Talladega might just be the wildest race of the year. She's over here, wow, and we're going to see some sparks fly. Maybe it's because it's just so darn fast. Some say this track is haunted. Maybe it's that curse the old timers talk about. It's like a fever! Or maybe it's when the big one hits. And you can expect that Talladega is the unexpected. The Gecko 500 from Talladega. Today at 2 Eastern on Fox and the Fox Sports app. Hello everyone and welcome to Talladega Super Speedway. We have a very special show for you guys today. You are watching the Fox Hot Pass Hangout presented by Coca-Cola Orange Vanilla. So great to have you guys with us on this Sunday afternoon. I'm Katelyn Vincie alongside two guys who both won races here at Talladega. Xfinity in 2013 for Regan Smith, 2003 in the Cup car for Michael Woltrupp. Guys, so good to have you here. I appreciate it. That day in 2003 was one of the best memories ever because Regan, I don't know about you, but growing up in Kentucky, I could not wait to come check out Talladega Super Speedway. When I was a kid, it's all you talked about. And it was scary. People got hurt. People got killed here. And my brother was racing here. And I'm like, wow, I don't know about all this. I got to go check it out. But I was scared. It was really scary. And then the first time I got on these banks was 1986. And I fell in love immediately. And for some reason, I knew how to draft. I had a knack for it. And that ability- Could you see the air? I felt it, I think. You felt it. Yeah, I didn't see it. But that ability, obviously, was something that I think I gained from just watching, watching so many laps here. This is the 100th race at Talladega. And I've been in 60 of them, Regan. And you know what that means? You're old? Yes. Oh, no. We already have an old joke. We just started. You're old, but you know what, Mikey? You still have better hair than me. Mine's falling out yours. He's like a fine wine. Gets better with age. Yes, absolutely. I'm just happy you didn't bring up 2008. In the cup race, when I thought I had what would have been my second Talladega win, or while at the time, first Talladega win. So thank you for not doing that. Hopefully, we keep all the cars above the L line today. And you know, much like Mikey, this place has always had this mystique about it that is completely different than a lot of the other race tracks that we go to. And I don't know why, but this weekend in particular, I don't remember coming down here with this feeling of just my stomach kind of turning a little bit and not knowing what's going to happen or what's going to be around the next turn. I don't know if you can hear it through our mics, but we have jets that are absolutely performing in a phenomenal air show around us right now. So come to a race, you get an air show, you get a race going on on the track, all kinds of cool stuff. But there's going to be a lot that goes in today with these drivers having to learn on the race track and understand a new set of rules, a set of rules that they've never raced with before. And I think you add all that stuff together. And it's really going to create what's going to be quite a spectacle when this day is all said and done. Yeah, and I was talking to a couple of the drivers just now when I was finishing up the gridwalk on Fox. And they certainly don't know what to expect. And the reason why they haven't been in this huge pack where they're going to be three wide middle. They haven't had four wide. It's just been a little, they've had it, but it's calmer when you got about half the cars in a pack. So they know it's going to be different today. They really don't know what to expect. Certainly the main word down there that I hear is uncertainty. And what's great for race car drivers isn't necessarily great for fans and vice versa. If you have uncertainty, drivers don't like it. Us fans are like, oh really? That makes for the best racing that we can see. And we saw an awesome Xfinity race yesterday. I mean, it was one of the best ones. I can remember it Talladega ever. And Tyler Reddick getting the victory lane was incredible. The job he did behind the wheel. That race car was used up. We talk so much about arrow and wind tunnels and everything like that when we come to these big super speedways. His race car was destroyed on the right side. They put panels on it. I had his pitch yesterday. They were taping panels and riveting panels to that race car. Here it is a car that probably spent 10 hours in a wind tunnel. All this money invested. And he wins with panels riveted to the side of the race car. It was an amazing race. A lot of people predicted something completely different for that race. And this just further goes to prove that a lot of times what we think we know, we don't know much like today. That car was a perfect chip and he hit the wall and cracked a part of it off. Well, Michael mentioned it about the fact that it's the 100th cup race that is run here at Talladega. So throughout the show, we want you guys to try and send us 100 fan questions. And we have a special person joining our broadcast for the day to help with the social media side of things. And I will send it now to CJ Wolliver. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. I'm CJ Wolliver, one of the social media producers for NASCAR on Fox. And I want you guys to send me questions. I'm watching. I paid attention. I promise. So get those in and I'll relay it to these guys. The first question I want to ask you guys. I want to ask our talent. Make a pick out of these three Chevy Ford Toyota. What do you guys think? Who gets the win today? Oh, all right. Manufacturer. Are we answering? I think we're going to have to answer. You have to say Ford. I mean, the numbers simply make it almost unarguable that you would say Ford. But I don't know. I think we're going to see an upset today. You said Ford, but you didn't pick a Ford driver. Your pick for the race one is beside you. Regan, here's yours. I said it's because it's Talladega. It's unpredictable. We don't know what's going to happen. Why are you yelling at me? I'm not. I would never yell at you. Come on, but here's my pick. She's running a tight ship here already, Mikey. I know me and you can go down. We see a squirrel and we're like, squirrel, OK. But we're going to have to stay on track today here. OK. Well, here's my pick. So you're clearly saying Ford as well. Yeah, I know I'm really not going out on a limb because he has five wins here. But this is my guy for today. You can take a favorite. I think Ford is the favorite. And that guy is certainly one that will be a factor today, but I think this guy, my buddy, Kyle Larson, there you go. Finally puts the bad luck of 2019 behind him and goes to Victory Lane in his number 42 Chevy. Well, I like the theme of Ford. I like Ford because of the Yates engines and the Yates power. But I'm going to pick this Ford driver. Young Ryan Blaney. YRB gets his first super speedway win today. Not just a pretty face, ladies and gentlemen. He's going to be your winner this afternoon as well. But he is a pretty. Yeah, you picked that because he looks so much better when I'm dancing around. You wanted to look Hollywood, didn't you?  I'm going to be down here just gnawing at you.  I just don't. I don't know that you've had the speed this year to be my worst enemy, Mike. Yeah, I think that when it's said and done, he's just going to blame. He's going to wink and pass the whole field. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. We want to know who you guys are going to pick. So make sure you send us your picks. But now brought to you by Coca Cola, Orange Vanilla. Let's go to our friends in Charlotte to see who has the right combination. I would have to say Joey Logano in his number 22 team, Penske, and especially considering, let's start with the fact that he drives a Ford. Ford has won the last seven races at Talladega. Joey went in three of those seven. So I would say Joey, Team Penske, and Ford, the Coke right combination for today. All right. So you heard it from Larry Mack. He thinks Penske and Ford are going to be the ones to beat. A lot of Ford predictions around here. Let me say this. The one thing that me personally I really like about the Fords is the fact that not only do they have the 8th horsepower, as I mentioned a moment ago, they've also got bumpers that line up very nicely with each other. Because of those bumpers, if we get to a scenario where we've got to push later on in the race, that's going to be a big deal. And I want to go back to what I said at the beginning. Uncertainty, unpredictability. That's what Talladega is famous for. So while we all think a Ford will win, and probably a Penske car would be favorite, you never know at Talladega. And we're going to see an interesting race. Some really strong cars. All the Gibbs cars going to the back early. Now, how will that strategy play out, Regan? I almost think talking about the fact that we don't know how these cars are going to handle, and they have 120 more horsepower, and they're not handling great. I wouldn't be surprised to see those Gibbs cars line up and run back there for a while, just to get their feel for the race and see how this thing paces itself out. I spoke to one of the Gibbs crew chiefs who told me this might actually play to our favor. It might keep us out of that wreck at the beginning of the race. That might be a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. So we've been talking a lot about Ford, and I know CJ's got more on another Ford driver. Cup series win. Now we can hear him. We couldn't hear him. Now, he's probably going to start all over, because if we could hear you, they probably could have. Thank you so much, Mikey. Mikey looking out for me. A driver that I'm going to be keeping an eye on today, and a driver that we know is looking for his first cup series win. A guy that has a pretty good time living life in the fast lane, Daniel Suarez. But his mom may not be quite as big a fan. Of going fast. My name is Daniel Suarez. I drive for the Stuart House Racing, the Ford Mustang 41. It has automation, Alex. You guys may think, after watching those videos, super fast, and she's getting crazy, but the reality is that I'm running 55 miles per hour. And the way that I'm going to 55 miles per hour, she's just getting crazy. It took me half a day to get the lovely mom back, but it was very funny. No, no, no, no, my mom. My mom never been in a race car with me. Actually, she has said to me that you can pay her enough to put her in a race car.  And she said, Daniel, I mean, I may have to try it. And then she said, no, no, no. I think I can find a different way. You know, I'm very honored because I'm a Tony Suarez fan. When I moved to the U.S. the first time back in 2011, I was more a race fan than what I was actually driving race cars. So I spent a lot of time watching TV, the races, and trying to learn something, listening to the radio. And that was the last year that he won the title. He's an owner driver and he's become and become a three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. Tony Stewart wins it. So for me to watch him win that title and the way that he did it, having some issues with the brie and the style and the grill and they had to change it. And then he went again. I remember exactly he had, he hit some debris. The grill of the car was bent and it wasn't working very well. He had to pit. They changed that. They fixed the whole car. He went again from the back to the front. He was passing cars like he was a video game and then he went all the way back to the front. But the comments that he said, when all that was going on, that was what impressed me the most. To win a race, that's something cool. But to win a race the way that he did it, that's something very special for me and I bet for him as well. It takes a lot of leadership to say something like that in the last race of the season, fighting for the championship. So after that I become a huge Tony Stewart fan and now to have him as a boss and as well as a friend that I know I can go ask a question anytime, any day, that's definitely very special. It's Tony. Honestly, I never had the opportunity to race against Tony. But like I said, I watched him race a lot. So for me it's been Tony Stewart forever and now I have a little more confidence in him.  So I cannot call him bad names yet. Yeah, my new cruise ship, Billy Scott. Very smart guy with a lot of experience. Obviously I haven't had the opportunity to work with him in the racetrack, but so far outside of the racetrack it's been a lot of fun. He's a very straightforward guy and I feel like we're going to have a lot of potential to do great things together. You know, it's very hard to tell if I like his style because I'm getting to know him more and more. But so far there is no one thing I can tell you I don't like. He's a very straightforward guy. Everyone in the group have a lot of confidence with him. They talk very open, they have respect, but they have fun and I really like that a lot. They make fun of each other and I'm that kind of guy. I like to enjoy the time and everyone in the 41 group is just like that. So far I really love the group a lot and I'm really looking forward to find out more about the group and keep improving. Yeah, well that was an interesting little segment. His mom really was frightened in that car. I feel like I've had that same look out of my mom at time so I can understand and appreciate where she's coming from with that. You know, Daniel's one of the young guys of our sport. He's exciting, he's fun to watch. He's doing a nice job in that race car this year. I think he's been really getting his feet under him and picking up the pace and getting to where he needs to be on the racetrack. And I see a lot of his crew guys that he talks about having fun with. Some of which I've worked with in the past and one of them I know his nickname is Porky. He's probably not going to be happy that I say that, but one of the most fun people I've ever run around. Great attitude, much like Daniel's attitude there and somebody that we'll be talking about for a long time to come. Yeah, and his crew chief, Billy Scott, used to work for us over at Michael Waldrop Racing and a very talented, smart racer. And I've had the luxury, an opportunity a couple of times this season to talk to Billy about Daniel because I'm a huge Daniel Suarez fan. He's one of my favorite personalities. You just see him and he makes you happy. He lights up a room and so I really appreciate that and enjoy my time. I get to spend with Daniel, but I asked Billy, I said, what's he like on the job? In the meetings, his energy for getting better, he said he's the best he's ever met. He's going to work out harder in the gym than you. He's going to pay more attention in the meetings than you. He's going to do everything he can to win races behind the wheel of that 41 car. And I'm going to be the first one to victory lane that isn't a team member when he wins because I just want to give him a big hug. What a great... A big bear hug from you that might knock him right over. I know he works out and he's strong, but that could be a challenge. While we're at a speedway, I got a quick Daniel Suarez story. The one time in my career, I have been on my roof, it came off of the front bumper of Daniel Suarez. It was his first super speedway race. I know we're talking Talladega today. We got these cars getting ready to take the green flag in just a minute. Danger, excitement, that's the one thing none of these guys want to have happen today. Yeah, absolutely. Well, now let's check in quickly with CJ for more on a poll. CJ? All right, so thank you guys so much for commenting along, sharing, voting. I see all the numbers coming across you guys are the best. NASCAR fans are the best fans in the world. So if you want to know how you can vote all day long, when we ask a question that there are multiple choices, just hit the comment anywhere. Twitter, Facebook, wherever you're watching, comment with your pick, and we can get that information for you on screen. So the first question that we asked you guys among the picks of our talent, we had Larson Blaney-Keslowski. Who do you think goes to Victory Lane? It looks like they agree with our fearless leader here today, Caitlin Vincy. 60% of the fans picking Ryan Blaney out of the three to go to Victory Lane today. So, KV, I think you got a pretty good pick. I didn't pick Ryan Blaney. You didn't pick Ryan Blaney. No. OK, sorry about that. That's what I had to say. Say our other leader with this nice little face next to him right here. What's my percentage looking like, bro? Right now, so we have 60 on Ryan Blaney, Larson and Keslowski, both at 20%.  And that's not just because they agree with me right now. I truly believe that. That is a wonderful number. 60%. Wow.  I did. He's a good-looking man. I'm not too afraid to say that. Look at it. I mean, this is the face of our sport right here. The future of our sport is in my arm sitting right next to me. You've got to be comfortable in your skin in order to make a pick based on that. And I respect that region. I'm perfectly fine with that. And his hair. I do have hair envy. Major hair envy. Major hair envy. What about these boys rolling toward the green flag? I want to tell you what I have after all these years and not being in a car for a couple. I got major envies, these guys behind the wheel. I don't care how unpredictable it is. I don't care how uncertain we are. I know that it's going to be crazy. I want to be right out in the middle of it. I am going to disagree. This might be the one day that I'm perfectly fine sitting here in the garage area right now watching this race, watching what's about to take place because it's going to be very exciting. It is. Again, you're watching the Fox Hot Pass Hangout presented by Coca-Cola, Orange Vanilla. We are racing here at Talladega, guys. Austin Dillon leading the charge, our poll sitter. Yeah, nothing unexpected right now in terms of how they fire off right here. I think when we get to the back straightaway of this race, that's when business is going to pick up. They'll have the runs that they need. They'll be up to speed quicker than they ever have been because of the horsepower difference. Right. I talked to crew chief Mike Wheeler down on the grid, Regan. And he said the cars have so much more front downforce this trip to Talladega. And when they put that wicker on the spoiler, it made it have even more front downforce, which tilts the car toward the front tires, which means they're going to be very responsive. The front tires are going to be very responsive. I'm nervous for this lap right now. Oh, my goodness. But the back end sometimes doesn't want to hang with an aggressive front end. And we heard a lot of that yesterday in practice. These guys were talking about it. Hear that roar behind it? I love that. I love it. The speedway when the whole pack comes flying by it just sounds like a thousand bumblebees flying by you all at one time. But when we talked about practice yesterday, and we saw cars get in the pack, a number of guys complained about how loose their race cars were because of that downforce that Michael talks about. And they've got a pan on the front of the cars, which is different.  So a lot of things. These guys are learning. They've never been in a scenario where they've had to learn as much as they are right now. Every set of rules that we've run up until this point over at least the past 20 years since I've been involved has been similar enough to another set to where it wasn't a drastic difference of how you drive the cars and how you learn it and how you draft with them. This set of rules is a drastic difference. I loved about my chance to race a few races as my career wound down. As you see Martin Truex in that orange car. Didn't he go to the back? Yeah, he's already cracked the top 10, I think. I can't wait to see the speeds these cars are going to run. This lap here over 200 miles an hour. I mean, the way they run down into the corners, I think it's going to be really impressive to see what kind of times they can crank out through the day. Look at Coriola Joy back in the field a little bit. 202 miles per hour. There you have it. Look at Bubba Wallace all the way up inside the top 10. We know what he did at Daytona that day. He wants to run up front so bad he can't stand it and this is a great opportunity for him to do just that. I'm curious what the fans think and what the people are listening to us right now. Would you rather be in the front of the pack, in the middle, or in the back of the pack? As a driver right now sitting here, I don't know what I would want to do. I think as I see three wide and all the unknowns that are going on, I would probably fall back off of the field just a little bit if I can't be one of the first three cars. I don't know what else to do right there. And if you're at home and you're watching this race, watch Martin Truex Jr. He's taken to the top and is driven almost to the front. The spotters on the roof, the driver's spotters that are ahead of him are saying, hey, man, Martin's making some good time up top.  So that's how this thing works. When you've got a guy doing something special back in the pack, the spotters notice it and they relay it to their driver and the driver is then ready to adjust his line and go to places where other drivers are having success. And you can see that's Blaney up top. The Kessler, excuse me, Logano up top. They're sort of taking that line away. There's Denny Hamlin racing up inside the top 10. Talk to him down on the gridwalk. But look at Truex from the back to the front. Look at the help. He's got also the Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Right behind him also went to the back of the field to start this race. Don't look past the fact that he's got a forward help and push him. And the Toyotas yesterday, they had what I would call is not a miserable day, but not a day that they're accustomed to. They all qualified 20th or worse. It was a major struggle for them. They all said the same thing. We're going to race very good tomorrow. We're happy about where our race cars are. Looks like their prediction was true so far. And their prediction is based on technology and science. They know what they have in single car and they know what they have in the draft and they were confident about that. Talk to David Wilson, the president of TRD, and he said, don't worry, Mike. Everything's going to be good tomorrow. And I'm not worried. I'm just an investigative reporter at times. I want to hear what people think and what they say. And what I was most excited about down on Pit Road was when I talked to Mike Wheeler, his passion and his energy for the guy behind the wheel of that 95 car. Has he picked up Kenny Say's name really good now? Not really. Or does he say Matt D in my car? Yeah, that's just easier, right? Okay. Let's check in with CJ real quick for some social media interaction. All right, guys. So the first thing about the interaction, they're 11 that Larson's just hanging out with this here kind of. I'm sorry today. I think that's great. But also we had a question come in that this one's for Michael and Regan. And we had a fan that wants to know how many races at Talladega did it take for you guys to get the confidence in the draft to make big moves, to make maneuvers, things that we see on TV that kind of takes our breath away? How many times did you have to run at Talladega before you felt confident enough to do that? I just had my breath taken away. I don't know what happened to young Ryan Blaney in the middle of the pack there. It looks like maybe a little bit of a bump draft from the 34 car. Michael Madal. He was sideways on the straightaway, three wide with cars on both sides. I jumped up in my seat just a little bit right there. For me, drafting was something that took some time. I'm going to say it took every bit of seven, eight races before I even remotely got, not only comfortable with it, but a true grasp and a true understanding as to what I was doing out there, how the air was flowing around the race cars, why certain moves worked, why they didn't work. We watched 1,000 races leading up to the first time we're on the track ourselves. And you just don't know until you get out there what the true feeling is going to be. You don't know that sensation of being three wide in the middle with cars literally an inch from the front of you, an inch from the back of you, and right down on your doors, close to the side of you as they can be. And my story is a lot different. I started back in the 80s, and the only way you could really keep up at a track like Daytona and Talladega was the draft. And I wasn't used to keeping up. You got to understand, I didn't have a really good car when I started. You know, we weren't fast. But when I'd come to Daytona and Talladega, I could run right on Richard Petty's bumper. I could race with Del Earnhardt. How cool is that? That was the best school. You are racing with the king. Yeah, that's my point. Like, and this air is affording me that opportunity. So I'm like, I'm all ears, eyes, no. Everything I can do to be in that draft and to run with my heroes, I did it. And so I think I picked it up almost immediately because of the circumstances back in the day. That's interesting. Yeah, because you have three wins also at Daytona, another super speedway. And that kind of reminds me of a guy like Brad Kizlasky, who's currently leading this race. He has figured out these type of race tracks it seems. Brad is very good here. I mean, five wins at Talladega is it is so difficult to win one of these races. Anybody that can win more than one of them, in particular, you know, Talladega is not as much of a handling racetrack as Daytona. Daytona, you have to be good at the draft, but you also have to be able to communicate with your crew chief how you want your race car to drive at different times of the day. If the sun's out, if the sun's not out, we see a little bit of debris right there on Brad's car. He's going to have to be a little bit cautious about that. But Brad, Brad has a communication with at the time, his spotter, Joey Meyer, we got to remember that's changed this year. Brad has a new spotter this year in Coleman Pressley. He's still adapting and learning from him a little bit. Right now it's working out good for him. Let's gloat a bit, boys and girls. We said the Pinsky cars would be the story. One, two, three right now. They've driven straight to the front. Love it when we're right. Look at that pack of Ford's in the front. We actually phoned it in before the race and told them, can you make sure you're up there and stay up there as long as possible? My favorite thing I'm seeing early in this race is Bubba Wallace. I just love Bubba's, to me, like Daniel. They just want to go. They're happy when they get this opportunity and they've got a great opportunity here today to run up front. And you'd see, if you're watching at home on TV, there's Bubba right up in the top five. Denny is as close to Bubba as he can possibly be right now. I know we're looking at the two-car of Brad Kozlowski pushing his teammate, Joey Logano. But Denny was, he was given a little bit of a ride around the front straightaway all the way through the corners to Bubba there. Denny, one of our best plate, or not plate. I can't say that anymore. I know we can't say that. Look at that. I messed that up once already. Put it further in the jar. That's, I'm going to be broke by the end of the show. This is going to be a costful show for me. We're going to, we're going to wait a second. We're going to call it a super speedway race. I like super speedway. I think that's the easiest way to go about this. But Denny is one of the best super speedway racers. No matter what the form is, he's going to go out there and learn. And I did ask Chris Gaphart right before this race. I said, what is your plan? Are you going to go out there and, and race on? We got a wreck already. Oh, and it's Bubba. And it's, wow. Oh, it's Harvick and Boyer. I don't know how, I don't know how hard the, well, they were being aggressive when they're three wide that early on, anything's possible. I almost think Caitlin that you're just, you're, he, Bubba was pushing Blaney. I saw that. Then it went away. I don't see Bubba. He's the third car in line. He runs to the bottom and he hooks Blaney and it sends him out of control. Oh, look at Denny Hamlin. He gets caught in it, but, but is able to escape. Oh, Michael McDowell, big damage as well. Yeah, that, that was just Bubba was being very aggressive. Remember that Camaro's got the pointy nose. He tries to sleep to the left, just barely caught. Blaney and causes a big crash. I gotta tell you, I'm surprised that wreck wasn't bigger than what it was when you have the third and fourth place cars get together at the start of a race. That is amazing that we didn't take out 20 cars right there. And we're lucky because we're seeing some awesome racing and we wouldn't want to, we wouldn't want to lose half the field right now. Oh, Denny's, that's the worst thing I like. But I'm telling you, that's repairable. With this set of rules, yes. With the way that the cars are punched in the hole. Tyler Redick was torn to shreds. How many times do we think he didn't have a shot, huh? I didn't know where you were headed. I'm glad you went with shreds. I've said that before and you didn't know where I was going with that. He was torn to shreds. I keep you on your toes, Michael. What a rough, rough. Now with these teams we're hoping to have this early on. Now, Clint Boyer, maybe a little bit more trouble for him to repair that car. I think it's going to be interesting. You know, we've got the damaged vehicle policy. Five minutes, we got to remember that. I think it's six here at Talladega. They bumped it up. Did it? Okay. Maybe, I might be wrong. But this is just that nose on the Camaro. It's hard to deal with. And look, Bubba's aggressive. He's going to pass his buddy Blaney. He doesn't get to do that very often. It was just strictly a missed time. You can see him catch that indention in the Ford bumper and hook it a little bit right there. He might also, he might have the opinion that was Blaney's fault. You know, I went to the bottom and he moved over. Drivers see things differently. It'll be interesting to hear his comments. I would be interested to hear that because I don't know how you can pin that one on Blaney.  I think he just, he got too close when he went to make the move. And this is what we're talking about with drivers having to learn the moves on the racetrack, understand these rules and how to get through these rules. Big hit for Harvard as well. If you're watching at home on your big screen in your living room, watch Matt Tift. Watch the job the 36 car does. He drives perfectly through this crash. And I don't think got any damage. We've heard what we think. Daniel Suarez puckered up a little bit right there too. CJ, what are the fans saying? I know we got a fan question from you. Yeah, so a lot of the fans interacting with how much they're enjoying being able to get kind of a different perspective of today's race here at Talladega. So we're going to make sure that we keep you guys updated. You can stay here with us. But one of the questions, and it actually ties into something that I wanted to make sure I told everybody, Justin has commented asking, can I have a free Coke hat please? Well, my answer to that question is maybe wherever you're watching, if you're watching on Facebook, if you're watching on Twitter, YouTube, the Fox Sports app, take the link, hit the share button. If you share it and you comment, we'll go through after the broadcast is over after the checkered. And I'm going to pick somebody. We're going to do it random. And then I'll go through and I will send someone a Coca Cola hat and bonus. It's signed by our boy Daniel Suarez and that orange vanilla Coca Cola car today. So get a chance to go to Charlotte, maybe for the 600 and Coke swag. It'll be a lot of fun. So we did have a question come through, though, as we're still working under caution. Joel sent in a question wanting to know when and where will we see Mikey back in a car? People want to see Michael Walter at back. Interstate 77, maybe that's the best spot. Well, I am actually going to race. So there you can see the car of Michael McDowell that was running in the top five, man. That's such a sad story. Clint Boyer spun around, but he looks like they've made some repairs, but I think we'll be out of this race. You can see the the record there. I am actually going to race a couple of races this year in the Midwest. It's called the VORS compact touring series. Is this breaking news? This is breaking news. Look at this. No, it hasn't. And and I'm just feeling real comfortable right now in my skin and and and I'm looking forward to that opportunity. But it's a four cylinder car. And the reason why this is cool, Regan, I started in a in a Mercury Capri back in Kentucky in 1981, a little four cylinder car. And the VORS compact touring series is four cylinder cars. So I got me a Toyota Celica and I painted it up just like my first car back in 1981. And we're going to go run two or three races. Very good. How loud are those cars relatively quiet? Yeah, they're real quiet. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Like to the point where you can like almost hear the crowd cheering for you when you take the lead in that. Yeah. And you can also talk to your kids, you know, explain to them what's happening out there. They've got a nice grunt to them. But how does that go again? Oh, I like that. But I think that that will it sounds like Kenny Wallace's Jake break that he does. That's that he does. Kenny Wallace does the best. Oh, he does. You are totally right. It's fantastic. So I'm going to I'm sorry. No, it's OK. I think I think I think you'll point this in a different direction. Oh, I'm going to go. I want to go to the garage. He's going to show us some of that. That's great. So business is about to pick up here. Business is definitely not best. Can I take Kyle with me? You don't mind. I think that should be a rule. We have to take our fat heads with us everywhere we go today. I'm down. What do we think? What about tattoo? It wasn't this. This wasn't that. If you want to, this was it's a rule. And tell you're out of the race. If you're out of the race, I'd like to put it down. When you're guys out of the race, you can put them. OK, fair enough. Well, oh, one thing to do. I wanted to make sure as Mikey gets ready to head out. One thing too. I wanted to make sure that I pointed out. We had a lot of fans checking in and asking if he could get a shout out because he's actually watching from Russia here this afternoon. Russia. I just wanted to say hi to him. We are all over the world with this hot pass hangout today. I'm going to tell you what. International, my friend. I love this. This is our second show, and we are fully international already. And Don wants to know if we think a young gun will win today because he thinks they will, they are the future of the sport. I know Regan does. I'm holding him in my arms currently. I know the camera's not showing this, but what's the cutoff for a young gun, though? I know. He's getting older now. I think anything 36 and below should be the cutoff for the young gun. Not because I'm 35, but I'm just saying 36 and below. That's still a young gun. I can get on board with that, I think. So thank you guys so much for continuing to interact. Don't forget to hit the share button.  Mikey heading out to get ready to maybe talk with some fans. Yeah, let's go to Michael. He is going to be hanging out. All right, guys. I want to go to the garage area. We saw that big accident on the racetrack. And these teams, if they come to the garage area, they're out of the race via the damaged vehicle policy. But what happens when they have a crash is a whole nother wave of work goes into motion. And that is trying to figure out how to get the car loaded on the truck. And particularly for this loves team, for Michael McDowell, that car was running so well. He didn't do anything wrong. And he was running right up in the top five. And that accident has taken this team out of competition. You have to understand, to have an opportunity like they had today to run in the top five, to know that they would be one of the cars that could win this race, it just got to be so challenging for them to accept that. That wreck was huge. It wrecked their fast race car. But more importantly, it took away a chance for them to win this race. And guys, that had to be just so hard for you to watch. I mean, you put a car on the track that's up in the top five. You know you can win the race. And Michael just didn't do anything wrong and got wiped out. Yeah, it's unfortunate. You know, it's lap 10 or 11 or 12 of a 500 mile race. And it's a long way to go to figure out if you could push somebody. And unfortunately, we were stuck on the outside. Yeah, and did you know coming into the day, but that you could win this race? Did y'all continue? You know, for a team like us to qualify in the top 12 and to have a chance of anywhere, this was one of our biggest chances. So yeah, it hurts pretty hard. Yeah. Well, thanks for your time. Appreciate it, Drew. You all right? Yeah, just heartbroken. Yeah, I know the work that goes into this. Okay, it's just a wreck, but this could change your whole year and you're in a position to change everything. It could have. We've had a few tough weekends last month. And this was a chance to turn around and get our ball rolling coming off the break and try to get moving forward. But try again next week. Yeah, that's right. He was doing a great job and y'all prepared a really fast car. See what else we got going on in the garage area. This is the teams have their toolboxes here, but you really can't work on your car back here anymore. All it is is about getting something that you can get loaded up on the trailer. You can see over here this beautiful plaid car for Kevin Harbick. They are they are out of the race. This this this machine obviously was was a race winning car. They had the bush promotion with with the with the bush guy here wearing wearing his plaid outfit. And now this this finely tuned pristine probably probably a $250,000 effort on just building that car and bringing it here is is torn up torn to pieces and cannot continue. Harbick got out of the car went into his trailer. Chase Elliott we see on the big screen there. They're making some adjustments on pit road. It's going to be interesting to me to see who's going to be able to survive this crash. Who can survive the crash? Who was in it that can overcome what happened and go out and contend for a victory. So this effort is simply about getting this race car on the trailer. See what kind of damage is over on the left side here. You can see that's that was what ended it the left. Well I mean everything's sort of torn up but a lot of damage to that left front corner of the race car. Good Harbick Harbick made his way to the trailer. Maybe try to get a word with one of the team guys and see see if Harbick had any comments. Nook did Kevin have any words? Did he say anything? Never heard nothing as usual as soon as something like that happens and we're going into the garage we'll just shut the radios off and load it on the hauler. That's what it's all about now just figuring out how to get on board the hauler to get back to North Carolina. That's pretty much it buddy. Good job you had a fast car. So I'm going to head back over toward toward the set guys. Caitlyn Regan disappointment obviously here down in the garage area. You know you look at Kevin Harbick we know he could win the race and now he's getting ready to getting ready to get in the the golf cart to head to the infield care center and it looks like he's able to manage a bit of a smile. Glad you're okay bud so they're having some some words there with the team and loading up and and heading them to the to the infield care center. So Caitlyn Regan you guys you could take it away. This this scene is what has been talked about all day long that we're going to see a lot of with a lot of action a lot of crashes and and a lot of a lot of carnage. So guys take it over. These teams are hoping to see already one of the toughest rides a driver can can make is the ride to the care center. But that ride is even worse when you're in the scenario like Kevin Harbick was right there I know Michael really wanted to talk to Kevin. NASCAR has rules implemented that don't allow that to happen. Basically when you drive a car to the garage it's out of the race. They require you to get on that medical car immediately without speaking to any media and to take that ride even if you drove the car back and you say I didn't take a big hit. We did see him take a relatively good sized hit but even if you didn't hit anything barely they still require you to hop on that medical car take a ride to the care center get out at the care center get checked in and get checked up and do everything that you have to do there for them to feel comfortable releasing you back to the garage area. So a disappointed day for Kevin Harbick and a lot of cars that we excited these guys they just went green flag again. Yes nobody learned anything because they are already beating and banging the bumpers of each other just as aggressive as before I am shocked to see this this early in the race as to why these guys are being this aggressive and I know you have to learn what's going on with the cars but I'm absolutely shocked. Let me get back to my last thought for just a minute. A number of cars taken out of that race that early on looked like we're going to be potential winners. A guy like Michael McDowell having a strong run. Kevin Harbick very good on the speedways. Well when that happens you know what we're going to see now is a whole another group of cars come up in the front of the pack and this is going to evolve as the day goes on. We're going to see different people up there. Eric Amarola won the last race for you at Talladega. That's right. I remember because I was in it and I had to follow him. Well that was an incredible race for Stuart House Racing as a whole. I don't know if we've ever seen that kind of dominance out of a four car team before what we saw on the fall here at Talladega with those cars. We're not likely to see that again anytime soon because the other teams picked up on what they were doing first off. Second off we do have a completely different set of rules that were running under now and different horsepower different spoilers. So many technical things as we talked about early on in the show but that's not going to allow those teams the big four car teams to do what they did and that was essentially design race cars that were specifically built to run in a certain order and kudos to Stuart House. That was so impressive what they were able to do what they were able to take care of there and I think now we're going to hand it back out to Michael Waltrip who is somewhere else in the garage. What are you doing Michael? Matt you did an awesome job buddy getting through that that crash. I thought you I thought you were perfect and then the story is a little bit deeper than that. It is uh unfortunately we got a splitter really deep in a radiator there and how about that you you miss a wreck at Talladega and still got a damn part through the front.  Yeah I thought we were okay there I shifted down to third gear and just got on the brakes as hard as I could and missed it and sometimes it's just not your day. Yeah you did everything perfect. Appreciate it Matt. And I wanted to show you what he was talking about we got a splitter in the front nose and so the splitter that you see on the front of the car down low but look he's got an extra splitter and unfortunately it pierced the radiator so that that see the low splitter good upper splitter bad that's that's how simple that is. Got another car coming in this is the guy that took the brunt of the collision the most the hardest hit of anybody and it was the guy that I was so impressed with and happy for early in the going the guys we talked to earlier from the from the loves team that uh that they crew chief and the whole team just talking about what a what an opportunity lost it was. Hey Michael I uh I was so impressed with your early run you did everything perfect and now here you are in the garage area. Yeah you know that's just part of racing here at Talladega you know kind of innocent bystander but yeah it's unfortunate we had such a fast love travel stop Ford Mustang qualified good drove well really optimistic about today but you know some days it's not your day and today wasn't our day and move forward. And I was talking to Drew and those guys I mean this was a chant this was like one of those you got circled boldly and you were perfect you proved you had everything it was going to take so I'm sorry for you. Yeah but this one's nice about NASCAR race every week we'll go to Dover and try to do it. Yeah thank you buddy so you can tell the team's dejection and then also there with Michael McDowell the driver how challenging that was and part of the procedure Matt was able to drive his car back to the garage area and he's obviously not injured but NASCAR requires all the drivers to head to the infield care center just to be checked out make sure that there isn't anything that that he's overlooking because of his adrenaline and the energy that that he had behind the wheel so he's going to make that long slow ride to the infield care center and then get checked out and he will return most likely the same way that you saw Michael McDowell just walking back walking back toward his team to to download you can see him over there talking to there's Michael talking to crew chief and and about what he was feeling in the car and this is all notes they're in the background this is all notes that they will use the next time they come to Talladega or they run this car and so that car obviously is probably totaled out but they'll have another car just like that and they're going to make sure they understand everything that they need in order to be successful there's Bubba Wallace Bubby had a strong run early buddy I was really pulling for you I'm sorry for you yes sorry he's obviously rarely dejected so hard to so hard to process everything that you got to go through Bob I just uh I was talking to Michael McDowell about about the opportunity this was you know this was a race that could have changed his whole season and maybe career and it's taken away from him Bubba Bubba would just walk by he didn't have anything to say obviously it's just a tough situation when you're getting a big wreck yeah it is obviously look at what Michael McDowell did in the Daytona 500 right so he comes in here thinking he's got a shot and you know Bubba said he was trying to avoid getting in a wreck with the 12 and he ended up getting hooking himself almost right and uh yeah Kevin Harvick wasn't too pleased and said kind of something a little snippy and Bubba wasn't a lot of words but you could tell that there's some frustration there yeah well there goes Kevin and I I uh I thought maybe we get a word with him but he he uh he obviously he does not very much but I think he just talked to our our TV crew and uh you know I mean obviously unfortunate for him but he felt like you know 10 laps in the race uh you shouldn't be losing it on your own yeah yeah it was certainly a tough situation you know you can obviously lay the blame there on Bubba but there again you know just a decision he tried to go to the bottom and it didn't work and he crashed himself yeah look there have been plenty of plate races in the last three or four years where plenty of drivers have lost it on their own right so this isn't yeah I mean it is what it is you saw the video but seen it before with other people too yeah appreciate you if you hear any stories or you collect any information come share them with us and we'll share them with the folks at home sure will thanks Michael okay all right guys um that's the story from out here Jimmy Johnson coming to pit road I don't know what's going on there I'll tell you what is hot it's hot I need a coke orange vanilla double zero thank you Michael that was great insight from you in the garage area talking all those drivers obviously something happening to Jimmy Johnson there getting into the wall not what he would like to see but I was as I was listening to those drivers talking to Michael when you come here you kind of I guess you I have that mentality of hey this could go really well or I could be one of the ones there's an innocent bystander in an accident well and you have to have that mentality you have to go out there and understand that there are things that will be out of your control in this race there's things that are going to happen on that racetrack much like we just saw with Jimmy Johnson likely a flat right front tire would be my assumption probably cut down by a piece of debris rather that debris came during the accident that happened previously or when where that got picked up at that's part of speedway racing that is part of all racing as well but in particular super speedway racing has to change that mentality and what I love what we just saw right there you know Bubba Wallace walked right past Michael Michael was trying to ask a question Bubba is frustrated that's passion these guys are passionate about what they do they do not like losing they especially don't like racking early in the race Kevin Harvick we know that he said some snippy comments based on what Mr Bob Pocrus just told us and I don't know how Bob does this but he is all over the racetrack he is all over the garage area there's not a story that he is not the first one to and he's done it yet again for us he updated us on what took place there over at the care center and and how frustrated some of the drivers were as they left exit to the care center and rightfully so you know these guys this is their livelihood this is their career they want to go out there and win every time they want to do the best that they can for their team and then Michael we were just talking about the passion the emotion that everything that these guys are showing when they're coming into the garage area you did make a liar out of me because I didn't think the drivers were allowed to speak to any of us until after they went to the care center Matt tiffed actually we got a few words in there so that was nice we're kind of we're we're breaking barriers here on the hot pass around well that was new I didn't know he just was standing there so I said it was perfect it was great I just got done saying though I don't think he can talk to him I don't think he could oh there he goes I'm not a pit reporter so I didn't know the rules but Matt was really really I don't know the rules either and I am in the pits a lot of you know you talk about the passion and and what these drivers you want to see the faces on the loves crew guys you know when I talked to them just so they knew that this was a this was a perfect day for them and Reagan I don't know if you we've talked about access and interaction I think you should give it a try Bubba's cars down there they've got to do a lot of work on it to get it repaired enough to even load it yeah maybe you could see if there's a crew guy down there too that you know get his comments about about what happened and then the stage is getting ready to end I believe we're going to have some we can shoot out the pit road and maybe check out what's going on there stop at the 43 and head out the pit road and see what you can see and we'll hang with you I like that plan I think we need to do that here do we have a poll or do we have a fan question and then we'll do that we actually do have a fan question from Paul and Paul's been giving a lot of great comments today he's been on screen a couple times where is he from I do not know where Paul's from but he is an avid NASCAR fan and I like it so Paul wants to know what do you think of Matt de Benedetto's chances today he's been kind of back and forth he was in the top 10 there for a little while maybe the top five what do you think about Matt D in Talladega well here's the thing that I think we we sometimes lose track of David Reagan was probably the last big upset winner at Talladega prior to him it's been a while maybe Trevor Bain at Daytona it rarely happens so what Matt de Benedetto needs to needs to focus on he wants to win the race obviously but just if he can survive and be around at the end of this race and put in a run at the checker to finish in the top five that would be an awesome accomplishment for him and that team he and that team I just messed up my grammar but here's the deal on that be around at the end take advantage of this opportunity now when I say that what about darn Michael Mcdowell he was doing everything perfect top five can't get crashed right wiped out right there his chance taken away so Matt just needs to focus on not causing a wreck and if he sees one obviously be prepared to avoid it and I think he can be a contender at the end do I think he can win I'm going to put those eyes pretty pretty long a pretty long shot to do that but he can be in the he can be in the mix yeah I mean and absolutely yesterday you know seeing gray gaulding in the SS green light machine up there battling for the win at the end of that race that's that's a good sign for some of these guys for an upset well in Talladega if we could just quickly talk about that race yesterday that Xfinity race with the job that Tyler Redick did and gray gaulding I that that race gave me everything I wanted to see as is the cut boys today this is really intriguing great runs great battles great racing absolutely more of that I'm sure is going to come throughout the course of the day we have 24 to go in this stage so let's send it to Regan who is going to be roping around the garage right now Regan what are you seeing okay guys thank you guys for sending it back this way we are in route right now as we see we've still got the 34 Michael Mcdowell's car here to talk to these guys heavy damage with this much like Michael I am still carrying around young Ryan Blaney he is in the race still certainly one of the guys that I expect to contend bubble Wallace's car we haven't had an opportunity to see bubble Wallace's car yet some heavy contact to this race car and it is going to take a while to unload or to load this race car up crops rough day for you guys I know expecting the big things that car was very fast early on what happens from here on out now you guys just get this loaded up hop on the airplane and get out of here yeah heading to the house headed to the house what what was your expectation you saw the start of that race you saw how good this thing was running were you thinking when today this is going to be our day the car was very fast I was really surprised at how well we was able to pull out in a draft past lap you know so you know it's just one of those deals got a little bit loose but you know we can hold our heads up high because the car was fast we know how tough this is on the drivers right I'm a driver I hate crashing it's the worst thing in the world and I get so mad about it but what's it like for for the guys that are working on the team the pit crews the guys back in the shops what's that emotion like when you see your car get involved in a bigger act um you know it's bad you know but you know coming into this end of these races you know anything can happen you can you know so come out you know we also come out with positive because car was so fast love the attitude I love I love the fact that there are positives you can take from what's a tough day thank you for talking to us for a minute here guys I want to show you something on front of these race cars also and this is that we've talked all week long about what the difficulties with the Chevy nose are if you get right in close here you can see that the Chevrolet nose has a very very finely pointed section to that nose the other manufacturers don't have that the other manufacturers are flat across right here and because they're flat in that area it allows the cars to push and bump more easily the Chevy drivers knew that this was going to be a possible area of concern for them coming into the race this weekend unfortunately we've already seen that bite the 43 of bubble Wallace and a number of other cars that were involved in that wreck I don't personally think that's the last time we're going to see that happen I think we're going to likely see some more incidents that are involved involving the nose cone of the race cars we're turning this the side of the garage here and as we turn the side of the garage it's really cool you can see and here obviously as loud as it is you can see all the fans sitting down the front stretch through here this is the entrance to pit road this is the area where we can go and get access to the crew members to the guys that are going to go over the wall that have already gone over the wall today all the fans in the stands this is one of my favorite views at a racetrack is the view where you can take it all in and you can see all the passion that's going on not only in the crowd we've got race fans in here watching the big screen these folks are just here enjoying enjoying the race on the big screen they get to see the cars come back down through into the pits how's everybody doing over here today are you guys so I gotta ask the question I know some guys are out of the race already who's going to win today what who's your driver who's going to win this race today I thought I thought jimmy johnson well who's your second pick now jimmy johnson jimmy jimmy had a little bit of trouble there I'm not sure that it's quite going to be his day so if you had a second pick does anybody think I'm really selling Ryan Blaney pretty hard today anybody think Ryan Blaney's got this we like Ryan Blaney is everybody having fun that's the biggest key look at this everybody having fun they can't quite see the whole racetrack but they got a heck of a tv right in front of them here Fox Fox NASCAR coverage a wonderful job up here on this tv you guys have fun today we're going to continue out to pit road here and looking at the stage breaks we're still 19 laps away from a stage break so what that means with 19 laps till the stage break that means the teams will just now be starting to prepare unless there's a caution if we happen to have a caution we got one of our NASCAR on Fox camera guys over here Jake we're going to take a picture of him taking a picture of us Jake Jake with me a lot of times on pit road one of the best guys in the business he does a phenomenal job but these guys will be starting to get ready now for pit stops so they've got a few moments to sit here to watch the race themselves to watch what their drivers are doing already the pit box over here to the side this is Kevin Harvick's pit box this is how quick these teams can pack up and prepare to leave they just fell out of the race 10 minutes ago and this pit box is ready to get loaded on a hauler and sent home just look at look at the raw speed these cars are flying around this racetrack with this rules package you can see Kevin Harvick's pit box was very likely similar to the pit box that we're seeing of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. right here and they got that all packaged up that quickly to get ready to send home Alex Bowman's pit box let's let's walk up here and see if uh see what they've got going on on their uh on their car right now Jeff Andrews head of Hendrick Jeff how are you doing today having a good run so as these guys prepare Dustin well one of my four one of my four well I picked Ryan Blaney sorry guys I picked Ryan Blaney to win today so I'm just gonna get loud Michael these these race cars are loud we got about 40 seconds to talk now I picked Ryan Blaney to win today so I gotta carry his fat head around with me all day long evidently but what do you guys do right now as you're sitting here getting ready for this next pit stop how how soon do you have to jump into action we got about 20 laps you know 16 to go and then we're gonna come down Greg's got a strategy we know that we can't tell you guys that but and then we're gonna do our deal you know but we hang out and watch the race enjoy it do you stretch out is there a point where you guys have really got a warm up or have you already done all that type of stuff right now yeah we did we do that right before the race starts and as the race goes on these suits keep us pretty warm so I couldn't hear half of what you said because it is loud out here it is pit road and one of the greatest places to be what in terms of yet again you think these guys knew we were trying to do a web show but when we look at the tire right here describe to us what we've got going on so we've got the tire we've got the lug nuts glued up what's the whole key to those lug nuts to make sure they don't fall off there what keeps those on there well we prep them about three to four hours before the race and our changers they do a good job of checking the lug nuts at the shop before we bring them here to the racetrack they glue them up with like an adhesive weather stripping so it stretches on the stud so they don't pop off and then us tire carriers we tape it you know orange or green for rights and less and we go to town I love it you guys do an amazing job good luck today one of the best pit crews in the business we're seeing a little bit of behind the scene stuff right now tire pressure adjustments going on probably not as important here as some of the racetracks that we go to always cool when I get to see one of the guys that used to go over the wall for me I don't think I ever hit them so that's a good thing brand new race team here the iK9 team their first race they have a Joe Gibbs affiliation a lot of Joe Gibbs crew members on that race car a lot of longtime Joe Gibbs crew members and this is this is where where I want to be I want to see how many of these guys know whose face I'm holding up of course everybody looking at their phones probably checking out our digital coverage right now off the race hey guys this is my pick for today what do you guys think I have to carry this around until he wins the race so can you can you can you radio him and tell him to win the race so I can set this down finally all right these guys are serious right now doing a very nice job Nascar on Fox pit reporter Matt Yocum he's actually doing a hit right now I can tell because he's talking and he's watching what is called a a jerk cam that camera that he's watching that allows him to know what they're showing on the tv so that he can make sure he's talking about the right thing as he's talking and if something does happen he can get it back to the booth as quickly as possible I believe he just finished up his quick hit right there Matt intently watching this right here hey how's the race going for you so doing great I'd love to have uh order a pizza hang out with you over there get some sauce I'll bring one out to you later thanks Matt another one of the cars that's fallen out of the race the 34 car Michael McDowell pick crew member David Mayo David another one of my longtime pick crew members David rough day did you guys I mean you you thought you had this right where you wanted early on with a fast race yes sir of course it was oh yes sir me you're a sir now you're a father of two you are a sir okay well I appreciate that we did see Kenyatta at the top of the show Kenyatta we did you walk past our digital coverage this is live on millions of websites and people's computers right now so well you didn't get to make a pit stop today how frustrating is that when you don't get to go over the wall and do what you love going over the wall it's always frustrating when you don't get to do your job you know we come here to have the opportunity to win the race and to go out that early it's just your day's over and uh there's there's nothing left I mean that's what we're here for the big tall digger is to win and we had the car to definitely do it so yeah and then we talked to your driver he was equally as disappointed that you have a car that's capable of winning can't quite pull that off thank you guys for talking with us best of luck at Dover next week we're getting closer to pit stops I still think we're about 10 laps away 11 laps away roughly the 19 car of Martin Truex Jr our last winner at Richmond we're starting to see a little more commotion around these pit boxes the commotion is usually a sign that everybody's preparing and we could potentially see guys decide to come down pit road maybe with three laps to go in the stage if they think they need two tires if they want to get track position we could see some green flag stops at the end of that stage to create a scenario where they could pass some more of the some more of the cars that maybe decide to get stage points and stay out so we got to keep an eye on that happening at some point we'll keep walking a little further down here and show you guys the fueling systems I always I'm always intrigued by the fueling system so what we have here is the fuel can this is the dump can this is what the the crew members will use to put the fuel in the race car they've got to hold this can up it's roughly 80 pounds that they're holding on their shoulders very very heavy actually might be a little heavier than that but this brake is what essentially opens up and if we get a shot if we get a shot from this angle this brake actually pushes in opens up that allows that fuel to get into that race car extremely quick a lot of technology goes into these fuel dump cans making sure things flow right we've seen a number of races lost because maybe a problem on the venting system of one of those which can really frustrate just about anybody okay we talked about what's getting ready to happen right now we see guys communicating with each other let's watch this Wood Brothers pit stall of Paul Menard this is one of the cars that is about to come down pit road early they're going to come down pit road early and try to leapfrog some of the fuel we saw the communication from one of the gas guys right here this is the man who's going to hand the can over he's watching the big screen behind us he sees his car on the big screen pealing on the pit road we get to get the shot back out front here he's going to be coming in and watch how lightning fast this pit stop happens the 10 car of Eric Almerola all the fours this is a forward deal they're all pitting together right now there's Paul Menard it's gas only they had that hand signal very quick pit stop every forward so far that we see all the penskey forwards anyways not every forward but all the penskey forwards along with Eric Almerola that was a planned pit stop they wanted to have that happen so business is about to pick up down here a lot of cars will likely have to do if they're on this same sequence will likely be coming down pit road at a similar time as these guys just did and now hearing in the side right now Eric Almerola a penalty just a little bit too quick on entry after the pit stop this is always interesting so after the pit stop the crew guys actually come out here and look at all the dirt and rubber and debris on pit road on the pit stall that is built up Denny Hamlin coming down pit road right there they come down and actually blow that dirt rubber and debris we see it over my shoulder as well in the Geico pit they're getting ready to pit and they're cleaning off their pit stall after they pit they have to get all that stuff off of the stall because it makes it slippery for the driver if they don't makes it tougher to stop in their pit stall as well as the old lug nuts the old lug nuts have to get thrown off of off of there let's take a let's take a trip right now we're at the 95 Levine family racing I drove some races for these guys last year we're gonna climb up on the pit box so as we climb up on the pit box here you see a lot of a lot of stuff going on over our shoulders so we've got the crew chief the engineers the general manager everybody sitting down they're all working they're looking at different feeds of different things and we're not going to show exactly what they're looking at because there is a lot of technology involved with these systems but they have lap times they have fuel programs that allows them to say exactly what lap they have to pit on when they think they can make it till when they don't know if they can make it to our NASCAR and Fox race feed up here in the corner and these guys are all communicating amongst each other we've got fans on the pit box here with them how's everybody up here doing are you guys having fun up here what's the what's the best thing you've seen well wait till the cars go by what is the best thing you've seen so far today it blows me away how quick they're in and out of the pits so you guys have gotten to see a pit stop already today who's your favorite driver a bad debate a good answer that was a trick question i was making sure you were paying attention all right we hope you guys all have fun up here today thanks for letting us butt into the middle of your uh into your race here for just a second see if we can get down off of this pit box we'll get ready to wrap it up here from pit road in just a second seen a lot of cool things so far i didn't fall down the pit box so that's great that would have been bad michael i agree with you it is uh it is certainly warm out here today and we're going to have to assume that most of the cars right now that have not yet pitted they're going to wait till the end of the stage i can't see exactly how many laps away from the end of the stage we are but not a lot of action yet well the 32 team they've got their uh they've got their pit box or their pit sign set up take a look at this this is the pit sign with this being up in the air this pit sign over here would lead you to believe these guys are probably pretty close to pitting i got a crew member on the wall with the with the pit wrench in his hand usually means they're thinking about possibly coming soon not exactly sure what their strategy is right now the fords that pitted early on that we documented that pit stop they just went cruising by not any activity in denny hamlin's pit they've unfortunately had some damage a little bit of a problem for them daniel suarez his pit crew off to my right these guys are looking like they're pretty well uh mellowed out at the moment as we get towards the end of pit road see there's a lot of stuff going on up and down pit road fans everywhere we'll go ahead and get ready and uh guys i'm going to send it back to you because we've only got three stalls left and we can't go any further awesome reagan yeah that was great access wow he must be tired after he did that walk yeah and it was cool for like 10 minutes straight cool to see him go up on top the boxes and talk to some of the crew guys that's uh a lot of fun uh katelyn a couple of shout outs yes we he was on the vine family racing's box matt debanada that we're currently running six and ryan newman in a crash earlier with his acorns car is that how you say it is it acorns i think so yeah seventh right now for ryan newman and then what about right behind him justin hayley you said he's got a birthday huh yeah 20 20 years old making his cup debut in that 77 car and he's running in the top 10 that's gotta be i mean that's gotta be the best 20th birthday ever heck yeah i would think so and we know justin obviously from the truck series and covering the nascar gander outdoors truck series good guy yeah he's turned a lot of heads i feel like in the last two years and he's done such a great job transitioning to the extension how about a little four wide looks like maybe truex is off the pace is he out of gas oh we're he started at the back but he had made his way up to the front early now he's going backwards yeah maybe he had assigned a fuel pressure indicator that was off and he just decided to back off the gas to make sure he can run this final lap in stage one we're in the last lap of stage one ty dillon do you remember what happened at bristol yes ty dillon won a stage and you know how emotionally was yeah now here we are at talladega he's gonna have to drive his butt off for about a mile and a half here to get this stage victory because alex bowman brother austin dillon right there against the against his bumper these guys are going to be winning the stage win getting that playoff point a little bit of movement there from daniel suarez he's gone up top some push from david reagan but it looks like ty dillon's going to be able to win this stage yeah wow second stage win for him so far this year that's awesome those are the baby steps you look to make kaitlyn if you're a racer and you drive for a team uh like like the guyco team mm-hmm bob germane and the folks that own that group um that's just a that's just you want it's the guyco 500 darn it how perfect i mean you want to you want to make sure you do something special in the guyco 500 if you drive the guyco car and he's able to to do just that so that's pretty awesome and how fitting by the way come back here kyle yeah fitting by the way is it that guyco is the sponsor of this 500 yeah ty dillon stage winner alex bowman austin dillon chase sulliet daniel suarez all in the top five for the first stage where's your race pick i know he's in your hand right here but where did he end up he's top 10 right top 10 okay i think so there's some differing strategy there there is some guys pitted in order not to pit here at this stage break so i think it'd be interesting to see what kind of strategy indeed does play out and i'm wondering if that 19 car martin trex we saw him fall off the pace yeah with just a couple of laps to go i'm wondering if they've got enough gas to get to pit lane and remember katelyn you see that giant spoiler on the back of the 19 car that changes fuel mileage they have the big splitter on the front that means more downforce in the front that means it takes more power to push that car through the air because of that downforce that increases fuel mileage okay you uh you have i've ridden with you before you got a big old heavy foot i do you yeah yeah and you know how you like to gun it and when you gun it it's speeding tickets you you you lose gas mileage so these guys are right on the edge of making it to this stage break and we see a number of them obviously down on pit road i know we have a recap video kind of showing some of the big moments that have already happened so far in this race so let's kind of take a take a look at what happened so far and went down in this first stage here at talladega the 100th cup series race we are seeing here here we go michael this was obviously yeah one of the moments from earlier today we had a bubble just had a run he tried to to go to the inside and a lot of the racers i think we're saying is a little bit too early for that but man yeah i gotta tell you how good it feels to to be up front when when you haven't been up front and bubba bubba bubba just pushed a little bit there and unfortunately his mistake cost others and that's that's when you feel the worst if you make a mistake and you're you're able to admit to yourself i messed up and and you're the only one that it took out that's one thing but when you end the day of a guy like michael mcdowell matt tiff does a great job but unfortunately a splitter goes right into the front of his car kevin harvick hard into the wall just a lot of action there that that we saw and you got great access to those drivers just shortly after we saw that incident getting comments from them obviously all of them very disappointed uh but what's maybe your biggest surprise uh from the first stage of what we seem so far michael well stage one winner ty dylan you have to call that a surprise i talked earlier in the broadcast about how these underdog teams could run in the top five you know they could get up toward the front but it would be really difficult to think that you would pick a david reagan over brad keselowski joy legano ryan blaney right you know the the front row car over a pin ski car you wouldn't you wouldn't think that that would be possible but ty dylan just showed us all that at talladega anything is possible by getting this stage one that's a beauty of this place right speaking of beauty here's reagan smith back with us hey good job out there man that was legit did you take a breath ever i didn't get to i didn't get to breathe warm out there i gotta tell you what we talk about pit crew members being athletes and how squeeze right in there sorry we we talk about pit crew members being athletes and yeah you know how difficult their job is on a day like today mikey came back and he told us it was hot out there and i didn't really believe him i just saw you know mikey maybe you're just out of shape aren't another marathon maybe out of shape well i'm sweating now as well it's it is warm out there today and and honestly probably the warmest race of the year to this point that i can remember so a lot of fun a lot of cool stuff on pit road and we can only touch on bits and pieces of it these guys are busy they're doing a job and the fact that any of them can take take the time out to talk to us is wonderful and you just kind of get a little bit of a sense of what they're going through down there in the trenches as we call it michael and i were just talking about the surprise of seeing ty dylan capture the stage one victory what do you make of that for him unreal as i was walking back i actually looked up on the big screen and i'm like oh i wonder who's gonna win this stage and i you know i've i've made the comment earlier this week that i felt like ty dylan had probably won his only stage of the year at bristol a couple weeks ago when he did such an amazing job of driving that car and he just out willed him he wanted that car to be to the front more than anybody else and he did that a great job of it a couple weeks ago well i'm wrong already i predicted on tuesday i think it was that we were doing a podcast and i said i i don't think we see that happen again well he proved me wrong ty dylan doing a very nice job today and uh he's a determined driver geico car and the geico 500 that's right i wonder if he gets a bonus for that yeah he should and if these guys that we saw crashing and we talked to if they had geico they could save 15 percent in just 15 minutes i like that do these cars cj wolver would you dig into the internet do these cars have geico as sponsors can we get these things fixed in 15 minutes and save 15 percent we want to get them fixed in 15 minutes that's that's 10 more minutes than they're allowed to have to get these cars fixed so you might be able to fix them in 15 and ask cars going to throw you out of the race anyways yeah we can we can get it fixed i i think the internet absolutely agrees with us on that but i want to make sure everyone