Into The Smoke: Blaney Could Have A Clear Path To The Title

In this edition of Into The Smoke, Evan recaps Ryan Blaney's win at New Hampshire, and Evan gives his thoughts on the tension between JGR teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Drivers start your age. Let's go Into the Smoke with
Evan Ludwig and welcome back again to another edition of

(00:20):
Into the Smoke podcast edition right here on the Sports
Radio f and Z Podcasting Network. I'm your host, as always,
Evan Smoke Ludwig, and in today's edition of the show,
we recap what happened at New Hampshire in preview the
rest of the round of twelve, starting with the racing
at Kansas. And as always, we start out by talking
about what happened this past Sunday, the race at New Hampshire.

(00:42):
It was a race, not really the best race. I
did like the tire wear, but you know it's hard
to pass in these Gen seven cars. And then you
add on to that you go to one of the
tracks that are toughest to pass at no matter which
car you bring to the track. It wasn't going to
be the most appealing race. But a great crowd out
there in Lobster Country in New England. And Ryan Blaney

(01:03):
is the winner of the race. And that's the more
interesting aspect of the race that I want to talk
about is because Ryan Blaney has been not an enigma,
He's just been inconsistent But while I say he's been inconsistent,
ever since July, Ryan Blaney has been extremely consistent. And
when I say he's inconsistent, to begin the year, he

(01:25):
wasn't even that bad. He just couldn't put the whole
race together. Something would happen and something would go wrong.
He would get a penalty, he would have a slow
pit stop on Pitt Road that would cost him a win,
like it did at Darlington. He would get caught in
someone else's mess like we saw at Las Vegas earlier
this year. But he got his win earlier in the year,

(01:46):
back at Nashville in June, and outside of a couple
of races, ever since then, he's been on a tear.
And put it in perspective, I'll go to Dover. So
we're talking late July. That's almost two months of a
sample side essentially, Look what he did at Dover. He
finished eighth, Indianapolis, seventh, Iowa fourth, Watkins Glenn six, Richmond third,

(02:11):
one at Daytona, eighteenth at Darlington, four foit Gateway, four
for at Bristol, and a win at Louden And unlike
his year back in twenty twenty three, when he won
a championship. There was only like one top five in
between his win at Charlotte, which took place in Memorial
Day weekend and his win at Talladega, which took place

(02:32):
early in the round of twelve. I look at this
as a Ryan Blaney that's even better than when he
won a championship. And I look at Ryan Blaney in
the body of work that he's put together out of
all you know, Penske's won a championship every single year
in this current generation of car to Gen seven car
twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
three foot three, they're trying to go four for four

(02:52):
and they still got a shot considering all three cars
are still in the playoffs as we speak right now.
Ryan Blaney's had the performance out of any guy that's
been driving for Penske Racing since twenty twenty two and
they've won all the championships. I look at this, Ryan
Blaney gets hot at the right time at certain points
in the playoffs, and then he gets into the next round.

(03:13):
You go to the round of eight, because that's where
he's gonna be at. Now. He hasn't won at Las Vegas,
but he had one of the best cars out there
earlier this year and then got involved in that wreck.
And Penske cars usually run very well at Las Vegas.
They've always seemed to have the number of that track
over the last decade. The next race and the round
of eight will be Talladega. If there's anyone you're gonna

(03:34):
put money on at a place like Talladega, I think
two of the Penske cars are going to be the
names you bring up, Austin Sindrick and Ryan Blaney. Ryan
Blaney's made that essentially his second home almost He's won
there so many times over the years. And then the
last race at a round of eight is Martinsville, and
you know he's won back to back races and penultimate

(03:56):
races at Martinsville, both in twenty twenty three when he
won a championship and last year he won won the
race at Martinsville to get himself into the championship for
so at this point, you know, I say this could
be a good jumping off period. Last week when I
was talking about Christopher Bell, wasn't the best race for him.
But when I look at what Ryan Blaney's done in
the past, what he's done over the last eight weeks.

