Ryan Blaney 2024 Season Daytona 400 Recap

I see the path to the championship I can see it the Coca-Cola 600 belongs to Ryan blay Blay's learned how to win over the last couple of months BL cor they spin behind him it's going to be BL we're going to win this thing ran blay is going to win his way into the championship for you have to run the perfect race to get it Ryan blay is a Nascar Cup Series champion what an unbelievable year what an unbelievable playoffs for us this is the team BL podcast welcome everyone to episode 158 of the team blay podcast my name is Adam Rogers and alongside me is co-host Steve MZ this podcast is brought to you by fans for fans Steve and I have been following the drivers of the blay racing family for two decades and team Blen itself launched on social media in 2014 each weekly episode of the show offers an in-depth analysis of Brian blad's latest Nascar Cup Series race plus news notes and special guest interviews all throughout the year this week we break down team 12's run in the Coke Zero sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway Steve welcome back for another episode of the show um I'm a little tired didn't get up home from uh Daytona until about 2:30 uh am this morning got a little bit of a little bit of sleep and then um we decided to record a little bit earlier this week since uh we have a free Sunday and um while I'm a little bit tired um and while Ryan's Knight just didn't necessarily go the way we all wanted it to um still ended up being a pretty uh great night for racing the weather was amazing and uh ended up with a a historic finish I think for NASCAR and one that is going to be talked about a lot throughout this week yeah you know if um the wife and I talk about this like once things happen to Ryan during the race like you know who are you rooting for what are you looking for what are you looking to happen you know you know there's certain guys you want to see certain guys you don't want to see but once the the 21 was in the top five there it was definitely like oh man really would like to see something happen there you know really would like to see you know that fourth you know it's not a Pensky car but it's a Pensky affiliate you know and just to see Harrison because that's another thing about Harrison you know has been a faithful faithful driver to to the Wood Brothers and to Pensky um anytime that they race together or or around him um he's very very mindful very demure around his uh around his teammates right I'm sorry and uh the you know he's he's um you know he's in a bad situation and he makes the best of it and I really hope that this helps him uh in his future uh you know in NASCAR it's a little funny like um we got to spend most of the race day with our friends uh Justin and Chelsea who you you'll see us share a lot of their their photos from their Adventures at the tracks throughout the year and um I mentioned you know we're were talking about who could win and I brought up the 21 earlier on in the day and I was like because we were you know running through names of of guys that could win tonight or be surprise winners and I you know threw out I'm like what about the 21 win 100 and kind of chuckled about it and said yeah maybe and um at that point after the recks and you were're sitting with them and justtin points at the over at the uh the leaderboard and just uh throws up I think the number four because Harrison was in the fourth position at that point and I said you know just kind of shrug my shoulders like it it could happen you know you never know um and uh yeah so ended up being a pretty exciting weekend great weekend for Ford great weekend for the Wood Brothers um like I said it was amazing to me the fact that there there's a point in the day when the sky got pretty dark and I was worried that my R curse was going to follow us but yeah turned into you know beautiful evening and glad we got this this race in and um like I said things didn't go exactly the 12's way but there was a silver lining when it comes to points and we'll talk about that a little bit later but um how did things shake out this weekend leading into it no no practice because it's super speedway racing um but how did qualifying go and uh yeah you know start this thing off you know what they say about qualifying at the Super Speedway right that uh certain certain animals can do do qualifying right you know any any what they say any yeah so it's just um you know hold it to the floor wide open and see what happens and what's interesting is you see like one or two of his teammates go before him and you think well he should end up close to them you know that the time should be similar the only thing that changes though is the weather itself as you're sitting there and you know they're running these laps and and the wind comes a little bit up One Direction or the other direction or the Sun comes out a little you know changes the grip level just a little bit and we're talking like hundreds tens and hundreds of a second we're not talking like uh you know full second a lap or anything and but that's enough that's more than enough to make a difference um you know he went out um and he ended up qualifying 14th he was near the cut line when he completed his lap uh but there were enough guys going after him couple of them made it to the top 10 a couple of them didn't um T ton of Fords up in the top 10 though and uh the 34 when they the top 10 do go for the poll the 34 does go ahead and get the poll um once again not real worried about it and watching the way Ryan raced on on Saturday night it really didn't matter where he started from um even though the radio chatter was interesting but we'll get into that in a minute but uh you know the car itself and and Ryan was able to do things with it that uh put him near the front most of the night um ended up with pit stall number 10 there behind the 20 and in front of the 16 um the 16 had it Shan uh Shane had his big announcement pre- race there that he'll be driving next year for track house in the number uh was it 88 which uh it'll be it'll be interesting to see what happens with Shane you know y um so the stages were 35 995 and 160 seven sets of tires and I always take this this part here from Bob on on Twitter right Bob says fuel 45 to 50 and then he's got half throttle written there and and and you know that's that's what he's saying he says you know could it could it be a little more if they running half throttle could they get past 50 laps so uh you know definitely something to look out for as the night goes on um at the beginning it goes to the high Lane is where he starts out so by lap three um there's a third lane on the inside through the middle um Ryan gets up in there up to 10th at lap five there's three complete rows and Ryan is like 15 overall in those rows and it's kind of interesting because you you know my wife even said it last night she says you look at the rows and you think oh well the the scoring monitor shows him 15 but truthfully he's only five cars back of the leader you know I mean he's only four four cars you know back of the leader he's not it's not like he's 15th in a line of 15 you know so the the leaderboard is kind of hard to watch that's this is this is one of those things about the pylon it it's really not not not hugely important it's super speedway because it changes within the lap so often and then by the time the lap is over like I said his if his moved up a little bit or moved back a little bit he could have been 10th or eth or back to 20 so you know I I didn't take notes accordingly like it's hard to do on a super speedway to say oh pass this guy pass that guy because that changes constantly um the lap seven is up to 21st in the Middle Lane there but by lap 10 up to 11 still in that Middle Lane so the Middle Lane got some energy moved forward uh lap 13 goes to the low the low Lane is losing cars actually so it's kind of getting to where it might be two lanes again um Ryan decides to go down there at lap 16 gets himself all the way up to fifth and then at lap 18 he's pushing the 22 and this is something the incar camera you know all night long I try to watch Ryan's incar and um he's pushing the 22 a lot as the night goes on and it's actually a good move and they both work really well together there's some talk during the stage breaks about how he's doing it and how he uh how the guy how Joey in front of him needs to give him a certain amount of room so he can make a certain type of push so it's a real good communication going on between him and the spotters um lap 18 like I say pushing the 22s up between second and third they're kind of pushing back and forth where he pushes the the 22 to the lead even um lap 20 they're 3 by3 again ry's in that low Lane still pushing the 22 um like I said sixth but then again like I said he's the second one so he could he could be second all of a sudden um at lap 22 he does push the 22 out in front to the lead um and uh you know LP 24 he says the car is so slow tight and slow I can't get