Vegas: How NASCAR should handle the Bubba Wallace-Kyle Larson crash; Joey Loganos winning moves; why drivers struggle with the Next Gen limits

Greetings, welcome to the Gasport Games. Hotcast, I'm your host Nate Ryan, joined by the mayor, Jeff Burton, here on the Monday. After the round of eight opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Jeff, I think this was clearly the best race of the 2022 playoffs. You talk about all the moments we had. We had a stirring battle for the lead with a championship for bid on the

always heard you talk about that. You like that about this time of year. The playoffs are generally when we see drivers stepping up their games. Did this race maybe feel more accustomed to what we've been seeing in the past that we hadn't really seen as much this year? We've had great mile and a half races this year. It's been really good. That's been, you know, we

went from people saying, mile and a half is no good to say, man, mile and a half is great. And we had some incidents and some races with tar failures, etc. that kind of took that away. So we got back to that quality racing that we've become accustomed to seeing this year. On top of that, you know, the playoffs just bring a whole nother level. And

that battle of Ross Chastain and Joey Lugano, I mean, that's just, that's great racing. And both of them doing their jobs, Ross getting everything he could, but not overstepping the bounds. Joey, you know, Joey, he's going to push no matter what. Ross is going to push no matter what. It's a heavyweight fight. That was textbook. That was textbook racing. The battles throughout the field all day

long. It's just so much happening that frankly, we couldn't show it all. I mean, there were so many battles and so many things happening. And then you, you know, what you mentioned, you sit there and you watch the non-car and chase Elliott, run the way, Ray, Ray, and you're just like, what is happening? Like you just kept waiting for them. Okay, they're just having a bad

run and they never got out of it. And everything chased Briscoe. I wouldn't have given, if you would have bet me 20 to 1 odds, 101 odds, and he could finish where he finished, I'd be like, no way. I mean, they were not good in practice. They did not have pace. They did everything right and took an average car and got a really, well, maybe below

average car, got a really good finish out of it. So a little bit of everything. Yeah. And that's the second time that Chase Briscoe has done that in the playoffs. Myelina Half-track, Texas, same thing, completely out of the game and manages to turn it into top five, just like you did Vegas. But Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, Joey Logano beats Ross Chastain. And the turning point seemed

to be Joey Logano getting fresher tires with this pit stop for the final two critical restarts. He goes from 14 to eighth in one lap on the first restart. And then on the final restart with 16 laps to go, he goes from eighth to first and passes Chastain with two laps to go. So your perspective on how Logano kind of pulled that off was it all

about just fresher tires? Was it a lot of luck in Joey Logano making all the right moves? A little bit of all that. I mean Joey Logano is one of the very best on restarts. He's one of the very best on capitalizing with opportunities. He's got a little better tire than the guys in front of him. If you go back and watch that last restart, you

got a little bit of a break in that Harvick had a problem in the middle one and two. They were going to come off of turn two, three wide. And with Joey on the bottom. When Harvick had his problem, that allowed Joey now to be two wide. That's a major difference on corner entry and how you can attack that corner. Then when he drives in there,

Ommendinger, he has a problem. He washes up the racetrack. He cleared Ommendinger and now he's got nobody that he's got to deal with on the side of him. He can run his car and put it where he wants to put it. Harvick having the issue, Ommendinger having the issue. Without those two things happening, he gets held up. As he's getting held up, he's going slower and

Rostchastain is driving away. It would not have allowed Joey Ligano to exercise some patience. Because there was a moment there where Rost put a block on him and Joey could have taken a different tack. He could have gotten more aggressive. He didn't because he still had enough time. So, great job driving by Joey. Sometimes on resorts, what other people do greatly with all the time on

resorts. What other people do greatly affects what happens with you. He also, and I heard Tyler Reddick talking about this this morning. He read a little bit last night, but he's talking about it this morning about frustrations with resorts. He laid back on Reddick a little bit on the restart. Looks like to me, a car length and a half or so got forward momentum. They dropped

a green flag. He's coming the right direction. Flooding with NASCAR having to say, hey, you know what I mean. Now you can't do that. You're not supposed to lay back. So, Joey did everything right. And at the same time caught some breaks. And he outdoubles Rostchastain, which I thought this was really cool, Jeff. And it was sort of like this masterclass battle between two of the

