Monday Morning Pit-Stop is a weekly NASCAR column that runs on OutKick.com and Fox News Digital. If you’re looking for a normal NASCAR recap, go check out insufferable ESPN … assuming they still know NASCAR exists.
Five races down, five to go in the NASCAR Cup Series postseason. That’s right. Feels like we just started these playoffs, and now this new version of The Chase is nearing the finish line.
Serious question …
How do we feel about it? This is the first year NASCAR hasn’t had it’s usual win-and-advance format in over a decade, and I’m genuinely curious how everyone feels.
Have you watched more? Less? The same? Do these races have the same fire they used to when every third race was an elimination race? Has it made any difference at all for you?
I’ll be honest … I miss the old format. I do. I knew I would. Chase Briscoe won yesterday at Las Vegas. Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick crossed the line while wrecking after Larson hit the wall trying to chase down Briscoe on the final turn.
It was a decent race, and a fun finish … but I just feel like it’s lost some juice. The stakes don’t feel quite as high to me. I still enjoy it, but these playoffs — or Chase, whatever NASCAR wants us to call them — have just felt sort of neutered.
And yes, I stole that word from Tony Stewart, who is currently viral right now for some eyebrow-raising comments he made about NASCAR earlier this year. You’ll see.
RISING NASCAR STAR JUMPED, ATTACKED & BEATEN AT AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS HOT DOG SHACK
What else? I’ve got Kasey Kahne, amazingly, coming out of retirement, a scorned wife going after a NASCAR driver after she seduced her husband (true story), and Brad Keselowski has been pushed out the door by his own team, which makes no sense given the team stunk before Brad got there and was actually respectable the past few years.
Dummies. I’m not surprised, though, given his partners are associated with my Red Sox, and they’re run just about as poorly as any professional sports team on the planet right now.
Four tires, a splash of that Sunoco racin’ fuel, and maybe a few more horses for Tony Stewart … Monday Morning Pit-Stop — the ‘NASCAR’s Been Neutered’ edition — is LIVE!
Look, we’re gonna break down yesterday’s race at Vegas here in a bit. I promise. It was an OK race, with a decent finish that probably would’ve been a lot better if the cars weren’t horrible.
Take a look at Saturday’s O’Reilly Series ending to see what I mean.
But first, I do want to dive into these comments from Tony Stewart, which made the internet rounds over the weekend. Tony, who retired from full-time Cup racing in 2016, has never been known to mince words.
I agree with a lot of his takes. I don’t agree with others. For instance, he weirdly bashed fans and the media for mourning Kyle Busch earlier this year because he claimed we didn’t care about Kyle Busch “the person” when he was alive. It was odd.
So no, I don’t always agree with the man they call “Smoke,” but I do 100000% agree with him here.
Take a look:
“I’ll be honest, I don’t even watch anymore,” Stewart told the Oil and Whiskey podcast. “It is, it is so neutered. I mean, they’re driving cars with 500 horsepower. When I, at the peak when I was running, we were at 875 horsepower, those things. And then they cut the nuts off of them. We went down to a 775 horsepower package and I was miserable. I’m like, these things are pieces of s–t.
“I’m going to do a commercial tomorrow with Dodge and Ram and we’re promoting a truck that has 777 horsepower that you can buy off a showroom floor. And you can go to Talladega to the truck race and outrun that thing by theory with more power from a street truck that you can buy.
“It’s like, NASCAR, wake the f–k up. What are we doing?”
Yeah, I mean — it’s tough to argue with Tony Stewart on anything he just said. It’s all true. It’s all correct. The funny thing is, Tony is actually getting back in a car later this month! He’s set to race the No. 25 Ram for Kaulig Racing in the Truck Series race at Talladega on Oct. 23.
It’s funny because Tony notoriously HATED restrictor plate race when he drove. HATED them. Mocked them all the time. And now he’s gonna be back in a truck at ‘Dega because he needs to promote Dodge.
Everyone has a price!
Speaking of drivers making stunning comebacks to the sport …
Where in the world did THIS come from?
Per Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic, Kasey Kahne, now 46, is set to come out of retirement and drive a Spire truck full-time next season.
Why? I have no earthly idea. None.
Kahne hasn’t raced since 2018, and he’s only made six Truck Series starts over his career. For those who forget, the 31-time race winner retired at the end of that 2018 season due to health reasons, pointing towards dehydration as a big factor. As Bianchi noted, the Truck races are the shortest of all three, so it does make sense for Kahne to return to that specific series.
Personally, I just hope we get more commercials like this next season with NASCAR’s biggest heartthrob back behind the wheel:
Man, we had it so good back then, and we just pissed it all away. Remember how great NASCAR commercials used to be? Heck, any commercial, for that matter.
Now, they’re all just Ozempic ads and Big Pharma crap. Disgusting. What a fall from grace.
OK, let’s quickly jam the pedal to the floor and rapid-fire through a couple quickies on the way out …
First? Here’s how yesterday’s race ended, which is extra special because you get to see Kyle Larson racing Kyle Busch’s iconic No. 5 Kellogg’s scheme from back in the day:
See? Solid finish. Solid race! Could you make an actual pass? Not really. Dirty air still rules all, unfortunately. It’s undefeated in this Next Gen car, and I fear it will always be.
But it is what it is at this point. Not much you can do about this until the offseason:
Ooooooooooof. Just a brutal clip. Don’t let Tony see it! He’ll freak out.
Next? On the way out, let’s go ahead and check in on Brad Keselowski, who is leaving his own RFK race team after this month:
Pretty shocking news out of the NASCAR world late last week. Brad Keselowski came in to Roush-Fenway Racing five years ago and really, I thought, turned that place around. They were pretty irrelevant before Brad arrived, and this year they had two of the three cars in the Chase.
Brad said his five-year contract expires this year, so that’s part of the reason he’s leaving. Obviously, there’s a lot more meat on this bone, because the results have been good. I’ve seen some rumblings that the organization wanted him to transition into a more managerial role, while he preferred to keep racing.
If that’s the case, I’m with Brad. He’s a NASCAR champ and a future Hall of Famer. If you wanna keep racing … keep racing. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise!
OK, that’s it for today. Solid week. A weird one, but a solid one.
On the way out, here’s NASCAR Truck Series driver Jennifer Jo Cobb owing the wife of spotter Clayton Hughes a whopping $850,000 after she won a civil court case in which she accused Cobb of seducing her husband before their ultimate divorce in 2021.
Most expensive sex ever, if you ask me!
See y’all at Charlotte.
