NASCAR Spotter Threatens To Quit During Race, Danica Patrick Gets Naked At Burning Man & Dale Earnhardt Clone
Welcome to this Eclipse/Rapture Monday 2024!
If we all die today, are you good going out with William Bryon as your last NASCAR winner? Are you??
Eh. I don't know that I am, if we're being honest. Just sort of blah, sort of like Martinsville yesterday.
This Next Gen car has ruined short tracking racing, which used to be must-see TV on the NASCAR schedule.
Now, it plays second-fiddle to Iowa-South Carolina, and I'd imagine the TV ratings will reflect that when they come out later this week. Oh well. It is what it is.
That's why you have me here on Mondays – to drum up some drama, scour the internet for funny shit on an otherwise slow NASCAR weekend, and listen to a 90-minute Danica Patrick interview just so I could pull out some nuggets for everyone.
And if you wanna hear Danica talk about penises ad nauseam on this rapture Monday, you are in the absolute right place. Let's get after it!
Fine. I guess we'll talk some Martinsville, too. Billy the Kid won. Chase Elliott ran well for the first time in two years. We had a nice little F-bomb explosion on pit road Friday night. We had a couple decent pileups on the paperclip.
So, yeah – it wasn't all bad. But you're mainly here for the Danica interview, and I get it. Don't blame you, frankly.
Four tires, some Sunoco racing fuel, and some of them fancy eclipse glasses from the Walmart down the road … Monday Morning Pit-Stop – the ‘That Used To Be So Much Better, But I Don't Feel Like Complaining Again Today' edition – is LIVE!
The only real drama from the NASCAR weekend took place …
… during the Friday night truck race. And it's a damn shame, if we're being honest.
Short track racing used to be a breeding ground for elite content. I'm talking fights, helmet-tosses, punting folks into next week on the final lap and then getting booed by your "home crowd" because you're a dick (hello, Denny!).
None of that really happened yesterday. It was just sort of follow-the-leader, because the leader had clean air and clean air is king in these automobiles. Sad.
But I just told you I was tired of bitching and moaning about NASCAR, so I ain't doing it today. Not today. Not when the tin-foil hats tell me this eclipse is really the beginning of the end/we're about to be sucked into a black hole/Jesus is coming back this afternoon/it's about to Earthquake Central in the US of A.
Yeah, there's a TON of that out there today. If that stuff makes you queasy, stay away.
Anyway, all that to say we DID have some drama from the kiddos in the truck series Friday night, and it got the juices flowing a bit:
We did at least get some classic Martinsville pileups throughout the weekend
I wrote about these two psychos over the weekend, but I'm gonna rehash it here because they deserve some MMPS shine.
Love this move by Timmy Hill here. Just drops the gloves and blasts Stewart Friesen into oblivion.
I equally love Friesen's reaction, which is just to smile and be condescending. That combo is lethal when you're dealing with a psychopath yelling expletives in your face.
… with nothing at all. They just went their separate ways and called it a night. Hey, Timmy – let's finish the job and clock Stewart in the face. Hell, at least try. At least make the security guards get involved.
But nope. Just F-bomb city and he's gone. Poof. Sad.
By the way, that wasn't the only truck series tirade from Friday …
How about THIS little back and forth from driver Daniel Dye and his spotter, who threatened to QUIT mid-race!
My God! That's what I'm talking about, fellas. Take notes, Cup drivers. THIS is the sort of drama we need coming out of a weekend.
Now, some context here … Dye and his spotter have since cleared the air, with spotter Kevin Hamlin later saying he misunderstood Danny Boy, and didn't hear him say "he can" before unleashing the "kiss my ass."
Basically, he thought Daniel was telling him to kiss said ass, and not the driver on the track.
All's well that ends well, I reckon …
… just kidding! Hamlin also said that he would be stepping down and no longer spotting for Dye moving forward.
"He’s a good kid, just needs someone else in his ear helping him along," Hamlin told Whiskey Riff. "I’m gonna step down from working Friday races so I can concentrate on chasing a championship with Alex and Sam."
Hilarious.
PS: when angry Timmy Hill was talking about how awful the truck series drivers are, he wasn't kidding:
Hendrick Motorsports had a DAY on THE day they needed to have a DAY
See? Decent carnage right there. And the ending to yesterday's big boy race wasn't awful. Chase was wheeling her in there as hard as he could, and came home third.
Hell, that's basically a win for him at this point. Do you know the last time Chase Elliott – NASCAR's most popular (and most important) driver – won a race?
October 2 … 2022! Goodness gracious. How do the fellas in the NASCAR script-writing department let that happen? Weird.
Anyway, it was a good day for the HMS fellas, who finished 1-2-3 and 8th. Nice work, Bowman.
They all looked the exact same because they were all running the special 40th anniversary paint scheme, and then they backed it by dominating the day. Congrats to Billy the Kid for another 'dub.
And congrats to the social media folks for giving us maybe the most awkward 8 seconds of all time!
Danica Patrick doesn't hold back & Dale Earnhardt is BACK
Happy 40th, Mr. H! Give 'em hell at Texas this week.
Before we head to the Lone Star state, though, let's button up Martinsville weekend before we don't see her again until the fall.
First up? Good to see Dale Earnhardt back in action at the paperclip!
Absolute legend. Folks say he was at Richmond last week, too. Love it when Dale Sr. makes a MMPS cameo. He's always welcome around here, for obvious reasons.
Raise hell, praise Dale!
Next? Fine. It's Danica Patrick time. Y'all waited long enough.
Everyone's favorite ex-NASCAR driver joined loose cannon Kenny Wallace for a 90-minute (!!!) podcast last week, and it was a wild little ride.
The first 45 or so minutes are pretty mundane. But things really pick up around the 50-minute mark when Kenny asks Danica about her experience at Burning Man last year.
"There's 80,000 people there, it's huge," she starts. "I get on my bike, I'm riding around the corner, getting into the thick of things, and here comes, right at me, a naked parade.
"It's 98% men. And … it was a lot of penises. I was like, ‘wow, they’re all so different.' Mind-blowing. Definite variety."
I mean, it's the least surprising thing ever, right? Just a stampede of naked dudes at Burning Man? That's called Monday for them. Danica dressed the part last year when she went, so I'd imagine she fit right in as the week wore on.
And yes, I know the above link is BS when it comes to Danica pictures. Trust me, there are much better ones on her Instagram from her time at Burning Man.
Instagram embeds, however, haven't worked in FOUR DAYS, which has been a ton of fun. So, that's the best you get today.
The next 15 minutes of that conversation are pretty good if you have the time today.
She also calls Denny Hamlin a dick, talks about how she's NOT sorry for burying Martin Truex Jr. last year when Sherry Pollex died, and then says she got an unfair rap in NASCAR because she didn't actually crash as much as people thought.
Which reminded me of this hilarious video from years ago:
Hilarious. Tony Stewart was the best. Miss that guy. Think he would've put up with the nonsense we're seeing at Martinsville right now? No shot.
Fine! Another week, another email plug. Was Danica actually a … good … NASCAR racer back in the day? Zach.Dean@OutKick.com. Gulp.
You can obviously email me about whatever, too. Wade here made me laugh with this little note last week:
No context. No actual comment. No message. Just that picture. We appreciate the simple things around here.
Like Hooters Gianna getting ready for the May flowers. Me and her both!
Take us to Texas, G: