I go with him and kind of force the 43 up and I'm like, you know, it on the bottom. I always know I've got somebody coming with help behind me. I know I got to make down. Why did you go with him? I just, you know, then I'd be in the middle and it just a risk wasn't worth going back to 15,

you know, if I would end up getting stuck in the middle. So to me, this is the three race season that you have. You points race. No, Danny very well. So I'm like watching him give this interview and I'm kind of reading between the lines. He's kind of almost arguing with himself. I was on the bottom. I knew I needed to get the middle. I want

to get the middle. But if I got the middle, I could get taken three wide. So I stayed in the bottom. He almost just played out literally the last lap in his head and in the end, he said, I had a good point. Stay and that's what I wanted. If you watch that Taladega race out of 188 laps were too wide for, I don't know the

number 170, maybe 175. For the green white checkered, five miles to determine the victor. We are too wide for 4.6 miles. We don't see three wide until we are well off term. It doesn't come off at the white. He doesn't come off term two, coming down the back stretch. It literally is off term, it's not even off term four. It's kind of like all the way

off term four in the short shoe heading into the tribbles when they finally say, okay, now it's time to go. So that's my theory. That's not fear. That is, hey, if it doesn't work, I'm only going to lose like five points. If I do it off term two and get sent in the infield, I'm going to lose 25 points. I mean, there's 30 cars in the

lead lap. And that is what I think. Now, look, I do believe that when you talk all week long about concussions, it probably is way deep in the back of their mind. I don't think any of those guys are driving around afraid. The conversation about the cars is there. Let's not forget that in the after-cup qualifying, when all the drivers are sitting in their motor homes,

Jordan Harrison took a helicopter ride out of Talladega after a fiery crash in a truck. That goodness from when I've read he's been released from the hospital with some burns, though, I mean, it was a real accident, real scary situation. The ride needed, the fact goodness, he's back in North Carolina and hopefully recovering, back to 100%. But that has to affect your psyche, right? Nobody has

to talk about it. You're watching the same truck race I am. And I only say that because the X-Fine race was very calm. Yes, there was a wreck, the 54 spun down the back stretch, but like... It doesn't seem coincidental that there was... I mean, the last major wreck in the next two races. Correct. And now, listen, the cup race, I watched 100 major wrecks. It

didn't happen. I don't want to make it sound like these guys are riding around. They're eating ice cream. Like, the five one time came off turn two, crossed up by the nine. You can see his door, right? So I think it is a little bit more give and take, a little bit more patience, maybe some better driving race cars. We have drivers that have now run

20 something close to 30 races in the next gen car getting used to this steering. I think it's this combination of, you know, because it's not like they weren't pushing, right? They were put... It was just... You know, when you push in two wide and you get a guy crossed up, there's a lane and I have two lanes to work with. And you're three wide, you

don't get to save it because you start pinballing before your talent can get the car. You need a little bit of real estate. And maybe it's just the... Like trucks can only run two wide. Maybe the crew chiefs are getting the car. Like, I'm also not saying that the setups aren't to the way where you don't want to be against the fence. Right. Maybe the car

and the evolution of the setups have driven it back to the bottom. Like where two wide is just sort of the maximum. Yeah, because trucks don't ever go three wide. Yeah. There is never, ever, ever a third lane. Now I was thought it was because of the number of trucks and good trucks. There was really no third lane. I mean, there was a couple times, but

not many. Certainly a lot more drivers being patients, it seemed. And there was one driver, a particular playoff driver, who may have been regretting that decision. Joey Vagano goes into Talladega with the points lead. And he'd been talking Stevie for the last couple of weeks about how he didn't like the fact that you can ride in the back and you can finish in the top 10.

He was kind of critical of drivers who have done that at Daytona and Talladega in the last couple of years. He said that in recent weeks. And he says that that's not really how he wants to do it. He feels like you should be rewarded for running up front. But he makes a conscious decision this time to hang back on the last restart to avoid the

big wreck. He essentially gets burned by it. He finishes 27th. He's still above the cut line, but not nearly as far ahead of the cut line as he could be if he was in the top 15 of the top 10. If you're him and Paul Wolfe is crew chief, I guess how do you get past that? That kind of made a plan that kind of backfired

on you after you done it the other way for so many times. But I haven't done my first hand research. My second and third hand research and a lot of the storylines were that Paul wanted to be a little more conservative because Joey has definitely gotten a lot of accidents recently and the data presented was that you need to cruise a little bit. So what I

do love about Joey Lugano is, you know, from all the sound I heard after the race, he never said, well, my crew chief or my team, you know, whether it was his choice, the team's choice, their choice together, he took the bullet, which I would love about Joey Lugano. So I haven't done my first hand research to decide how they got there, right? Was this the

team decision? Was this the Joey Lugano decision? Ultimately, he's the only one steering the car, but what makes him great is I think he executes the plan as well as anyone in the entire field as far at any race track. Short pit, long pit, save tire, burn tire. So, you know, it's hard for me to judge because I haven't done my first hand research on how

they ended up back there. But it did seem very out of character for the 22. That's fair. And you know, as we talked about, I mean, Joey Lugano is one of these drivers who's been in these big wrecks at Talladega in recent years. He was very vocal after the wreck he was in. I believe it was last year that essentially dented his roof after he went

airborne. That was part of the reason that they redesigned the next-gen car to have this very strong center section to avoid having the indentations and those types of impacts. You did a great job explaining the safety of the next-gen car in the pre-race and in a week of discussion about the rear end. You kind of explained why it isn't so simple to just replace the rear

end. But I also thought it was interesting. Brad Kislavski, of course, is now a team owner. He said that rear clips are a couple of thousand dollars and that he would have no objections. He doesn't think there'd be any great objections from team owners about replacing the wreck Hendrick. After Chase L.A., it wins the race. Rick Hendrick says, There's been a lot of talk this week

about safety and different solutions or possible solutions that could be implemented. Ultimately, it is going to cost money to get whatever that solution is. As a team owner, are you comfortable having to spend more money on this aspect of the next-gen car, something you've already invested a lot in and you're probably more prepared to invest more in? Absolutely. I mean, for sure. Our drivers are so

important. We don't want them hurt. So if it meant buying all new clips, Monday morning, I'd do it. I'd be happy to do it because we want them safe and feel like Alex or Kurt Busch. You know, that's hard. And so I'm all for whatever it takes. And I think the team's good fix it. But if we, if NASCAR wants to do it, I think everybody

working together, we could do it and are hurry, test it and have it on the car's ASAP. So in light of that, I guess I'm still wondering and you can help explain this. If NASCAR finds things that work at this test that they're doing in Ohio this week on the rear end, if they find things that work, could they implement it for the last few races?

I mean, I know obviously the Robel set, but is Phoenix set? Is everything set at this point? So can they possibly, is it feasible? You know, I don't know. I don't think that the chassis supplier perhaps has the resources or the ability, even if they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to have enough for all of the teams to put their cars together

to go to Las Vegas. So this whole conversation, I think, this is how I see this entire conversation. And it took a quote, I'm going to give Rick Allen the credit. We were talking about the wrecks and he goes, man, I was just shocked because, you know, the Alex moment hit didn't look bad. And Dale Jr. He was a huge hit and it was it and

it was very animated about it. And I was trying to, I'm like, man, both, you know, Dale Jr. is a wrecked of Rick has him. Rick's watching a bunch of races and like, where is there such a disconnect? And then I found I have the same disconnect. So Nate, I've never wrecked a car. Ever. Never driven a car into a wall. But I've worked on them.

I've seen them. I've crew chiefed them. So I analyze wrecks and the severity of the wreck by the speed in which the car goes in, the angle in which the car goes in, but by substantially how the car looks post wreck. When a car is destroyed, that was a big wreck. Look at the car. So I fall guilty with Rick. That when I watched the Bowman

wreck or the Truex wreck, which he said on the radio hurts and 200 laughs later, he's leading the race, I think these are benign wrecks because the car looks intact. So if the car is intact and the driver says it hurts, that's a problem. That's a, that in my mind is the fundamental problem. Now I think everybody, I think NASCAR would tell you the back to

stiff, the drivers would tell you the back to stiff. They, this test that's this week isn't just like prompted from the conversations last week. This is from weeks and months. So I really believe this whole conversation is really this and it's whether it's safety or steering racks or fires in the rock or panel or whatever it is. The car now is controlled by the industry and

the parent company in NASCAR. I say the industry because I do believe everybody gets a little bit of vote in hand in this, but in the end NASCAR. So what is an acceptable design cycle? What's acceptable? Is it acceptable that the cars have been stiff the whole year and with 29 races in it, we haven't, we have worked. I'm not going to say no one's working

on that. In accurate people have worked a lot, but nothing has been enacted. Nothing has changed on the car to as a result of that work. And that's because they're trying to do all their due diligence. So I'm not trying to let anyone off the hook here, but the real question is, is a season the right design cycle? Is that acceptable? Is it 10 races? Is