(04:18):
He's won two races in the last eight weeks, and
he's been extremely consistent. He's always had to speed at
these races. Like I said, Las Vegas earlier this year,
he could have should have probably had a top five
finish at the very least Homestead. He had a very
good run there. Phoenix had was having a really good
run there and then problems happened with his car. I

(04:38):
look at this, and I'm trying not to jump the
gun here, but at this point, it feels like a formality.
Given the schedule, given the way it's set up, given
the way he's raced over the last two months, and
just given the way that Penske drives into playoffs, it
almost feels like a formality that Ryan Blaney's going to
make the championship for And you know, I don't want

(04:58):
to say he's leader in clubhouse because I think that's
to arbitrary when you're talking about a one race playoff
for a championship. But I look at this and I'm
thinking all of the momentum is on his side, all
of the statistics seem to be on his side, especially
when you compare it to a lot of other playoff drivers,
and now that he doesn't have to worry for the
next two weeks, it gives him some time to relax

(05:23):
and get ready. Not relax in terms of I'm not
going to care for the next two weeks, but relax
and say, I don't have to worry what all eleven
other drivers are thinking about right now heading into this
weekends race at Kansas. I don't have to worry about
that heading into the Roval, which I bet he's very
happy not to worry about that. Oh and by the way,
he's won at the Roval. He won the first race.
Now circumstances beyond that, and you know he looked into

(05:44):
that definitely, but still he won the first rover race,
so he's had success at the Roval before. But still
he doesn't have to worry about that for the next
two weeks. He just has to worry about get himself
set up for the next round to round of eight
at three tracks where he's either been good at or
he has won a lot at. And that is a dangerous,
dangerous thing for the rest of the field. If you
ask anyone else in that playoffs right now, the last

(06:07):
guy they probably won't see win a race that early
is arguably Ryan Blaney. It's probably Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell
or Kyle Larson. That's the short list. Maybe Joey Logano too,
just because Joey Logano. You know, I know it's an
odd year, but still Joey legano in the playoffs. If
he gets his clutch gene at the right time, it's
lights out. So you look at that, and you look
at Ryan Blaney's momentum, you look at how consistent it's been.

(06:29):
I just I'm gonna call my shot right now. I
don't care. Ryan Blaney's making the Championship for guarantee right now.
Now watch I probably just jinxed him, But still I
feel so confident and all the stuff that I just mentioned,
it feels like Ryan Blaney's gonna make the championship for
if he wins it. I don't know. I can't say
that right now because I got to know what the
rest of the field looks like, and then I got

(06:51):
to see how their history stacks up at Phoenix compared
to Ryan Blaney, which Ryan Blane has also had a
lot of strong runs at over the years. Remember when
Joey Logano won a championship back in two twenty twenty two.
Let's be honest, he probably backed off and Roger Pinske
probably wanted him not to pass Joey Logano even though
he really could have passed Joey Logano. You go back
to last year, Ryan Blaney was the only guy getting

(07:12):
close to Joey Logano at the end of that race
at Phoenix. So I'm not saying Ryan Blaney's a guaranteed
to win a championship. But what I am saying is
I guarantee he's going to be a championship four And
if you're to ask right now, not just because he
won the Round of twelve race to start the round.
The history is on his side in this car, at

(07:35):
the track that matters the most, and the tracks leading
up to the track that matters the most. He's also
been very good at so in my opinion, more than
Christopher Bell last week, he set himself up for a
clear path to winning Championship number two. And in all honesty,
he's a lot better than what he was in twenty
twenty three, and that should make a lot of people

(07:55):
in the garage fearful for Ryan Blaney can do in
twenty twenty five. For the remainder of the year. Now,
when you look at the rest of the playoff field,
it's got jumped up a little bit here, and that's
gonna be very interesting for the remainder of the round.
And there's a pretty big gap that there's already two
guys that are kind of in must win territory, especially
if things don't go almost perfect this weekend at Kansas,

(08:18):
and there's two teams that have a pretty massive comfort zone.
It'll take a big choke job not to get to
the next round. The two guys that are already pretty
damn comfortable and all they need to do is just
have good top ten runs the next two weeks. Our
teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson. This does not surprise me.
William Byron and Kyle Larson have been two of the
more consistent guys throughout the year. And it's weird because

