After six short months, the NASCAR regular season is finally over. Time flies!
OK, short probably ain’t the best word to use here. Six … interesting … months? Six months of bitching and moaning? Three good months, and then three pretty terrible ones? I don’t know how I’d describe the season thus far. Some good. Plenty of bad.
Frankly, I’ll die on the hill that it’s too long, and the entire season should be over this coming weekend, but today ain’t the time or the place for that.
Regardless, here we are. Daytona in the rearview. Darlington in the windshield. Round 1 of everyone’s favorite playoff system officially underway. Let’s have some fun.
We’ll break down Daytona today in the only way we can – by mocking Bubba Wallace! Well, I don’t know how much mocking I’m gonna be doing, but the internet certainly had a field day Saturday night.
Do I agree? Eh. Probably not. But, clicks are clicks!
What else? I’ve got Ryan Blaney doing Dale Earnhardt things, Austin Dillon telling the playoff haters to kiss his ass, and Natalie Decker breaking out the red flag bikini one more time before summer ends. Buzzer-beater, baby!
Four tires, enough fuel to get us up I-95 to Darlington, and maybe some balloons as we celebrate National Blame Bubba Wallace Day … Monday Morning Pit-Stop – the ‘How Many Bottles Of Beer On The Wall?’ edition – is LIVE!
Thanks, Ryan!
Let’s go ahead and start by catching everyone up before we take the green flag for the Round of 16. Frankly, it won’t take long. There wasn’t a TON of drama Saturday night, until, of course, the very end.
Weird how it always works like that at Daytona.
Tiny (and THICK, as I saw in person) Ty Reddick and Alex Bowman are in, everyone else is out. They clinched the final two spots thanks to Ryan Blaney pulling another Firecracker 400 out of his ass, which led to Bowman offering to buy him 7 million beers down the road.
Naturally.
Love that Blaney is up there slugging down red solo cups right after taking the checkers. God, he’s the best. How he isn’t the sport’s Most Popular Driver each year is beyond me.
But he’s also really good. Like, really, really good. Especially at places like Daytona and Talladega. He’s won plenty of time at both, and it’s because he does shit like this when it matters most:
Bubba Wallace probably needs to wear this one
I don’t compare drivers to Dale often, but it’s certainly warranted here. What did he always say? You can see the draft? See the air?
Feel like Blaney can absolutely see it. He can certainly feel it. Some folks just have a feel for plate-racing. Yes, it’s still plate-racing around here. We’re not woke losers, remember?
But Blaney feels it better than anyone else in the garage right now, so it’s not surprising that he ripped out several hearts over the final hundred yards Saturday night. Sorry, Cole Custer! Not today, pal.
Side note: could you IMAGINE if I had to write about Cole Custer today? My God. It would make my SVG commentary look nice.
Anyway, here’s how things look as we head to Darlington:
I’m gonna go ahead and jot down SVG and Josh Berry for early exits. SVG because there isn’t a road course in this round, and Berry because we haven’t heard from him since before Liberation Day.
I think I’ll go Cindric and Austin Dillon to round it out, although I feel like Ross Chastain has been non-existent this summer. We’ll see.
Unfortunately for the HATERS, I think Bubba Wallace advances despite only being two points to the good. It’s in the NASCAR handbook, after all, that Bubba has to get through the first round. DEI!
Just kidding. Relax, Libs!
Although, I’m not entirely sure if he’s going anywhere if he keeps doing shit like this:
Nat in Daytona, Austin Dillon & man down!
Thoughts? First impressions?
I don’t know. I think I’m with Denny on this one. What did DW use to say all the time? Just one of them racin’ deals.
I think this was just one of them racin’ deals at Daytona. Three, sometimes four wide at 180 mph just doesn’t end well most of the time. One bump, especially in these woke cars, and it could be game over.
Larson certainly shoved him, but there were also a few seconds between that kick in the ass and Bubba ultimately losing control of his car. Not sure the bump really had anything to do with it, but also not 100% sure it didn’t.
I am 100% sure, however, that all the woke media did NOT blame Bubba – as he said – while all the fans DID blame him. Shocking, I know. Good to see Utah Senator Mike Lee was tuned in, too!
Welcome to class, Mike! Here’s a little sampling of how we do things here on Mondays:
Yes! Congrats on being the Based Babe of the Week, Nat! First race back since giving birth, and she brought home a respectable 22nd-place finish. Didn’t wreck, didn’t cause a wreck, didn’t embarrass herself, and found time to hit the beach at The Shores resort.
Win-win-win! That’s our girl. Big moment for Nat. Proud of her.
Next? I did some Big J work last week and spoke to Austin Dillon. Why? No clue. They asked, I said sure, and there we were. I have to justify my existence every once in a while, you know?
Anyway, he’s clearly a benefactor of the current playoff format, and told me to tell you haters to kick rocks!
“Some of the purists of the world definitely, from a performance standpoint, from start to finish, you might not be getting rewarded,” he said, basically saying that NASCAR’s current format more closely resembles other sports’ playoffs.
“But when it comes down to having to win and getting a win, I think there’s some clutchability to that. That’s just the older school methodology of how champions were crowned.
“So I think that’s the fight between the two. But I think to relate to more sports fans, that what we have now is probably better.”
He’s right, by the way. Everyone always wants to compare NASCAR to stick-and-ball sports. We do it with viewership ALL THE TIME. If we’re being fair, the current playoff format is way closer to what you see in other leagues than anything NASCAR has had before.
If you get hot at the right time, you have a chance to win a championship. Last year, Joey Logano was NASCAR’s version of a wild card team going on a Cinderella run.
If I had to pick one this year? Eh. The obvious answer is SVG, but I just don’t see how he gets out of the first round with no road course on the schedule.
If by some miracle he DOES, then we could be cooking. The ROVAL, inexplicably, is in Round 2.
Because if NASCAR fans want anything, it’s more ROVAL action!
OK, that’s it for today. Good work, everyone. Let’s leave you with former Winston-Salem State fullback Rick Rozier Jr. having himself a NIGHT at Daytona.