it five races? Like what is the correct and acceptable design cycle for improvements and should it remain the same for all? Should safety be paramount? Like gut tells me, I can argue two sides. I believe NASCAR is trying to redesign the back of this car as correctly as possible to get it right where they feel they probably didn't get it right the first time because they

don't want to miss it the second time. That takes a long time. Now the second side is if we went to Dover and broke right front uprights, we wouldn't go to Bristol with the same uprights, they would have been a change. So I don't know what triggers there are and it's a brand new car, but it's 85% or 90% correct. So I don't know how you

trigger that thing. At a race team, I had to run a race team. When I was controlling the car, it was very simple. Everyone thought I worked on making it go fast. No. I made it work run every mile first. That was my number one job. So every Monday when I reviewed the last races, there's something I know that would limit us for running every mile

next week to somebody break apart. The one in my teammates break apart. That was my number one priority. And then I went from there to trying to go fast, right? So that's where it's the design cycle that's in question. It's no one's intent. It's no one's this. And if Alex Bowman doesn't drop out, if he is the same hit, hurts just as bad, but the end

result is not these concussion symptoms. Does the new cycle even change? You kind of get what I mean. I empathize with the drivers. I think to have every right to be upset that 30 weeks is too long. But I don't know the correct answer though. And now I also want to say this because then Danny said, hey, the whole car is going to be redesigned. I

want to say this, never should the car not be worked on. It's like we were talking earlier, your iPhone update. I just got up to it. What is it? iOS something or other like some point in it right there. You have the box. I think the next gen box is a little cool. It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There should be a permanent list at all times

of what's being worked on. Right. The priority order could be set. Safety. Obviously, you should be paramount. I think it should be safety one. It should be making sure the most cars can run all the miles because that's what the fans come to watch. So that should be one. And then the quality of the race should be right in there. There's all these. But there should

always be a list. After we fix the back and the drivers are like, thank you. It's softer. It's acceptable. Okay, what's next? We don't just go on vacation. Okay, what's next? Well, steering seems to be an issue. Maybe that's it. Or is it quality of the racing and short tracks? Or is it like it's okay? This car should be in evolution always. The next gen car

should never be like I told you, it should be like next gen 1.01. And we should have the 0.01 to 0.02 to 0.03 to 0.04 small updates. The fans might not even see. But then if they say it's after the decimal, maybe it's 1.10. Maybe the fans see that one, right? But then at some point, we're going to go to point something. And that's a major,

man. That's the iPhone upgrade. That's the iPhone upgrade that you can take a while. But hey, but just remind all the fans. Have you ever updated your iPhone? I don't know how this works now. And I used to swipe up. Now I swipe down. I used to thumb print. Now I'm a man. Now I just stare at my phone. But let's not like, Danny almost alluded

to it. It could still be called next gen. What I heard there is this is a car. But in five years, was still going to have a next gen car. I could have none of the same parts. It could be totally new. 4.0, 5.0, whatever. But should they then have applying what you're just saying right there, which I think is brilliant analogy and insight. For 2023,

should they have like a OK design cycle, race five, race 10, race 25, we're going to have updates at each of these points. I want a public ownership of the car. That's what I want. I know who they all are. And I'm not going to put their names out there because I don't work for NASCAR. I want NASCAR has a million responsibilities. TV negotiations, marketing, schedule,

safety, communications, how they run the races, and the discussions. It's endless. We know who the race directors are. We know who the cup directors are. I want the next gen car director. This guy is in charge of the car. He's going to be my point communication about the car. He's going to give us consistent updates about the car. You don't have to get in the mud.

There's a line. You don't have to tell us every nut and bolt, which it can get you. But hey man, version 2.0. We expect to test here and we're going to put it on track here. That's what I'm looking for. Now listen, that's not it. When I say a guy, I mean a guy who runs an apartment. This isn't a one man band. Like one, two,

three people can't design a race car. I mean, you're going to need a lot, a lot of people. There are definite issues with the next gen car drivers are completely agree with them. For a entirely new race car, we have been fortunate to not have many issues. Now the issue we do have is a very severe one that needs to be addressed. But overall, I would

give it a pretty high passing grade at the moment. It's wrap up by talking roval. The first question I have, so William Byron comes out to Autologa scoring no stage points. As we see it here on Monday, we know he has an appeal hearing on Thursday where he could have some of his points restored from Texas. Do you like Hendrick Motor Sports's case for getting any

of those points back? I know it's really difficult to predict an appeal here. I don't know what their case is, but I don't like the points penalty at all. I think it's absolutely the wrong approach to the infraction for both Thai Gibbs and William Byron. When I look at points, I look at your car was found to be illegal. The pick guns you use were illegal.

