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The Driven Life: Matthew Todd on his second chance at living

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Matthew Todd and his daughter, Harper. (Courtesy Matthew Todd)

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed podcasts (also transcribed for those who prefer to read) involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Race fan Matthew Todd, who made a miracle recovery from a traumatic brain injury suffered one year ago this week. This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

Matthew, can you start by taking us through your injury and how it all happened?

My life changed forever in April of 2018. I was holding a door for a lady and took a few steps away from the door after she was in and a displacement caught my right foot. It caused me to stumble. I just fell down to the right — I put my right arm out, my elbow, to catch myself as I was falling forward — and something caught the right side of my head.

On the way down, instead of just having a bump on my head, the object that caught my head was in the perfect spot and it tore the cranial artery that we all have on the right side of our head. It ruptured the artery.

I remember falling. I remember holding the door and taking a few steps. Everybody slips and falls from time to time, I guess. But it’s usually as not as tragic as this was. It’s injured me for the rest of my life.

But I can say — in addition to being the worst injury I’ve ever had — outside of having my daughter, Harper Ruth, this is the greatest blessing God has ever given me. That brings us to the reason why we’re having a conversation today.

What happened next? I assume you were immediately transported to the hospital?

They gave me my first helicopter ride and unfortunately I don’t remember a darn thing about it. I’d never been on a helicopter before, but I was that day. They got me into Durham at Duke University Medical Center and operated on me immediately. But I was incapacitated from the time I fell and made contact with the displacement that tore my artery. I was put on life support.

The procedure was supposed to last two hours. About 90 minutes into it, representatives met with my mother and had her sign some paperwork. They informed her that “From the neck down, your son is very healthy. He has healthy organs.” They said, “He is an organ donor, right?” She said, “He has the heart on his license. He is an organ donor.” They said, “Great. We can use his organs and the other form you signed is to give you the rights to his body.”

That statement there, when I would share this with my friends and family, that’s something that would make me cry. I would get emotional right there. I can’t imagine what my mom went through in that moment.

Statistically, with this injury, the large majority do not live. And if they do live, they have extreme disability for the rest of their life as far as their bodily function, cognitive skills, motor skills — the works. And I was very fortunate.

But they were still operating on me. They got through the procedure. God blessed me with the fact my brain did not swell. They were very worried about the 12 hours immediately following the cranial surgery. They opened up the right side of my head. I had 93 staples in my head. And my brain didn’t swell, so they were able to put me in a private room in the ICU. They estimated I’d be there in the ICU anywhere from 30 days to several weeks. Then I’d go to another floor in the hospital and remain there for the foreseeable future.

Matthew Todd had staples in his head to close up his skull after doctors operated to repair his artery. (Courtesy Matthew Todd)

During this time, you told me you are absolutely positive you experienced a taste of the afterlife. And unfortunately we don’t have enough time to go into all of it today, but you described being on a vessel, experiencing vivid colors you’ve never seen in real life and seeing loved ones who had passed away.

I went straight into an area of complete peace. I was in no pain. I was not bothered by anything, just an unconditional euphoria of peacefulness. I’ve never been through a near-death experience, but this was something that was just incredible to me.

It takes 40 to 45 minutes to tell the entire story, but I saw relatives, I saw friends, they were healthy and happy and they looked better than I ever saw them here.

And then I’m walking through these doors into a light. There’s no sense of falling, fear, nothing. And as soon as I go through that light, I’m sitting straight up in my bed at the hospital. Like a bolt of lightning through my back. It felt like the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker corps had all hit me at once.

You said it was about three days from the time of the accident to the time you woke up. I know they told your family there was a chance you’d never to be able to walk or talk, and if you did, it would be weeks or months before you spoke with any coherency once you came out of your coma. And so there were a lot of people around when you suddenly came to.

The news was bad. Everybody literally at that time was waiting until I was going to pass away. Like maybe a day or two and there’s going to be a funeral.

I woke up. There was a lot of people coming in and checking me or seeing  me. All I was doing was talking to family and friends the best I could. I couldn’t remember anything for sure. At that time, I remembered my daughter and my dog, Blue.

Over time, things started coming back to me, but not in great detail. But it didn’t matter. I was completely in an emotion of subtle happiness. I had been through a traumatic brain injury and I was just peaceful at that time. My brain was not flowing, it was not working properly.

Matthew Todd woke up and was able to speak after only three days in a coma. He was sent home within a week after the accident. (Courtesy Matthew Todd)

You mentioned they sent you home shockingly early — less than a week after the accident — because you were able to pass some cognitive tests. But obviously you had a lot of restrictions on what you could do as you were in the very early processes of recovery.

I got back home on a Monday afternoon. I laid down on the bed in my room and after about 10 minutes of laying there, I had no idea where I was. I had no idea what house I was in. I had no idea it was my house. That’s how far away I was from everything until my cognitive function allowed me to start processing memories.

Still to this day, I look at pictures of my daughter over the course of her five years and wonder when she took her first steps, what were her first words. Those are things I can’t nail down right now.

I have very good detail on some things. I’ve been reliving the days in the hospital often, but there’s lots of things over the course of my 37 years I can’t recall in detail. I rely on my family and friends to help piece me in, and also going to a place and looking around.

The reason I mentioned the house and not remembering was all of my signed diecasts. I started collecting diecasts several years ago — not a lot of them — but I enjoyed the driver to sign it in silver on the windshield. My first Father’s Day gift was a Jeff Gordon signed Gen 7 car that I got. NASCAR is an absolute wonderful sport in general.

I don’t recall watching television that week. I don’t recall doing much of anything. I had no sense of hunger. I could not process hot and cold temperatures. That following Saturday, I cut on my television. The TV was on, and I go to turn a channel and the DVR was recording.

The first question is, “What’s a DVR?” and “What is this?” Mom said, “Matthew, that’s a race.” I’m like, “Well what race is it?” She’s like, “That’s a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race.” And they were racing as I recall at Richmond. I’m not 100 percent, but I believe they were in Richmond. And I didn’t even know I was looking at a NASCAR race. But Mom explained to me I was a large fan of the sport and I have been since I was 3 years old.

So you had no idea you were a NASCAR fan?

I had no idea what I liked and didn’t like. Down to food, music, sports, hobbies — all that stuff.

The NASCAR stuff, through following that sport, that was able to bring me a lot of happiness and the memories that came back to me. I had time on my hands, and I enjoyed watching the shows, the races and everything I could about it.