(08:40):
Larson for the summer months was not the same Larson.
It's just he got off to such a great start
throughout the first couple of months and then that double
disaster happened on the Royalty weekend and he's slowly been
trying to regain his rhythm and I think over the
last few weeks we started to see Kyle Larson regain
his rhythm, and that's dangerous the rest of the field.
As much as I'm talking about Ryan Blaney being the

(09:02):
biggest championship threat, if Kyle Larson can get back into
what he was in late April early May, essentially before
the double disaster, that could be very dangerous. But those
are two guys that are very comfortable, and it'll to
take a massive joke job over the next two weeks
for them to not be going to the next round.
Then you kind of get into the range of should

(09:25):
be safe, but one slip up could really screw things up,
and those I put three drivers into that category. The
three drivers are Christopher Bell, who's twenty nine points above
the cut line, and even though I picked them to win,
he had a solid I said he had a bad race,
but that's bad race for his standards. At New Hampshire,
he had a solid sixth place run, just never really
had the speed that you would expect Christopher Bell to

(09:47):
have historically at New Hampshire. Denny Hamlin, who will talk
about a little bit more later on, didn't have the
best run but had a lot of cushion based on
the previous rounds. He had a twelfth place finish. He's
twenty si seven points to the good and honestly the
biggest winner outside of Ryan Blaney this weekend. Joey Logano
now Joey Logano heading into the round of twelve, had

(10:09):
two top five finishes. That was good for him. It's
been a quiet year for Joey. It's been a lot
of inconsistencies, a lot of bad finishes, but also too
you know, he's not been dominant, so but he got
the pull at New Hampshire, led the most laps and
got a good top five finish, finishing fourth at New
Hampshire over the weekend. So he's now twenty four points

(10:29):
above the cut line. Good great weekend for Joey Logano.
Basically all you could ask for outside of a win
if you're the twenty two team, and then you get
into the danger zone of guys that are living on
the bubble. One slip up can completely put you on
the other side of the pendulum, so on and so forth.
The two last drivers that are in on points as
we speak are to Chases. Chase Elliott is fourteen points

(10:53):
above the cut line. And Chase Risco is twelve points
above the cut line. For those wondering how they finish. Luckily,
the last run was a long run for Chase Briscoe.
He got to tenth place, and Chase Elliott had a
good run fifth place. And that's kind of been Chase
Elliott's mo for out the whole entire year is essentially
not have the best car, but somehow muster away to
get into the top ten, maybe to top five, and

(11:15):
he did it yet again this past weekend at New Hampshire.
Chase Briscoe, on the other hand, he's had some inconsistencies,
but he's also been very strong in the latter half
of the year as he's gotten more acquainted with Joe
Gibbs Racing and James Small. But as I said, even
a mediocre finish could really put these guys behind the
eight ball heading into the roval. So that's something you

(11:37):
got to look at with those guys. The guys beneath
the cutoff line are as follows. Ross Chastain twelve points
below to cut off line, Austin Cindric nineteen points below
to cut offline, and then you have the two twenty
three eleven cars who completely missed the mark this past
weekend at New Hampshire. Tyler Redick is twenty three points
below to cut line and Bubba Wallace is twenty seven

(11:59):
points below to cut line. And that's your playoff standings.
And when I look at the guys beneath the cut
off line, Ross Chastain twelve points. You know he's had
a couple of solid finishes as of late. He had
a knife this past weekend at New Hampshire. The problem
is that when you get to this point in the playoffs,
once you get passed the first round, ninth and eighth
place finishes, when you're below to cut off line is

(12:20):
not going to cut it. At the very least. You
got to get top fives if you want to make
up some ground. And unfortunately, as I talked about, why
I thought Ross Chastain was not going to make it,
passed the round of sixteen in the first place, solely
involves the fact that they haven't had race winning speed
for basically the whole year outside of Shane de and
Gizberg and old road courses and the one night for

(12:41):
the Coke six hundred when he had a great long
run car and was able to pass William Byron for
about six laps to go. So I feel like Ross
Chastain's fighting a losing battle looking at Austin Sindrick. You know,
unfortunately he's going to be compared to his teammates, and
I think that's fair, especially when you're driving d standard
bearrier car at Pinske And while I think he's made