The wheels you put on your car were illegal. I don't care if they were an advantage disadvantage. It's not the point. There's parameters in which all those things are supposed to be and yours was supposed to be operated with them when they weren't. I take a completely different approach to this. I look at both Thai Gibbs on Pet Road and William Byron as purely its time

for the drivers to pay a hell of accountable for their vehicles when they're on Pet Road or under yellow. I don't want to referee drivers under green because that's called racing. While you can still gain a loose position both on Pet Road and on yellow, safety should be paramount and should trump all. I don't care. I'll go one further. At Darlington, we saw Anthony now, I

think it was Anthony now, Fredo. At John Hunter, I think I might have got sick or something like that. I would have find him. Now it would have been a much lesser fine because I don't think any intent was there. But I said, hey, Anthony, I'm sorry. But it's your responsibility to operate your vehicle in a safe manner under caution. We have safety workers. We watched

a truck on fire through turn four or turn to it, Talladega. All I wanted to see was the safety workers there. The only way they get there quicker is if everybody plays nice under it. You got to give these people room. That's the problem I have with William Byron. I don't like points because I don't associate it. Now, 50 grand, eight, what I'm thinking. I'm like

250 grand or 300 grand. I mean like a major financial fine. I think 25 points is gigantic. Five regular season rims. Yeah. In a three race schedule, that's like 150 point. That penalty is gigantic. But I don't like points in general. I would have find a lot of tie gives and a lot of William Byron. I then would have sent out a memo to the drivers

and said, gentlemen, we now have in car cameras in every car. We have SMT on every car. Please be aware that you and you alone are expected to operate your vehicle safely on pet road and operate your vehicle safely under a yellow flag condition. If we choose you don't, you will be penalized. You will be fined. It's kind of like, what does the NFL find like

the wrong uniforms and argument that official? It's the same idea. We have to go to control those two man. We can't let I love the intensity of racing. But we got to find and not listen. I'm as guilt as everybody. Hey, here's your pit road speed. You need to do better. Safe caution. Safe gas under yellow. Like we're asking these drivers to do all these different

things which are making these quote, rest periods. We used to have not rest periods. It's time for NASCAR to gobble that back up a little bit and be like, I don't care what your teams are asking you, you the driver. Now if you're crew chief or your spotter, do something to create this unsafe, then I'm going to find them too. But I think on pit road

and under yellow, safety would be what the penalty was for. So Byron, as of now, 11 points under the cut line. Christopher Bell, 33 points under the cut line. He comes into the rovo pretty much must win. Alex Bowman, we're still waiting here at this point if he'll return, but he's obviously in a must win situation. And then you have Chase Brisco and Austin Syndra currently

tied at what would be the cut line. So a handicap to rovo for me. Last road course race of the year, what do you think we'll see in the second round cut off race? Everybody will run through the finish of stage one. So if you don't qualify well, you're going to miss stage points. I think everybody's going to then pit once and run through the finish

of stage two. So there's going to be no hiding and no trickery to try to get some stage points. And stage points are going to be vital. And then it's a question whether you stop two or three times. You stop at lap 50 or run long into that third stage and only stop twice. I say that knowing that every rovo is chaos. It has nothing to

do with what I just said. We had Kyle Larson pit five times after an alternator. We had Chase Elliott hit the wall and then win. We have Ryan Blaney win after a seven time champ, Rex of one time champ. Or could be a three time champ. March year is junior like it's a awesome. You go to the rovo. I think you have it right. Bowman's a

must win to be quite honest. I don't even care about the points. I just want to see Bowman back in a race car. Yeah. I think the 20 of Christopher Bell talk about highs and lows. He's in a must win. I have the three, the big four B's out. I have Bowman Bell. Chris go and Byron and Byron, assuming the penalty stays the way it stays.

All right. Batch NBC Sunday with this man, Steve Littart. Thanks for joining us on the NASCAR NBC podcast TV. Hey, nice quiet week. It was fun. We appreciate Steve Littart for joining us on the NASCAR NBC podcast. Thanks to producer Aaron Feldstein and Motorsports manager Emily Conboy for coordinating Stevie's appearance. The NASCAR Cup series heads to the Charlotte Motorspeedway roval this weekend. Coverage gets started Sunday

at 1 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Check out NBC sports comm slash NASCAR for detailed schedules, start times and coverage as always. And 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 access 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 NBC podcast feedback, you can send it to me on Twitter at Nate Ryan is my handle. Thanks again for listening to the NASCAR NBC podcast.