But it also started waking up the memories I had in that particular thing I enjoyed — racing. Constantly you read a name or a car, number, team, whatever it may be. It just wakes something up.

Every race I’ve been to, I can’t remember them all now. I used to be able to. I used to be able to tell you who won the races. Some I can, some I can’t. The details of specific memories come back in full force or I’m only going to get a piece of them or none at all.

It’s hard to picture that. But it sounds like NASCAR essentially played a role in helping you retrieve those memories.

Imagine the hard drive of your computer being wiped clean and then all the memories flowing back in. Sometimes early on, it was very slow and then it picked up very quickly to where every day, I could be doing anything and a memory from a random time in my life will come back to me.

As far as the racing, I went through everything in my house. I remember seeing the yellow bib that had a No. 18 on it. That brought back the memory of visiting Joe Gibbs Racing several years ago. I had gotten a bib for my daughter, Harper. Of course, she loves M&Ms. Whenever a race is on, she’s always looking for that No. 18.

I cannot tell you how much happiness it brings me when a memory comes back in something I have a great and positive passion about. One of the best memories that has come back to me was I was looking at the No. 24, but I was seeing the name “William Byron” under it. And I was like, “That doesn’t match to me. This is not what I’m recalling.” And then Jeff Gordon’s name — I don’t know if I read it or what — but that comes along, I pull out the diecast and see, “OK, that was Jeff Gordon’s car.” I piece together that he’s retired. And then — bam! — the first race I ever went to comes to mind, and that was the 1994 Coca-Cola 600 (which was Gordon’s first win).

Looking at the diecast, following (NASCAR reporters), things build up the more time you spend on it. Just like the exercises I have to do for my pathologist.

Wow, that’s so cool. Well I want to shift gears a bit here and talk about what perspective you’ve gained from this experience and having a second chance at life. One of the things I’ve noticed from following your tweets is you often tweet about the word “Real” and capitalize the R. Why is that?

“Real” is one of the most important words I have. Real people, real knowledge, real experiences. That’s what matters. Fake stuff is a waste of our time. People who are not honest are a waste of our time. Enjoying a sunset or a sunrise, that’s a real experience. I cling to what is real.

Back when this happened, I could not read a book or follow a movie because I couldn’t remember page to page what was going on. In a movie, I’d watch it begin and then 20 or 30 minutes later, I couldn’t follow the course of the story being told on the screen. But I’ve healed through that.

You mentioned it bothers you when people judge others, which is something you said you no longer do after the accident. 

Back when this happened, your car — how new or old it is — didn’t matter. Your house — how big or small it is — didn’t matter. Your clothes — how stylish or not stylish they are — didn’t matter. Your job didn’t matter. I just worried if people were healthy and happy.

The judgment of where someone eats or sleeps or how they earn their living, none of that at all mattered to me. And to this day, I care about someone’s health and happiness — I do not look at the stature of a person by the material things they have or the amount of money they have. I only care if they’re healthy and happy.

Going to a restaurant, I’ll never ever again go to a restaurant again and worry about, “I’ve got to get that piece of prime rib” or “I’ve got to eat the chicken soft tacos here.” All I care about is who I am with and what kind of real experience or real conversation or real enjoyment we’re going to have.

You also mentioned before the accident, you were as guilty as the rest of us as speeding through life and not taking the chance to enjoy it. I see from your tweets now that you really take the time to savor life’s small moments, even watching rain hitting the driveway.

I used to go 100 miles an hour and get everything I could get done and pack the most into every single day. And now that I’ve had this time to be forced to slow down, stop, pay attention to what’s going on around you, the beauty of the world around us is just amazing to me.

I was sitting in a garage and watching raindrops fall on a concrete driveway that I’ve known most of my life and I had never noticed the reflection of the sunshine off the raindrops when they hit the ground. They looked like diamonds dancing. I would sit outside for several hours and listen to the birds chirp, feel the breeze, watch the sun come up. Just absorb every bit of the natural beauty this world provides us. Seeing a good sunset, looking at the stars, seeing the moon — those things put me in a condition of awe. I’m in awe over those things.

Stuff that when you’re busy day to day, you’re working, you’re going here, there,  you’re raising a child, you’re doing the best you can — you don’t stop. You know the old saying “Stop and smell the roses.” I encourage everybody to just appreciate having air to breathe, food to eat, clothes to wear, a car to drive, a job to go to. Or if they’re retired or unable to work, make something of the time you have.

I walk around today knowing the afterlife, to me, heaven is very real, but we have to make the most of our time here. We’re all on a clock. We don’t know when that clock is going to stop and we do not control it. So it’s better to not waste your brain energy and be uptight, mean, mad all the time. It’s better to be kind — and above that honest, genuine, real.

If you don’t like something, you don’t like something. If somebody you care about wants to know why you don’t like something, feel free to tell them. Do what makes you happy. That’s not a get out of jail free card to do whatever you want, but be kind. If you like double cheeseburgers, eat double cheeseburgers. Don’t eat them to the point where you’re going to gain too much weight and have a heart attack, but enjoy it. Somebody likes the hot dogs at Martinsville? Gobble them up. Enjoy the hot dogs at Martinsville.

Speaking of Martinsville and going back to racing for a moment, you said you no longer have a favorite driver and never will again. Not because you don’t like the drivers, but you said your appreciation for what they do dwarfs any rooting interest. Do I have that correct?

I can appreciate what these people did in that industry that brought happiness to millions of fans. That’s what it all boils down to, right? Why do people enjoy playing golf or computer games or cooking? They do it for happiness. They do it for solitude. They do it to slow their mind down and enjoy some peace.

That’s a good reminder for those of us who work in NASCAR as to what it brings people. On another note, you said a big positive of Twitter was helping to rediscover your interest in racing. But it also bothers you after your experience.

I’m very saddened by the fact it seems social media has become a cesspool of opinions. And we all have those opinions. But just because someone’s opinion is different than yours doesn’t make them a bad person. It doesn’t mean the world is going to end. It just means they think a different way than you do about one particular topic.

You go to a restaurant. I might order the hot dog. You might order the cheeseburger. Guess what? We’re of a differing opinion about the menu. But we’re still going to enjoy ourselves and have a great conversation.

On a final note here, if you could give people advice on one thing they could do differently to appreciate life a little more in light of your experience, what would it be?