knows we are taking twitter questions during this stream as well if you would like to be a part of the show and you're watching us on periscope twitter just use hashtag hot pass and i'll scroll through them and we'll see what the guys think the first twitter question is from one of our media friends that's actually here at the race today calip whistler wanting to know what has intrigued you guys the most from the racing that we saw in the first stage what's the most surprising well for me it was definitely the the win by ty dylan that would have to be way up on the list of surprises during that first stage but also just just the competitiveness how these guys were able to really mix it up and how hard i guess maybe the biggest surprise rigan what do you think was how hard they went at it early i think the the racing early on caught me off guard and and i anticipated i made the comment earlier today that i felt like they would go ahead and and probably be pretty clean for the first 120 laps as they learned what was going on on the racetrack how they needed to handle these race cars what moves they can make but these guys came right out of the gate and they were three and four wide almost immediately didn't really seem to be that concerned about if the cars were going to jump sideways or or do something that they didn't want them to do when they were in a pack the other thing that i was intrigued by was the fact that uh when i was out on pit road just now we saw the the pensky cars all come down together of course the wood brothers 21 having a pensky affiliation as well as the 10 of eric el marola yeah some varying strategies there and would have thought and i couldn't quite gauge where they were running on the track at the time because i lost track of it for a second as i was walking out there but i don't know if they just said hey we have a plan we're sticking with our plan today and this is the best way for us to run our race perhaps we're running the race backward and by backward i mean doing whatever they have to do to make sure that they can pit and be out front with the most laps to go as possible for their drivers or where that strategy lays for those guys so even though we talk about being able to have these big drafts and and being able to catch up very quickly this weekend at the track they're still playing that track position game just a little bit and something i'm going to be following and watching throughout stage two and as we get toward the end of the race which one of these guys that was involved in that big crash uh early in the race lap 10 or so can get their car repaired and get back into contention redeem themselves we were watching on tv there they were doing a lot of work to the 14 car of clint boyer we know denny hamlin had some damage who can who can do what tyler reddick did yesterday and maybe not win the race like tyler did but but make repairs and get that car back into shape where they can go contend for the victory well i feel like denny sorry to step step on you there he's one of those guys we've seen a lot of time overcome adversity throughout his races when things go wrong it seems like he still manages to be there at the end even if he gets a penalty on pit road for speeding or what have you he's probably passed more cars than anyone this year we have this year maybe in his entire career he's had more penalties than most of them as well yeah but in 2019 we have these new cars and people are like it's hard to pass don't tell denny hamlin it's hard to pass he passes everybody what i like about that team is and they tona in the 500 i was in their pit stall i was working that particular pit stall they persevered more than any team yeah just about all year long from what i could tell they had a problem early on looked like the car to win and that was a track position race it was it was difficult to work your way a maneuver your way from the back to the front the way that race played out and uh they had their fueling issues they fixed the fueling issues they were able to and we talked about that with the vent dump cans or the dump cans and the venting problems they had a venting problem with their dump can in the 500 as we were just walking up down up and down pit road a second ago they fixed that issue and he still is able to get himself back forward in the packet out in the front and find a way to get it done this is all part of strategy they all had they were out of gas they were just trying to make it to the end of that stage so what we're having here katelyn you can see those uh pitting too soon that they they're that's fine they knew they were going to do that that was part of the plan but what we have here is a major reset i mean this stage ending and and the differing strategies and the caution we had earlier this is a huge reset for this race i'm gonna be really interested to see how stage two develops because you got some really fast cars now that are in the back of the field the other thing that resets also we got to point out we talked about the cars coming down pit road to fix their race cars that five minute clock resets every time we have another green flag for guys that have damage that are working on the damage on their race cars all right and stage two is underway from talladega super speedway again reminding you you are watching fox hot pass hangout presented by coca-cola orange vanilla there's nothing vanilla about this race not at all and that's why they put the orange in the coca-cola so it could accent the vanilla that was a perfect segue well done that's why mikey's a true pro with this i know i got a lot of weird stuff going on in my head i have a question for the two i don't think we'll argue with that either i would like to know from the two of you as guys who have both raced here and won here what is the sensation of speed like inside the cars racing at talladega well when you get packed up and especially on restarts when when you're really two and three wide like we're seeing these guys go right now i think for me the sensation was far greater i walked out to pit road on friday and i wanted to see as the cars came through the trial of what it looked like because sometimes we come here and it doesn't look as fast and it doesn't seem quite as quick as what it actually is and i'm going to tell you what the sensation of speed just on pit road was ridiculously fast this weekend with these rules and you could visibly tell that the cars just seemed like they had another gear to them than what they sometimes do when when we come to the super speedway races it's it's something about this track and being bunched up that makes it feel fast when you're by yourself it doesn't feel that fast it doesn't feel that difficult because it's all relative to the size of the racetrack when we go to dover next week when you're by yourself it feels extremely fast because it is such a tight technical racetrack but when you're in the pack that's when it feels fast and the other time it feels fast is when you hit something yeah it feels really fast i think for me it's more about the speed is one thing but but just how quickly things can happen yeah and that's evident when when something goes wrong you get swept into a crash that you might have been you know a quarter of a straightaway behind because you just can't make those moves that quickly and the other thing as i wound my career down and just ran one off races here is how these cars have changed over the years they are so precise you just move the wheel a little bit and that thing will go a different direction and i was glad i got to experience that and that's a great thing for speed you know that makes the car go faster because everything's more precise but it's really difficult when you get in a bind and you got to make a quick move with the steering wheel well and you talked about the added down force to the cars this weekend on the front of the cars in particular it up even more and i'm surprised we didn't see a lot of guys changing steering boxes to slow the steering boxes down maybe a little more old school with the way that the rules are set to allow them to not have to be quite as precise but as mikey mentioned the quick steering boxes the settings on the camber the caster the things they're doing with these race cars to make them go fast in a straight line they uh they dart around that's a common common complaint when you unload here my car is darting all over the racetrack and then the difficulty of the travel rigging you know this oh it's got a different banking yeah i mean it's crazy how your car will want to just spin out going through the travel so that's something these drivers are challenged with and a and a and a topic or something i want everybody to follow is remember what i asked earlier who would overcome being in that crash and look who's right up front chase elliot he had a piece of that earlier and then differing strategies ty dylan even though he he's had a different strategy he's back in the top five again so people overcoming adversity or just simply uh being able to adjust and adapt to differing strategies michael you talked about this briefly earlier uh the spotter communication between you and your spotter how important is that at a place like this oh it's crucial and i hope everybody watched the Xfinity race yesterday and heard derek nielen and and tyler reddick communicating he was saying he's got to run he's got to run half off get to the middle get to man when i was a racer i i liked my spotter but i would i think i would have been an information overload for me i don't wait you didn't tell me that you i i think we had a different story about maybe it was a different spotter we're talking about tolerated art by spotter but i just was really interested to hear all the information that drivers get these days that's uh the double zero of land is that landed castle landed castle backing out of the the garage area behind us getting back into the battle making a little bit of noise just we're right here in the element so as you can see just to make sure we know that we are in the garage area we are here i tell you it's in the element that was reagan that was cool buddy that was cool that there was a lot of fun out there on pit road and you know i get to see that every week on pit road and uh so much respect i didn't have a true appreciation for what those guys do until i got out of the car and i was able to start doing the pit reporting and walking up and down and and really talking to a lot more of them and understanding what happens when we were actually on the racetrack how much work is going into getting ready for the pit stop how much the crew guys are doing how much the the guys on top of the pit box the engineers whatever it might be to take us back for a second to the the spotter talk like michael pointed out that the key to a lot of these speedway races and michael is one of the best at it so i know he knows this is being extremely aggressive and i feel like the guys that are most aggressive they do one of two things they either crash or they win these races and i know it sounds bad to say it that way but ultimately you you are going to win this race somebody's going to win the race when it's all said and done today with a move that is super super aggressive and we're going to we're going to sit back and say oh id do that he almost crashed the field and then we're going to say wow he won the race good job and it's going to be because of one of those moves that's what it takes to get it done and because of that you have to have that very very good line of communication with your spotter we listened to it yesterday with derrick kneeland and reddick and i'm sure on the broadcast right now we're hearing a lot of spotter chatter as we watch they're cranking it up right now we're hearing a lot of spotter chatter and and that that is it is a relationship i wouldn't call it quite a husband wife relationship but it's not far from that and sometimes you fight just as much so it's a very very critical relationship fun to see brennan gone brennan had a communion for one of his children that's right yesterday and couldn't be here to qualify came into town and he's got that number 62 beard oil car up in that lead draft i i appreciate underdogs doing special things and i think brennan's being able to accomplish that hang around in that lead draft and avoid the big one you might do something special for your small team i talked to mark beard team owner and he reminded me that back in 1980 he made his first bush series start which is now the xfinity series he ran some races back in the early 80s he's uh owns an oil company lives up in michigan and they started a team and he wanted brennan to drive for him and they run the Daytona 500 in talladega these are the only races he runs but that's a that's fun to see he had him a camper here in talladega and was just enjoying the elements that's awesome how could you not enjoy the elements of the infield of this racetrack and brennan gone a fitness specialist he's really into into a lot of plays a lot of basketball things like that and now you're just making stuff up how are the elements for you cj i know we gotta get over to you oh i'm at the racetrack so i'm i'm fantastic right now but you're in your element and this is yeah this is cj's element so one thing i just want to make sure i touch on everyone still agrees with uh with reagan saying 50 percent of the fans right now think ryan blaney goes to victory lane today but as we know everything is bigger in talladega including and maybe especially the crashes let's look back in some of the biggest and wildest incidents here in alabama that's one reason that they'll learn hard went down there that's why he was so concerned because he touched rusty walls to start this situation it looks like and the car overturns about six or seven times pure letting on its nose in over and side over side comes to arrest on its wheels earnhardt on the inside and sterling marlin outside and already going with the earnhardt down on the inside that's gonna hit terrible crash under the field all torn up earnhardt's car destroyed a major crash you can see earnhardt is leading urney urban trying to pass the four car of sterling marlin touches him shoots the left front of marlin's car down into earnhardt earnhardt into the wall and then since they were at the front of the pack lots of other cars came along and got involved he's up he's up that's a good sign boys he's walking Joey Logano pushing brad keselowski Mcmurray trying to get in line he's gonna get turned which to this one it started with jayden Mcmurray trying to slam that car down across the nose of Clint Boyer he got turned and shot him up the racetrack and it was on from there and this end of the racetrack is littered with debris it's the double zero of cold custard the 41 of roads the second truck up there on the outside that's where it all started looks like well i'd have got a shove from the 17 of timothy peters well i talked about how he's able to push so well that means he's always up against the truck in front of him and there isn't any room for timothy to push him and push him ahead because he's already bottomed out against the truck in front of him caused him to go sideways look at all that sheet metal flying through the air and those trucks grinding to a stop focused on the elliott saddle car and here he comes out the window that's great and these guys are dicing go ahead bp and there he makes contact he comes down trying to get in front of kurt busch they make contact watch that thing fly that lands on that road you talked about and then when it gets on to the racetrack again takes another nasty flip watch this hit that's the hard one right here oh man the other drift i don't want to be in there in any of them like i said that car really held up well above the driver kyle