to him um that kind he kind of falls back a bet he says so he's he's having he thinks he's having trouble trying to get to the guy in front of him to make a push um lap 28 he pushes the 22 you know and uh the four is leading the five is pushing Ryan lap 30 the four gets out of the way I think the four had enough being pushed and you know the 22 leads with Ryan pushing him this point lap 33 22 is is P1 Ryan's pushing and somewhere between second third depending on where the other lane is lap 35 three wide at the end of the stage here the you know the four wins the stage but Ryan finishes fifth in stage one um this racing was probably I I want to say like the best of the night because we talk about talk about yeah well here's the thing that we later on we talk about them running half throttle and trying to conserve fuel so it's a shorter pit stop if they if they have green flag pit stops or even a yellow when they you know get jump some people um but this stage they didn't have any of that this stage they knew they were going from point A to point B and just a matter of you know of being up there and uh you know coming from 14th to finish Fifth and and being one of the cars contending for the lead was was showed that they were going to be there all night so you know and the some people you know leading into the race and I think I even heard it on the MRN broadcast I don't remember if it was on the actual broadcast or when they kind of talked to each other during the breaks but they mentioned that they thought like the best racing was going to happen in stage one um and it I would have to agree I mean throughout the whole field I thought it it definitely was exciting it felt more like a traditional Super Speedway race it was when they got into stage two and the beginning parts of stage three that that you could see the three wide some guys riding except for maybe the guys at the front and then um obviously when it got down to the wire at the end that kind of everybody started racing finally and it definitely got exciting but stage one I thought was great and it went by quickly too yeah yeah I mean that's you know problem with it being a short stage uh um Ryan says it needs freed up about a number John says um we're g to be waiting on fuel so you know you can you can go into the NASCAR app and you can look up these pit times uh but for the most part don't mean anything because they're doing everything they can to fill the tank so later on they don't have to fill the tank hopefully um so e like I said either even though he comes out like 13th um this is this is that bad situation here during this pit stop the 99 gets set on fire and they did a they had to go back and look at some tape because what we see is we see the 99 after the pit stop go out on the track run a lap and then as he's coming around all of a sudden he's on fire and he drives it back into the pits and NBC found footage that during the pit stop itself he dropped some gas in the pit stall the car in front of him and I'm I'm not sure somebody will find it but I'm not sure who it was in front of him was angled in such a way where he kind of had to back up a hair and then he backed up and then as he was doing that the 11 was trying to leave the pit stall behind him the 11 had to stop for a second he was inside of the 99's pit stall he lit that gasoline on fire that was on the ground it went found its way right up to the 99 car and then everybody pulled away so he was on fire for that whole lap coming back around just wasn't prevalent it was you know it was fire but there was enough wind trying to blow it out or something yeah but then once he slowed down again they came to pit Ro because he knew something was wrong and that's the other thing he he commented afterward that his um he doesn't use a cam he doesn't use a mirror anymore so he didn't see the smoke he's got a camera out the back so he didn't you know the camera doesn't necessarily show the smoke and uh but he came around and felt something was wrong and good SM I think he smelled something more than anything else um brought it back in and then all like I said once he he parked it in the pit stall it was just engulfed in flames and I hurri up got him out of there um I know that was uh pretty crazy and uh you were down near the start of Pit Road so you could probably see him coming around we could see it and we saw it explode like into the fireball when he hit Pit Road and it was definitely scary and they later on showed the incar cameras and like you said he he didn't really know he said he could feel it was hot but the whole back of the car behind him on the in car was just glowing red and man it just talk about um I think I said it in in our chat and some discussion like things that happen that are totally out of your control like he you know didn't do anything wrong the team necessarily didn't do anything wrong it's like a fluky thing and immediately the race is over so it's just yeah extremely fluky because you think about you the 11 car has to pull into his pit stall and and catch I don't know how catch spark or something that sparked that fluid to light up and then it like lit up it was like um the the the one Die Hard movie where he lights the lights the um the fuel on fire and it you know it just follows the line of fuel you know well that's the thing it was on the ground but it was leading to the 99 car and it just went right up to the 99 car so yeah um so during this um Joey wants to know what Ryan's thoughts are about going to the middle so like I said between you know Tim Joey spotter Ryan you know they're all getting together and like putting a game plan together what they're going to do and how they're going to do it um the back end of the field comes for fuel during the chws um the 22 leavs the restart from the high Lane Ryan choses the high Lane to restart lap 41 by lap 44 three wide again lap 48 middle of three and 15 um lap 50 like I said I have fuel racing here right here lap 50 uh we're pushing the 21 the 22 is uh you know 23 actually leads at this point at lap 55 um the back two rows you know for back to two rows p13 in that low Lane at lap 57 once again I get three wide again and then we get a caution at lap 61 uh during this caution this is a was kind of a big one it was on the backstretch um Ryan had the F car come across his nose uh because I know somebody on Twitter even like asked it was a comment it was a comment underneath a tweet that it was had nothing to do with with the race itself that I had put up and it was like somebody who just knew that I would know you know and um didn't cause any real damage although they did say something about maybe the splitter was was uh kind of moved a little bit uh but the 19 the 10 the 48 the 1 the 54 the 7 the 9 42 24 11 5 43 were all involved um and it was the seven and the 10 that that tick that started this and at first I thought it was the 10 getting just totally squirly but I think the seven actually um did a bad push yeah and you know it took the took took everybody out um not everybody with involved in this crash ends up out of the race but does knock up a couple cars out and I think it end of the day for the seven at that point um this was one of those situations for anybody that that goes to a live race like when you try to plan your your pit stops or going to get food or something um I just walked we I just come down the stairs walked under under the into the into the back there and I hear the crowd like go crazy and I was like oh man then kind of rushed over to a TV and I'm just all I all I was worried about to see if the 12 was in it or not and I my day but it was like unfortunate timing that I missed it it was on the backstretch though so I wouldn't necessarily had a great view of it anyway but glad the 12 mostly came out unscathed at that point um but then immediately kind of see it's it's another in inent that the seven is around and um I didn't totally end his day I think he he did get off the DVP and they repaired the car and he kind of ran around the back the rest of the night but he just he just seems to be in and around everything just five or six straight weeks I don't know that he's had an incident free race at all so just this is just one of the things you know about super speedr racing too is that there's a time and place for the AGG iess to be a certain level you know and this this early in the race is not it um so you know Jonathan talks about giving him uh you know more fuel so he could be aggressive to the end of the stage here um and they did say the splitter and the nose seem to be separated a little bit but it didn't seem to affect the car much so Ryan went in from like 14th but he comes out like 10th then he restart lap 67 with a 17 at this point uh lap 68 we got pretty much a single file line for the like the top 12 top 12 uh cars or so Ryan's up there um 17's leading lap 72 there's like a sucker hole basically that happens to Ryan and that this this is great incar uh footage from lap 72 to like the next lap or two and