drivers who I think right now are the best restarters in cup. But there are also probably drivers one in one A for guys who can make their cars as wide as possible and position them in exactly the right position to sort of impede other cars momentum. Is there anything else Chastain could have done? Because it seemed like he put his car exactly where he needed to

put it and eventually Ligano, who knows how to play that game, just got around him because he had fresher tires. I don't think there's anything that Ross could have done that was within a realm of reasonability. You know, like making a decision that made sense. And he could have been perhaps ridiculously aggressive on a block or something like that. He had a brief moment where he

could have moved Joey, but short of those kind of things, I think Ross got everything. I think Ross did exactly what he needed to do. Clearly he needed it wanted to win that race. He left their good shape with points. He would have had to do something that would have greatly risk his ability to have a good finish. So all in all, I think Ross Chastain

did a hell of a job. And when I look at it, I think there's nothing reasonable he could have done different than what he did. And as good as he was at managing the race, Ross Chastain, his team might have been even better. And the one pit crew was all year. It's beautiful, yeah, all year, but especially yesterday, but in disputed we the best in the

pits right now is the one. Well, there's always underrated people and overrated people in the sport. And that his pit crew is underrated in my opinion. When you look at the stats and you look at what they've been doing all year, they've been really, really good. And it's a major advantage. We've seen, I think, listen, I think Brack has Lowsky lost a championship a couple years

ago because of a pit crew. He had a real, he had the best car at Phoenix in 2020. Yeah, he had the best car. I know Chase Elliott was really fast, but I think that he was better and they just could not get him off the road. And that will play a factor. That team continue doing consistently what they've done throughout the year. That can make

a major difference and advance into the next round, but then ultimately having a shot to win a championship track position. You know, we talk about track position, how important it is. It's always been like that. The difference today is that the cars are so close in speed. And every race I watch, whether I'm at home, I have to track in the booth. I have time in

the scoring with me. I don't watch the race in any situation where I can't look at lap times. And it's the guy running fifth and the guy running 20. I thought running at the same speed. They run within a tenth and a half of each other. It's hard to pass because the competition is so tough. And getting off the pit road is a major advantage. Hard

to pass. It's a testament you kind of said earlier that the mile and a half racing this year, even though it is difficult, even though guys do run the same speed, it seems as if and we saw it certainly with Kyle Busch. I think he went from like 26th to third in the last 40 laps, recovers from losing a wheel, recovers from an early spin. Even

though it's hard to pass, it seems like this car has married up really well with a mile and a half tracks. It's been great. And the drivers will talk about how this car is more sensitive than some others, but there's more passing with this car than we've seen with others. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's not. Now some of that is the tracks. I mean, you

know, that, you know, Vegas is a track that's gotten wide. It's a track that you can run the bottom, the middle, the top, the second groove. I get all over the place. That is the key. Is it if you have to have somewhere to go? If you have somewhere to go and not just follow the guy, that's when this car seems to excel. And that's, you

know, that's something to hopefully next year. Listen, there's nothing that needs to happen to the mile and a half package. I mean, it's fine. You could make an argument. You could take a little downforce off just to make up for the downforce that the teams have gained. You could make that argument. The short tracks and road courses, it would be nice to see something change going

to next year because that's where the car hasn't put on his great races. Now, it hasn't been like Richmond really wasn't any different. Phoenix really wasn't any different. But I felt like, I felt like Martin's feels certainly needed some work. Didn't feel like to me as many passes on the road courses. Maybe it, the number say it is. I don't know. It didn't, didn't feel like

that. But the mile and a half stuff been spot on, which is hopefully good news for NASCAR fans heading to homestead Miami Speedway this next weekend. Also, probably good news for Ross Chastain, that runner-up finish. She's now 18 points above the cut line, the leading driver of the seven drivers who aren't locked in right now. His teammate, Daniel Swarez, also led laps. I think he and

Chastain combined lead almost 100 laps. So really, track house racing, you could make a case. They might have been the best team on Sunday. What are the chances, do you feel like at this point, Jeff, of Ross making it to the final round? And even if he doesn't, this year for track house, I don't even know how to sort of put it in historical context for