busch's hopes reside with brad keselowski and his ability to push well he's getting a nice push from him oh trouble harvicks around oh got spun on the back by the 43 how many is it going to collapse oh what a vicious crash eric mcclore accident that began at the front of the pack jockeying for position to race for the win and with some heavily damaged cars so the red flag is out in the middle of the first attempt at a green white checker finish a multi-car accident over in turn number three at the end of the back stretch but the bulk of the concern remains focused around the eric mcclore car after the hard hard crash he took to that inside wall can keselowski try to win it i don't know i don't think he can step out until he waits till the last second and picks up he goes to the side as edwards goes down and he turns it make it to the flag oh carl did what he wanted to do he stayed at the back all day long he played it smart had this race possibly won ledwards he opened it up just a little bit i'm not sure i think this is a hard lick right into the fence i mean that car that looks like bobby allison did here in 1987 carl went up to block him a little bit now he's going to come down and try to block him again and you can get one shot at it but you don't get two what's his here comes that 98 and the 88 tandem in the middle of the track johnny solder he won a Daytona earlier this year can he do it again they wrecked behind it it's going to be johnny soldered that mccraffin has not got to the star finish line yet the 32 of miguel peluda was upside down it's on fire now a good look back at some of the crazy wild rides at talladega racing obviously still underway here as we just saw a lead change ryan blaney leading the charge with rikki senhouse junior right behind him uh what do you make of of what we've seen so far in stage two well i think that piece that we just watched with all the crazy wild rides we might be adding to that very scene because we are seeing some extremely aggressive race and i just i didn't anticipate it in the first stage i certainly didn't anticipate it in this stage right here and we're seeing out of some guys that we don't typically expect a guy like martin truex junior you don't always expect him to be the most aggressive at the speedway and he doesn't like the the speedway race yeah he's not a huge fan of it but he is out there and he is absolutely getting the job done today here we see a shot eric elmerola palmanard kind of ford teammates if you want to call it that the fords to me have been the one group today that have really committed to each other they've been working very closely together to try and keep their cars up front and what's taking place in this right now race right now is these guys are beginning to understand their cars kyle busch just made a very aggressive side draft on rikki senhouse junior they're starting to learn their cars they're starting to try and figure out how do we stall out that run if it gets down to the end of the race this is all calculated moves that they're making to try and understand where they've got to position themselves do we want to be fifth on that last lap do we want to be second what's my car capable of doing when i make the move if somebody doesn't go with me is that move going to stop they're building all this stuff into their memory bank right now and they're going to save this until they get down to the last 10 laps and then that's when you pull out all the stops and every trick that you've learned and again you've really got to load up a lot of stuff in a quick fashion here unlike other times that we go to these races the past 30 times we've been to these races a lot of the stuff you would do is similar this time it's completely different that we haven't the one thing we have not touched on this digital show today so far to this point our hot pass hangout here i like saying that's fun hot pass hangout yeah but the one thing we haven't touched on is the fact that they also have new aero scoops in the front of the race cars much like they do on the on the typical intermediate race tracks those change what the cars do in terms of a side draft and kyle busch made that side draft move about a lap and a half ago it didn't stall the car out next to him like he anticipated and then instead they went right by him and no surprise really right to see ricky stenhouse junior leading this race he's a past winner here two top five performances in the last two races he's been here he's pretty good at these kind of places he is he is very good and you know ricky stenhouse has taken a lot of criticism he has this season and i got to tell you something i happened to love what ricky stenhouse is doing this year and he's not hiding from the fact that i'm here for my team i'm here for me i'm not here for anybody else and i don't care who it affects i'm going to race the same every time i do and he's he's held himself true to that he's done the same thing it doesn't matter who's around him who's in front who's behind him he's going to do the same thing every time as we see him taking the lead and you know ricky is a good plate racer those roush fords have always got and behind us the uh this will go ahead and give you a sign of the times the uh 43 holler of bubble wallace is rolling out right now thankfully he didn't uh quite clip us or anything like that but he's leaving in years past that wouldn't have happened at taladega they added a new tunnel at taladega and that allows the teams that maybe fall out of the race to be able to leave before it's over to get out of here get get a head start on getting home so they can go back and work on next week's equipment unload the holler a little bit earlier tomorrow perhaps but that did affect one thing on the racetrack also the there's a new set of uh ride height rules for these cars that allows them to have less suspension to the race cars and uh big pit stops happening by the way right now this is obviously strategy play by the cars that are on pit road it looks like a lot of chevys i think from what i could see when they from when they jump down to pit road there so this may be we saw the chevys work together yesterday and or i'm sorry friday in practice on getting on pit road together we know that chevy did not work together as good at Daytona as they wanted to this chevy pendric chevy cars teamed up with the toyotas that was a very unique combination and and my understanding was chevy wanted their cars to work better together this year and we see right there that's almost all 10 of the Chevrolets in the field on pit road together so a very pointed effort by them but back to what i was about to touch on on the end of the back straightaway is where they put that tunnel in but in order to put the tunnel in on the entrance to turn three they had to dig the race track up so they dug they dug the surface of the track up and then they tried to put it back together as close as they could to what it was but it did create some bumps and turn three's always been a little bit rough anyways it created some bumps and we saw a few issues in practices guys would try to push each other over those bumps and that's the one thing we haven't seen a lot of yet today is guys getting together and and staying connected for an entire straightaway i think we're gonna see that as we wind this race down just a little bit but right about there's right there is where they patch that asphalt you can see the dark spot on the bottom they tore it all up and that creates a little bit of an issue for the engineers to work around there oh i'm sure there's a lot on all of their plates and i want to check in briefly now with our social media expert cj wallover what do you got cj thank you so much katelyn and so to everyone else that's sitting in comments questions uh trust me i'm sifting through and we're gonna get some of the best ones up on screen for us but this question actually comes from a guy that we all work with alan kavana sent us a question about kopa kavana we can always count on kavana absolutely he wants to know for reagan how tough is it to save gas while running almost wide open in a pack here at talladega question very good question and and it's something that's very difficult to do so the best way when you're saving gas with with a pack of race cars is to basically at least have one car in front of you you need one car if not more the easiest place is with about 10 to 15 cars in front of you what that allows you to do is is it creates a vacuum as the cars go through the air it allows you with a couple cars behind you and a couple cars in front of you to lift off of the gas pedal still run the same speed because the air bubble that's created from the car behind you pushes you forward the air bubble that is created from the cars in front of you takes that drag off of the front of your race car almost like the wake of a boat when you go through behind a boat it's a lot smoother than if you're off on the side or out you know outside of that wake so as these guys are lined up right now is for the people that are watching at home they can lift off the gas pedal be half throttle down the straightaway and still going the same speed as the car is in front it's really weird feeling it's it's kind of freaky and plus these these engines actually with the EFI systems that are in them what that is it's an electric fuel injection system they can computerize them to where if you back off 90% it might actually be saving more like 70% of fuel saving so if we're on let's say a mile and a half race track where we can't and we's a problem for Denny Hamlin that's uh that's likely going to finish him off finally I know they worked hard to get that car back out there but that he was involved in that incident in stage one if you recall unfortunate for our Daytona 500 champion this year absolutely but to finish the the thought on the fuel thing you can actually set them to where 90% is more like 60% throttle as much as in terms of how much fuel they're burning so if you're on a mile and a half race track you can roll back to 90% throttle on the on the straightaway and be saving a lot more than what you actually think you are it's just a way for the I guess for the engine tuners to trick the drivers I don't know how it all works they used to tell me back to 90% I don't know what 90% is well it's as educated as that can be for what I'm working with here and of course today being the 100 race here at Talladega we have quite a few questions too that I want to say does that mean it's the Centennial race the centi that it would yeah absolutely the Talladega Centennial we are breaking more barriers we just created a new name for this race I like it we'll get on that branding we're gonna have to call us and Brandon with the track real quick and let him know what he's gonna have to call us in victory lane now 50 years of racing 100 cup races here at Talladega and one question I want to send out to the fans and to you guys kind of a little trivia was uh this place opened in 1969 that's 50 years what makes Talladega so special oh wow I mean for for me personally I obviously have never raced here so I don't have the same experience as the two gentlemen on the show with me but when you come in here there's just something about the atmosphere and the vibe at this racetrack that just feels different than a lot of other places that we go and it's just a great party I mean anyone will tell you this is one of the best said I mean you had me at party it's a great race it's an awesome atmosphere the camping the the partying that takes place it's a great hangout for a weekend I think I agree with all those things the atmosphere about it you know this racetrack was built on an old runway basically essentially huge airport I have to believe it was a rough as an air force base or if it was an army base but it was built on a former military base and through the center of it for those who don't know there's a runway and that's what we call Talladega Boulevard and and this boulevard is it's it's beyond wild I as a young kid I think I got an education out there at times but but it's well I don't know for that type of a show or not I do know that we're web based but we're gonna leave it at that it was it was essentially is let's call it a hundred feet wide roughly I mean it's it's a pretty wide it's basically like an like an airstrip at a big airport everybody's flown in and out of the big airport and on either side of it they parked the campers up and down it and people just walk this this runway and it's called Talladega Boulevard and there's something about my first trip here I walk down that boulevard when it gets dark it gets crazy it's like it's like the wildest nightclub you've ever been to in your life mixed in with like steroids just yeah you take every just sort of person you could ever imagine and everybody just kind of it's like a melting pot of everybody coming together and just having a great time many of which are camping here at the racetrack summer stand you know maybe local hotels or something like that a huge camping racetrack when you crest the the basically the hill to come into this racetrack in the mornings there's this haze of fog above the track and you don't know what it is until you pull up on it and you start smelling it it's the campfire smoke because so many people just camp out here this this I think becomes the second largest or maybe third largest city in Alabama on race weekends it's some ridiculous stat like that because there's so many people here camping out they have they have a jail set up on the property I mean that that should tell you a lot right now if there's a jail set up on the property you know some good stuff must be or bad stuff but mostly mostly good stuff most of it involves alcohol at that point so you know all those things involved and then the racetrack and it just seems like we've had more incidents and we got guys coming to pit road again and for those that are watching on tv uh 20 to go in the stage one another strategy play here I'm gonna say that uh this will get them to the end of the stage I think the guys that already pitted should get them to the stage as well fuel only it looks like yeah fuel only and you know I'll be curious as to who needs to take tires um at the end of the stage uh Ryan Blaney my pick he's gotta be careful you can't roll out of the pit box with that fuel can attach to that race car that's a penalty if he does that fortunately he didn't so my fat head is still intact I do have him here he's not uh currently in my lap but he is still close by we're not gonna forget about young Ryan Blaney over here we're not gonna forget about you but back to the racetrack and uh oh well he's there for Boyer he's had enough issues today I think that's just another one to count upon the problem yeah he's uh Clint's Clint's dream of dreaming about his beer when he gets home already I can guarantee you that is he's just powering through this one is this pretty tricky coming on a pit road here it is it is and and it's tricky more so because of the cars around you and we see a lot of incidents happen and this is the Toyota cars pitting now so they're they're pitting together as well fuel only for them but when you get your wheel straight on the straightaway that's usually at this track your key that you can hit the brake pedal but then you got to hit the brake pedal you got to make sure your splitter doesn't hit the front of the racetrack because if it does it lifts your front tires off of the track which then slides those tires and if you flat spot the tire right which means you you slide it and it smokes just a little bit well that flat spots eventually going to blow out and it's going to cause you a problem and if you're doing fuel only you're not changing tires when you hit your pit stall so you got to communicate with your crew chief if the whole field is doing fuel only you don't want to lose the draft from those guys so a very difficult pit road um and to finish up one last time on my thought with the with the racetrack in general the partying is great everything is great but on the racetrack we have seen more wild stuff happen here than anywhere else that we go uh for me personally one of my first memories was davie allison getting his first win here and i'm a huge davie allison fan with larry mc ronalds with larry mc ronalds and he was an alabama guy and and he was a rookie came down here won that race uh that's when i knew i was in love with teledec right then yeah absolutely i mean there's really not anything about this place that's not a positive i feel like absolutely and you know the race and adds to that and adds to what we're seeing out there and uh curious as to what they're showing here with the air cap oh this was him and clint almost getting together and and that's us or i'm sorry that was swaras yeah in our uh coke orange manila race car right there so very very close call for swaras and you want to be careful teammates want to make sure that they communicate that and don't uh don't let that happen speaking of coke orange manila it uh time for one yeah it is time for one so you got anything to mix that with or you're just gonna drink it straight i just drink it straight it's good enough all by itself i mean i i don't mind rome in my drinks but uh not today we're we're busy here speaking of uh orange vanilla coca-cola and thank them once again for uh bringing us hop has hang out here at teledec one of the questions for the hundred that we're working on is who has the best paint scheme here today at teledec and i'm gonna give my pick first is daniel swarez that orange vanilla car looks sweet tough to argue against that pick uh you know i'm well let's send it to michael i know he's out in the infield having fun i think we should check in with him and see what he is up to as he is roving the infield here at teledec and there he is how are they good fun times how's it going pulling for chase elliot got his car fixed i think he's still in it yep so this is a lot of fun you're very welcome nice to see you so this is a lot of fun we're down in the infield right off turn four you can hear the car screaming bye everybody's having a good time a little beer chugging up on top all the campers come here you can see you can see not only they're having a good time up on the bus they got their smoker down here doing a lot of barbecuing you never know who's gonna come by i like to come down and visit the people how's it going i gotta get out of the way how you doing you having a good time brother yourself yeah having a great time thanks for coming out to nascar oh yeah i'm here my wife my mother laura is here watching the race let's go say hi to him hi wife michael walter donna shepherd nice to meet y'all appreciate you coming out to the race oh we enjoyed they they bring me with them have a good time thank you so there's so much going on down here the cars are loud but what i love about taladega they leave for about 40 seconds and then you can actually talk to people so how y'all doing michael i'm doing a little special on caffeine we're streaming all over the internet we're on facebook we're on twitter we're on instagram we're on fox sports go i just figured we have some monster guests that are here oh nice to meet your monster guests line up and we'll take a good picture together all right that's no problem smile you're on fox sports cheers thank you how's it going yeah you can get a picture but this is what happens it's a community that breaks out down here so much fun to see the fans enjoying themselves doing the racing thing i'm gonna come up uh i'm gonna come say i'm gonna come up on top and say hi to these folks if i can do it without falling down hey will you hold my microphone don't say anything bad though because i'm on tv nothing bad oh i made it up here such a great atmosphere i mean i love the camera view of not only the race cars going by but just how massive this place is look at all these people oh it's awesome this is our first time at dega we've been watching for 30 years and first time to come here awesome you're in at a camper came on out we own him that that's awesome how you doing buddy feel good denny hamlin was in that early crash he's got some damage but i think he's still oh he's out i missed that but uh he was still hanging in there yeah hopefully right on where y'all from uh 20 miles east of st louis louis illinois sank jacob illinois here in the house here they come here comes an ass car y'all let's crank it up how cool is this i love this view my first time here you go gotta smile move your finger my first time racing here guys 1986 my first win here came in 2003 and i never will forget coming through three and four battling with del jr jeff gordon on the high side was able to block them off and get back to the checker first and win and when i hear these cars come pounding through this corner knowing everything i know about what they're thinking what's going through their minds they're preparing for the end here they come so right now they're just trying things working out different moves lifting off the gas to get a run on other drivers just trying to figure out what it might be like who's everybody pulling for you like truex huh truex martin truex jr right on he's a good dude he used to drive for me i used to be his boss right on all the uh documentary about you on um uh tv about where you started the race apps and all that so right on for watching all those episodes lately cool well i know it's quite the commitment to leave illinois bring a couple campers and come to talladega and i just want to say thank you for being fans no bro thank you for being such a good you do i appreciate y'all thank you now i'm gonna try to get off this camper without busting my butt you and your brother are two of my favorites we're taking photos i'll be right down whoa go truex i got to shake your brother's hand friday night oh on the boulevard yep yeah right before you got on the truck how how many of y'all stayed on the boulevard a little longer than you wish you had of i did all of us got one in the back we always do love it enjoy talladega thanks for coming i'm gonna hop down guys katelyn reagan uh there's so much to see down here tell you what i'm gonna do katelyn start your watch start your watch and in 10 minutes i'm gonna give you another report from another part of this glorious wonderful beautiful infield shaking bake baby back to you katelyn shake it shake it bake you had to put the uh you know talladega night's quote in there at some point we had to only mikey would pull that off out there you know and look at look at the good time that they were having out there on the racetrack and you know that's the beauty of this place it's a it is a week-long party the whole time you're there another one of the hollers leaving it is matt tips behind us cruising out you know what our producers did a phenomenal job of setting us up right where all the action happens and we know when the guys are coming when they're going and uh on the racetrack it looks like there was a little problem there for paul minard just a moment ago as as we get down to the end of this stage yes tend to go i think in the stage maybe less tend to go and chase elliot chase elliot yeah what the race what do you make a his season so far this year i mean obviously last year was a breakout year for him well we see right now we see 300 cars first second third the fourth car jimmy johnson having trouble early on and i don't know if he's officially listed as out of the race i believe he is at this point uh or multiple laps down if he's not listed i can't quite see our monitor but yeah 10 laps down so he's basically out of the race but but hendrick needed a day like this they needed a day where they could get all their cars to the front of the pack where they could build some confidence for their young drivers uh you know you got William Byron and third you've got alex bowman and second these are guys that haven't had much good happen this year and the one thing i can say is is chase elliot has has been the guy that's kind of been carrying the banner for that company and he's been the one guy you can count on to go out and win a race which is surprising when you have jimmy johnson there it is and then jimmy in the slump that he's been in is uh it's been a challenge for that team a lot of changes some of us thought we'd never see the day when him and chad canals weren't together and that happens that takes place but but a day like today and i know it's a super speed way and i know they were fast at daytona as well but what a day like today does is it builds confidence and it's not going to change how fast or slow their cars might or might not be when they get to dover next week but it's going to build confidence in those drivers and and that confidence in that momentum carries over and you carry that with you to the next racetrack and just the way that you you walk into the garage the way that you carry yourself when you're at the racetrack the way you communicate with your team you wake up a little bit earlier to go into the garage you're a little more excited about going to the garage when you struggle like they've struggled this year it can really beat you down and and it can emotionally mess with what you've got going on so uh not to mention if chase ellie wins at talladega not far from dawsonville cool cool look out it will be a party that is for sure but yeah michael was talking about this earlier too just celebrating those small victories as they come getting a stage win leading a lot of laps in a particular event i mean i i've been over at that shop quite a few times this year talking to the crew chiefs and the drivers and things like that and i think they do feel like things have not been progressing necessarily the way they would have hoped but it's kind of been like that for a couple years now i would say yeah it's something exception of chase's success last season it's almost like something something just fundamentally changed over there you know what you can tell and let's face it they they lose jeff gordon that's a veteran that can really help build teams that can help develop race cars they'll earn her junior the most popular driver and a guy that that can bring a lot to the table in terms of uh you know partners and things like that so it you go through a tough tough couple years there as you're cycling through people and transitioning people in and out of things and that can make things difficult uh for the company and for the organization yeah absolutely but the good news is right now chase ellie is leading the race uh but let's check in with cj or social media expert what do you got going on cj all right so i just want to remind everyone wherever you're watching this no matter if you're watching it on caffeine if you're watching on youtube twitter facebook i want you to share this broadcast tweet the link hit the share button on facebook after the broadcast is over today before i hit the road and drive back to charlotte yeah a lot of this equipment came down in my car but before i head back to charlotte i'm gonna pick a winner and i one person is gonna get this really sweet coca-cola hat that i've been wearing the last couple of days signed by daniel suarez well no it's been it's been a part of the action here in talladega i've been a lot of fun places on the boulevard i've been in the garage so i'll send you my hat with daniel suarez's autograph on it all you gotta do is share hot pass hangout brought to you by coca-cola orange vanilla so we do have a question i like this one it came in from dylan and dylan wants to know how important are fresh tires at talladega reagan fresh tires i mean they're important everywhere usually right yeah who doesn't want fresh tires right i i think today's one of the few days though to where fresh tires are not gonna matter as much these race cars have a lot of downforce built into them right now and what that downforce does is it it masks a lot of problems that you might otherwise have this is a very smooth racetrack it hasn't weathered a ton it's gotten gray but it hasn't got a lot of bumps and it doesn't have a lot of uh like the graininess like sometimes we've seen at detona and other places like that in the surface so the surface is still very smooth which allows the tires to still look extremely fresh and and i know at some point uh we're going to make some more trips out to pit road we'll we'll check some of those old tires as they come off of the race cars and show you the new one compared to the old one and and not only the wear but the fact that they they have so much tread left on them that it doesn't make a huge deal other than getting that warm tire off of the car that maybe can slip inside a little bit more but you're only talking an advantage for maybe three four laps it's not a huge advantage for a long time in today's current rules and settings had this been last year's rules i would say a little more of an advantage because you can be more aggressive with the car you can make moves from the top to the bottom a little more aggressively but with this particular set of rules not quite as much of an advantage and now in that first stage we saw an early incident this one has been very calm and tame well until right now because we're on the last lap we're on the last lap here obviously chase elliot leading the charges teammate alex bowman behind him uh william byron as well anybody who happened to see who's coming up on the outside right there i don't want to point it out but kyle arson also is kind of in the mix there he's in the mix but he's not as far up as young ryan blaney is right now and my guys all the way down in 12th brad keselowski come on phone it in tell brad to step it up just a little bit step it up man man chase elliot looking like he's going to collect his first yes he does playoff points of the year a nice uh a nice little bonus for him nice bonus for chase elliot now you see hear the crowd you see and you see him reaching up on the broadcast he's reaching up to the dashboard of the race car what he's doing right now as soon as he crossed that line and knew the stage was over he shut the motor off he pushed the clutch in he put the race car in neutral he's going to coast as far as he can around that racetrack so if he could coast all the way to turn three he can radio back to his crew chief and the crew chief is watching they've got telemetry on the on the pitbox is that allows them to watch what's going on with his throttle and with his brake trace they'll watch precisely how far he's coasted for till he gets back on the throttle okay and then when he gets back on the throttle they know he saved us exactly one half of a lap of fuel in that window right there and they're calculating that every time that he lifts off that gas that he shuts that motor off they're calculating that on the pitbox that's going to be critical at the end of this race chat canals was on race hub with us last week yes that's all and Chad predicted that this would turn into a fuel mileage race Chad of course his car running in somewhere on the top he is pretty smart he's got a few of these wins over the years but his car running in third place right now he called this and and we see the drivers already doing what he anticipated would happen and they were they were prepping he wouldn't he wouldn't fully clue me in I kept prodding them a little bit like come on Chad this is I don't we're not going to break the news we're just going to talk about it at some point and he wouldn't fully clue me in and as to what what his thoughts were but I know they were working on stuff to make sure they got that good fuel mil