You don’t wake up every day and look at every single problem or issue a person may have. Just focus on the small things you can do. Work on the small things, and then once you do enough of those, you may see a big change in the large things. You’ve got to keep your focus on what’s important. But enjoy what you like to enjoy and be respectful of someone enjoying something that might be different from you. 

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12 Questions with John Hunter Nemechek (2019)

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(Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with John Hunter Nemechek of GMS Racing. These interviews are recorded as a podcast but are also transcribed for those who prefer to read.

1. Are you an iPhone person or an Android person, and why?

I’m an iPhone person. I’ve been Apple pretty much my entire life, other than middle school when we had to use Microsoft computers. I feel like the Apple generation of being able to share notes and have everything backed up from an iPad to a Mac to an iPhone is definitely way easier than having to transfer files on a Microsoft computer. Once you learn the software, it’s a little bit easier to use and more user friendly — even though Microsoft is what we use here at the racetrack for all of our data and everything else like that.

2. If a fan meets you in the garage, they might only have a brief moment with you. So between an autograph, a selfie or quick comment, what is your advice on the best way to maximize that interaction?

Normally I can sign and take a selfie at the same time, so I’m pretty good at multi-tasking. I feel like when people say stuff to you, it goes to heart. So whether I’m in a rush and running around, you’re always going to make time for the fans. That’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re able to do what we do.

I definitely think being able to take a selfie and sign an autograph is more than just someone saying something, because it gives them something to look back on from then taking a picture with me — especially kids. When you see a kid in the garage, you want to do everything in your power to make sure that kid gets an autograph or that kid gets a picture.

Growing up in this sport, growing up around Dad (Joe Nemechek), I was in a little different situation where I necessarily wouldn’t take pictures with drivers just because I was always under Dad’s wing. But being an outsider looking in from a kid’s experience, that’s something that they’re going to remember for the rest of their life — no matter if they cheer you on or the next guy on. Whoever it is, when you take that picture and you sign that autograph, that’s something they will remember.

Do you think the way you view fans is shaped in part by what you saw your entire life growing up?

I would say so. Seeing where the sport was, where it’s come to and where it’s going back to, I would say it’s huge from every perspective from growing up in the sport. I was two weeks old the first time that I came to a racetrack, so I pretty much grew up here. And to see the younger generation starting to come back to the racetrack and kids and more interaction from Monster being the title sponsor for the Cup series and Xfinity doing events and stuff like that, it’s pretty spectacular to see the growth in the sport continue as I grow in the sport as well.

3. When someone pulls a jerk move on the road when you’re driving down the highway, does that feeling compare at all to when someone pulls a jerk move on the track?

No, I don’t think so. I more or less laugh at people on the road from the perspective of them getting mad from being in traffic or whatever it may be. I mean, it’s part of life. There’s cars on the road, there’s people on the road, everyone is driving the fastest they can go on the road doing the speed limit.

Traffic jams do suck, but I think it’s funny when you’re sitting in a traffic jam and everyone’s blowing the horn, flipping each other off and stuff like that. It’s like, where are you going to go? If I move over, you’re going to go one spot forward. It doesn’t really matter. So I sit there and laugh and just take it all in.

4. Has there ever been a time where you’ve had a sketchy situation with your safety equipment?

Yes. When I was young coming up through the ranks, I wouldn’t wear a HANS in a quarter midget. We would just wear a neck brace. And I flipped once in a quarter midget — and I wore a HANS after that the entire time.

There’s also been times where I’ve been out on the racetrack and have reached back and only one HANS tether was hooked up, but that was early on. Now I get in with everything strapped on, make sure it’s all bolted up and ready to go.

5. If your crew chief put a super secret illegal part on your car that made it way faster, would you want to know about it?

I think me being on the technical side, I’d like to know what it is that’s making me go so fast. But from a driver’s standpoint, I’m more or less trying to focus on the driving aspect more than the engineering aspect like I was on the truck side. I think I can continue to grow as a driver if I focus on that, I think it’ll only help me in the long run.

So I’m going to have to say I don’t want to know about it. Let’s just show up to the racetrack, let’s continue to make adjustments and if there’s something secret and fast, the less people that know, the better. Because most of the time when you have an advantage, it ends up beating you to the racetrack because someone can’t keep their mouth shut at the shop or whatever it may be.

So the competitors get wind of it?

Yes, exactly.

And it shows up in the garage?

Exactly. So the less people who know, the better off it is.

6. What is a food you would not recommend eating right before a race and are you speaking with personal experience with this recommendation?

I don’t eat a lot before races. I’ll have like a bland salad and chicken or something along those lines. I haven’t really had any personal experiences before from eating foods or like getting disturbed in a race car or anything.

I have had butterflies so bad when I was young that I’ve thrown up before as I was strapping in before a race. Those were pretty interesting times with nerves.

Thrown up in the car?

Yeah, so that was during my transition from motorcross back to stock cars. So I really hadn’t done it that much. We qualified on the pole at Motor Mile, my first ever pole in a stock car. And I threw up right before the race, which wasn’t good. I didn’t throw up in my helmet, so that was good. I didn’t have to deal with that the whole race.

But I would say you don’t want to eat anything heavy before the race, anything that’s going to upset your stomach because you’re stuck in there. I’ve heard stories of guys who have had accidents in their seats or thrown up and whatnot, and I don’t want to be that guy that sits there in that for three hours, four hours, however long it may be. The smell after the race, could you imagine? That would be so bad.

You couldn’t pay the interior guy enough.

Nope.

7. Is there life in outer space, and if so, do they race?

I’m going to say yes and yes. I’m not really one to say there’s aliens or whatever it may be, but I would definitely say there’s other universes and stuff out there that we don’t necessarily know about, and I definitely think they would race. Why not? Race spaceships, whatever. I mean, in theory it sounds cool, right? I would love to do that. That’d be awesome, that’d be a lot of fun.

As soon as we get the technology to get to other planets, we can start exchanging drivers or pilots or whatever they call them.

I would say we already have the technology in my theory to go to other planets and stuff like that. I think we have sent life to other planets, just no one knows about it. I have that theory. There’s a bunch of different theories from watching documentaries and stuff like that that you can come up to, but I like to have my own.

8. What do drivers talk about when they’re standing around at driver intros before a race?

I’m not a huge conversation person before the race; most of the time I’ll have earbuds in listening to music or kind of getting in my zone. When Cup guys are around like Logano or Kyle (Busch), I like to pick their brains. They’re some of the best in the business, right? So pick their brains about what they’re kind of fighting, trends of the race. I have raced against Kyle forever in Late Models and trucks and now the Xfinity Series, so we talk about Super Late Models before the race. If I see CBell before the race, if we talk, we’re kind of just hanging out mentioning race car stuff or talking about fitness or whatever it may be. But really not a huge conversation person before the race.

9. What makes you happy right now?

Being here at the racetrack, being able to do what I love and just being blessed with the opportunity that I have to be one of the 40 guys competing full time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and trying to make a living out of it. It’s a rare opportunity. There’s a bunch of kids who are at home sitting on the couch who say, “Hey, I want to be there someday,” and sometimes reality’s not there. I’ve been blessed for this situation and the pieces of equipment I’ve been given to continue to grow and continue in this sport, and I’m just really thankful for that.

10. Let’s say a sponsor comes to you and says, “We are going to fully fund the entire rest of your racing career on the condition that you wear a clown nose and an 80’s rocker wig in every interview you do forever.” Would you accept that offer?

Yes, I would. NASCAR as a sport has come to more of a sponsorship standpoint sport rather than a driver’s ability or whatever it may be. It’s very rare that you see a guy get hired for talent now. It’s mostly the “Hey, what can I do as far as business to business with the team owner and his companies?” or “What sponsors can I bring to the table?”

So to be able to grow in the sport and continue to progress and have the opportunity and have a sponsor that’s going to back you for a lifetime, that’s something that is unheard of right now in this sport. So to have something that would come and say wear a clown nose and an 80’s rocker wig? Heck yeah I’d wear it! Why not?

11. This is the 10th year of the 12 Questions. There has never been a repeat question until now. Pick a number between 1 and 100, and I’m going to pull up a random question from a past year’s series.

We’re going to go with 23.

This is from the 2011 12 Questions. When you eventually quit racing, what do you want your retirement story to say about you?

When I eventually quit racing, my retirement story, I want to be one of the best in the sport — one of the guys that when he walks up and down pit road, his smile shines and he’s known in the garage area. I feel like with my family’s history in the sport, my last name is definitely a present in and around the garage area just from Dad’s success.

But I want to outdo him. I want to be one of the best in the sport. I want to win Cup races, I want to win championships and I feel like it’s a realistic goal to get there with the hard work and the determination and the commitment I have to the training aspect, the hard work aspect and just continuing to try and make myself grow as a person and become my own person is huge.

I want to have some Tony Stewart stories, Richard Petty stories, just stories that you can go back to after you’re retired and tell. I think Ken Schrader is one of the best for telling stories just from being around the garage, and he was Dad’s teammate at one point and we’ve raced around him at Eldora and stuff like that. He’ll sit down and he’ll just tell stories. It’s pretty remarkable to hear what has happened in the past and what those guys went through. There’s never a dull moment, that’s for sure.

You mentioned working hard. I hear you’re one of the most hard-working, driven guys — that you really go above and beyond. Why do you think it’s so important for you to stand out like that?

Whether I get recognized as a hard worker or not, it’s self satisfaction. I want to know that I’m coming into this sport giving my 100 percent. Whether it’s watching video, taking notes, being on a bike, running, being in the shop with the team guys, being hands on — whatever it may be, I’m going to put 100 percent into it. And if I don’t, then I don’t need to be here.

I was brought up the way that you better do stuff right the first time, and like I said, not everyone gets an opportunity like myself to be able to be in this garage and continue to progress through the ranks like I have, and have great people around you and great supporters and great sponsors that have backed me for many years. So I feel like I owe it to myself to be 100 percent on my game each and every week that I show up to the racetrack.

12. The last interview was with Corey LaJoie. In light of the recent McDowell-Suarez dustup, he was noting that Suarez wasn’t necessarily that guy that people would have picked to be the tough guy in the garage. He wants to know: Who do you think is another sleeper in the garage who is a sneaky good fighter that maybe nobody would anticipate?

Cup garage, Xfinity garage or Truck garage?

I’ll leave it open to wherever you want to go with it.

Well, I’ve seen a few guys throw punches at a couple MMA training events from the Truck Series who have now moved up to the Xfinity Series, and none of them can really fight. So I’m not going to go with any of those guys. (Laughs) I’m not going to name names. But when you punch with your fist upside down, you know that is not going to be very good.

I would say from the Cup garage, probably Matt DiBenedetto. He’s a strong guy, right? Like he does Crossfit and stuff like that. I’ve never seen him throw a punch and he’s always seemed like a nice guy, but every nice guy has a hot side. So if you push certain buttons, I would say that it could come to that.

I would not want to fight Matt DiBenedetto.

No. You would probably get knocked out first punch. I would say Ross Chastain or Jeremy Clements. I know that they got into it at Bristol, but I would say on the Xfinity side, those are two guys that are nice guys in the garage and always have a smile. But like I said, you push a wrong button, they’re coming after you, that’s for sure.

I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with. Do you have a question I can ask another driver?

So I got my first tattoo yesterday.

Are you serious?

I did. So I’m going to say, if you could get any tattoo in any location on your body, what would it be and where would it be? 

Do you care to share yours or are you going to keep it a secret?

Yeah, I got a cross yesterday. Last night actually. When it heals, it will lighten up a bit. So it’s a wood grain cross. Something that went into a lot of detail and thought. I’ve been a Christ follower all my life and continue to go to church. I think things happen for a reason, right? I mean, He’s watching over us and I’m blessed to be in the spot that I’m in and he’s always Lord on board.

But when I go up and shake someone’s hand, I’m a man of my word and a man of God, so you know that you’re getting the truth out of me and 100 percent out of me. I’m right handed, so that’s why I did it on my right arm.

Right where your wrist is.

Yup, right there.

You can see the detailed little waves in the wood.

Yeah. So the same guy that did Ryan Blaney’s tattoos actually did this last night. London Reese is pretty good, check out his artwork.

This is the first 12 Questions interview with John Hunter Nemechek

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Bristol spring race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway…

1. An off-day for an elite race team

One of the top crew chiefs in the garage faced reporters after the Bristol race and gave a frank assessment of his team’s lack of speed.

“This was probably about the worst car I gave him to go race with this year,” the crew chief said. “We didn’t make a lot of headway in practice. We weren’t as good as we hoped to be.”

The driver echoed that sentiment, saying the team never hit on the right setup for the entire weekend.

“We just didn’t quite have the speed,” he said. “We just didn’t show exactly what we needed there.”

Added the crew chief: “They had us covered today. We weren’t very good, like I’ve said a dozen times already.”

Yikes. Clearly, it sounds like a very tough Sunday at Bristol for…(checks notes)…Kyle Busch and crew chief Adam Stevens?!?!

That’s crazy. In a season where Busch has already been stellar, the field somehow allowed the No. 18 team to score yet another victory and add to its already-impressive playoff point total. Busch now has 19 playoff points, which is by far the most after the first eight races under this system (12 was the previous best).

We all know there are times when Busch loses races on days he had the best car. On Sunday, he won a race where he clearly wasn’t the fastest. This is shaping up to be a long season for Busch haters yet again.

“Hopefully we can get back on our horse and give him something he can race with a little closer next week,” Stevens said.

2. Odd ending

Bristol was a really fun and interesting race from Lap 1, with all sorts of unpredictable twists (from wrecks to loose wheels) that kept the pace moving quickly. Fears of a dreadful race due to the aero effects of the new package didn’t come to fruition and the traction compound appeared to last throughout the day (instead of wearing out halfway through).

All in all, it was the best race of the season so far.

But it sure ended in an anti-climactic way. One of the Team Penske cars was headed toward victory lane — they’d been the class of the field, leading 344 laps.

And then, strangely, the Penske trio just handed the race to Busch by pitting before a restart that ultimately came with 14 laps to go.

Track position won out, with the top two finishers — the Busch Brothers — pulling away on old tires. Joey Logano went from eighth to third, but wasn’t really a threat for the win.

Later, Logano said he thought the pit decision was a no-win situation for the frontrunners.

“The last thing you want is a caution with 15 to 20 to go at Bristol and you’re the leader, because you know everyone is going to make their decision off of what you do,” he said. “If you stay out, you’ve got to expect half the field is going to pit, maybe more. If you come in, five or six stayed (out). So it’s just part of the game.”

But is it? I’m having a hard time visualizing it. If the leaders stayed out — let’s say it was only the three Penske cars and a few others — they would have been in the same situation as the Busch Brothers ended up in.

Perhaps Logano was just trying to avoid throwing his team under the bus for a strategy decision that clearly cost him the race. And for viewers at home, it certainly made for a weird ending.

3. Race recap from a parallel universe

BRISTOL, Tenn. — As continuous cheers rained down from the stands for 15 minutes following the checkered flag, Kurt Busch stood atop the victory lane building in Bristol Motor Speedway’s infield and shrugged his shoulders with a grin.

“I really wanted to beat him,” Busch said of his younger brother, Kyle. “I decided I was going to wreck him, and if I got close enough when we took the white, I was just going to drive straight into Turns 3 and 4 and wreck him.”

Busch did exactly that, sending his brother’s No. 18 car spinning and crashing as the No. 1 car crossed the finish line. Bristol fans, weary of seeing Kyle win yet another race, responded by erupting in joy as Kurt circled the track with a Polish victory lap.

It also may have sparked a rivalry at a time when NASCAR could use some bad blood.

“I’ll get him back,” Kyle said on the track’s public address system as fans showered him with jeers. “I don’t care if it takes me all season and I don’t care what the penalty is. He’ll regret this day ever happened.”

In related news, Bristol reported ticket sales saw an immediate increase for its upcoming Night Race in August.

4. Yes, we see it

The stands looked bad. Attendance has steadily been getting worse over the last decade. It’s not going to get much better anytime soon. Everyone acknowledges this. No one I’ve seen is trying to talk around this fact, nor appearing to hide it or sugarcoat it.

But given it’s 1) Not anything new and 2) Not going to change … can we please just stop talking about it for awhile? The topic is exhausting.

5. You picked a fine time to leave me

This weekend turned into a celebration of Darrell Waltrip’s career, which is probably the first of many tributes he will receive leading up to his retirement from broadcasting in late June.

Drivers gave him hugs and recorded video messages that left him emotional in the booth, and the track gave him one of its signature gladiator swords following a news conference where he shared many reflections on his time in NASCAR.

Waltrip, one of NASCAR’s all-time great drivers and a uniquely special broadcaster, deserves the fond farewells.

But they’re also long overdue. The moment Jeff Gordon stepped into the FOX booth and brought his current knowledge of the cars, teams and drivers — while Ol’ DW preferred to rely on his old-school experiences — it was painfully obvious a change was needed.

Given television’s crucial role in how NASCAR is represented, it’s absolutely fair to question whether the best product is being shown to viewers. In that sense, it’s also perfectly acceptable to look forward to a fresher voice in the booth.

Waltrip passionately defended himself on Friday, though, and it’s clear many people agree with him.

“People say, ‘He’s not relevant any more, hasn’t driven a car,'” Waltrip said. “I’ve been in the cars. I know what they feel like. I know what it feels like to win a race here. You want to listen to some guy that’s never won a race somewhere tell you how to drive a car? I don’t think so.

“I have the knowledge. I have the experience. Look, I don’t sit at home Monday through Thursday twiddling my thumbs.  I talk to crew chiefs.  I talk to drivers. … I know how they do it. I could build the damn car myself if I had to. Tell somebody else, some of these guys, build a car, see how it runs.

“Nobody shook me and said, ‘Man, it’s time to give it up.’ It’s just that time.  72 years old. I could do this til’ I’m 90.

“This is what I know, this is what I do best. I’ve loved every minute of it.  I think I’m pretty damn good at it, to tell you the truth.”

Heading into the weekend, the controversial Jenna Fryer column was a hot topic, and she got a lot of crap for it. But if anything, Fryer may have done him a favor: Rallying DW’s supporters for a celebration tour while drowning out the previously loud voices of his detractors.

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Post-Bristol podcast with Brian David Johnson and Kate Ertmann

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Portland residents Brian David Johnson, a renowned futurist and bestselling author, and Kate Ertmann, a management consultant, join me again on the podcast to talk about topics stemming from Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

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12 Questions with Corey LaJoie (2019)

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The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Corey LaJoie of Go Fas Racing. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read.

1. Are you an iPhone person or an Android person, and why?

I’m a normal human being, so I’m an iPhone person.

That makes you a normal human being?

Yeah. Are you an iPhone person?

I am an iPhone person. Actually, you continue the streak. Not one driver so far has said Android.

Yeah, I wouldn’t know how to operate it. I wouldn’t even know how to turn one on.

2. If a fan meets you in the garage, they might only have a brief moment with you. So between an autograph, a selfie or quick comment, what is your advice on the best way to maximize that interaction?

I think the selfie is the best way to go. Like have the camera ready, and, “Hey, can I take a selfie?” “Yeah sure!” Snap. There it is.

A lot of people don’t even know what my name is anyway, so if you can call my name out and it’s not “Paul Menard” — because I get that about five times a weekend. If you can call Corey LaJoie and “Hey, can I have a selfie?” that’s automatic brownie points in my book.

So people see a firesuit and they’re like, “You must be somebody!”

“Paul Menard!” I say, “Yeah, I wish.”

3. When someone pulls a jerk move on the road when you’re driving down the highway, does that feeling compare at all to when someone pulls a jerk move on the track?

No. I get way more mad when somebody pulls a jerk move on the road than on the track because on the track you expect it, right? You’re racing. But on the road when somebody does something stupid, it can put other people’s lives in danger, right? So that gets me way more fired up.

But I’m a little more tame in my older age now. I’m not one to honk, I’m just one to get really close or put you in the median or really use my car as a weapon sometimes. But I’ve toned that down a little bit.

4. Has there ever been a time where you’ve had a sketchy situation with your safety equipment?

Not that I can recall. My dad would get pretty mad at me if I did (Randy LaJoie’s Joie of Seating builds race car seats). There’s been times where I’ve raced a Super Late Model or something without a HANS device, and you just figure either “Ah, I forgot it,” or “I’m not going that fast.” So there might have been a couple of times when I raced without a HANS device.

But for the most part, my dad would get pretty pissed off if I didn’t have all my stuff in order and I got hurt, because it would look bad for the business obviously. So in that regard, I try to stay pretty safe.

So his interest goes beyond just the seats, obviously.

Yeah, if I get hurt — even if my toe gets hurt in the race car — it’s a bad representation of the business. So I’ve got to make sure all my stuff is dialed in so if something does happen, I don’t get too terribly hurt.

5. If your crew chief put a super secret illegal part on your car that made it way faster, would you want to know about it?

I’d be interested to know what it was so I can apply it to another car, whether it’s a Super Late Model or something.

So you want to take his idea later after you race it and be like, “Oh, OK.”

Yeah. That’s what a lot of the big guys do with the risk versus reward. The reward is so much greater, because if you can run an illegal part — like spoilers for four months at a time and not get caught until the end of the year and you’ve already made the Chase and you’ve already made the final two rounds of the playoffs, then that was worth it. So I would run an illegal part because there’s everybody else in the gray area. They can tell you that they’re boxed off all they want to, but everybody’s pushing the gray area. Some guys push it a little more, some guys don’t.

Is that a misconception among fans? Because I think fans only think people are cheating when somebody gets caught. But everybody’s doing it all the time, pretty much.

The further back in the garage you get, the less bending of the rules happens because the fines versus the budgets are way, way smaller, right? On a team with a $3 million budget, a $100,000 fine is quite a bit. To a $30 million budget, a $100,000 fine is nothing. So that’s got to be taken into account.

And also, if we roll through pre-qualifying inspection and we fail the first time, we’re really worried about the next time we go through being right because we can’t afford to lose another guy. (Editor’s note: Crew members get ejected for the weekend if a car fails inspection twice). Like we’re not maxed out on our roster numbers anyways — we’re probably two shy — so when we roll through and we fail, we’re like, “Oh boy, we can’t afford to give John away for the rest of the weekend for just qualifying tech.” So we’ve got to make sure we’ve got all our stuff right when we go through.

And those (bigger teams) just have another mechanic to pull from or they’ll put the crew chief in the driver’s bus for the race. Like those guys aren’t going anywhere, right? And they have the resources where they can bend the rules and have it not be that big of a penalty.

6. What is a food you would not recommend eating right before a race and are you speaking with personal experience with this recommendation?

I would venture to say a Taco Bell run would probably not be well-advised before a race. I haven’t had that.

So don’t make a run for the border right before a race.

No, I don’t recommend that at all. I usually get Taco Bell after a race. But there’s certain things where you don’t want to be burping up something and have it just be smelling really bad. It’s not fun when your stomach is rumbling for 400 miles.

And you can smell inside the helmet?

Oh yeah. There’s not a whole lot of escape for that, so…

7. Is there life in outer space, and if so, do they race?

I don’t think so. That could get in a real deep conversation, but for the most part, I’m going to say no. I’ll leave it at that. I have other theories, but not enough time today.

8. What do drivers talk about when they’re standing around at driver intros before a race?

A lot of them talk about their kids and what they do away from the track. There’s not really a whole lot of racing talk because you’re going to get a whole lot of racing fix for the next four hours, so you don’t really want to. Sometimes there’s a little bit of talk, right? Just “How’s your car driving?” and “This happened the other day.”

But there’s going to be a little more talk this Sunday (at Phoenix, in the wake of the Daniel Suarez-Michael McDowell fight), maybe pinning different drivers against each other, maybe head-to-head fights. So see who will win what. I think there’s going to be some more conversations about that.

So after the McDowell-Suarez thing, people will be like, “Hey, do you think this guy can take this guy?”

Yeah, I think so. 

9. What makes you happy right now?

My wife and just the state of my career right now, everything is going really good and I’m happy here at Go Fas Racing, bringing some fast cars to the racetrack. And just reading the Bible quite a bit, just been digging into that, it’s been really good. So I’ve got a lot of good things rolling in my life. I’m pretty content and happy where I’m at right now.

10. Let’s say a sponsor comes to you and says, “We are going to fully fund the entire rest of your racing career on the condition that you wear a clown nose and an 80’s rocker wig in every interview you do forever.” Would you accept that offer?

It depends how much I would be getting paid out of the deal because funding my career making $80,000 a year for the next 20 years is different than funding my career and me making $15 million. So if they’re funding my career and I’m making $15 million, I’ll wear a nose, hair, bell bottom pants all they want. So I haven’t had that opportunity come to my attention yet, but it would depend on what I would be making on the backhand, because every man has a price.

11. This is the 10th year of the 12 Questions. There has never been a repeat question until now. Pick a number between 1 and 100, and I’m going to pull up a random question from a past year’s series.

Let’s do 71. That was my Bandolero number back in the day.

Do you keep a mental list of people who you owe for payback?

No. You know the guys that you owe one to, but you also want to make sure that it’s right time and it’s beneficial to you. So I would like to say no because I’m not a revengeful type of person, but there are certain times where you cut guys a little bit more of a break than others sometimes just from the way they’ve raced in the past. So whether or not it’s putting somebody in the wall, that probably isn’t how I think. It’s just a matter of how hard I’m going to race somebody at what time in the race versus how they race me or did something to me weeks prior.

12. The last interview was with Paul Menard. As you mentioned earlier, he asked how often you get mistaken for him.

Four to five times a weekend.

That sounds very often.

Yeah. I wish I was Paul Menard. But I’m not, and eventually people might start mistaking Paul Menard for Corey LaJoie.

He said he was walking in the garage and somebody said, “Hey, Corey LaJoie!”

Wow! First for everything. Yeah, I’ve gotten Paul Menard for the last three to four years before everybody kind of knows I’m even here. So that’s a small improvement.

Maybe putting your face on a car has helped raised awareness.

Yes, it definitely has, no doubt. Old Spice got their money’s worth out of that. But yeah, that’s actually funny that Paul Menard got Corey LaJoie because I’ve been getting Paul Menard for several times every weekend for the last two years.

I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with. Do you have a question I can ask another driver?

I would ask somebody if they ever raced hung over, but nobody would be truthful in answering that. Unless it’d be like Clint Bowyer, then it’d be like, “Hell yeah!”

I like the fighting thing. But I think that one comes up a lot — what driver would you fight? Everybody says Ryan Newman, right? Because he’s like cornbread fed and he’s got no neck, so he can probably take a punch.

Do you think Suarez could take down Newman?

No.

So even Newman could take down Suarez? Newman’s that indestructible?

Newman is an oak tree. You could like run into that guy, you’d bounce off.

So I think a legitimate question would be, we all didn’t consider Suarez a fighter, right? Or strong. Who is another sleeper in the garage that you probably wouldn’t want to get into a fight with? Like Chris Buescher, somebody like that.

So not the main guys you think of, not like the Newman type, but who’s a guy that’s sneaky strong, that’s going to be able to…

Kinda squirrely, like punch you in the face before it even happens. I wouldn’t even have bet Suarez. I would put Suarez on the map, but I wouldn’t have seen him yanking down Michael McDowell like a little boy. So I’m trying to visualize the garage. Maybe Kevin Harvick.

He has a wrestler background.

Because he has a wrestler background and he’s training with Cowboy (Cerrone), I’m sure he’s picked up some tips here and there to put you in an arm bar before you even knew what happened. So I probably wouldn’t mess with Harvick. I’m sure Cowboy’s taught him some things. Like say, “Hey man, show me an arm bar!” And then that’s that. I wouldn’t mess with Harvick.

Previous 12 Questions interviews with Corey LaJoie:

— Feb. 20, 2018

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Texas race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway…

1. It was better…but why?

Recent races at Texas Motor Speedway, to put it kindly, have not been the most interesting on the circuit. Like you, NASCAR officials watched those events — along with other races on many 1.5-mile tracks — and thought, “UGH. Surely this can be better.”

So they came up with the 2019 rules package, which by now you’ve heard is the most dramatic change to the cars in years.

Until Sunday, the package hadn’t really worked as intended yet. And it was somewhat of a head-scratcher to those who saw glimpses of it in action before the season began.

But as it turns out, perhaps all the package needed was some chilly weather, sprinkled with a little love — in the form of VHT/PJ1/traction compound/whatever you want to call it.

“I feel like it was good racing,” Daniel Suarez said. “We were able to make runs and move around, get a little crazy on restarts — which is what people like and what we like. Hopefully we can learn from this and repeat it.”

Of course, that’s the tricky part. The rules package clearly isn’t going to work on every track — and it requires the right combination to be successful. As it turned out, Sunday was much closer to the ideal conditions of the Las Vegas test (which was misleading at the time).

On the first day of that test, the temperatures were cooler and the simulated racing looked great. The next day, it didn’t seem to be quite the same.

“We all drafted well and we were putting on a hell of a show — hell, it was fun in the car,” Clint Bowyer said Sunday of the Vegas test. “Then the next day at that test, the sun was out, it was 20 degrees hotter, we were single file and it wasn’t very much fun.”

Texas was more like Vegas in that temperatures were in the 50s, and it unlocked the key elements of the package when drivers could run around the track mostly wide open (except for Turns 1 and 2).

Since its controversial repave — where Texas built those turns to be flat compared to the more traditionally banked Turns 3 and 4 — the racing had struggled. So officials put a heavy amount of traction compound on the upper groove and it led to the track widening out.

That’s the first time the sticky stuff has been used successfully on a 1.5-mile track, following other trials at shorter tracks Bristol and New Hampshire.

“I was pretty bummed when I landed and saw the VHT on the track,” Bowyer said. “I was like, ‘Damn it, what are they doing?’ Because I haven’t had the best experience with it. But I felt like it helped this place.”

Erik Jones said the better Texas racing was caused 70 percent by the VHT and 30 percent by the temperatures.

“I actually thought the racing was better than what it was in the last few years with the low downforce package, and it’s probably the first week I would have said that,” Jones said. “… Cooler weather helping us be wide open was benefitting our package of racing. The other part, being able to move up in both ends and get completely clean air, was letting you get big runs.”

If those circumstances could be replicated more often, NASCAR might really have something to work with. Unfortunately, the weather is about to get a lot warmer.

2. Hockey pucks

If Sunday was a good race, it was in spite of the tires — not because of them.

Races are best when drivers have to manage their tires, choosing to push hard for short term gain or take care of the rubber in hopes of making passes during a long run. Tire wear creates passing and comers and goers, regardless of whatever cars or rules package might be on track.

Clearly, Goodyear could provide a little more in this area. The tires at Martinsville last week were said to have 3,000 laps in them and Texas didn’t seem much different.

“We’re basically running on brick walls, so they’re pretty durable,” Chase Elliott said.

“I don’t build tires,” Kevin Harvick said. “The tires suck every week.”

Aric Almirola said he was running as fast on 70-lap-old tires as he was on a restart with new tires. And Kyle Busch said the pace “didn’t fall off one bit.”

“We ran 28.80s to 29-flats the entire run,” Busch said of his lap times.

That’s two-tenths of a second for many, many laps at a time! Yikes.

It’s no surprise, then, that a pair of fuel-only calls ended up winning the race for Denny Hamlin. Crew chief Chris Gabehart said the object was to spend “minimum time on pit road” instead of worrying about tires and thus opt for track position. That helped his driver overcome two pit road penalties and another time when Hamlin missed pit road and lost six spots on the track.

Bowyer, who finished second thanks to another no-tires call, said he started to realize the strategy would work when he looked in his mirror on the straightaway and noticed no one was gaining on him.

“When you’re that far ahead you start to wonder ‘Can we get in and just do a splash-and-go and prevail?’” he said. “It’s a different kind of racing, there’s no question about that.”

Hopefully, as Goodyear adjusts to the slower speeds and increased downforce — and sees how these first races have played out — it can start introducing a softer tire into the mix.

3. Survive and…adapt?

On Sunday morning, Gabehart told Hamlin the No. 11 team had a winning race car.

Hamlin said he thought to himself: “He’s full of shit.”

After all, the team had struggled with the balance of the car all weekend and gave Hamlin little reason to believe the race would be any different.

But once it started, Hamlin realized Gabehart was right — he had a car that could pass anyone.

Though the car was obviously fast, Hamlin himself had to adjust to what was required from this form of racing. He ended the day with his first 1.5-mile track win since 2015 and joined Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski as the season’s multi-race winners.

If you look at those names, along with Joey Logano (the season’s other race winner), you have to wonder what they have in common aside from driving for great teams.

Perhaps the answer is adaptability.

None of the drivers have raced a package like this before, so they all have to get up to speed on it. Whoever wins these races might just be the ones who aren’t committed to a certain style or feel and are able change on the fly.

“I’m still learning as a driver,” Hamlin said. “This is a complete different style of racing than what I used to do in the past (and that) just doesn’t work that well. I have to adapt. Seems like I’m adapting quickly.”

As noted by the excellent stats account @Talon64, Hamlin is off to the best start of his career as a result. He has two wins and hasn’t finished worse than 11th.

4. A brief word about attendance

I got a lot of tweets today from people ripping Texas for the sparse grandstands. But while it certainly wasn’t a NASCAR crowd from 10 years ago, it also wasn’t awful by today’s standards.

Yes, really.

Here’s the thing: It’s all about the optics. Texas still has 133,000 permanent seats, which is second only to Bristol. It hasn’t torn down large sections of grandstands like most other tracks.

I have no idea how many people were at Texas, but I’m going to say somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 if I had to take a guess. Tracks don’t release attendance numbers anymore, so that’s just a shot in the dark.

But the point is, if you take the Texas crowd and put it at Phoenix (capacity 42,000) or Martinsville (44,000) or even Homestead (48,000), people wouldn’t be as critical. In fact, I’d bet money some people would tweet, “Great crowd, Phoenix! Way to go!”

Sunday’s numbers would have been horrifying in the not-so-distant past. But the reality is in 2019, any NASCAR attendance of 50,000 or more for an average regular-season race would be a good crowd. Even 40,000 is OK.

I’m not saying any of this is ideal, but let’s just be real about it. We’ll likely never know, but I highly doubt Texas had the smallest crowd of the season so far.

5. What’s next

Intermediate tracks are going to take a month-long vacation now as two short tracks (Bristol and Richmond) and a superspeedway (Talladega) take the spotlight.

Some of the upcoming storylines to watch include the effect of the high downforce on Bristol — drivers have said it could take a physical toll on them — and whether the rules package will put a damper on passing. Then it’s off to Talladega, where there will be no more restrictor plates and we’ll see NASCAR use tapered spacers instead (how that will go is anyone’s guess).

It’s also worth keeping an eye on whether Stewart-Haas Racing can join Gibbs and Penske as the only teams to win a race since November, whether Martin Truex Jr. can win his first race of the year and whether the signs of a Hendrick Motorsports resurgence are real or glimmers of false hope.

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Cup qualifying takes on bizarre feel again

Despite some tweaks to the Cup Series qualifying format, Friday at Texas looked a lot like previously messy qualifying sessions at Fontana and Las Vegas.

Drivers were upset with how the session unfolded, with cars mostly waiting on pit road until the final minutes and then scrambling to try and get laps recorded before time ran out.

“You just can’t qualify these cars this way,” Kevin Harvick said. “I love group qualifying, but I just laughed all the way out to the racetrack.”

“It’s frustrating and that’s all you can really say about it,” Denny Hamlin said. “It’s just frustrating.”

“It’s chaotic,” Aric Almirola said. “It’s silly.”

But NASCAR in turn criticized the drivers, believing they could have done more to avoid the session turning into a strange spectacle.

NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Jay Fabian said officials were “disappointed” to see drivers stay on pit road for so long before making their lap and cited Daniel Suarez as a driver who didn’t need the draft to qualify well. He questioned why other drivers didn’t follow Suarez’s lead.

“It’s disappointing they give reasons why they don’t go, then someone goes and they choose not to follow them,” Fabian said of the drivers. “A lot of what they say doesn’t add up with their actions on pit road. That’s the disappointing part. When you see someone roll, you would assume somebody would follow them — and they chose not to.”

Fabian vowed NASCAR would “take whatever steps we have to to clean it up so we don’t have this problem again.”

“Pretty much everything is on the table as far as what we’ll do moving forward,” he added.

Fabian also said Clint Bowyer’s complaints about Ryan Newman clogging the middle at the end of Round 1 were a product of Bowyer being “upset…probably because he didn’t get to make his lap” — and Newman didn’t do anything worth being penalized.

“There were plenty of TV views that showed there was room to go by (Newman),” Fabian said. “I’m sure (Bowyer) is upset.”

Bowyer was indeed upset, feeling like NASCAR should have learned from its previous qualifying “failure” and changed the format before this happened again.

“It’s sad,” Bowyer said. “Those people up there paid a lot of money to bring their families here to watch a qualifying session where people try to go out and do their best, and you’re just sitting around waiting because you know your best is only good enough if the guy in front of you does a good job.  That’s not qualifying.”

Martin Truex Jr. said the solution would be to “Take the plate off and let us qualify like men — drive them,” he said.

But while many drivers were fuming, Joey Logano wasn’t. Asked about how to fix qualifying, Logano said, “Who said there’s a problem?”

“I think it’s entertaining,” Logano said. “There’s a lot to talk about for you guys. You guys all have microphones out and there’s a lot to talk about, so I think it’s OK.”