I'm only talking about like a lap maybe two tops he goes back to would be about 28th or 29th back there amongst those cars and then you know the next lap or so just goes flying through the middle I mean it was open and he took it and he got all the way up by lap 74 he's pushing the two and the 22 in the Middle Lane and at lap 75 the two the the 22 the two and the 12 were one two three you know you a matter of like three laps from the back of the field to the front of the field pushing uh you know his teammates up to the lead uh 77 the two got punted here um and it looked like the five kind of push him from the side a bit and the D did a great job saving this U this was on the backstretch he went down and got it back and got back in into line more or less didn't really lose a lot of spots um Ryan now is pushing the 22 as this happened and you know Ryan during the ex caution I don't know if have the notes here but he did kind of ask what happened was it my fault you know did kind of look like the five kind of doored him a little bit from the side and that was part of it um lap 80 we're pushing the 22 in that low Lane the five and the 38 are the two cars up in the high lane and then lap 81 we need a caution um where two things happen at the same time here the 43 gets a flat it slams up into the wall and then the 16 blows up and um that was just you know out of nowhere I don't know they they've usually that the program usually has pretty good cars for super speed racing and you know I'm sure that sh spare no expense on Shane um to give him a good vehicle but um just really weird that those two things happen at once there yeah there's a lot going on there all all at one moment and you initially thought it was all connected but then you find out there's like three different cars that have issues all all in one lap but you have the the 16 definitely grenaded probably yeah one of the bigger ones of those we've seen in a while when it just comes to an engine failure so um that slowed things down for a little bit there you know kind of yeah dampened his day after after the the announcement of next year so so um Jonathan's ask about balance here Ryan says it's still tight and slow you know but they're up to like P4 here with the 22 leading and Ryan wants to know if uh he's pushing the 22 too aggressively um and he doesn't really hear back that he's not so you know it's okay with uh with Joey um they're staying out 38 pits from P3 right in front of Ryan so Ryan moves up to third um lap what got 87 here the chws 22 takes the top Ryan of course top and then the 45 is pushing Ryan the number five and the number six on the low Lane for this restart so the restart lap 88 um and Tim tells him that 22 is going off of you so this is another great little communication thing so the 22 is the car control car right but he's not going anywhere until he gets his push in that restart zone so um really good teamwork here and uh Ryan does kind of push him out and at um The Pusher for Ryan whoever's pushing Ryan changes a little bit next couple laps it's the 23 then it's the 38 um the six is leading the lane all of a sudden the six got out and moved in front of the 22 lap 93 um they're three wide and Ryan's in the middle back to fifth at lap 95 the six goes to the low Ryan once again pushes the 22 all the way to Lee and of course Ryan you know the 22 wins the stage Ryan up P2 so two stages uh P5 P2 and really truthfully he was trying to find a way around Joey right near the end of the stage but you know uh it's one of those things you're not going to risk wrecking anybody especially your teammate um but you're at the point in the race where it's you know really good stage points too so you don't want to mess that up and um and that the stage points on super Speedways are crucial because as we see you just don't know what's going to happen down at the end so you got to bank something especially in this this points race that Ryan is in for the the fifth the fourth and fifth spot basically in the regular season standing so this comes into play becomes really important at the end of this race yeah so um you know Jonathan's going to give them more of the same adjustment basically just not as much and um four tires and fuel um they come out P5 for the chw now once again they're waiting on fuel that's why I didn't even go in there it's like 14 15 seconds but if you watch the the pit stop um the guys complete the the tire change and they're just sitting there waiting you know they're waiting uh waiting on how much fuel um the leader the six taking the top Ryan takes the top restart lap 100 here um the 22 had a drops the spot basically to get in front of Ryan which was kind of interesting to watch watch it happen he kind of went out of line got back in line right in front of Ryan uh lap 102 the 34 is now leading Ryan's in 13th in the high Lane lap 107 the 22 try the middle doesn't work and he ends up in the low Lane so he kind of like bailed on Ryan a little bit there maybe not on purpose it might have been one of those things where he just kind of had to take the Run uh lap 110 uh Ryan is pushing to 33 at this point which is kind of a strange bedfellow you know I didn't even know there was a 33 car in the race still that point um 34 is out front leaning both lanes uh the 14 moves in front of Ryan here um from the low Lane and we're up to about 16th during this lap 115 the low Lane actually moves up more it gets more organized um lap 120 here the 51 takes the lead at this point Ryan goes to the low Lane is in 20th at lap 122 we're still in that low Lane but works all the way up to 11th because the lane gets organized it starts to work lap 128 Ryan gets in the high Lane now behind the 22 he's up to 14 so back in familiar territory at least at lap 132 in that high Lane P9 they clear the low Lane so they you know they were the top at least the top 10 cars were clear the low Lane lap 133 the low Lane surges up a little while um Jonathan and Tim are on the on the other channel and U asking about what to do what lap so they could try to get to the low Lane because at this point we're looking at green flag pit stops for the first time all race um lap 137 Jonathan tells them about five laps and they're three at this point in the high Lane so that's a little bit scary unless some of these other guys bail a lap or two ahead of them that lap 140 the top three you know they're in the top three pushing the 22 and then we get this caution for the 42 car um with the eight car leading and Ryan's in 12 boo yeah boo somebody posted something about why was this a caution because he did got kind of shoot out over into the uh to the left hand side there down the backstretch and that's all almost all um pavement now so you know there's not as much danger as much yeah it was more sad we just I feel like we get robbed of we Daytona we tend to sit down toward pit entry because it the green flag pit stops there are kind of exciting and fun to watch at times and we kind of got robbed of that in this race no no green flag stops we I felt like the strategy was about the strategies were about to play out like as far as manufacturers pitting together and there wasn't a ton of lapse left but there was still time to get that where they come out in two packs and then they merge back together at some point and then it gets really racy and then they they go for the win or crash or whatever but man it just kind of threw that all out the window yeah this and this is bad here what happens here in this Pit Stop is really kind of weird because they Jonathan and Ryan talk about how much like how many seconds basically of fuel because everybody's pretty much just going to do Fuel and if you can put just enough in and be quicker than somebody else and they go in 12th they come out seventh but to tell you the truth um Ryan kind of like once they get back and they're lining up for the after the shoes Ryan says something about I'm sorry about that for leaving early um it doesn't quite term it like that but what happened I think is Jonathan was still counting and I think Ryan just took off so um I think they're well I think I know because we this gets discussed on the radio they're going to be a little short on fuel um Ryan chooses the low lanane behind the 22 with 24 pushing him here um yeah Ryan what Ryan says is he says I did you no favors there as he apologizes so that's the way he termed it which is kind of like yeah I you know probably didn't you know and um the six is leading the low Lane here and he gets a restart violation here and he goes a couple laps before he actually pits finally because yep he was trying to say no it wasn't you know and and I think part of it is he didn't get the push he was expecting to get the other lane got a push and it just kind of looked funky but it was bad enough where they called it um so at lap 148 he finally does pull out of the way here and the 34 the 22 the 12 were on that low lane together and Johnson tells Ryan we need help on fuel okay so they've calculated now it took