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Jeff Owens 10 - 11
[MUSIC PLAYING] Let's go racing boys up to Charlotte as we get ready to trim the playoff field a little bit more after the weekend, and it's time to jump inside the fast lane with a good friend, Jeff Owens, who joins us on this founder's federal football Friday night. Jeff, how are you on this Friday evening? I'm doing good, Chris. I hope you are. I am doing very well. Haven't gotten a lot of sleep. Was up at James Madison and Coastal last night, got back really early this morning. But hey, I love it. So I'm running on fumes, but I'm good to go. I'm like the last couple of laps of a fuel mileage race trying to conserve energy as best I can. There's worse ways to make a living. There it is indeed. You're not going to hear me complain. All right, before we get into the row for this weekend because that's always a fun race to discuss, NASCAR just can't leave well enough alone. I talked on Tuesday when Josh was with us from Darlington and asking what the DVP policy was to begin with. OK, now I understand that the damage vehicle policy, what it is, and now NASCAR has decided that they want to change it again or at least clarify it. That they make the wrong call in your mind at Talladega because it was different than what they did at Kansas or is-- I mean, where are we with this? And is NASCAR maybe over analyzing things as they often like to do? Yeah, I think they're kind of overreacting a little bit, but they put the rule in place and they're trying their best to follow the rule. But as we've seen a lot of times with NASCAR, there's always situations that come up that kind of go against the rule or expose the rule for being a little bit flawed. And I think that's what happened here. I think they should have gotten them maybe a little bit more time to get back on the track. But they're looking at it and that's something they've had to do a lot here over the past couple of years, particularly with a new car and they've put some new rules in place. They're constantly tinkering with stuff and adding stages and all this stuff. And every now and then, something comes up that sort of makes them think at it a little bit differently. And they're doing that here and going to make a slight change. And we'll see. But I will say this, that is a rule that they need to get a handle on because back in having impact on your championship. If you have a guy go out of the race like that and there's a questionable call and he's not allowed to get back on the track, you could be costing somebody a championship. So that's a rule they need to button up and get a handle on. Well, and if they don't do that, Jeff, I mean, I guess they could look at going what any car does, where they award points to what the first top 10 and that's it. I mean, I don't think NASCAR go wants to go down that route. So this is one, they've got a dress correct, don't you think? Yeah, they do because, you know, your point system now depends on it. You know, it, you know, points are valuable. Every single point now is a major deal, particularly if you're in the playoffs. I mean, it could be the difference between advancing to that championship race and missing it. So that's a rule they got to get a handle on, you know, and it used to be no big deal. You go work on your card. If you fix it and you meet the speed, you go back out, but now they got a clock and they got all this stuff and they've tightened it up and all of this was supposedly done as, you know, cost saving measures and that sort of thing. But yeah, yeah, this is a big deal and they've got to figure it out because you can't be costing a playoff guy points at the end of the season like this. Well, and what was wrong? And I'm not a big fan of somebody that's 30, 40, 50 laps off the pace going back out there and just running laps so you can get points for it, but I understand why they do it. But I mean, what was wrong with just allowing them to go back in, if it took them an hour to fix the car, so be it, they weren't going to win the race. So I mean, who was that hurting? Yeah, right, right. And usually the rule, the rule used to be as long as you can meet minimum speed. And it's not a safety issue, then it's fine, but you know, now they've kind of done away with that and it's, it's created controversy like this. So it's something they need to address for sure. Jeff Owens in the fan sailing with us here tonight on Sports Don't We Get Into the Rovo In Just a Second, aside from the controversy about the DVP, the end of that race at Tal Dick was fascinating. And that's why I love racing out there because of the speeds and everything else that goes along there. Jackie Stenhouse, how about that finish with him able to survive the crash, first off and not be involved in that 28 car pile up and then able to hold off Brad Kitzelowski and William Byron at the end. Yeah, yeah, great, great performance by him. And we continue the trend of seeing an upset and these playoff races. You know, it's almost gotten to the point where your playoff drivers are sort of an afterthought, because a non playoff drivers win in almost every race. And, and I think that adds drama to it for sure. But it was a little bit different Talladega race because we went with, they ran a ton of laps without a caution and without that big rate, right? And you saw guys, I mean, still, I thought it was thrilling. You know, I don't think I've ever seen them run for a while like that. That many laps in a row. I mean, that was just fascinating. I had a guy this week, my boss, who never watches NASCAR and he's flipping channels and he sees a race in the Talladega, and he watched that and he was blown away by it. And people who haven't seen them do that, it's pretty impressive. So a little bit of different race, but at the end, we get what we were expecting and that was the big 20 car pile up and, you know, that jumbled things up and, and it made for a great finish. Ricky Stanhouse is one of the best out there on restricted point races. I think he's got five or six career wins, and if I'm not mistaken, every one of them have come on a restricted play track, so he's really good in those situations. So he did a great job of putting himself in position and then he took advantage of it at the end. All right. So they're in Charlotte this weekend and they run the Roval. This isn't just the oval. They've got the street component or they at least the road course component in it as well. If you're Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindrick and especially considering Cindrick had almost the race of Talladega 1 this past weekend, Daniel Suarez, Joey Logano, I mean, who's sweating at the most? I've clearly all four of them sitting up below the cut line or sweating it a little bit, but who's in the biggest trouble trying to get in? Yeah. Well, you look at, you know, I like the guys at the bottom are not that big of a surprise. You know, if you look at the point that the standings, the beginning of the season, those are kind of the guys that, you know, you would think would probably be eliminated by now. The interesting thing is, is that, you know, all three of those guys, Suarez, Cindrick and Chase Briscoe are all pretty good road racers, so they got a good shot to survive this weekend. The guy I think that's got the most pressure on him and he's got to be worried he's Joey Logano because he's not used to being in this spot. He's used to being up there to top, you know, racing for the championship and he still could be, but he's the guy who's in trouble right now and, you know, if you look at all 12 guys left and who's good on the road course, you know, Logano's got a win or two, but you wouldn't put him at the top. So, you know, in fact, I would rate Cindrick and Suarez as probably better road racers than Joey Logano. So a lot of pressure on him this weekend. And the guy they're trying to catch and at least get in his spot is an awfully good road racer as well and Chase Elliott. He is. He's one of the best. That top eight or so, all of them are really good road course guys, so I think this is a weekend where the playoff guys get back to victory lane. Yeah, if we appreciate it, as always, enjoy the race this weekend, we'll talk to you next Friday. Okay, Chris. Have a good one. (horn honking)