You never want to lead on the last lap of Talladega and did we see the return of the conga line?

Rob D'Amico from RaceDay Nation recaps the NASCAR races from Talladega and discusses why you never want to lead on the last lap on the super speedway. Plus did we just see the return of the conga line, this is not racing and a product of the race being too long. The whole Jeffrey Earnhardt #3 return in Xfinity didn't pass the sniff test for me.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, and welcome. This isCooks and Cars your Race Day Nation edition.
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(01:07):
So right now, we're going togive you the Talladega race report. We'll
start off with the Exfinity Series.We're twenty three year old Noah Gregson was
the winner there, congratulations to him. Jeffrey Earnhardt was second. Aj Allmandegger,
who by the way got also theDash for Cash and one hundred thousand
dollars there. I want to goback to second place though, because this

(01:30):
one, to me doesn't really passthe sniff test, if you know what
I mean. Real quick, beforewe get started on the results here,
I do want to bring this upbecause sometimes this is one of those things
where NASCAR comes across as wrestling,as fake as Oh, they let people
win, they can get people tovictory lane, they create these storylines.

(01:52):
On one hand, I'm like,okay, I can kind of see the
point where the race fans come offand say, hey, this is all
the gimmick. This is made up. Not the case usually. And why
I say that, because do theytry to create storylines. Absolutely A son
or a grandson of the late greatDale Earnhardt senior, Jeffrey Earnhardt. He

(02:15):
posted second place his first top tenracing at Talladega Superspeedway it's his first top
ten finished. In twenty twenty two, he was on the pole, he
finished second. This was his bestfinished ever ever, and he was with
a good team back in the daywith Joe Gibbs racing. But this today
at Talladega, I have a feelingmaybe NASCAR put on a little bit of

(02:39):
a slightly bigger plate on that car, giving him a little extra speed to
get up there. Create that storyline. Hey, listen, it creates a
great story But this is where thefans and NASCAR takes a hit because the
fans think, oh, this isset up, this is a gimmick.
Oh this is like wrestling. It'sall scripted. I can tell you it's

(03:02):
not all scripted, right, butin certain situations when you have this,
it kind of does look like that. I mean, seriously, you guy,
he goes and gets the poll.Congratulations to him for doing that.
Larry Mack is his crew chief.They're all trying to make this thing really
cool. It creates a great storyline. Fox is following it like crazy.
But then at the end of therace, you know, no Gregson who

(03:24):
races for Dale Earnhardt, Jeffrey finishessecond. There's a whole you know,
the cameras are on the whole deal. It's it's this whole thing around Talladega
and the Earnharts, and I getit. It's a cool, big story.
But for me, I can seewhy the race fans would say,

(03:44):
hey, guys, this is overthe top, this is scripted, this
is fake. This is that whenyou do things like this. And I'm
not saying they did it, butI'm also not saying they didn't do it,
you know what I mean. It'slike one of those things where I'm
on the fence. I'm just I'mreporting what I see here, and what
I see here are some coincidences.Are there such thing as coincidence? I

(04:05):
don't know, but here we are. But that's the reason I think that
some of these guys think that,you know, racing and NASCAR creates these
storylines and it becomes a little faketo them when they see stuff like this.
So please understand where the race fansare coming from. When do you
see stories hitting the internet or postsor stuff on Twitter? Stuff like that.

(04:27):
All right, So let me getback to the finishing order. Noah
Gregston was your top guy there.Congratulations to him because it was his second
victory and his six top ten oftwenty twenty two, and it's his seventh
career victory. There, Jeffrey Earnhardt, as I mentioned, aj Allmendinger winning
that dash for cash one hundred thousanddollars. This is what I think is
really cool. Ryan c fourth,Landing Castle fifth, Anthony Alfredo six,

(04:53):
Riley Herbs seventh, Joe Graft Junioreighth, Mayatt Snyder ninth, and rounding
out to top ten is Brett Moffattthere. So congratulations to all those guys,
great run. So what does thatdo for points? Right now?
Points look like this. You gotaj Almadinger on top of three hundred and
eighty four points. Noah Gregson movinghis way up, He's only forty points

(05:13):
back. Joe Ty Gibbs from JoeGibbs racing dropping a little bit, he's
forty five points back now, gotcaught up in a crash. Josh Barry,
Brandon Jones justin allguy, Ryan Siegmoving his way up, ban Sam
Mayor, Austin Hill who's the rookie, and Ryan Herbs, Riley Herbs rounding
out your top ten in points there. But again, congratulations to the man

(05:35):
Noah Gregson getting it done. Ilove watching him win. He's very fan
friendly, gets involved with the crowd, and I'm sure he's like, uh,
you know, you see him herepictured with his owner, Dale Earnhardt
Junior Motorsports. So congratulations to allthose guys over there getting the win.
Get great win for the team too, because they're all excited. This is
Talladega. You always want to winat a place like this, those superspeedway