a couple minutes they figured out how much they got in there and Ryan says how much and he says well do what you did the last lap because Ryan's been saving this whole time which doesn't look like it on the track but he I guess he's been not running full throttle and um he says did what do what you did last lap to the end and hopefully we get a caution also well we do well we do but Ryan says Ryan says holy bleed you know um but at lap 152 we get a and uh I'm all choked I'm all choked up over this you know because um It's The Usual Suspects it's it's so funny um it can be hit or miss uh with the finishes right in these races right the guy guy like Ryan we talked about his stats last week you know he's w a bunch of these races right one at Daytona one a bunch of them at Talladega and it's like but his average finish isn't that great because he gets caught up in these messes right well there are some guys that it's Checkers or Wreckers no matter what and they're just they're the cause of these problems you know the 34 car has won one of these races yes the 34 has also wrecked a bunch of these races and been the cause of the wreck um people are gonna die yeah tell people people are going to diagnose this any which way they want to um yeah but the truth is Ryan says it he says let me guess another um let me edit that crappy block by the 34 you know totally sarcastic over the radio um Tim's really kind of nice because Tim will say well I don't know I gotta look at it you know or whatever uh but I'm sure that they're looking at it today and they definitely agree on that um he's got huge damage at this point um and it's the first thing is he asking Jonathan's asking about the water pressure because they that's the number one thing if the nose is knocked out but enough where the the radiator got punctured they're losing water pressure they can't really run that car because it will blow up the engine and they really don't want to blow up the engines um it didn't look terrible from the stands you could see the hood was buckled a little bit yeah what was more telling to me was watching was able to pull up the inar of the replay and just how hard he runs into the back of the 22 here2 you just know like man yeah you hear the water pressure talk and you're like oh this is oh yeah it's horrible because I have him P they have him P6 so he got past all a lot of it he was still physically running where a lot of other cars were still back on the track um and uh you know the the the Inc car camera on this is interesting because they get to pit lanane and you know they got guys they jack up the right hand side not everybody comes over the wall um Raymond Raymond fox actually comes over the wall and you know you know that's Dam somebody is GNA try to fix the damage you know the car Chief comes over the wall so um I see uh Ryan Flores picks up that flap that's on the hood he's looking in there so they're trying to look to see if it's something that they can fix you know during a pace lap or something like that you know but the water pressure was down to a one you know I was thinking well dump some water in it let's see how long we can get it to last you know I thought maybe they would just keep making pit stops and keep dumping dump some water in every chance you can do it but um uh I think they basically go back out and run another lap or two and then bring it in during the caution and then just he tells them just bring it behind the wall so they're um they just want to shut it off get it you know get it back behind the wall um watch the Inc car camera all the way to the garage Ryan gets out it's so funny because nobody's in the garage area yet either at that point he drives it right into their garage stall and nobody from the team is there right away Ryan gets out of the car he's looking at the front end um this Inc car cameras are great this is stuff you never see on TV you know and next year I can't wait for it to be a subscription service I'm going to pay whatever it is to have it every every week but uh so it be a little easier than uh CHC casting it to my TV but um I get so much kind of information from it you know like I said Ryan got out he's looking at the front end and looking at the damage and um we had the two the five the 17 the 20 the 22 23 24 33 34 3 45 47 48 51 all involved um in this in some way shape or form 34 gets Airborne a little bit but comes back down relatively quickly yeah kind of smashes his car went against the wall in a way it buckled the car um glad to see everybody walk away from these things that's that's the big thing now and in the next one to come too um so they're you know they're running pace laps at in 24th till they tell them to take it to the garage here but it ends up being 29th because a couple other cars uh do end up getting back out there and running a lap or two more than Ryan so it knocks him back about five spots uh green white Checker number one um we get the caution for the two the four and the 24 and this is the eight car um punting the two is how it starts and this is like I what I was going to to say about time in place so now it's green white Checker so now it is time in place to be so aggressive and not care and you need to win and screw everybody else and that's kind of an attitude um what happened with McDow was uh 10 laps to go not you know not Greenway Checker and what's interesting is is an extremely good driver like like Kyle Bush knows a way of punting you and not damag his car as he does it and that's kind of what happens here it's it's not a very good move he kind of hooks him a little and it's because he didn't have him lined up but I don't think he cared if he had him lined up at that point because you know that happened on the White Flag lap and you know and actually this has happened for the eight car before where where at Talladega right where for for Bush before talo when when Ryan and bubble were tangling you know and he went past them as they were tangling and you know so same thing if they were on the White Flag lap he makes this move and he pushes past them and he's first guy pass them he wins the race right so the fact that Happ two too is not good the four car um during this gets gets on the hood slides on the Hood um you know they can say all they want about the grasp being out back there because the grasping out there probably helped this to some extent as far as it didn't flip end over end over end over end over end okay that's the difference yes that's a difference on the this but it still got up in the air and that's because anytime these cars get sideways I don't care what kind of things they do to the put Fins Up and all their things once they get sideways the bottom of that car is sealed off and sideways there's nowhere for the air to go but under under it so it catching catching air and flipping can happen and there's not much they do to prevent it prevent it when they're sideways and then he hits the wall nose first and then that thing spins like a it looked like a cartoon uh I hate to say you know it was like just really weird just like it spun a bunch of times um you know they flip it over he gets out um like I said hopefully he's in in good shape today um I didn't see any did you see any interviews of him last night afterward yeah I did hear one on the radio on the way home um where he talks about it and he brings up the the situation where so his teammate Ryan priest last year had a violent flip where there was grass back there he hit the grass flipped multiple times um didn't hit wall like the four did um so like you said in this instance he gets on his roof doesn't flip multiple times kind of slides he mentioned that um he said he said oh the the car going into the wall probably looked a lot worse than it than it really was now I don't know if he was wearing one of those trackers I think Ryan wears and some others that that will measure the g-forces in hits so we'll have to see if that if that's kind of true or not or whether that was kind of just in the moment you know he still has some adrenaline going or not to where he feels okay but he did kind of credit the the pavement for not resulting in in the multiple flips that you normally would get when you go through the grass so I guess that's that's the good thing we're seeing here um it'll be interesting to hear what the talk is again this week um after what happened at you know two cars Xfinity and cup getting Airborne at Michigan and then immediately have another race here uh the next week where cars get airborne again I'm starting to almost get on the side of uh in Dale Jr's podcast last week he kind of just said these cars go really fast flipping is just going to it's going to be part of it and you just have to be didn't necessarily say okay with it you just have to accept accept it so there is a point when you do have to realize you know they they've tried since 2001 to make this as safe as humanly possible and there's more than just driver safety here when a cars get comes to a car getting Airborne you do