(13:03):
strides in the right direction, I still don't think he's
consistent enough. And unfortunately for him, Talladega's not in a
round to twelve anymore. It's in the round of eight
that is going to be killer for him because I
know he's good on road courses, but he really hasn't
shown his prowess on the roval Into Cup series, and
I just think nineteen points is going to be pretty

(13:24):
hard for him to overcome when he hasn't had raw
race winning speed compared to his teammates. You know, even
though Joey hasn't had the best runs and has has
best finishes, he's taken advantage of stage points a lot
of weeks, and he's also led a lot of laps.
It's just for one reason or another certain races he's
not able to capitalize. He gets caught up in someone
else's mess orders problem on pitt Road, and the same

(13:45):
thing goes for Ryan Blaney. But the difference is I
think Ryan Blaney's been the standard for Penske racing this year,
at least in NASCAR. But the real interesting factor here
is twenty three eleven racing. Both of their guys, Tyler
Redikon and Bubble had off days. Tyler Redick finished twenty
first and Bubble Walls got a lap down and finished

(14:06):
twenty six. And you know they're almost in must win
territory already. I will I'm not gonna go full must
win territory. If they were already thirty points back, I
would say that, But Bubble Walls is only four points
away from being thirty points back, and Tyler Redick's twenty
one points back and he hasn't won a race this year.
So I look at these two guys and I think, man,

(14:26):
that's gonna be very hard to overcome, especially for Bubble
Walls because the cutoff race is at the roval, and
even though he's gotten much better at road course races,
it's still kind of in a must win territory. But
here's the X factor when it comes to twenty three
eleven racing. This weekend's race is at Kansas. Now, I
know over the last year they haven't had the best finishes,

(14:48):
but they've also had very strong cars that didn't result
in the best finish. Kansas has been d track for
twenty three eleven racing. If you go to one track
and you say, yep, that's where twenty three eleven shin's
the most it's been Kansas, especially in the Gen seven era.
They won the first two races there. Tyler Reddick saved
his season when he won back in twenty twenty three.

(15:10):
Bubba Wallace got his second career win back in twenty
twenty two. He kind of was in the playoffs because
he was running for owners points for Kurt Bush who
was injured with his concussion. So you know, there have
been moments where those guys have flexed their muscles at
this track. And even though the finishes haven't technically been
there over the last year, I still think that they've

(15:31):
shown the speed at these tracks. It's just they've gotten
caught up in messes and so on and so forth.
So I look at this as a potential savior of
a track. This could potentially save at least one of
the twenty three eleven cars. I would not be shocked
if by the time I'm doing this podcast next Wednesday,
I am talking about a twenty three eleven car winning

(15:51):
and saving their season moving on to the Round of eight.
Am I gonna bet money on it? No, I'm not
gonna bet money on it. But I also think it's
something that needs to be talked about because these are
two guys that are beneath the cut line after having
strong round of sixteens and it looked things are looking
pretty good, and they just completely missed the mark this

(16:12):
past weekend at New Hampshire. Usually when you see guys
it feels like, at least it feels like when you
see guys completely miss the mark on the first race
of a round in the playoffs in the NASCAR playoff system,
at least in the last ten years, they usually rebound
and have a very strong run the next weekend, or
they save it for the last race of the round,
which I wouldn't count Tyler Redick out. It's just Tyler

(16:32):
Redick hasn't won a race this year, so I look
at this as the biggest opportunity. I think if you're
a twenty three eleven team, if you're Billy Scott, if
you're Charles Daannike, you're putting almost all your eggs at
the table for this weekend, because, especially if you're Charles Tonke,
just because Bubble is not the best road course racer,
he's gotten a lot better over the years, but you
still aren't going to put all the eggs into the

(16:54):
table for him to win a race. You've got to
put all the eggs at the table almost for you
to win this race this weekend. It can't because if
you don't win this weekend at Kansas, and if you
don't finish in the top five, you're essentially bleep out
of luck, essentially unless something drastic happens this weekend, which
we could definitely see. But this is how this round
is really separating the good from the really good, and

(17:17):
the next round separates the really good from the great.
And unfortunately for twenty three eleven, they already see themselves
behind the eight ball heading into the second race of
the round of twelve. Now, before we get to my
picks for this weekend, I do want to talk about
one intriguing thing from this past weekend's race at New
Hampshire and involves the owner of twenty three eleven the racing,

(17:37):
Denny Hamlin, And luckily this time we don't have to
talk about lawsuits or anything like that. We get to
talk about the owned track stuff, specifically Denny Hamlin wrecking
his own teammate Ty Gibbs at New Hampshire over the weekend,
which was honestly the biggest thing to come from the race.