NASCAR because it's truly been like a breakthrough year that I can't remember if you're seeing a team make this kind of step. Well, the other thing I want to add to that is that felt like they were losing a little bit of ground and they seemed to have recaptured that. It felt like Ross was driving a little different too until even as far as I felt

like track house had lost a little speed compared to the competition and you were, you're thinking, okay, here come the big teams but you look at what they did this weekend. And I would say that going to homestead, I would think if you ran well at Vegas, you have a good shot at running well at homestead as well. I really believe that. I know engineers would

say that, but some of the driving styles are the same depending on which line you run it. And so I think Ross, Chastain, Joe, the Gano, those guys at ran well this weekend, I think they feel pretty good going to homestead. Make sure you wonder what Chase Elliott, and they remember they had a, there was an interesting UI test at homestead. Right. So a lot of

teams used the stuff that they learned there and tried to apply this weekend and worked for some and it didn't for others. So it'll be interesting to see after an interesting UI test who can run well at homestead and whose struggles. Certainly it seemed as if the word coming out of that test was that the team Penske cars were strong and Joe and the Gano obviously

took something from that to the mile and a half track of Vegas. Ryan Blaney, his teammate, had a good day in stage one and stage two. In stage two finishes fifth and stage one and then while running second, Rex ends up finishing 28 after leading 39 laps. He's still in relatively good shape in that he's only down by 11 points from the cut line at this

point. But obviously Ryan Blaney misses a gold opportunity here to advance to the championship for for the first time. What do you make of, he took all the blame. He said this was on me. I just pushed the car of the edge. Kyle Arson did it last week. Ross Chastain did it last week. Both of those guys right at the roll not needing to wreck. There's

Ryan Blaney that's sitting there with two good stages. He just finishes his day off and has a top six or seven. It's a really good shape and it just shows you that I believe, I've always, when I drove race cars, I believe that you drove them just to touch below the limit. That's not the case with this car. The guys that push and the guys that

are willing to spin out, the guys that are willing to get into the wall, they're the ones that run good. I mean, Kyle pushed spun out all by himself and on Sunday. And we see it every week. We see drivers get in the wall. We see them spin out. We see them lose control of the car. And it's because the car doesn't talk to them in

how they feel the car like anything else they've driven. So they think they're at that limit, that they're okay at this limit and then it bites them. And I actually think that's great. I actually think that that's the art of driving a race car is knowing where that is. But consistently, you look at the people that are willing to put it, to willing to spin it

out, willing to hit the wall, willing to do those things. They're the ones that run well. And it's very interesting to me. That's where we are. So Tyler Rettick, the very first test. Once they said, okay, here's the rule. Here's what we think the rules are. Here's, these are kind of where we're going to try to race next year. The very first test at Charlotte Motors

V.A. after all those things have been made. He wrecks like three times. And he, I'm like, well, you know, I went over, what the hell are you doing? He's like, I got to learn. Like we made a decision. We're coming here to go as fast as we can go and that means we can take it home in a basket. That's what it means. From that day

forward, that's what drivers have been doing. They've been trying to figure out what the limit is. And it's more difficult in this car than it's been in the past. That's fascinating the way you kind of frame that. The car is speaking them in a different way. So Ryan Blaney might think that he's at nine tenths and maybe he was with the Gen 6, but he's at

10 tenths really well. And he was the lap before, right? Or he thought he was at 94%. And he could go get, you know, 97 and be okay. And he was at 100 and it stepped around only. I mean, that's bluntly that's what we've been missing in this sport. That's what I don't like to see race car drivers wreck. But what I like to see them

do is dance on that edge of grip. And when you can dance on the edge of grip and do it consistently better than others, that's the best. And the ones that are willing to dance on that edge are going to step over every now and this car has brought that back. I remember racing at the height of this sport and it wasn't uncommon for somebody to

get a backup car out. You had to, you had to dance on that edge and we got away from that. We got a, we had cars that they just have tons of grip, very little off throttle time, even prior to the downforce, high, low horsepower, high downforce package, even prior to that. With the great big quarter panels and all the side skirts and all that, even

with those cars, they just had so much side grip. This car, what happens mechanically, what happens with this car is something we've never dealt with before. And so when the car is going straight, it makes a lot of downforce. When it's going straight, I mean, relatively speaking, it makes a lot of downforce, not in historic terms as far as NASCAR. So you're going straight down the

racetrack, everything's great. When you get a little bit loose and the car now is no longer going straight, you get a little bit loose. You disturb all the airflow underneath the car. And so that air going straight underneath the car is what makes it downforce. Now when the air goes through the car like this, it loses downforce. And not only does it lose downforce, it loses