have to worry about safety workers and fans and like things like that if it happens at a bad place I understand that but there is a point we have to realize that and I don't want to say that I guess I will say it the cliche like they know what they signed up for type situation and that's that's part of it but they can keep trying try to figure out the science um but like you said the with the as flat as the bottom is you know they're kind of like little airplanes at that point when they get sideways so I don't know yeah they tried they tried with the the fin I don't know what what the solution is but I am starting to just accept the fact that at some places when you're going nearly 200 miles hour in a car like this no matter what you do a flip can happen they can try to mitigate as much as possible by Paving areas or replacing you know the grass with field turf or something like that so um unfortunate that you know two years in a row in this race you know a steuart Hos car is is flipping down the backstretch but um luckily Josh kind of got up and walked away from that so second scary moment of the race definitely after the fireball early on so the red flag it here for however I don't even know how many minutes I didn't pay real real attention at that point because you know kind of we're just watching now and um the eight car is P1 and the 21 is P2 and I think it was the 20 and then the 62 were were the next two cars so um you and I were texting at that point about who's going to line up behind who and uh you know who's going to get a better push and you know I was really hoping I kind of knew that the 20 wouldn't do it I was kind of hoping that the 20 would would push the 21 yeah and and the only reason I say that is because I the the 62 Parker Parker rosof is is like an unknown quantity you know he's he has raced a couple couple of these plate races now um but you know who knows what he you know but he worked his way up there done a really good job and when they go ahead for this the second green white Checker here um he the first lap he doesn't look that great and and Kyle bus pushes out the lead in the low Lane with the 20 car pushing him and it just looks like it's going to be Kyle bus and then Harrison gets it organized in the backstretch I credit him for this big time and I think I said it to you too like he could have easily panicked here and tried to make a loop move get out of the lane do something weird but one thing I noticed in this race is with the first two stages and the way they they swapped out the Top Lane got the momentum coming to The Checkered Flag so he sticks with it and lets that momentum come back up again and um the 20 post race to mentions you know he got a lot of flack for and even Kyle Busch kind of said like you know I thought I had a friend behind me that would keep pushing me and now we know this um from what happened with the 20 and Ryan and I think in this race last year um where he's not a great Pusher but the 20 says his car is just handling bad and he said he he kind of backed off from pushing Kyle hard because he was afraid he was gonna wreck him and I almost feel like he's gunshy31 of the final lap um the high Lane gets organized behind him you know he he sure he'd moved to what would have been about third position at that point and what was interesting is the 20 didn't move over trying and cut him off the 62 gets the push going and by the time they're coming out of four Harrison is way in front not just in front but way in front and now he's B doing the both Lane blocking um and Kyle um he gets down in front of Kyle and Kyle hits him and then once again this is Kyle you know afterward he says he didn't you know try to do this or that or you know maybe he could have done this or that and in a way I think he didn't on purpose I think he kept from he could have spun him out basically and he didn't yeah because he knocked him down to below the line but then he let him fight his way back above the line um and he was still clear that whole time and in front so the whole going below the double line thing at first on TV they're like reviewing the Finish you know right away they're reviewing the finish and you're you're thinking they can't call that because the number one rule is you can't Advance your position by going below the yellow lines and he didn't Advance any position he was first when he went below the yellow lines and he was still first when they came out in front of it so he didn't Advance a position and then you clearly they they show you a replay from inside of Kyle's car and you can clearly see that Kyle's the reason he went down below the yellow line to begin with he got pushed down there I got a bad kind of almost sideways push um so quickly they hurried up and said that they you know they declared him the winner quickly which is great and then everything that followed um was spectacular it was fabulous you know I mean if Ryan can't win a race U like I said there's a couple guys I'd like to see win and he's definitely one of them you know and then you've got the whole story of the Wood Brothers and the 100th win you know which really would have loved for it to have been Ryan right after he wins the Pocono Race you know for them would have loved to se seen when you know Ryan be the guy to give him 100 at some point before uh he goes to pensy um but knowing that the 21 car is affiliated with Pensky you know it's always the uh I'm going to do this in quot air quotation Mark's fourth Pensky car you know and that they you know help prepare those cars and have them ready and um you know the staff basically is they're all part of Pensky as you know you're the crew chief and uh you know guys on that 21 team um are all technically Pensky employees in some way shape or form or you know so it it's just it's another win for Pensky even though it's not technically and the Wood Brothers themselves have stuck it out because they've had that great Alliance um and then still held on to their their great sponsorship with h with Ford uh over the years and so it's just a great story all all around even though Harrison's you know lost lost the ride for next year and we really don't know what landing spot is if he has one um this should help and I hope it does you know I hope that he's still in cup next year um because he definitely proved that he can do it yeah it's definitely a great story I mentioned kind of at the top of the show about saying that I thought the 21 had a chance at winning and then I I shared you know Justin pointing out how close he was to the front in those late restarts um but yeah once Ryan was out of the race I was pretty much full on 21 you know backing the 21 um crowd went wild when he took the lead and wins the race um it was really cool you'll see some I think there's some social media video of it too and it was played live on the the jumbotrons at the track you know Ryan stuck around and watched the Finish you know he said on TV maybe at his bus or something or maybe just on one of the screens immediately went to Victory Lane and like kind of hung out there for a while got it took a photo with Jeremy as former Crew Chief and Harrison and Victory Lane with the trophy um and it's one of those things where you hear from you know Ryan to even Matt De benedetto who was you know let go from that ride a few years ago Dale Jarrett like um I think Kyle Petty even like a lot of these guys that race for the Wood Brothers bring up the fact that when you race for them you become family and sometimes that's just kind of thrown around and if you feel like with them it truly is because you did see Ryan specifically coming to to congratulate them too Beyond just Harrison you see Matt De benedetto who got fired by them a few years ago put out a tweet saying how you know how happy he was you know for the Wood Brothers too to get their hund Victory um so that was really cool to see one kind of funny thing that that came up while we were been recording here and if anyone um that I at least that I noticed it was shared while while we were recording if anyone knows follows the the wood brother social media accounts you know that sometimes it's a little bit more funny a little more snarky and that kind of stuff and uh they they shared a a post from uh uh I don't know if it's a podcast or another media site that shared some spotter traffic um with the 62 car after he chose behind the 21 with the spotter directing Parker um to uh do not push that 21 to a win is what the spotter told Parker in the in the moment there and Wood Brothers you know responded to that hate it for the spotter what happened there so I mean it's true I mean the the that car the 62 which they've probably brought it up on the TV broadcast too one employee they only run a certain amount of races every year they have a heavy affiliation with Richard chill just racing um so it's it's he and I think Parker even after the race said he wanted to be able to push the eight to the win he just didn't get the opportunity so from there he just