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Welcome to the Calamity Corner Podcast, your destination for NASCAR analysis, motorsports discussion, race recaps, driver stories, and fan perspectives from across the racing world. Hosted by James and a guest featured every week, each episode dives into the biggest moments from NASCAR Cup Series action, breaking down race results, championship battles, driver performances, controversies, and the stories shaping the sport.
Subscribe and follow Calamity Corner Podcast for weekly NASCAR coverage, motorsports commentary, and everything happening on and off the track.
Speaker 1 0:00
Hello guys, and welcome back to the Calamity Corner. This is now episode six, and I'm James, and I'm back here again with Mike.
Speaker 2 0:08
What's going on, everybody?
Speaker 1 0:10
Welcome back, Mike. Hasn't been too long to talk to you. Yeah, for sure. All right, so with Sonoma happening, that was the first race of the NASCAR Cup Series in season tournament, and you made a bracket, right?
Speaker 2 0:33
Yes, I did, and it got busted within the first race, because even though I had Denny Hamlin winning the bracket, I had Tyler Reddick going to the finals, and he ended up, unfortunately, losing to Alex Bowman, which I was very surprised about.
Speaker 1 0:50
Yeah, unfortunately, Tyler Reddick did have power steering issues, and he did finish in Sonoma four laps down, which is unfortunate for him. Um and then so was Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman the main upset, or was there another one that you had?
Speaker 2 1:12
I'm gonna look at my bracket really fast, but it doesn't look like Zane Smith, actually, or no, nevermind. Had that. It does look like that there was no other major upsets.
Speaker 1 1:32
Okay,
Speaker 2 1:34
it looks like I got most of my picks right, except for a couple that I was a little hesitant on.
Speaker 1 1:41
Which ones would you say that chart we're hesitant on.
Speaker 2 1:46
So, for starters, I put in Daniel Suarez over Todd Gilman, because Daniel Suarez, I felt like I had a lot more speed on road courses. He won at Sonoma a few years back.
Speaker 1 1:57
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:57
but Todd Gilman solid on road courses, I probably should have gone with him, Zane Smith, as well. I had him over Carson Host of our because I didn't really know Host of Our Road Course speed, and I felt like Zane Smith was on kind of a run, but Host of Our ended up winning that one. AJ Allmendinger and Chase Briscoe, I thought AJ would have pulled off the upset because of his road course speed, but he seemed to have fallen off a lot, and Briscoe ended up winning that one, which I was.. I'm not terribly surprised about, because Briscoe is a great road course racer.
Speaker 1 2:32
Oh yeah, for sure. I feel like we got a replay of 2025 in relation to Sonoma this year, because one two was the same, it was the same two guys battling until the end.
Speaker 2 2:44
Yeah,
Speaker 1 2:46
so if I made a bracket, I would have agreed with your Suarez pick, because with Spire now I think he's been overall faster this year, he's had faster speed, he's run better, his team is honestly, I would say it's better than anything that he had at Track House, not
Speaker 2 3:04
for sure. And you know, the sad thing is, Track House was built around Daniel Suarez. I felt like,
Speaker 1 3:09
yeah, it was
Speaker 2 3:11
never really let go.
Speaker 1 3:13
Yeah, it unfortunately was until SVG came, and then they threw all their eggs and SVGs road course basket, yeah.
Speaker 2 3:23
I feel like I feel like they wanted to start throwing a little bit at Ross, and then SVG started coming in looking talented.
Speaker 1 3:32
Yeah, because Ross almost won the championship in 2022
Speaker 2 3:36
which is
Speaker 1 3:36
pretty interesting. But yeah, okay, so for those of you guys that don't know, the in-season tournament for NASCAR, the drivers are seeded by the top 32 in points, and then drivers will face off in a race within the race format over five weeks, where the highest finishing driver in each head-to-head matchup advances, and in the end the winner will claim a $1 million prize
Speaker 2 4:07
that goes to the team,
Speaker 1 4:08
of course. Yeah, it goes to the team, not the driver. And so we did talk about Alex Bowman eliminating Tyler Reddick, and then one point that I wanted to make was Denny Hamlin narrowly eliminating Ty Dillon. I felt
Speaker 2 4:28
like that this would have been the year that he did that, because it was unlucky that Hamlin lost last season.
Speaker 1 4:34
Yeah,
Speaker 2 4:35
Ty Dillon did have a good run.
Speaker 1 4:37
Yeah, Hamlin's luck almost struck two years in a row, but fortunately for Hamlin, and unfortunately for Dylan, Dylan did have power steering issues, which you know makes the car harder to drive. Okay, and then getting into the rest of the results, Austin Centric and Le. Eight, Brad Keselowski, Todd Gillen, like you said, eliminates Daniel Suarez, Carson host of our eliminates Saint Smith. That was a really good matchup, I'd say.
Speaker 2 5:13
Yeah,
Speaker 1 5:14
Chase Briscoe and AJ Almendinger, Briscoe eliminates AJ, Ty Gibbs eliminated Austin Dillon, Michael McDowell eliminated Bubba Wallace, which I don't think was very surprising, because Michael McDowell was pretty good on the road courses compared to
Speaker 2 5:30
Bob. Absolutely, he's very underrated on road courses.
Speaker 1 5:33
Yeah, for sure. And then Chase Elliott eliminates Noah Gregson, not a surprise. Erik Jones eliminates Joey Logano. Now, for me, that's a little bit of a surprise, just because Joey Logano.. I
Speaker 2 5:48
was, I was a.. that was another matchup I was a little hesitant on, because I felt like it could have happened, but I was banking on the fact that Logano does have some speed on road courses, that was pretty much all the ones I got wrong. I got everything else right.
Speaker 1 6:05
Yeah, because Logano, he does have Win at Watkins Glen, and then Erik Jones. I haven't really heard much of Erik Jones on road courses, but this season overall I think Jones has been a lot better,
Speaker 2 6:20
right?
Speaker 1 6:22
All right. Going on to the rest of the matchups, we got Chris Buescher, he eliminates John Hunter Nemechek, Christopher Bell eliminates Ross Chastain, William Byron eliminates Ricky Sinhaus Jr. Kyle Larson eliminates Riley Herbst, SVG eliminates Ryan Priest, and Ryan Blaney eliminates Josh Berry. One thing I appreciated from SVGs and Ryan Priests' matchup was their interactions on Twitter. I thought that was pretty funny.
Speaker 2 7:00
Yeah, I like seeing drivers kind of have battles over this, and I feel like that's what the in-season tournament is, what NASCAR wants to project of the competitiveness, because I don't really see a lot of drivers mention about the in-season tournament. I feel like it's mostly the PR teams.
Speaker 1 7:17
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, we don't hear about it a lot, like I don't, I haven't even seen NASCAR advertise it as much as last. Yeah,
Speaker 2 7:29
yeah, that was part of my problem last year with TNT, and I was mentioning this in another chat that I wish that they would bring up the brackets more, and then they ended up showing the bracket, which I was really happy about, but last season I didn't feel like there was a lot of coverage on it, and it was really annoying, because I did make the bracket last year too, just for fun, but it was really annoying to not be seeing my picks as consistently, as opposed to when you're in the playoffs, especially if they're trying to make this in-season tournament so important.
Speaker 1 8:03
Yeah, for sure. I forgot to make a bracket this year, which, honestly, my bracket probably would have been busted on the Tyler Reddick Alex Bowman pick anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 2 8:17
because I had him in the finals against Hamlin.
Speaker 1 8:20
Yeah, that would have been a good final.
Speaker 2 8:23
Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1 8:26
and so now the matchups for the second race of the in-season tournament at Chicagoland are going to be Alex Bowman and Cindric Gillyn and Hosavar. We got teammates facing up each other, Briscoe and Gibbs, we got McDowell and Elliot Hamlin and Jones, Buscher and Bell, another pair of teammates with Byron and Larson, Van Ginsbergen and Blaney. And then I just wanted to get your thoughts, or like your predictions on these matchups, what do you think would happen?
Speaker 2 9:04
So, I think for the Bowman and Centric, I got think ahead. Oh, well, I busted that one because of Reddick.
Speaker 1 9:12
Yeah,
Speaker 2 9:13
I'm looking at my bracket on my phone, by the way, too. I think that Bowman could win this one because he hasn't went on Chicagoland. He's really fast on mile and a half, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does that. I think for Ty Gil and Host, far, I think Host of ours got it.
Speaker 1 9:30
Yeah,
Speaker 2 9:30
let's see, Briscoe and Ty Gibbs. I'm gonna go with a little surprising, more.. I'm gonna go Ty Gibbs.
Speaker 1 9:37
Okay,
Speaker 2 9:38
let's see, and then let's see, Elliot and McDowell, I think Chase Elliott, no doubt, because he has a lot of speed on these tracks too.
Speaker 1 9:47
Yeah,
Speaker 2 9:48
and the other side of the bracket, Denny Hamlin and Eric Jones, Denny Hamlin, no, no need to explain that. Let's see, Busher, Buscher, and Bill, I'm gonna go Bill. All, just because, again, with the speed, Byron and Larson, I'm gonna go. This is, this is actually a tough one.
Speaker 1 10:10
Yeah, I would say that's probably the toughest one on the board right now.
Speaker 2 10:13
Yeah, this is, this is definitely a tough one, because they both have speed, but I think, trying to see where I, I picked it, I picked William at first, but now I'm kind of thinking Kyle might get it.
Speaker 1 10:25
Okay,
Speaker 2 10:26
so I might change my pick over to Kyle. Okay, that's fair. Let's see, Ryan Blaney, I think he'll win over SVG. Unfortunately, just because of the oval speed, that should be it, right?
Speaker 1 10:43
Oh, yeah, that's all. All right,
Speaker 2 10:45
okay.
Speaker 1 10:45
Those are good predictions. I would agree with most of them, even though personally I would have Briscoe over Gibbs, but that one is a close one as well, because both their teammates,
Speaker 3 10:55
yeah,
Speaker 1 10:56
they both were. The only reason I say
Speaker 2 10:58
Gibbs is I feel like he's been a little more faster than Briscoe over the last few races.
Speaker 1 11:03
Yeah, Briscoe has been coming on lately, though. I would say he's been a lot faster than the start of the season he had.
Speaker 2 11:14
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. All
Speaker 1 11:17
right, so now we're just going to move on to a preview of Chicagoland. Now it's been a while since the Cup Series has raced here. This will be its first race since 2019 and God, yeah, we've missed Chicagoland a lot. And then Alex Bowman is the defending winner of that race, so if you guys want to look out for your driver, so look carefully for Alex Bowman, might be one of those,
Speaker 2 11:56
yeah, like I mentioned, he has a lot of speed on these slight mile and a half tracks, he's like really sneaky good on them, and I just.. I don't think he gets enough credit on those types of tracks. So, anytime I can bring it up, I will, no doubt.
Speaker 1 12:13
It just sucks for Bowman, because Dave always comparing him to his teammates, and a fear sometimes we could go
Speaker 2 12:22
into, yeah, like we could go into a full discussion on this, but
Speaker 1 12:28
yeah, I
Speaker 2 12:28
just, he's one of the worst drivers, probably on Hendrick, if not the worst, I mean, but he's, he is a talented driver, I'd say he's fairly underrated, and people don't give him enough credit, but
Speaker 1 12:42
yeah, for sure. He just doesn't,
Speaker 2 12:43
he just doesn't have as no speed as his teammates
Speaker 1 12:47
doesn't have the speeds like his teammates. I would say he doesn't have the crew chief either, which,
Speaker 2 12:54
yeah, I don't think his crew chief's very good. I think they moved him up a little too fast.
Speaker 1 12:59
Yeah, all right, so yeah, Alex Bowman, defending winner. If you guys need a pick, maybe Alex Bowman would surprise some people. We will have to wait and see. All right, and so this, so this track is another one and a half mile. So in NASCAR, those are considered to be intermediate tracks, so it's a one and a half mile tri oval, and all turns are banked the same at 18 degrees, so in case you guys did not know, this track is very famous for a call made by Dale Jr in 2018 and a battle between Kyle Orson and Kyle Busch,
Speaker 2 13:51
as you may have seen in the intro.
Speaker 1 13:53
Yeah, for those of you that don't know, that is part of the intro, so that makes it funny. But yeah, that was a very good battle, and I thought Kyle Busch's interview at the end of that race was really funny. He said, "If you guys don't like this racing, then why even watch
Speaker 2 14:12
it?
Speaker 1 14:13
Yeah,
Speaker 2 14:15
oh Kyle, I swear,
Speaker 1 14:16
rest in peace, Kyle Busch,
Speaker 2 14:19
rest in peace, Kyle. All
Speaker 1 14:22
right, so Nascar, they did have a tire test at Chicagoland on April 20-first and April 20-second, and the drivers that participated in that tire test was one from each manufacturer, so one from Chevy, one from Toyota, and one from Ford. It was Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and Ryan Blaney. Excuse me, and I thought it was interesting that those three got to go test.
Speaker 2 14:54
I'm not surprised by it. I think those are really the three guys you think of when you think of those manufacturers.
Speaker 1 15:00
Yes, yeah. Would you say that the tire tests would give them an advantage on Sunday, or would you say that the, like, the conditions up the track in April compared to now going to be July are going to be too different? I
Speaker 2 15:14
think it's absolutely going to be different.
Speaker 1 15:16
Yeah,
Speaker 2 15:17
because obviously April, you know, different weather in July is going to be really hot, especially down in the Midwest. I don't think those guys would even get an advantage in general, because everybody has most of the drivers in the field, I mean, have raced on the track, for starters, and the Gen Seven is really built on driver talent, as opposed to like just having the right car,
Speaker 1 15:42
yeah.
Speaker 2 15:43
So, I would say that those three will definitely do well on Sunday, but I wouldn't say that they're going to have like an ultimate advantage over one another,
Speaker 1 15:52
yeah. And, in case, for the people that don't know, so when Nascar goes out and does a test, every driver gets access to their data, so it's not just restricted to the drivers that are testing on that day.
Speaker 4 16:07
Yeah, I didn't know that. Actually, that's cool.
Speaker 1 16:10
Yeah, so some track facts for everyone. Kyle Busch, like we said, he holds the record for most all-time wins on this track with 10, when you combine the Cup series, Xfinity Series, and Truck Series, and then when you focus on mainly the Cup side of this track, Tony Stewart, he leads all-time with three wins in 2004 2007 and 2011 and then going back to the tire test, I noticed that Larson and Blaney both had some interesting things to say about it. Larson, he said, you've raised so much between then and now, and I don't remember a whole lot of the track, other than just a big bump in one, and some bumps, and turns three and four, and those are all still there. So, my question for you, Mike, is how different, because it will be different, right? Because they haven't raced here in what, seven years now.
Speaker 2 17:24
Yeah, they haven't raced in seven years, and a different car. The car is
Speaker 1 17:28
different. Yeah, so do you think the feel in the car for the drivers will be that different, or would it be like just standard Chicago land? That's
Speaker 2 17:41
a great question, James. I don't think it's going to be standard Chicagoland, because the last time that these drivers were on it was the Gen six, and a lot of the field was in there, and the Gen seven obviously does have a different feel from what we've seen. So, I would say that these guys are going to be able to feel the bumps a little bit more, and I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a lot of tire wear like we had been seeing.
Speaker 1 18:06
Yeah, it's some pictures I've seen on Instagram of the track. It looks a little bit more worn out, which I think is going to make for good racing. I've always appreciated more of a worn out track, because it's hard on the tires, it makes your drivers save tire early in the runs, and I think overall it just gives fans better racing.
