Ep. 74 - Honoring KFB; NASCAR (Charlotte) + IndyCar (Indy 500) Recap

About the Podcast: The Throttle to the Floor Podcast is a motorsports podcast where me (William Earnest) and Evan Sager co-host and sit down with guests each week to talk about what is happening in the world of NASCAR, IndyCar, and NHRA plus we take frequent looks at other racing under the motorsports umbrella.

About the Episode: On this episode of the Throttle to the Floor Podcast, I recap an emotional NASCAR weekend in Charlotte while paying tribute to Kyle Busch. In addition, I also recap the thrilling 110th Indianapolis 500 that saw a record amount of lead changes and the closest finish in the race’s history; listen, watch, and download episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

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Hey y'all, welcome to today's episode of the Throttle Floor Podcast. I'm your host, Will Ernest, here today with uh just myself, but got a thrilling weekend to recap, so let's get right into it. But one thing I want to mention real quick, the tributes for Kyle Bush this past week at both Indy and Charlotte. They were definitely very well done. The previous at Charlotte, especially when NASCAR CEO, Steve O'Donnell, uh started speaking. I mean, I started crying and bawling my eyes out, and I don't even really think there was a dry eye in the entire place or anybody watching on uh on Prime on TV or just really anywhere, but especially with Amazing Grace being played on bagpipes, that that definitely got me. But I hope that last week, I hope that was just a step in the right direction towards the healing process. And I think at least at least for me, by the time we got to Sundan, I I think uh I was able to smile for at least a little bit for the first time in days, but I just wanted to mention that you know my my two cents. Um but on to IndyCar, the Indianapolis 500, the 110th Indianapolis 500, it was the only race this past weekend that got to the scheduled distance, but that did that does not mean that rain didn't show up, although it wasn't a total washout, but we had a couple rain delays around the midway point of this race. But this race just had about just about everything. It was it was almost a perfect race, minus uh the little bit of rain, and uh about the fact that we ran a quarter of this race under caution, just not good. Also, shout out to Indy for being silent on lap 18 for Kyle Bush, just yeah, and for Roman Grosjon, uh changing his number font to look like Kyle Bush's 18 from Joker's racing. That was great, and he drove, he came uh in he came pretty far from the back and ended up all the way in ninth place, so that that's good for him. Uh, but this race had pretty much everything. We had big wrecks. Um, Catherine Legg's double attempt was ruined. Uh Brian Hunter wrecked early, and Catherine Legg was caught up in that whole mess. Uh Kyle Collette caught fire. Uh Ed Carpenter racing ECR had a horrendous afternoon. Ed Carpenter himself, uh, you know, running the one-off because of course it's the Indie 500. He got wrecked by Takumo Sato. Alexander Rossi, who managed who recovered after uh uh last week's on on Monday, his practice crash where he injured his wrist and foot. Um his engine blew up about at the midway point of this race, and Christian Rasmussen had his own mechanical issues. So ECR, three cars and three DNFs. Not good, not good, not good, not good. But we had battles upon battles upon battles on battles back to the front in the mid-pack, and for the lead, especially, tons of lead changes, in fact, 70 lead changes, which is an all-time record in the 110 years of the Indianapolis 500. But when the chips were down, it looked like Dave Malucas had the edge, he led on the last lap all the way to the exit of turn four, thanks to Felix Rosenquest and teammate Marcus Armstrong running side by side for that whole entire lap. But Rosenquist got clear, managed to fake Malucas out down the stretch, down the front stretch, and edged him at the line by 2300ths of a second, which is the closest finish in the 110 years of the Indianapolis 500. Felix Rosenquist, the winner of the 110th Indianapolis 500, led 25 laps on the day. Only his second indie car win, which the first one came all the way back at the second Road America race back in 2020 during COVID. Weird times with COVID and ugly. Maluka's second, like we mentioned, and then if you thought the uh finish for the win, the battle for the win, was crazy, talk about third, fourth, and fifth. They were separated by thousandths of a second. It looked like uh it looked like the scene the opening scene from Cars, pretty much, the opening race from Cars, pretty much, where uh you had that three-wide finish. Uh it was pretty much the same thing. But Scott McLaughlin ended up third, Pato Award ended up fourth, and Marcus Armstrong ended up in fifth. But again, they were separated by thousandths of a second. Very, very close finish there. But our picks and updated standings, I still lead the points uh now by 188 over Bernardo, 189 over Evan, 195 over Stacy, 235 over Noah, and a and 240, 243 over Haley. Sometimes I struggle to speak, but the reason why I definitely stretched out my lead even more is because I picked David Malucas. That's right, I was about this close, well, a little more, about about probably about that close, somewhere around there, uh, from winning the Indianapolis 500, just so close. I led 30 laps. Uh Evan with Noan Siegel ended up 11th. Haley picked Joseph Newgarn, who wrecked uh coming to the restart in turn four all by himself, just got his left front on the curb and just pile drive the wall. Um so that's a DNF there. Stacy with Marcus Erickson, like we just mentioned uh prior, talking about Swedish drivers that have won the 8,500, uh finished 13th. Bernardo with Christian Radmussen. We mentioned him earlier, having his mechanical issues, uh ended up in 27th. That's a DNF. And Noah with Alex Pillow ended up seventh despite starting on pole and leading the most laps. 59 of the 200 laps to be exact. Pillow was up front for quite a lot of this race. I mean, it makes sense because he led the most laps, but even when he wasn't leading, he was right up there in the top five for much of this much of uh much of the race, just swapping the lead back and forth, back and forth, just yeah, fades to seventh at the end in that whole crazy finish. But heading to Charlotte where uh the the the rain the rain uh gets ramped up because there was a lot of it. Oh, you want to talk about rain, talk about how the truck series. It was supposed to run Friday night, then uh rain postponed it number one, pushed it to Saturday morning, then it was pushed to Saturday night, and then it was pushed to Sunday morning when it finally ran. That's right. The truck race was postponed three times. Three times it ran after the O'Reilly's race, but uh who that O'Reilly's race, that that was that was uh we'll we'll talk about that in a minute, but in the trucks, you had some decent battles. I don't know what it is. It seems like every time that a race weekend gets impacted by rain, uh the racing product afterwards is like ten times better. I don't really know why, but that uh that's some kind of magic, I guess. Corey Day, uh just what an what a nasty crash off the front uh the front bumper georgious uh sent sent him sideways down the back stretch towards turn three, but it lifted his rear end of the truck off the ground before it slammed back down and collided with the inside wall and then came back up on the track, collided with other trucks, including mini Tyrell. Um just what a what a nasty hit there. It doesn't help that he started on pole due to Kyle Bush's win at Dover the father the uh the previous week uh due to the metric because it was Kyle Bush's seven truck, it's just ugh uh that was that was tragic. Also, what is Chris Wright doing? He just he comes up off the track off of turn four, takes out himself and Brandon Butterbean Queen. I mean it just I don't really know what to think of of that wreck. I mean, it's just it's just a terrible move from a not good driver. That's about the easiest way to explain it. But this race came down to a countdown clock, mostly because of A weather, you know, pushing this race back two days, and B, really the big reason, mostly due to the fact that FS1 was not going to run on and compete against Indy 500 coverage, which was on Big Fox, which makes sense because TV money and uh all that. But the race ended under caution thanks to the 11th caution of the race, which is a truck series Charlotte uh record, you know, despite the race not even running to its full advertised distance. We still had 11 cautions. Uh, but Chandler Smith got loose off of turn two being underneath Conor Zilich, and it just sent his truck around and just pounded the inside wall. Um, but the race was cut short at 110 of the 134 laps. So we still got at least like 80% of the race, and a lot better than the O'Reilly's race. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um, but Lane Riggs was victorious, his second win of the year, and Ford's first win on a mile and a half in the truck series since Ben Rhodes at Charlotte in 2023. Uh Caden Honeycutt second, Connor Zilich third, Ben Rhodes, uh, who we just mentioned uh ended up fourth, and Gio Rogero, who took out Corey Day on the backstretch, uh, completes the top five. Our picks and standings. Uh Bernardo has now taken the points lead. We have a lot of uh truck adjustments here. Bernardo shoots up from a tie from second last week into the points lead, leads Stacy by 16. Evan, who came into this race as the points leader by five over Stacy and Bernardo, who were tied for second, now falls to third, 19 points back. Uh I cut my gap down to 105 back. Haley cuts her gap down to 117, and Noah now last in truck points, uh 121 back. Our picks, the reason why I cut like 20 points off my gap, is I picked Caden Honeycutt who ended up second. You know, I don't really like the countdown clock, especially since we had like 24 laps to go. But at the same time, I mean it's all about money, and you don't really want to run over and screw up the Indy 500 coverage, and that'll that'll just piss people off. So we already have enough people mad with you know cable and the fact that we have the next five cup races on Prime, you know, even though Prime is the best um broadcasting we'll get all year, but just eh, I don't know. I'll I'll take a second. I'm I'm I'm trying to be optimistic. I'll take a second place finish all day. I mean, I've I've been struggling in the truck series points, if you can't tell. Evan picked Chandler Smith, who ended up 30th after was a fourth place finish, turned into uh uh 30th place finish because Chandler