tried to make the best of what he could for himself so um unfortunate for them yeah one of their team Chevy drivers gave the 21 like an incredible push push out to the lead there to go on and and win the race so um it was cool cool to be there lots of people you know sometimes you leave some of those races and maybe the right person doesn't win or whatever and the crowd leaving the tracks a little kind of bummed out about it but I kind of felt everyone was pretty positive about this one I don't think you could be sad sad it was it was a little kind of Bittersweet hearing Harrison you know immediately in his his interview saying I just got fired from this ride maybe if it happened a little sooner in the season it wouldn't have happened but you know still still happy about it and you know I bring it up when people like to discredit some cup drivers uh sometimes specific ones about um wins or how they don't have too many wins remember that thousands of guys have started races in the Nascar Cup Series an extremely extremely small percentage ever go to Victory Lane so Harrison Burton doesn't have to worry about that he's got win number one locked up win number 100 for the wood brothers and uh all around I thought it was a pretty decent night of racing despite some of the the big crashes yeah and you know the next day you see um some of the pictures from Victory Lane like you said you saw Ryan there uh seeing Jeremy again um was was cool see those pictures there's one with I think Ryan Jeremy and uh and Harrison all together um the fox family uh you know Raymond uh Raymond's son correct is you know Tire Justin Justin Fox tire changer there you know um new tire changer for the 21 looks like it just happened in the middle of July yeah um I thought I heard um Dale Jarrett say on the broadcast his son was spotting too so um you know all kind of family connections uh you know associated with that program and uh like I said the affiliation like I said it's the it's the unwritten uh you know unassociated they're not a pensy team per se but they're they're definitely a t part of the program yeah cars are on the shop floor sometimes yeah we see them there when you know when you go visit so so so cool um that all that could happen you know and and couldn't happen to a nicer kid that's the other thing you get to know like you know our friend Justin you know goes and gets autographs from from guys like that and it's because that they're they're such nice guys you know so it couldn't happen a nicer kid to um so really really cool night otherwise you know except for the Ryan finish but Ryan's points um on the night those two stages um finish fifth second um and even though it was 29 to ended up with enough points there to actually make a move in the standings right yeah so um there's a lot of factors that go into Ryan's point standings here but I did mention at the top of the show there was a silver lining to the night and despite Ryan crashing out of this race he managed to um increase the Gap uh to the cars behind him in the regular season point standing so um we haven't mentioned it yet there was a big penalty that happened during the week um to the 11 car of Denny Hamlin in Joe Gibbs Racing for what kind of amounts to like a clerical error by TRD and their engine Department um so we don't need to go super in depth into what happened to them because I think most people that are would listen to this show know what happened but ends up in a 75 Point penalty for the 11 car who was ahead of Ryan in the standings going into the weekend um they also took away 10 playoff points from the 11 so in two different ways the 11 moves behind Ryan in the standings and that is in the playoff points picture um and then also in the regular season Championship picture so um the 11 has fallen down through the standings so that moved Ryan up from fifth to fourth in the regular season uh point standings Ryan retains the fourth position in the regular season point standings after this race uh going into it I believe he only had a four-point cushion to William Byron behind him um now that has increased to 12 so Byron's in fifth um and Christopher Bell is really close behind Byron as well just six points back of of Byron so going into Darlington this weekend um there is not a lot of room for error for the 12 car they need to have a really solid day to retain this fourth position in the point standings because if something does kind of go Ary there's a there's a decent chance Ryan could finish six overall um which I've said it every week impact how many bonus playoff points you get at the reset uh for finishing in the top 10 in the point regular season point standings each kind of finish position one through 10 gets a certain amount of playoff bonus points they carry through the rest of the playoffs so really really important um we were really pushing for Ryan to keep fifth now that he can get fourth it's even better because you get another another one to go along with that so um fingers are crossed they just need a solid week I even said to you at the top of the show maybe he's lowering the bar I like if they can just you know have Sol a decent amount of points stage points and like a top 15 finish I think he can lock up fourth but if they have anything go wrong um there's a there is a chance here he finishes six and that would be a little bit disappointing yeah I um I was trying to look it up and I think I've got it right here that the way it works is the uh the top team the top finisher in the regular season gets 15 extra points I think then the second place is 10 10 then it's third place is eighth then it goes like a point down from that everywhere so Ryan would end up with seven bonus points on top of what he already has uh he already has 13 so he would have 20 right off the bat to and and um totally helping him with one or two the guys in front of him even because um you know Byron's behind him in the in the standing so Byron would get would get uh the six you know and he would have 22 to to Ryan's 20 you know so overall it would you know it would help him to be a little closer to the guys above him um Denny is the one who takes the real hit here because he not only moves back in the standings they took 10 off him to begin with so now he has 11 only 11 bonus points and then if he finishes in the standings where he's finish he'll only end up with like uh like 14 or 13 you know so um kind of uh it matters to at least the first race within each round of the playoffs because you start off with that buffer um and then you know you build upon it um but it definitely helps once you're into that second and third round for sure you know because at that point U some of the guys on the bottom end of the round when you reset you know all of a sudden they're half a race behind you you know just to start so um yeah it be great to just go ahead and and rack up some points uh this weekend on on Sunday night and uh stay ahead of those two guys and finish fourth in the regular season that'd be pretty pretty good way to start the the playoffs still amazing to me um I think we saw it with some podcast over the weekend I think some folks for or last week were given uh Jeff and Jordan some flak for they're discussing like who they thought would be or Championship favorites or Championship contenders and you know Ryan flies under the radar two wins this season fourth in the in the standings and no love from really anybody and to tell you the truth I'm okay with it um it's it's it's fine with me you know Ryan was uh I think maybe we talked about it last week Ryan was on Harvick's you know filling on a Harvick show and kind of said you know it's been like that his whole career and um but it's crazy to think you know guy that's fourth in the standings isn't really getting any heavy and the defending Champion getting any any uh press for possibly being Contender but hey that's okay I'm fine with him flying under the radar all the way to the championship 4 and then and uh getting the win again so um it is interesting at the top so Ryan doesn't mathematically have an opportunity to win the regular season Championship there is some math that where he could maybe get to second or third but it had be super crazy so it is a three car battle and it's tight uh for the regular season Championship now between Tyler reick who leads the standings Kyle larsson's in second minus 17 Chase Elliot is in third minus 18 so if reic has a problem in this race if he is running the wall too hard like he usually does and breaks a toe link or something like that then it comes down to the two Hendrick teammates who are with one point separating each other so you don't know it's it's not a guarantee that Tyler reck's gonna go in and win the regular season championship at Darlington um so that's going to be a make things really compelling there and then the which the thing that I think got a little less compelling is the bubble line right now Chris busher is in uh by 21 points over Bubba Wallace and um Ross Chastain had