Speaker 2 18:31
Right, I agree with that, for sure. Like with North Wilkesboro, oh
Speaker 1 18:34
yeah, North Wilkesboro, that's also going to be a race in a couple weeks here, so that's going to be fun to watch, and so the point that Ryan Blaney made, he was talking about tire rare, just like we were, and he said the tire fall off is going to be pretty big, especially when we come back in the summer, so we're going to be able to use everything on the racetrack, which is good. Now, would you?
Speaker 2 19:04
That's definitely what I like to hear.
Speaker 1 19:06
Yeah, that's a great thing to hear. One track, I wouldn't say they're very similar, but in terms of being worn out and like being an intermediate track was Auto Club. So, do you think we could see like multiple lanes, like top, middle, bottom, four wide, maybe even on restarts? Do you think we could see that?
Speaker 2 19:32
I don't think we're gonna see four wide, but I do think we're gonna see at least two to three lanes in the track, for sure.
Speaker 1 19:38
Yeah,
Speaker 2 19:39
and that's just mainly how the track used to be able to run all
Speaker 1 19:45
right, so for the last part of this episode for Calamity Corner, let's get some predictions. Who do you think will win on Sunday?
Speaker 2 19:58
Um. I think at the time of the recording I kind of want to go bold and say Bowman because he won the last race here, but I also think that Larson will be a big player.
Speaker 1 20:12
Yeah,
Speaker 2 20:12
as I mentioned last episode, he's been inching closer to a win. We mentioned how he has a 4.0 average finish in the month of June.
Speaker 1 20:22
Yep,
Speaker 2 20:22
and that is building up consistency to the chase with only eight races to go, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's up there or he even wins the race.
Speaker 1 20:33
Yeah, so Bowman and Larson would be your picks
Speaker 2 20:38
pretty much right now at the time of recording, but I do want to see some practice right now. Yeah, for sure, for
Speaker 1 20:46
sure. For me personally, I guess the biased pick would be Kyle Larson.
Speaker 2 20:53
Larson, yeah,
Speaker 1 20:55
but if we had that,
Speaker 2 20:56
would actually be cool to see him winning in Chicago, and especially since he was battling with Kyle Busch, and now Kyle is gone.
Speaker 1 21:04
Yeah,
Speaker 2 21:04
so it'd be really cool to see little Kyle get a win.
Speaker 1 21:07
Yeah, little Kyle, that's what Kyle Busch called, Kyle Larson. All right, and then I guess the unbiased pick for me, I want to go Hamlin.
Speaker 2 21:20
Hamlin's a good pick, actually,
Speaker 1 21:21
strictly because he did the test. I think track time is important, so I mean any track time is important. I think any driver,
Speaker 2 21:31
Hamlin has a couple wins here too.
Speaker 1 21:33
Yeah, so
Speaker 2 21:34
it's not like he can't win on this track. I remember he won a race, they did a race on my birthday, I think it was in 2016 he won that race when it was still the first race in the Chase.
Speaker 1 21:46
Yeah, all right. So, for Dark Horse pick, I'm gonna go out and say Shane Van Ginsbergen might surprise some people.
Speaker 2 21:56
Bad pick, I think my Dark horse, that's a, that's actually a great question. Dark horse pick for Chicago land. Maybe I wouldn't be surprised if host of our, but I don't know if you can call him a dark horse anymore, because he does contend.
Speaker 1 22:14
Yeah,
Speaker 2 22:16
Daniel Suarez might not surprise some people,
Speaker 1 22:19
I would say all right, and so that'll do it for this episode of Calamity Corner. I want to thank Mike again for taking the time and being on here with me.
Speaker 2 22:31
Yep, thank you for having me, James. It was a lot of fun, of course, and I hope I can come back on at some point. Sounds good, sounds good. Thank you, bro. Thank you. All right. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai