Too Much Defense, Not Enough Offense | NASCAR Dover Race Review & Analysis

Denny Hamlin calls his shot Kyle Larson comes up just short once [Music] again how's it going y'all my name is Eric welcome to out of the groove let's talk do the monster mile a very unique racetrack concrete surface one mile in length High Bank shoot even on the straightaways beautiful looking crowd beautiful weather a little warmer than practice and qualifying yet yesterday allowed rubber to get put down the groove to widen so nice to see a Nascar Cup Series race at a multi-groove track it's been way too long not counting Talladega last week which is its own Beast Texas is basically one Groove Martinsville basically one Groove the next gen car needs multiple grooves to put on decent racing and even then as we'll discuss more in a moment this car is far from perfect but a good solid race out at do today we'll put this race on the groovy engage towards the end we'll talk about some of the top finishers some other very interesting story lines but I want to begin with the finish and the race winner so far this season has been defined by hendrik Motorsports versus Joe Gibbs Racing Hendrick has five wins as a team today put a tally next to jgr their fourth victory of the season third for Denny Hamlin crazy stat all three of Denny Hamlin's top five finishes this year have been wins Denny Hamlin says he's all in in this year no he's all or nothing boom or bus Checkers or Wreckers hey that wouldn't have worked 25 years ago but this is modernday NASCAR winning means more than ever and the entire number 11 team deserves credit for this win Denny Hamlin finished third at the end of stage two but won the race off Pit Road at the start of stage three to get the lead to control the restart he was leapfrogged by Kyle Larson during a cycle of green flag pit stops Midway through stage three then the Ricky Stenhouse Jr caution happened Larson was the leader had control of this race but he explained afterwards got a little awkward bump from Truex spun the tires that allowed Hamlin to nose out front big wreck Bubba Wallace Christopher Bell William Byron D Denny Hamlin was the leader at the most recent scoring Loop he was able to control the race on the final restart had a great short run car built a two second lead and saved just enough to impede Kyle Larson's late race charge but let's talk about those final I don't know 20 laps Kyle Larson was clearly faster than Denny Hamlin but never quite got close enough to make a move Kyle Bush who was not in the picture basically predicted how this race would play out during his press conference yesterday the biggest struggle with this car is you can use it more as a defense tool of air blocking and everything else of the guys behind you than being able to go out in front of you and pass the guy in front of you like you can literally be catching the guy in front of you and him just start mirr driving and putting his car where you are and not even worrying about where he needs to go to go forward to pass the guy that's in front of him you know so if you'll allow me I'm going to make a stick in ball sport analogy because I know y'all just love those many would argue that the NFL has made rule changes in recent years to favor the offensive side on the ball they want to see more points so as a result they'll call more roughing the passer penalties You could argue the NFL has changed the rules to favor offense I'd argue the exact opposite is the case here in NASCAR especially with this new nextg car now drivers who are playing defense have a significant Advantage at most racetracks before I make my larger point I do want to give Denny Hamlin the credit he deserves sure he was able to take advantage of Clean Air Arrow block Kyle Larson but he still had to run 20 damn near perfect laps he still had execute in the clutch under pressure and he did that I know he's driving a good race car but there are a lot of other drivers even in the Nascar Cup series who likely would have folded if they were in that exact same scenario Danny Hamlin is a future Hall of Famer he is a fantastic race car driver he deserves all the credit in the world he ran a fantastic race especially that final run so I really don't want to take away too much from Denny Hamlin winning this race but that being said I think the big reason you hear so many fans complain about Arrow blocking is because from our seat Arrow blocking seems to be very easy and it's invisible we can't see the air that's a problem because NASCAR is a spectator sport I want to see drivers do things that are really hard to do again I don't want to take away from Denny racing Kyle lson down the stretch is extremely challenging but it is made a lot easier when you have a tool in your back pocket like Arrow blocking with this car that's the problem arob blocking is easy and it's invisible that's bad for a spectator sport we've seen Arrow blocking in past generations of cars as well this isn't like a brand brand new thing but it's frustrating that it hasn't gotten a lot better like I was just complimenting do for being a multi-groove racetrack it was still hard for Larson to get out from behind Hamlin's wake and the next gen in the rear diffuser That was supposed to you know somewhat lessen the effects of dirty air right I don't know any improvements have been marginal at best I don't know where to go from here they're not going to you know swap out the next gens with Xfinity series cars next week that's not realistic at this point maybe we need to start talking about a nextg 2.0 once more but even that is probably at least a couple of years away it's just far too expensive to completely overhaul these race cars so soon you're never going to completely get rid of aerodynamics aerob blocking dirty air you're never going to get rid of it no these crew chiefs these teams are far too intelligent these cars are massive machines cutting through the air at 180 miles per hour arrow is always going to play a major role it's just frustrating because we do see in the Xfinity series for example aerodynamics