sideforce. So when you turn a car into the corner, this air pushing on the right rear quarter panel, keeping it from spinning out, that sideforce. This car loses sideforce, gains front downforce and loses rear downforce when it turns. So if you're going in the corner and that thing gets a little loose, you lose everything that you used to gain. That's very counterintuitive. So you go back

and think about cars. Will you see them going down the racetrack sideways? Yeah, the crowd blocking. That makes downforce. That makes sideforce. They wanted to do that. This car, you never see those cars, they could with the rear suspension adjustments, they could run. At Daytona, Talladega, you see them backwards. You see the left rear quarter panel out because they're trying to get the air off the

lower. But you never see them the other way. That's because when they turn, they lose downforce and they lose sideforce. So when you get a little loose, you become a lot loose. And so understanding how to manage that is really difficult. And that's that mechanical thing that's going on, error wise, is what's causing that issue. And the low sidewall tire has a major difference as well.

There's two things collectively of put drivers dancing on the edge and occasionally those step over it. Which is what was a criticism of the last couple of years was that these cars, they don't spin out. People would say they're too stuck to the ground. They're almost too easy to drive, which obviously isn't true. They're never easy to drive. But it certainly seems to your point is

if it's easier to spin out with this car, do you feel as if it's matched up with certain drivers better in terms of their styles? Sure. It's always been like that. I mean, we've always had moments where radial tires had a major, radial tires were a lot like what we're dealing with now. Like you would, when radial first came out, you'd be like, yeah, I'm good.

And man, you're pointing the wrong way before you even knew it. And so some drivers like radial tires, others didn't. And that also has to do with the team's ability to adapt and adjust to get you feeling what you need to feel. So it's not always just the driver. It's what the driver's sitting in as well. Yeah, I mean, listen, Dale Earnhardt didn't always win races.

There was a point in his career where he could not run well. He didn't forget how to drive. He wasn't comfortable driving what it was that he was sitting in. So Kyle Larson going from series high 10 wins last year to two this year, is do you think that's stupid? Well, I think other people got better. They were not able to have the dominance for a

lot of reasons. And some of it was just because other people got better and everybody's been learning. And yes, the learning that's happening, what is the learning curve that's happening right now today. And then also I believe this too to be true. You know, was it all say money by speed? Have I asked you want to go? Yeah. So there's no question that hasn't gone away.

But now Hendrick does not get to develop their rear suspension system. They have to take this rear suspension system figure out how to maximize it. That's a major difference. There's still plenty of adjustments. There's still plenty of opportunities to make good decisions, bad decisions, but you take away the ability to engineer every single part on the car. Then that changes the way that you have to

look at that race car. And what that means is all these teams are learning. And most likely we're going to get ourselves in a position at some point where somebody is just better than everybody else. And NASCAR will have to figure out how to deal with that because the teams are learning how do you deal with this car. There are still plenty of adjustments and plenty

of things that you can do to make the car go fast or hurt it. Stay tuned on that fabulous tangent there from there. Sorry. The state of NASCAR in 2022. No, I learned a lot. I hadn't even thought about a lot of those things before until you explained it in great detail. I do want to get back to playoffs and just run through some of the

other contenders. What they experienced starting with the most unfortunate driver who was coming off the win at the robo. Christopher Bell actually doesn't come out of this too bad. Jeff, I mean, he's 23 points down. Can almost make the case. I mean, yes, he's he's last among the eight playoff drivers who are still eligible for the championship. But 23 points. Can you make that up at

homestead and martensville without a win? I mean, I know they're going in a homestead thinking this is a race we got to win. So I would caution. I would caution against, you know, the Hill Mary kind of emotion. I think that you're right. I think if they have solid days and they get stage points, but they got to get eight points, nine points, seven points, every

stage, they can't get one or two. He's got to qualify well and then qualify well, stage well, finish well. If they do those things, other people are going to have problems. If they do those things, then they, yes, they could get themselves in. But I do think other teams don't have that problems. And I'm not saying they have to have massive problems. But you got to

have teams that aren't getting good stage points and not having good finishes and having bad pit stops. They don't have to be catastrophic issues. But they just, if you have all those teams having solid days, it'll be hard to make up that many points. So Christopher Bellis in this position because he finished last. And that was because of contact he had with Kyle Larson put him

in the wall. Larson got hit in the right rear by bubble Wallace after Wallace had been squeezed kind of up into the wall by Kyle Larson making this three wide move. You were immediately outspoken about this during the broadcast. Then they go down the front straightaway and it just looks like to meet Bubba Haines on left to retaliate. And I got a problem with that. You're