(17:57):
And in case you didn't watch the race live, because
I know there's probably a lot of people that watch
football instead of the race during this time of the year,
as seen by the ratings, which are not good. But
that's our conversation for a different day. Anyway, on lap
one eleven, one to eleven, Denny Hamlin got into the

(18:17):
back of his teammate Ty Gibbs, who he was racing
four I believe eleven for twelve, just right outside the
top ten. That's basically Lee where Denny was camped out
for the whole entire race. He got into the back
of Ty Gibbs, he spun out, hit the wall hard
and it was also right in front of Christopher Bell,
so chrispher Bell was new it. She had three Joe
Gibbs cars under a blanket in between turns one and

(18:40):
two and that caused a caution. Now New Hampshire playoff
races have had a couple of moments like this. It's
been a while. Go back to the first race of
the Chase back in two thousand and four when Greg
Biffel got into Robbie Gordon early on in the race
and turns one and two, and then Robby Gordon retaliated
at around the same point got both Tony Stewart and

(19:04):
Jermy Mayfield involved. That was back and oh Ford and
also at that same turn as when Scott Riggs that's
accidentally got into Kurt Busch. So we've seen this happen
in the playoffs. It's been a while though, but the
point being Denny Hamlin dumped his own teammate and specifically
dumped the owner's grandson, and you know it was pretty contentious.

(19:25):
Ty Gibbs understandably was upset, but Denny Hamlin also was
upset because he thought his teammate was racing him too hard.
I know a lot of people got upset about that.
With Denny Hamlin's like, dude, you're racing, it doesn't matter
for your teammate or not. I get that, and that's
perfectly fair, and I Ty Gibbs has every right to
raise Denny Hamlin as hard as he wants to as well.

(19:45):
It's just this is another thing that's not gonna do
Ty Gibbs any favors because Ty Gibbs did the same
exact thing to Brandon Jones in the Infinity Series when
he won the Xfinity Series Championship the next week. If
you remember, in the Infinity Series playoffs, at Martin's last
three start, Ty Gibbs was behind his teammate Brandon Jones.
Brandon Jones had to win to get in. Ty Gibbs

(20:06):
didn't even have to win to get in. He was
already in because he won won the previous two races
and then he just outright dumps his own teammate to
win a race he didn't need to win. Now doesn't
really matter if your grand scheme of things, because Ty
Gibbs went on to win a championship. But you know,
it's talk about his fair play. You get in the
taste of your own medicine, and Denny, as the elder

(20:28):
statesman at Joe Gibbs racing fault, you were racing him
way too hard. Now, do you should Denny have wrecked
him or completely moved him out of way? No, there's
better ways to do it. Maybe go tell the spot
or something like that. Your your teammates for crying out loud,
take advantage of the fact that you're racing a teammate
even if he's pissing you off. But it gets to
a bigger conversation about Ty Gibbs that I don't think

(20:49):
he has been talked about enough. Ty Gibbs has been racing
full time in a Cup series for three years now,
and he's been racing for Joe Gibbs throughout that whole
time period. It's not like he's been on the satellite team.
He did race part time and replace Kurt Busch when
he was out with concussion and finish out the year
for twenty three eleven racing. And as I've said before,

(21:10):
I feel like Ty Gibbs has a lot of all talent.
When I first saw him win in an Exfinity Series
race with no practice at the Daytona Road Course, at
track he's never seen that or raced on personally like,
oh my god, I felt he could beat the next
Kyle Busch. And that still very well. Can't be the case.
He's still extremely young. He's about the turn twenty three
years old. But here's the problem, and I think this

(21:34):
past weekend showed that the problems even more than ever.
First two years were stepping stone years for Ty Gibbs.
He had a solid first year, just missed out on
the playoffs, and then in twenty twenty four had a
good year, was great in the early parts, but then
horrendous down to stretch, and unfortunately for Ty, that horrendous

(21:55):
stretch continued into this year and it was too much
to overcome. The problem is, though he's raced nearly one
hundred races, actually little over one hundred races at Joe
Gibbs Racing, so he's had over one hundred starts at
Joe Gibbs Racing at this point, he still hasn't won.
And he may be asking yourself, well, well, smoke, it

(22:17):
takes about three maybe four years to get a win.
I mean it took Chase until twenty eighteen to get
his first win, and he'd been a full time driver
for three years at that point. And I get that.
I get that. The problem is Ty Gibbs has pissed
off a lot of people over the years a short
amount of time, and when you look at Joe Gibbs's history,
every single driver that's raced at Joe Gibbs has won

(22:40):
by the time to get to about ninety races outside
of two. One of those guys is jj Yalely And
I'm not knocking jj Yely because he's still racing a
NASCAR today and he's got a lot of raw talent.
We saw it on the dirt scene, but the point
was he got caught up too soon. He was also
pretty damn young, and he's considered one of the biggest

(23:01):
busts in NASCAR history because he drove. He replaced Bobby
Labonnie in the eighteen car with Steve Addington as his
crew chief, and then did absolutely nothing. He had one
top five finish that really stood out, and that was
the Coke six hundred, and he did it on Field
mileage back in two thousand and seven. That was the
race at Casey Meers won. He was out of a

(23:22):
ride after two thousand and seven, and then immediately Kyle
Busch comes and takes his place and wins eight races
the next year with the same exact crew. He had
about ninety races at Joe Gibbs Racing. Ty Gibbs now
has one hundred and two. He still hasn't won a
race now. Has he shown a lot of promise, Absolutely,

(23:43):
no doubt about it. He's shown a lot more promise
than jj Yaalely ever did in the eighteen Interstate Battery Chevrolet.
Here's the problem, though, unless he wins the one of
the last few races, he's going to go his first
full three years into Cup Series without a win. He's
driving for a top tier team, a top tier team

(24:04):
that expects you to at the very least to get
top tens and top fives on an almost weekly basis.
He only has four this year, and he has nine
top tens, four top fives and nine top tens in
a Joe Gibbs Toyota ain't gonna cut the mustard. So
as much as you know people want to understandably, I
get it. Talk about Alex Bowman not being good enough

(24:26):
for Hendrick and he being the black sheep of the group.
Those things are only going to start and get louder
and louder this offseason now for Ty Gibbs, especially when
you look at what Chase Briscoe has done this year.
Chase Briscoe went from a team that was on its
dying limbs in Stuart hots Racing and got the most
out of his equipment, won two races, including a Crown
Jewel at Stuart Haas and this year had to have

(24:48):
an adjustment period getting used to a new team at
Joe Gibbs Racing, but is already contending for a championship.
Christopher Bell has been a mainstayding of Championship four now
for multiple years. And Denny Hamlin is a first ballot
Hall of Famer, even though he's never won a championship,
is probably gonna go down as one of the greatest
twenty five drivers in NASCAR history. Now, everyone just slowly

(25:10):
creeps their head over to Ty Gibbs, and you know what,
the conversation's gonna be fair or not. They look at you,
it's like, what have you done? Oh? Great? You want
an Exfinity title. This ain't the Exfinity Series, this is
the Cup Series? What have you done? In the Cup Series?
All made the playoffs once? What team do you drive for?
If you drive if you drive for Colleague RCR or

(25:31):
a middle of the pack team like legacy and you
make the playoffs even though you didn't get a win.
Great job. You drive for Gibbs. Your last name is Gibbs.
You've got to win, and now we're nearly going on
three years without to win in the biggest story about
you this season is a fantastic start and also getting
dumped by your teammate because you're not moving out away