seemingly have less of an effect you can drive up behind someone in the xinity series usually and get them a little arrow loose like you could in the cup series 20 years ago the capability is still there we just haven't seen it on Sundays now for a long long time and everything about the next gen That was supposed to lessen the effects of dirty air has seemingly had the opposite effect Kyle Bush I think explained it so well in the media center with this nextg car defense now has an advantage over offense in NASCAR and you know most other sports they want to see points football wants to see more points the NBA scoring is up all-time high Major League Baseball we want home runs offense every sports fan wants more offense I know defense wins championships but offense sells tickets right now offense is at a huge disadvantage in NASCAR and that's why so many fans are up in arms there's such an uproar that's the point I wanted to make again not to take away much from Danny Hamlin he did a fantastic job there down the stretch again there are drivers in the cup series who couldn't have held off Kyle Larson the way he did it still took tremendous skill to pull off this Victory on that note let's pull up the top 15 finishers again I said earlier this is Danny Hamlin's third win of the season I made the checkers or recers reference shoot all three of his top five finishes have been wins we've seen him at Texas crash out Racing for the win at Phoenix Spun Out Racing for the lead Denny Hamlin has led a lap in every single race this season Mike Joy mentioned that stat on the broadcast that's incredible consistently fast not always consistently getting the results that's going to have to change come playoff time but like I said at the top of the show winning is so important even come playoffs you can have two bad races you win the third race you're through to the next round winning solves all of your problems and that's the Mantra Denny Hamlin's team has followed so far this season Kyle Larson finishes second he won the second stage today his sixth stage win of the Season nobody else in the cup series I believe has more than two stage wins another fantastic points day for our points leader and another good battle between he and his friendly rival Denny Hamlin there the stretch again hendrik versus Joe Gibbs Racing you got two Hendrick cars and two Gibbs cars there in the top five with Martin jck Jr finishing third last year's do winner won the opening stage today but suffered some damage to his nose at the start of stage three when the outside Lane slowed down he rear ended Alex Bowman who I think missed a shift or something had some damage on the nose I'm impressed CHX managed to third place finish with as heavy as of damage as that appeared to look like Ryan Truex got the win once again in the exfinity series race Saturday Martin came up just short of pulling off a second consecutive Trux do sweep that would have been insane Chase Elliot is the second hendrik car finishing inside the top five kind of a quiet day but a great finish for Elliot and Kyle Bush I don't want to gloss over him Richard children racing needs something like this Kyle bus qualified on the poll that's huge but then faded to kind of the back half of the top 10 he was consistently like fourth to seventh today when that Stenhouse junor caution came out in the middle of green flag pit stops in stage three bush had to pit an extra time to fill up on gas put fresh tires on it but I worried with how important track position was he would finish eighth or ninth now he drove his way back up to fourth so well done Kyle bus they stayed with it all day and got a great finish more of this please I'm sure that's what all you Kyle Bush fans are asking for Noah greggson caught a break with that caution in the middle of stage three but he had a pretty good car at least on the short runs he qualified fifth today Grand top 10 the opening stint but towards the end of stage one faded to well outside of the top 10 eventually was mid pack looked like he was going to finish 17th 18th at best catches that caution gets that track position back in you know final 60 laps of the race he held on for a decent finish really good finish Honestly by Stuart hos racing and really Ford standards these days well done Noah greggson that's his fourth top 10 finish of the year right behind him Ryan blay who was probably the best forward for most of the race there's a good stretch where he was leading early on and there were no other forwards anywhere in the top 10 in fact the rest of Team Pensky was like 20th we've talked about this before but several times this year Blay's running second third fourth and Joey lano's 15th they're both Champions they're both the two most recent Champions like there shouldn't be such a disparity if one's running third or fourth the other should be running fifth or sixth I don't understand that Gap but blay I know he was the second best finishing forward today he has been the best overall performing for Ford all season long that continued once again today Ford clearly has a ton of work to do as you don't see another Ford driver until Josh Barry Austin cnri here just inside the top 15 they are woefully behind at one point it was great to look up and see a Pensky Carr leading you had a couple of Stuart hos Brisco Gregson in the top 10 I looked up and saw Michael McDow in the top 10 after a great qualifying effort but then Ford crumbled McDow sped on Pit Road his day was over I mentioned Gregson fading on the long run same thing happened to Brisco just another mediocre to bad day for Ford I don't know what needs to be done they are too far behind at this point for it not to raise some alarms want to give a shout out to Daniel hemrich had a decent car qualified top 15 so when he caught a break on that Ricky stous caution he was more or less able to hold on to his track position and get a top 10 well done both call cars were pretty quick today AJ alinger ran inside the top 10 for much of the day so that's a great sight to see Ryan priest finished last today after smoke inside the