(05:58):
tracks. But again, the bigthing for me with the weekend was the
big Jeffrey Earnhardt's story, the numberthree getting you know, back in the
game and having an earned heart behindthe way I get the whole thing.
It just didn't pass the sniff testfor me if you knew what I mean.
All right, let's see here,let's go in switch gears to the
Cup Series and Cup Series results.Congratulations was for Ross Chastain. Dude pulled

(06:24):
it off grand fashion. It wasawesome and it was one of those things
when you're watching the race. Herehe is on top of his car.
You know, he does the wholegrabs the watermelon, smashes it on the
ground. He does this coool thingwhere he gets up on top boom throws
it down and smashes the wall,and that's his gimmick. You know.
He's back from the watermelon days whenhe was a farming and that's listen.

(06:45):
It got him his starting, it'swhat got him here, so he likes
to celebrate that. But congratulations tohim, Ross Chastain winning. It was
Austin Dillon there getting the second place, but Ross Chastain it was his second
victory and six top ten finish oftwenty twenty two. Austin Dillon his second
in the number three, just likeat the Expendity Series, posted his fifth

(07:09):
top ten this year. Congratulations tohim. And Kyle Bush, who's stalled
last week, was third in thisrace, said Talladega. A little wild
finish there at the end. Youhad Kyle Larson fourth, Martin Truex Junior
fifth, Eric Jones who was leading. And that's always one of those things.
Man, you never wanted to bethe guy leading at the end of

(07:31):
one of these races because it alwaysends in frustration. There's always a last
lap pass because these guys, listenTalladega, even with this new car,
they've tried to create this passing andall these different things, and they get
too wide. But listen, whenthey know it's time to go, they'll
go. When they don't, it'swhat we call the Congo line. And
you see that still to this day. I don't care what NASCAR does.

(07:55):
The only thing they're gonna have todo is start shortening these races a little
bit. If you want to seethat side by side, you get those
stage stops which gathers everybody up.You start, they're usually side by side.
It takes a while to get themlined up in that congo line.
But when they do, it's boringracing. It's boring, restrictive plates exciting

(08:16):
because you know the side by sideracing. Their inches apart there. But
when they're in the congo line,forget it snooze fest and they know that
and they try to do things andthe stage stuff works. It gets into
that point where they're bunching all thecars back up. But that last stage
got a little long. And I'llbe honest with you, when they got
into congo line, it's over forme. I'll wait till the last ten

(08:39):
laps of the race to watch becausethat, to me is the exciting part.
When they get side by starte theystart breaking out former second line,
former third line, get four wide, and the back. Everybody's trying to
make a move. That's what's excitingwhen you're talking restrictive plate racing. So
let me finish the rounding out totop ten here. Chase Elliott was seventh,

(09:00):
Michael McDowell was eighth, Alex Bowmanwas ninth, and tenth was Kevin
Harvick. At one point in therace, it was kind of cool.
You saw the Hender guys running upfront and I thought, man, this
is you know, this is goingto be a good day for those guys
running one, two, three andfour. How about if they finished that
way that would have been cool aswell. But it didn't happen that way.
Like I said, last ten lapsgame on and I love that.

(09:22):
So what do the points look likeright now? We'll show you that.
Chase Elliet is still on top ofthree hundred and sixty eight points, Ryan
Blaney second, twenty one points back, William Byron thirty four points. Kyle
bush Man, I'll tell you KyleBusch hasn't really had the season anybody,
but he's still consistent enough to beup here in the top four and points.
Alex Bowman Joey Lagano, who didnot have a good day yesterday,

(09:46):
Kyle Larson, Martin Trex Junior,Ross Chastain. I love this story.
Man in the top ten running fortrack House Racing and being able to get
the win and showing what this newteam can do. I mean, it's
so incredible to watch these g eyesand the enthusiastic part of it, the
entire team. Even his teammate cameup to him and congratulate him and knew
what this was all about. Thisis whenever you see that team win,

(10:09):
it's always one for the good guys, you know, the the underdogs,
and uh and I know, listen, they came in with a good team
from buying that from Chipkinassi and allthat stuff over there, so they came
in a little more, you know, a few more bullets in the chamber,
if you will, coming into theseason than a normal team that you

(10:31):
would think of as the underdog.But it's still a great underdog story and
here they are competing and competing atthe top levels. So it's kind of
cool to watch and see what theseguys are able to do. All right,
that's it. Next up is Dover, so we'll be talking about that
coming up. And again, ifyou want to find any more information,

(10:52):
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(11:37):
Demico r O. B. DAmico. The two websites is one,
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