going as fast as they're going and you hang a guy on the right rear to quarter pound. That is exceptionally dangerous. That's racing right there. Larson's fault is you were the right there. Takes out Christopher Bell. That's exceptionally dangerous move. I just can't. I just can't. That's not right. Kyle Larson clearly messed up and got Bubba in the wall. That's on Larson. But a retaliation in

the right rear quarter panel on a mile and a half race track. That is exceptionally dangerous. Tell us why you reacted that way and why what Bubba Wallace did and hitting somebody in the right rear at speed like why that's wrong. Well it's exceptionally dangerous move to catch somebody in the right rear quarter panel and turn them driver side door into the wall. Not only into

the wall into the oncoming oncoming traffic at the speeds that they're going. That's just not an acceptable retaliation. It crosses the line of what anyone can consider to be a reasonable response. And so he exposed Kyle Larson to something that Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson messed up. That wreck was Kyle Larson's fault in my view. But he didn't deserve to be exposed to the level of danger

that he was exposed to. And Christopher Bell, damn sure, didn't. So I've been there and most of us I would be willing to say as humans have been in situations where you get so mad you lose it right for a moment. I fully understand it, right? But we have to hold our drivers to a level of accord. They have to be held responsible for their actions.

And it does matter how fast you're going. It does matter what racetrack you're on. It does the circumstances do matter. So it's just not a reasonable response. Kyle Larson wrecked him. I mean, there's no debate in that. But the response wasn't reasonable. And it was it just exposed too many people to things that weren't necessary. So even though bubble was claiming that he didn't have steering.

It seems fairly obvious that this seemed to be an intentional move to wreck Kyle Larson. Bubble always then leaves his car, walks on a hot track, approaches the number five Chevrolet, puts his hands on Kyle Larson, shoves him a few times, and then refuses an official directing him toward a safety vehicle. And then also in his interview with Marty Snyder, Bubble always essentially shows no remorse.

So there's a lot here for an ask car to digest as they consider how to address this. And how should an ask car address it? Is a suspension possibly on the table here for bubble laws? Oh, that's a great question. Listen, I think that I think a fine penalty is coming. There's some sort of penalty coming. There's just no way it's not. I was shocked years

ago when Carl Edwards intentionally hooked Brack-Hazlowski at Atlanta. The ask car response to that was unacceptable. Yeah, that was probation for Carl Edwards and that was it. I mean, that was ridiculous. I mean, he put him in a really, really bad spot in fans and bad spot too. And I was shocked, okay? And I'm not a guy that likes to go back and relive things. We

did this. They did that because times change and rules change. But that was wrong. And that was a wrong approach. And I don't think an ask car is going to make that mistake again. I don't think that with all the conversation about safety, they're not going to make that mistake again. I don't know what the penalty is going to be. I think that you can make

a case that here's where I struggle with penalties. So last week, Cole Custer got penalized for doing what he was told to do. Cole Custer has no choice but to do what he was told to do. Why is that a driver penalty? Shouldn't that be an owner penalty? Someone, that should be a penalty that is a management level penalty. But while it's acted on his own,

that should be a driver penalty. Why should Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan be penalized for what their driver did? I think that we need to revisit how we structured these penalties. Denny Hamlin had nothing to do with that rent. Like hold the driver responsible. Michael Jordan had nothing to do with that rent. Hold the driver responsible. So I think that we got to revisit how we

look at penalties because you can penalize a team for something a driver did and the team had nothing to do with it. So some of us can be responsible. Same thing, same conversation with pit group penalties when a wheel gets loose, left loose. The crew chief, he's gone. What do you have to do with it? But they're trying to hold some unresponsible to try to make

people accountable. I got no problem with that. But I don't know how Michael and Denny could have handled that situation. They had nothing to do with it. So you can make an argument that a suspension is warranted. You can make an argument that a fine and points are based on previous penalties are warranted. I don't know what they're going to decide. I think it's a difficult,

it's a difficult, penalties are always difficult because it has to meet the crime. I always felt that Matt Kenseth got a bad deal on the Joey Logano thing from Martinsville because how the hell is he supposed to know that the penalty was going to be that big? What he did was wrong. What he did, what should have never happened. But how the hell is he supposed

