Good automobile race to end a pretty awful week in America. We’ll … take it! Sure, it all felt a little manufactured with the tires, but I’m not gonna sit here and complain too much about it.
Sure, y’all will. But I won’t. If NASCAR and Goodyear have to create tires that pretty much explode after a certain number of laps to give us a decent Bristol night race again, so be it. You have to see the forest through the trees, as they say.
Anyway, it was a good race. Not sure how many folks watched it given Florida-LSU and Notre Dame-Texas A&M were on at the same time, but I digress.
Christopher Bell won, and dedicated the race to Charlie Kirk. You’ve all seen the video by now, and you’ll see it again here in a minute. We’ll get to it.
But, as they say – that’s not all! NASCAR’s social team made a curious omission (you can guess it) that I’m going to address. Austin Dillon had the GUTS to talk about Kirk before the race. We also have in-car camera of a driver nearly catching fire.
Wait till you hear this crew chief, too. Electric stuff. I’m all in.
Four tires, enough fuel to get us to New Hampshire (and enough to keep us awake for it), and maybe a caution flag for Josh Berry as he sizzles like an egg … Monday Morning Pit-Stop – the ‘Someone Got A Little Cutesy With The Edit Button On The NASCAR Social Team’ edition – is LIVE!
First, the good about NASCAR and Charlie Kirk
I’m just going to warn you now, this will be a Kirk-heavy start to today’s class. That’s just how the news cycle works. We’ll get to the racing, but we can’t bury the lede. And yes, that’s how you spell ‘lede’ in Big J terms. Save your emails. I know it looks weird.
Before we bash NASCAR, let’s first start with the good stuff. Austin Dillon spoke about Kirk the day before the race, and vowed to read his bible more moving forward. That’s a good thing. While deranged lunatics across this country are still celebrating his murder, normal folks respond like this.
Be normal:
Dillon and all the RCR fellas ran Charlie Kirk decals at Bristol, too. Good work by everyone on that team. Good on Richard Childress.
Bristol also paid plenty of tribute to Kirk before Saturday’s green flag. Not going to 100% credit NASCAR here, given SMI actually owns the track. Regardless, whoever was responsible, did a nice job:
No idea if Charlie Kirk was a NASCAR fan, but NASCAR fans were certainly Charlie Kirk fans, which should surprise no one. Seems like there would be natural crossover there, and, given that reaction, there was.
I’d imagine they did NOT have similar jumbotron material at yesterday’s WNBA playoff openers. Just a hunch.
Finally, I’m also quite sure nothing like this happened in any other sport over the weekend besides NASCAR:
Now, the … curious … Charlie Kirk stuff
Good for Christopher Bell. Didn’t know if he had the stones to say it, but he did. He may be tiny, and I may mock him often around here, but I’m all in on him now.
He also ran a hell of a race and somehow kept the car straight at the end even after Brad Keselowski tried to punt him to the moon, so he deserves a ton of credit for that, too. We’ll get to it.
But first … let’s go ahead and check in with NASCAR’s social media team as that above Christopher Bell soundbite went MEGA viral Saturday night.
Surely they pounced on it, right? I’d imagine they were RUNNING to Twitter to post about it. Couldn’t hit ‘send’ fast enough.
… Right?
I could go on and on. It’s a war zone under that video. Tough look for NASCAR, and I just don’t get it. Why not share the whole thing? Do you know how hard it is for NASCAR to go viral on a college football Saturday night? It’s almost impossible.
But they managed to break through because Christopher Bell mentioned Charlie Kirk in his post-race interview, and folks went NUTS over it.
So why not share it? And here’s the thing, I’m not sure the “well, NASCAR is liberal” argument works here, because … they shared the entire thing on Instagram, which is the most insufferable social media outlet on the planet not named Bluesky.
Berry’s bright night, Angry Ryan goes soft & the Busch’s have gone off the deep end
You see? I don’t get it. Why? Perhaps NASCAR was worried about the public reaction to it, and wanted to test the waters before posting something? That Instagram post was posted Sunday morning, so nearly 12 hours after the end of the race. The Twitter post was sent out an hour after it ended.
Just seems … curious … to me. That’s all. Nothing is done by accident. Ever. Not in NASCAR, not in any sport.
Thoughts? Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.
OK, let’s get to the good stuff and lighten the mood as we (hopefully) start a better week. First up? Josh Berry caught fire at Bristol, ran a couple laps with it, and then came down pit road to maybe the most hysterical crew chief I’ve ever heard in my life.
Incredible:
“NO CAUTION NASCAR? WE’VE GOT A DRIVER ON FIRE!”
For the love of God, NASCAR – throw a caution! Please. He’s begging you. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t see the need to throw one if something is happening on pit road, right? Why? He’s on pit road, out of the race, out of harm’s way. Fire Aide, I assume, was on the scene, although it doesn’t sound like they did a great job. Why would NASCAR stop the race for that?
Lord knows they stopped it enough times Saturday night. Do y’all know how many caution laps they ran?
137! The most in a Cup race in the modern era (whatever that means). And how about Bristol just dominating that list? Don’t know if you’ve heard, but they like to beat the piss out of each other at that place.
Brad Keselowski tried!
Don’t know how Christopher Bell kept it in a straight line, but he did. I would’ve bet money that Brad would’ve been able to move him. Just ask Terry Labonte!
OK, two more on the way out. First? How about Ryan Blaney’s nephew somehow gaining access to the scanner Saturday night?
Incredible. Only in NASCAR can a 6-year-old talk to the player during an actual game. You ain’t getting that sort of access in the NFL! Personally, I wish I could talk to Mike McDaniel during the game. I’d tell him to take his stupid little sunglasses off, and use his stupid designer shoes to walk his ass right out of the stadium.
Oh well. I can’t. Yet. Nice work yesterday, Dolphins!
OK, that’s it for today. Let’s end the day – and start the week – with Kyle and Samantha Busch continuing their inevitable journey towards OnlyFans. It’s only a matter of time.
See you at New Hampshire.