some trouble at Daytona 2 ended up with a better finish than maybe it looked like he was going to um but essentially um Bubba and Ross and everybody else below that are all in must almost must-win scenario here 21 points could be made up in One race here but I feel like Chris busher is probably feeling pretty good going into this and we kind of chatted offline like you know it has to be a frustrating situation for for Bubba and the 23 team who has had multiple top 10 finishes a row in the summer stretch here no wins and they're on the outside looking in so watch the bubble this weekend at Darlington um but I really think the regular season championship fight is going to be really compelling in this race and I hope um TV does a good job of it yeah there's that scenario like I said there's that scenario and I didn't realize that the second and place second and third guy Place guys were only a point apart so but Ryan is 50 51 points back of those two things so really that scenario that we talk about is the you know win the win the race and then both one or two of those guys crash out yeah win both stages and those guys crash out scenario so I mean don't really look for that to happen but uh no you know having a solid race and finishing fourth on the regular season would be the main thing to look at this uh weekend coming up one last thing um to wrap up at least the the live racing action at Dayton I just wanted your thoughts I've seen the videos of the final call of the race with Lee DIY and I thought it was awesome the way he called it but and I know you don't get to pay attention to the whole broadcast because you're taking notes and listening to the scanner but any quick thoughts on Lee Diffy kind of taking the Reigns as the lead play-by-play announcer at NBC yeah I I like it um there's that level of like excitement to his voice uh we T I think we talked about this before we went on uh to record um it's it's similar to the guys who do the Formula 1 rates you know and it's a heightened level of excitement to begin with and then it gets even higher when it's something that happens um so yeah I really like listening to him I always liked it with him doing the uh the indie car stuff so um you know really really good I saw some initial bad reaction online but then I saw a poll Twitter poll a little bit ago and it was like 93% really liked him so I I really hope that continues that uh you know that that 7% there that didn't um I think they just don't like change they're those type of people that don't like change um but uh I think it's a pretty good change I think uh he brings um not only the excitement but the knowledge um you pointed out when we were talking about it earlier how the last two laps of the race you know he's he's painting um Kyle Bush's picture and then down the backstretch of the last lap when uh Harrison gets the push and gets to the lead all of a sudden he is switched over and he's painting the 20 you know painting Harrison's picture of you know what this means and the Wood Brothers and you know and all those things so um you know he comes with he's done his homework even for doing indie car all these years he knows what he's doing and I can't wait for to to hear the how he does for the playoffs yeah and yeah absolutely did his homework and I wouldn't expect any less the guy's a true professional um has called some of the biggest races in the world like you said you know was a lead announcer for indie car for all these years uh Rolex 24 um Olympics he was part of the NBC's Olympics coverage when track and field and a few other things so um this guy has a huge you know list of credentials coming over to this and um I thought Rick Allen you know was definitely a solid announcer he's called you know called Ryan's uh wins in the past too and his Championship win I thought he did a good job there but yeah Lee brings a different energy to the booth and I'm looking forward to hearing that in the the races I get to watch on TV through the rest of the year so that wraps up most of like I said the live uh action that we have to cover when it comes to this Coke Zero 400 or Coke Zero sugar 400 at Daytona we do have to wrap up our uh an update on the team blading NASCAR Fantasy Live League um I was in the stands had great Wi-Fi and had the opportunity to maybe move you know my garage around a little bit there was a point a good portion of the race when I was watching you know the points as they go and I was in the top 10 uh that did not last by the end of this one because of the the crashes that happened toward the end but let me take a look at what my starters or who my starters were I had Michael McDow um ended up getting me 10 points that's unfortunate legano 25 Byron 15 Kyle bus 39 blay got me 23 and um the one that hurts a little bit here is I left Brad keslowski in the garage there was a point when I was going to swap um actually so when I was thinking about swapping it was going to be keslowski and Bush because bush had was running the the worst of everybody else in my lineup but as you see McDow got in a crash legano got in a crash Byron got damage in a crash um bush is the one that that finished okay and Ryan got in a crash Brad had that that penalty that dropped him back but he actually ended up finishing pretty good so um nearly everybody except for two guys got into into accidents in my lineup so that's unfortunate um featur matchups I picked reick over Bell that was wrong I picked blay over Hamlin that was right um picked busher over Chastain that was right I ped Bubba Wallace over Ty Gibbs and that was wrong so I got two out of the four there I finished 62nd overall this week with 132 points earned how'd you shake out all right I you know I so I had Suarez um in the garage to begin with so when everything happened to him I knew I couldn't move him there was no need to look at my lineup after that so the rest of the race I really didn't look check back in very often because it change because it changes so often too um but I had Austin Dylan um and let's see ch stain TRX and uh then I had Kyle bus who was the third best point getter on the day and I had Brad keslowski end up being the number one point getter on the day um so that really helped a ton um I had reic I had Bell over reic I had Brian over Denny I had Bush over at chatain and then I had Bubba um Gibbs uh Gibbs got him by a point or by a position um so three out of four which really helped me a ton I ended up 23rd overall I think um yeah the wife finished 24th one point behind me so pretty good day overall for us especially considering all the goofy things that were happening and you know on the track um not bad let take a look at the top 10 this weekend for the race of Daytona in 10th Pocono lady 182 points ninth Blay's Daisy 184 eighth was my cousin Vinnie 185 then we have a three-way tie for fifth Jordan Daniels blaner bust racer SF 187 points I think a couple of those are um definitely Jordan I think one other are active on our Discord um fourth Christian Dana 188 tied for second we have big burn and Dr race chaser with 192 and winning the weekend at Daytona on the team blad NASCAR Fantasy Live league is steel lion 198 points congratulations to them let's take a look at the overall standings in the team blay NASCAR Fantasy Live League I'm going to guess that I may have have slipped a little bit here um over the past couple yeah just a position or two 25th position overall for me team blay host Adam 4,489 points um you are five ahead of me in the 20th position Mez 12 4587 so you have what like 90 and 90 something 98 point lead or something over me um congratulations to you uh top 10 Factory of sadness six is holding down the 10th position overall 4769 ninth is JD racing 4771 eighth is go12 go 4772 seventh is Blanc 10 4782 six is Pensky fan 24 4,824 in fifth we have Charlie Abu 4835 fourth Frank van2 4849 uh tight race there third Alyssa c 4850 second go Larsson 4869 and leading the way in the overall standings again this week is racer SF 4,914 tell you what from the top here this is a really tight battle from six first to six uh first is 4914 6 4824 um I think that's enough there uh for these these guys over the next you know uh I guess they only got one more to win the regular season season Championship so I guess we're really looking at I would say maybe fourth to First depending on what happens 4914 to 4849 I think there's a there's a possibility here but really race Chaser and go Larson they're they're gonna be going at it here uh for this Championship I'm gonna say racer SF is the is the one that's probably going to come out with the regular season Championship they pulled it out in the last few weeks uh kind of dethroning goar who led majority of the Season uh we don't though back in the 20s don't have an opportunity here um I'm looking forward to the playoffs because I have historically run really well throughout the playoffs and I don't know if that's gonna happen in 2024 but I'm looking forward to that so let's see if racer SF can can uh lock in the regular season Championship the team ban NASCAR Fantasy Live this weekend when the Nascar Cup Series heads to the famous and sometimes Infamous Darlington Raceway in South Carolina and things are going to kick off this weekend Saturday August 31st 12:30 p.m. eastern time you have Nascar Cup Series qualifying um I believe that's going to be on the USA Network um 3:30 pm. Eastern time you have the NASCAR Infinity Series Sports Clips haircuts VFW helah hero 200 that'll be on USA again 3:30 pm. Eastern time on Saturday then Sunday September 1st Labor Day weekend classic here 6 PM eastern time you the Nascar Cup Series cookout Southern 500 on the USA Network um let's take a look at Ryan Blay's stats at the lady in Black Darlington Raceway um 15 starts 22 laps LED in his career average start 10.4 average finish 18.5 he does have one dnf there and that actually came in the spring race in May um just in those 15 T starts just three top 10s no wins no top fives um not one of Ryan's best tracks as of late since 2022 things started to Trend in a little bit better Direction um we were discussing early on what happened in the May race I had to kind of get a refresh there Ryan finishes 36 um he had an incident on a restart with the 249 car I think that the 24 kind of took the 19 and 12 three wide on the restart 19 got up into the 12 12 hit the wall and I believe bent or broke a toe link and and uh eventually um ended up um going over the time limit on the uh damag vehicle policy and was out of the race after lap 129 so kind of a bad race there prior to that though um in the southern 500 and uh in the the spring race in 2023 Ryan had back-to-back Ninth Place finishes so which were um outside of an eighth place in 2021 his best finishes at Darlington in his cup series career so I think they have a car to run top 10 top 15 I remember that low bar I said a little bit earlier I think they'll have the speed to run around there we'll just have to see how they how things shake out in practice and qualifying on Saturday so um what are your thoughts here Darlington um I will mention whether it's worth mentioning or not it's gonna be the first time in about five years that we aren't going to Darlington uh for a race this year so we have some other races planned so we're kind of taking a break if not this would have been like three in a row for us that's a lot of travel so um folks that are used to seeing us there at Darlington sorry we won't be there this weekend most likely I don't know there's still always a chance you never know there always a chance with a Monday holiday there's always a chance that so you're saying there's a chance but um I will miss it Miss uh being at the southern 500 um great race to go to if you if you do have that Monday off and you're thinking about going on a whim I would suggest it but what are your thoughts again Ryan had two back-to-back top 10 kind of a fluke he was running up front in that late toward the front I think fourth or fifth in that late restart or that restart um in May when he got caught up in that accident um can they get this solid day like I said this top 15 with some stage points just to lock in forth um or are you more optimistic do you think they can go out and win I think they're top five I think this is the time to start really showing you know what's funny about the last month is you know we talked about team of the summer hashtag team of the summer summer and you know people kidding with me online they're like oh well the Summer's over blah blah blah and it's not over the summer doesn't actually officially end till midep right to September 21st is when fall starts so you know don't give me that part of it the Summer's still going but the finishes the last couple weeks H have not shown how good they are um other people's extenda circumstances getting in the way of the finish uh really hurt things you know they they were you know obviously finished second in in one of the stages uh on Saturday night and that's because of how good they are and if they get other people get the you know don't make a mistake and get out of their way and let them race um he's a top five guy every week and they you know and then there from there it's you know whether the strategy's right or whether something just goes the right way or maybe they're dominant that weekend you know but they're top five with a chance to win every single week and that's what I really look for that's what gets me excited every week in the next 11 weeks coming up now we're talking about again uh just a few minutes ago the regular season finale here for um the cup series but also for the Fantasy Live League that we have going on here so I'll review the top 10 finishers in the May race at Darlington 10th was mcdal it was a little interesting here ninth Haley eighth Bowman Bubba Wallace was seventh William Byron sixth Chase Brisco fifth Denny hlin fourth Josh Barry third I remember him having pretty decent race um Ty Gibbs was second this is when Ty Gibbs was still kind of on a hot streak he did finish well at Daytona but I think at that time he was running really really well and if you remember this is where Brad keslowski finally broke through and got his first win as an owner driver at RFK racing um any of those folks stick out to you or should we add anybody else to the list if you still have starts left um when it comes to to fantasy Racing that you probably um want to put on your lineup I used to say Eric Jones um he hasn't had run the last couple races here um but he is a two-time southern 500 winner and has one in the next gen car yeah that you beat me to it that's that was what that's where I was heading is that that Jones boy uh and then Chris busher uh both have a knack for the way they run here um you know there's some of the other names you named in there you know there there is something to be said for hitting on something uh the right time on this weekend you know um so that's the thing you kind of look at uh on Saturday's practice uh if somebody kind of hit on something and they all of a sudden they're a little bit faster and they're you have a little bit more of an edge coming into Sunday um but yeah Jones has won busher because you know their program is really good over there and he is really good at this track those are guys I definitely look out for uh coming into the weekend that's true I'm forgetting the fact that yeah that was one of the the races that busher almost almost won earlier on and then yeah Brad ends up ends up with the victory still keeps it in RFK but yeah it was a tough run for him there and um he's he's inside the bubble uh as far as making the playoffs but um that would definitely just solidified if he just went out and won the race and got that last spot so yeah unless unless that unless that Jones boy wins it that's true total yeah that that's that's the thing so we talk about surprise winners at Daytona being a possibility and we got one um is Darlington a place we've seen it with fuel strategy in the past I think Regan Smith um some other some other folks like have been able to get it done but it's not usually one of those tracks you just see a surprise winner happening at but Jones I guess technically would be a surprise when it comes to point standings not on his record is there anybody else is this Harris you know Harrison Burton run there has run well there in the Xfinity series he has one top 10 there and his his limited starts you know is he a surprise winner going back to back is that even possible I don't yeah I don't see that I see Jones just because of his history you know um and you know at this point Bubba Wallace just has to go For Broke you know there's a there's a point situation that could work his in his favor maybe he gets a bunch of stage points closes the Gap and then just has to finish a couple spots in front of busher but the truth is is as good as busher is there yep Bubba's got to be that much better and um maybe maybe he ends up being the guy out front the end this race so again if you want to tune in this weekend Saturday August 3 first 12:30 p.m. eastern time you have Nascar Cup Series practice and qualifying 3:30 p.m. eastern time you have the NASCAR exfinity series Sports Clips haircuts VFW helah hero 200 on the USA Network and then if you want to tune in on Sunday for this cookout Southern 500 6 PM Eastern Time on USA so I do want to thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode of the team blay podcast you can interact with us on Facebook and X team blay and on Instagram and Tik Tok at Blain we also like to encourage you to support the Ryan blany family Foundation Ryan's official charitable organization benefits brain health causes like UPMC sports medicine in the Alzheimer's Association to learn more visit Ryan bayfamily foundation.org or follow them on Facebook X and Instagram so for my co-host Steve Mez I'm Adam Rogers we'll catch you next time on the team plany podcast good night Amsterdam check out the Tik Tok oh thanks everybody for coming I hope you enjoyed it