to know he's going to get penalized three races? And I remember having a conversation with Brian France about it and I'm like, look, he did, how is he supposed to know he knows? No, he didn't. There was nothing he's codified. There was nothing he's codified. You're going to be able to do two races if you intentionally. So when you penalize bubble wall, this is set in

example for others, right? And as far as pushing Kyle Morrison, I got no problem with that. I mean, whatever. Nobody got hit. Nobody got hurt. I personally don't think throwing punches is, I think it's silly. I don't think we need it in our sport to be successful. I just don't think it has a place. You want to go there and push somebody and things happen, things

happen. But I think there's a limit to that. But I got no problem with bubble wall. I was going in front of him. I wasn't, you know, I haven't gone back and watched a replay. I wasn't when I was watching the whole thing. I wasn't offended by, I didn't think he did anything that was like crazy to the official. Like, no, he pushed his hand away

when the official put his hand on him and tried to direct him toward the stick. Yeah, and even if that, you know, that's almost like, hey, man, I'm fine. But, you know, just talk. I need a minute to get out. Like, I didn't. But maybe I haven't watched it at multiple times. But he needs to be held responsible and people need drivers need to know that

retaliation reaches a point where it's not acceptable. And that was not acceptable. And he'll have to, whatever NASCAR decides, he'll have to accept it. Because there's really no, listen, I appreciated him saying, you know, I lost my steering and, you know, but I don't think there's any. We had data, they showed him wide open in the gas. Right. You know, if you don't have steering, you're

not wide open in the gas. You know, that's an immediate response. And I'll say this too. And I've said this to you many times. I don't hold a driver responsible for what they say, well, as soon as they get out of a race car, I don't go back and say, well, you said, when you got that much emotion and you got that many things going on

up in here and all the effort, all the work, all the dedication, your own television, you're trying to represent your sponsors. You got all these things happening at once. I don't really care what bubblewaves it. It doesn't matter to me. I would have liked to see him show some remorse, but at the same time, I'm not going to hold that against him because it's so much

emotion. It's so much emotion. And listen, good people can do wrong things. You know, it's competition and competition brings out the worst in all of us. I mean, that's why we have so many rules, to be honest with you. It's because competition brings the worst out in us as crew chiefs, as engineers, as team members, as drivers, it brings out the worst in us. We do

things that we know are wrong. We know they're wrong, but we do them because in the interest of winning. And it's a tough situation. I think Bubba's done an incredible job this year. He's brought this year. Bubba Wallace is the best he's been. He's shown what he could do in a race car. Did it again on Sunday. Yeah, one stage one. Yeah, he's becoming the driver

that you want to have on your team, that sponsors want to be part of he's becoming that guy and he's showing what he can do. And this was a step back. He'll overcome it. It's not, it'll be fine, but it's probably going to hurt for a while. Want to wrap up by getting to homestead. And we mentioned Chase Brisco. He had that amazing comeback and now

goes into homestead where it's a track he really likes. And on the flip side, we've got Hendrick Motorsports. William Byron had a very up and down day finishes 13th after pitting from 11th before the last restart kind of a strange move. But I guess it didn't hurt him too badly. He's six points below the cut line. But then as you mentioned, Jeff, I mean, regular season

champion Chase Elliott just inexplicably mediocre finishes 21st loses 14 points off of his lead entering round of eight. Still up by 17 points. But it seemed as if he was almost telegraphing this at the roval where he didn't strike an error of confidence about the round of eight in these next two tracks. I've never tried. He doesn't. He doesn't. Like it felt like even this was

a lot for him in terms of the Debbie Downer. I can't. That's just who he is. I mean, his personality is he suspect that things are going to work out. I don't think he's ever going to say, yep, this is us. Like, you know, then he's like, yep, this round's perfect. Yep. I don't think Chase Elliott's ever going to be that guy. It's just his personality.

And I think that's part of what makes him great. I think that you have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. And that attitude that Chase has brings him strength. And though it doesn't show strength, it brings him strength because it makes him work. Put pressure on his team keeps him hungry, right? All those things like so Mark Martin was the same way. Mark Martin was he'd

run third and his world was coming. I can't drive. I forgot how to drive. I'm horrible. That kept him hungry. And so, you know, back to the way and by the thing, you know, I thought that was a strange call also that it was the driver's decision apparently. Well, but here's so here. But here's what I'm going to say. We talked earlier about drivers drive by

feel, right? He was feeling something and he was nervous that not only was he not going to go forward, he was going to go back. So he drove the he drove him down pit road and we don't know what the result would have been. But it's worse. Correct. He thought so, certainly. Right. So it's easy to say, well, he lost two spots, but he might have

lost eight. Because he was dealing with something that he was like, look, I know we're giving up track position. I know we're going to do that, but we need to do it. And I'll give a screw chief credit. There's times you got to trust your driver. There's other times you got to say, no, we're not doing that. And here's why I need you. This is when

I need you to be your best, but he trusted his driver and we don't know how that result would have ended up either way. But if William feels like that's what he needs to do, then, you know, if you can, that's what you needed it. So some questions for the Hendrick drivers to answer going into homestead. Denny Hamlin goes into homestead with a six point lead

on the cut line in fourth and points. He mentioned, came into this round with a ton of swagger, said all these tracks were P1 for him, but he struck a little bit of a sense of concern about homestead because he said that at that recent test, he felt as if they unloaded fastest, but by the end of the second day, everybody had kind of caught up.

So how do you see things unfolding for Denny Hamlin? I mean, I really saw a day at Vegas to start 31st and end up finishing top five. I mean, points, he gained 11 points. So in six points of the cut line now. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, that's a solid day. I mean, not a great day. Joey had a great day, but that's a solid day.

And they got off to a slow start, qualified poorly, didn't let that prevent them from doing what they needed to do, got up front pretty quickly. You know, it's going to be interesting. I still, I think every now and then that Chase Elliott is going to be the guy that can dominate and win the championship and then I go right back to like, I don't know

who. Like I just don't know. It's been a theme of the year, right? Yeah, but eventually two weeks in a row, a qualifying poorly for Denny. They can't do that three more weeks. Now you might get by with a Phoenix because it only matters if you make that round, only matters who finish stage points no longer matter. But I don't think they can keep qualifying the

way they qualified the last two weeks and get done what they need to get done. I don't think you can keep dodging that bullet. Not with stage point. Yeah, certainly something to watch this Sunday at home, instead on NBC. Before we get out of here, one more thing, Kurt Busch makes the announcement in Vegas that he's done for this season and he is not returning full

time next year. He might run some select races. You had a tweet today that you're excited to see what's next and you've talked extensively Jeff on this pod. The last couple years about the changes you've witnessed and Kurt Busch from when you were a teammate with him at Roush and you were not the biggest fan back then. We didn't like each other. And here we are.

Oh, it almost 20 years later. He's a Hall of Fame driver, former champion. How do you think Kurt Busch will be remembered as a driver? And obviously it seems like he's still going to stay involved in NASCAR. Well, I think he does want to stay involved. I think he wants to be part of the sport. He's talking about, you know, one drive other thing is, but

this is where his heart is. And he wants to contribute. He wants to be part of the sport and helps move the sport forward, help drivers, help young drivers. He will be remembered as a fierce competitor, a guy that made some mistakes, but overcame him, you know, became later in his career, still a really good race car driver, but having a much better perspective of things.

You know, I've been really, I've talked to Kurt a lot this year, more than ever, even with our teammates. And I find Kurt to be really well thought out, has opinions about things. You can, he likes to be educated. He likes to know what's going on. I wish he could have seen his career in the way he really wanted it to, but rarely do we get

that opportunity. There's only a few that get to go out the way they wanted to. There's only a few. And it's a very few. But he's a guy that young drivers should look at and recognize you're going to make mistakes along the way. You have to push hard. You have to work to be better. You have to work hard on the racetrack. You got to give

100% on the racetrack. You have to recognize mistakes, fix it, right, and get better and better and better. He's a tremendous role model for that. And we're not, we're all, none of us are perfect. And when you are a public figure and you make mistakes, it's out, right? Everybody knows it. And that's different than most people deal with. And Kurt's had some bad days and he

says some unbelievably impressive days. And he's, that's made him who he is today. And we're always changing. We're always growing, we're always evolving. And Kurt's evolved, you know, his evolution has just continued to make him better. Wise words and perspective from the mayor who always appreciate joining us on the NASCAR NBC podcast. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate Jeff Burton for joining us on the

NASCAR NBC podcast. Thanks to producer Aaron Feldstein and motor sports manager Emily Conboy for coordinating the mayor's appearance. And NASCAR Cup Series heads to homestead Miami Speedway this weekend coverage gets started Sunday at 1.30 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Check out NBC sports dot com 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

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