(25:52):
because he's racing for a championship. Fair or not? Fair? Knot?
Do I think Denny's in the wrong for what he did. Yeah,
I do, But I also understand where he's coming from,
and he probably thought his teammate was gonna give him
a little bit more slack. This only amplifies the pressure
for Ty Gibbs in twenty twenty six. I'd argue he's
in just as much of a hot seat heading into

(26:13):
twenty twenty six as Alex Bowman, because you can't be
a guy at Joe Gibbs Racing, especially when your last
name is Gibbs and you're not winning races now. Though
I still think Ty Gibbs has a lot of potential.
Absolutely I can see him winning multiple races, ten twenty
races down the line, but he's got to eventually show
out because getting four top fives and nine top tens

(26:34):
ain't gonna cut it. When your best season you average
a seventeen point four finish and have eight top fives
and twelve top tens and twenty twenties era Joe Gibbs equipment,
they ain't gonna cut it. A lot of guys have
been shown the boot that have done more in a
Cup Series than you have with stat lines similar to that.
Eric Jones got shown the boot and Eric Jones has

(26:55):
won two seven five hundreds. Eric Jones won at Joe
Gibbs Racing. Daniel swars Yeah, he got moved up too soon,
it didn't work out. But guess what Daniel Swarz has done.
He's won in the Cup Series. He's also won an
Infinity Series title, just like you. What's your excuse? Ty?
I mean, it's not gonna be a big story down
to stretch, but that hourglass, a lot less sand is

(27:20):
on one side, and Ty Gibbs has got to cash
in before all of the sand is down on the hourglass,
and unfortunately for him, he doesn't have that much time.
In my opinion, if he doesn't get off to a
hot start in twenty twenty six and get a win.
We could be talking about a change at Joe Gibbs
Racing in twenty twenty six, because the only change that's
gonna happen that we can know is a guarantee is

(27:41):
Denny Hamlin's eventually going to retire. The other two guys
at Joe Gibbs, if they just do what they've been doing,
they're locked up for as long as they want. Chase Briscoe,
Christopher Bell, that's your future. We I thought Ty Gibbs
was going to be the future, and he still very
well could be, but right now he's the odd man out.
One slip up, slip up after slip up, bad finish

(28:02):
after bad finish, no win after no win. It's only
going to get louder and louder, and unfortunately for Ty,
he's probably gonna have an all season to think about
it because I don't see him winning one of the
last races of the year. That was one of the
more interesting takeaways from New Hampshire. Not stuff that went
on the track, well it kind of, but basically the

(28:22):
larger story with Ty Gibbs and his career to this point,
because I thought he was gonna win. By this point
everyone did, and it's still a gooseg next to one. No
crooked numbers next to his number on the win column.
It's still zero point zero. All right. With all that

(28:43):
being said, let's get to my picks for this weekend's
races at Kansas. Evan thinks he's pretty smart when it
comes to Nascai. The inner mechanicians of my mind are
in a enigmamb Let's see if that holds up. Is
he tries to pick the race winners in the weight out?
All right, no truck series race this weekend, It's only

(29:04):
the Exfinity Series and Cup Series. First off, the Kansas
Lottery three hundred Exfinity Series Saturday, September twenty seventh at
four pm. The race is on the CW. My pick
to win is Sam Mayor. Has shown a lot of
row speed as of late, even though Connor Zilich seems
to be the trendy pick. I feel like Sam's gonna
flash his muscles yet again. He's been extremely consistent and

(29:25):
for the Cup Series, the Hollywood Casino four hundred presented
by ESPN BET Catch the race Sunday, September twenty eight,
three pm on USA. My pick to win this race
is Kyle Larson. He's gotten a lot of solid finishes
as of late. He's going back to a track where
he dominated at earlier this year. Give me Larson to
sweep the races at Kansas this year. So once again,

(29:46):
my picks for this weekend's races at Kansas r Sam
Mayer and Kyle Larson. Della to it for this edition,
ev into the Smoke be scher to tune in next
week as well recap what happened at Kansas and preview
NASCAR's trip back home to Charlotte four to Roval. But
until then, I hope you all have a good weekend.
Remember everyone, stay fast in Jesus' name. Boogety boogety boogey, Hey, ma'ama,