cockpit just would not go away I think they said the door foam caught fire I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed as the reason for the dnf all I know is I saw Bob pak's clip of priest when he got out of the car he was upset and believed this was an avoidable mistake this team is trying to mount a charge to get back into playoff contention a last place finish is the last thing this team needed a few drivers got caught up in that big crash early in stage three when the Stenhouse caution happened a bunch of top 10 top 15 cars got trapped a lap down had to take the wave round so they had to restart behind much slower traffic that bottled things up on the restart looked like zanen Smith who was a couple of laps down drifted up into Bubba spun him out collected Byron Christopher Bell heavy damage on all three of those cars backto back bad breaks for Bubba Wallace try saying that five times fast and Christopher bell four straight races with a wreck at least one wreck I mean he's that's not included you know his Spin and practice qualifying yesterday I think remember if I go back to Martinsville didn't he spin out a couple times in that race maybe I'm misremembering it has been an ugly month for Christopher bell shoot after that Phoenix win I thought sky was the limit I thought he was just going to keep getting better win more races more top fives the exact opposite has happened they have not had consistent speed and they have not executed Bell has been making mistakes I guess the cars haven't always been to his liking today they were the worst performing Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota they were worse than both 2311 Toyotas for pretty much the entire race until they got caught up in this crash that's not okay what happened they were looking like a championship Contender five weeks ago what's going on on a more positive note for Toyota Cory Heim finished 25th making his Nascar Cup Series debut substituting for Eric Jones what a whirlwind of a weekend it was I'm sure for himim runs the xinity race yesterday didn't go very well but now he's making his cup series debut in a substitution role at a challenging racetrack do Motor Speedway is quite literally a roller coaster he's rocking the Richard Petty tribute scheme and then this morning we find out that the normal 43 crew chief Dave Ellens isn't there he had to return home for a personal matter hoping the best for him but now Joey Cohen is stepping in as interm crew chief so you've got an interim driver an interim crew chief challenging racetrack man the odds were stacked against Cory Heim didn't qualify particularly well but was likely just trying not to overstep he got better as the race progressed was a legit top 25 maybe even top 20 car at times today so all things considered fairly impressive Cup Series debut we don't know yet who will be in the 43 car next week Eric Jones was at the track this weekend says still that he's week to week he's feeling better Jimmy Johnson even suggested that maybe he could drive the 43 in the future if need be Jimmy was 29th today at do finished once again but still not the fast Jimmy Johnson we came to know at do motor Speedway for many years but those those were some of the top finishers top story lines now let's put this race on The Groovy gauge powered by Electric ebikes head to Electric ebikes.ca the weather's been good riding around the neighborhood fun times be sure to check them out I thought this was a pretty good race the arrow blocking frustrations aside Denny Hamlin Kyle Larson that cat and mouse game always entertaining like I said they're friendly Rivals they'll both be Championship contenders come October this year I'm sure of it I thought today's race was pretty good overall even the long stretches like in stage two we went caution free had a full cycle of green flag pit stops it was still interesting Cory lejoy employed a very different strategy the top four or five were never separated by more than a couple of seconds we had some comers and goers as cars changed over the course of the long run so even the drier portions of this race I thought we're okay I'm going to go 70% for today's race at do pretty good race all around the Finish was a little bit frustrating but still had me on the edge of my seat again we saw the leader get past today so it's not like there was no chance Larson was going to get by Denny Hamlin he had a shot at him but Denny is a great driver he can Arrow block as well as anyone still a good overall race I'm going 70% let me know what you thought of today's worth 400 down in the comment section below I really don't have much else to add I hope you enjoyed the race today the crowd looked fantastic a lot of commentary and opinion I out there about what tracks should have two dates if any there are certainly some tracks that justify having two dates a year no doubt but I must say do going from two to one race a season makes me miss this track which I think is a good thing like I actually now look forward to the one Dover weekend of year versus when there were two I was like ah we really need two of these I just saw this show not that long ago and the crowds had certainly dwindled they torn down some grandstands the crowd looked great grand f look packed weather was beautiful so uh that was a nice change the fans out in do needed a nice sunny weekend it's been a rough few years talked about the winner top finishers groovy Gage I think we're done here thank you all so much for tuning in leave a like if you enjoyed this episode subscribe if you're new to the channel we talk NASCAR every single day here on out of the groove and as always a big thank you to my very generous patreon supporters I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend I will see you again likely tomorrow got to update my Power Rankings after a very interesting weekend in do thanks for tuning in folks I will see you again soon [Music]

Channel: Eric Estepp

Views: 44,478

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Id: IoQRSbHSXZc

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024