Smith, as we mentioned, got loose and pounded the inside ball. And that essentially ended the race because that brought up the caution with like around three minutes to go, and then that ran out the countdown clock. But yeah, Haley with Ben Rhodes ends up fourth. Finally, Haley gets some good luck as prior to this race, her best finish was 11th twice all year, including um the the previous week with Stuart Friesen at Dover. But yeah, speaking of Stuart Friesen, Stacy picked Stuart Friesen, but was running in the top 10 late in the race until he spun um and got onto pit row, which didn't bring out the caution, but that was right before Anges Perez also spun, but that brought out the caution. That was caution number 10, the caution before Chandler Smith's caution at the end of the race. Um, but yeah, Friesen down in 26th. Bernardo, the reason he took the points lead, picked Ricky Stenhouse, uh, ended up ninth. Just another solid day, scored a few stage points, and yeah, took the points lead. And no with Frankie Muniz down in 24th. I mean, you know, Frankie Muniz, at least he didn't wreck the truck, but this is another pedestrian day. The O'Reilly's race, man, just uh four-hour rain delay after running like 30 laps uh to get this race going. We had a four-hour rain delay. I believe if I remember, it was four hours twenty-one minutes and fifty-nine seconds. I mean, I thought I thought Chicago land was bad when I went um in the most recent cup race in 2019, at least until this year, but that was only a three-hour and eighteen minute rain delay, and this was four hours and twenty-one minutes, so like an extra hour. That was rough. I mean, shout out to the fans all weekend long for putting up with rain after rain after rain after rain after rain. Um, but yeah, four hour plus rain delay, but we had some more great battles for the lead. I don't know what it is, it's like after we get hours of rain, uh the racing product turns into um it being uh very immaculate. I don't know if it's because the drivers are all cooped up and they have all that extra energy. I don't know if it's because you know the track is green and it doesn't have any rubber on it, so it runs pretty fast. I don't know. Uh Big Wreck with Brent Cruz, uh Brandon Jones, and Harrison Burton uh had that contact uh with Sheldon Creed. Um yeah, just not great, but Sheldon Creed got his karma uh later. Sam Mayer overcorrected and slammed into the wall. It reminds me of uh Kyle Larson's wreck at Atlanta in 2024, I believe, the fall of the playoff race, then just overcorrecting Boston slammed to the wall. Uh tough day for Haas Factory team because uh we'll mention Creed in a second. Uh Zilich won stage one. Uh he ran all three races this weekend because in the truck race he took over for Hostar in the 77 so that Host Far can focus on the Coke 600, but Carson Hospital did not did not run well on the Coke 600, which we'll talk about later. Um But the big, the big the big kind of controversy, if you will, the 35 car put oil onto the track. Like, why are we putting oil onto the track? As if, you know, the track was already. I mean, you you could say the track was already damp. We thought the track was getting damp, but it was because the 35 car put oil on the track. Basically, everybody hit the hit the wall. Uh Sheldon Creek ended up behind the wall. So uh rough day for Haas Factory team is they ended up have both their cars out of the race. Chastain, uh Ross Chastain, who also ran all three races uh this week, and he won stage two under caution, but there was moisture on the track, and uh that's all she wrote. Yeah, Ross Chastain, he won the range short race at Charlotte after just two stages, and um it's because uh NASCAR's fun policy of either the race is official after stage two or halfway, whichever comes first, in this case stage two, after officially 91 of 200 left. We only ran about 45% of the O'Reilly's race, in and that's not even to mention a four-hour rain delay. Ugh. In my opinion, the O'Reilly's race was the worst race of the weekend. Not that the racing product was bad, but we only ran 45% of the race, and it had the longest rain delay, so not good. But our picks and standings, uh, I still lead now by 103 over Stacy, 164 over Haley, 214 over Bernardo, uh, 225 over Evan, and 345 over Noah. Noah continues to plummet in the standings. How how low can he go at this point? Um, but our picks, I picked Justin Allgar. Very, very interesting day. Ends up officially credited with a 29th place finish, which normally is not good, and 29th is still not good. But uh, I think this was I think this was about the best 29th place finish I could ask for. Led 36 laps, which in the 91 lap in O'Reilly's race, gets credited as the most laps led. And I started on the pole due to the metric because like nobody got qualifying in at all. So I mean, even though I ended up 29th, I still get like 28 points out of it with all the bonus points. So I mean I'll take it. Evan with Sammy Smith ends up 11th, just a pedestrian day pretty much. I like didn't see Sammy Smith all night long. Haley with Jesse Love uh gets second place finish, was trying to run down Ross Chastain, and then stage two ended, and then the race ended, so so solid day for Jesse Love and Austin Hill too, just RCR in general, just they finished second and third, just one spot short. We we all wanted an RCR victory and we came we came pretty close, but not quite. Uh Stacy with Sam Mayer, uh as we mentioned, overcorrected and just pile drive the wall, ended up out of the race. Sucks for Charboy Grills, they were the title sponsor of this race. Um Bernardo with Connor Zilich ended up uh sixth on a stage, just a solid afternoon, or I guess evening, or the little bit of evening that we got before the rain cut it short. And Noah with Taylor Gray, uh just had a pedestrian day and then ended up getting caught up with some damage and wrecked out in 31st. So yeah. Um Cup series with the Coca-Cola 600, just the pre-race, like we mentioned, it was it was definitely very emotional. And then you add in the fact that we had the um uh on the pace laps, we had the missing man formation. Um Redak left pull spy open for Kyle Bush. That was obviously I wasn't alive when Dalen Hart passed in 2001, but I imagine this is uh this is this whole situation is kind of similar in a way. Um yeah. At the start of the race, uh Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs, they just they they took off, they opened up like a three-second gap. Then Barry spun on or Josh Barry spun on commercial, you know, prime prime turned into Fox for a hot second. Ryan Blaney was another bad pit stop, just classic Ryan Blaney activities. But uh you wouldn't believe if that's like the worst set of pit stops uh in this race. It was not not even close. Uh Austin Cindrick and Connor Zelich a big wreck uh over in turn two. Just that that took him out, and then uh Chase Elliott had his own big wreck, got just got loose off of turn two and pile drive the inside wall, and that ended up out of his race. He's had like three DNFs in the last five uh Coke 600s. Larson won stage one and Hammond won stage two. Uh Zane Smith led uh a good bit as well. That was pretty impressive to see. I mean, even on older tires, it's um older tires. We had we had quite a bit of those during this race, but older tires uh in when they were in clean air, they actually worked pretty good. But once you got into the dirty air with old tires, you were kind of just along for the ride there. Uh Carlson Hosper and Daniel Sores, they they had issues and they went a lap down. Uh one of those two uh did not recover, and one of those two uh won the whole thing. So I'll I'll let you totally guess who it is. But uh Carlson Hosper just terrible, terrible pit stops, had multiple bad pit stops. I don't think he got higher than like 12th all night. Sure, it didn't help that the metric had him start 23rd, but he had good speed, he was second in practice, he ran the fifth fastest lap, just ended up having two terribly bad pit stops, and that pretty much trapped him for the rest of the race. Uh Suarez, we'll talk more about Daniel Suarez later. Uh Catherine Leg uh her double attempt did not really go all that well, and she ended up losing a wheel. But hey, I mean her her double attempt ended up being more laps completed than Kyle Larson, so yeah. Who's to say that Kathleen Legg's double attempt wasn't all that bad? It was bad, but it wasn't all that bad, I guess. Um, we had some different pit strategies. Uh Christopell ended up winning stage three, but Timmy Silkar caught on fire, which all wasn't all that great. It's a good thing he was able to get out of the car. Uh Ty Gibbs and SPG, they stayed out while most pit for two tires. Tyler Reddick was the first with four tires. He made some moves, but Ty Gibbs fell back into traffic, into the dirty air, fell back, but SVG kept leading. I mean, you know, if I if if anybody had doubts on SVG running on an oval before uh this past weekend, I think for the for the most part, those are those doubts. Are pretty much gone. I mean, when SPG has the car, and you know, when he's capable, he can he can run up there for sure. And I think it's only a matter of time before we start uh seeing some more consistent oval results out of SPG. Um yeah, but towards the end of this race, Daniel Sorres managed to get his lap back and led thanks to a uh savvy two-tire call, stayed in that clean air, got some good pushes from Kyle Arson, like the only Chevy up there with him in a sea of Toyotas, as they dominated much of this race. We had a lightning delay, but then for some reason, like they must have had a meteorologist or something. They're just like, Oh yeah, yeah, uh the lightning's moving away, supposedly, so it's all clear. And I'm like, Huh? Like, they didn't they didn't know no 30-minute lightning clock. I d I didn't know the policy decided to change like overnight or something, but whatever. And then Sores continued to lead before another short rain delay. Then um Sores got another good push from Larson until the big rain came, and that's what uh cut this race short. Lap 373, 27 laps short. So we got about 93% of this race done, but still uh couldn't quite get the Coke 600 in. Couldn't get really any race in, except for Indy. Uh but Daniel Suarez wins his third career race, it's his first crown jewel win. He's the he's only the second foreign-born driver to win a crown jewel after Mario Andretti won the Day 2500 in 1967. Uh, it's Suarez's first win with Spire Motorsports, his first win in general since Spring Atlanta 2024. Uh, it's the first time that Spire Motorsports has won multiple races in a season after Carson Hospar also won uh for Spire last month at Talvega. Um Bell ended up second, Denny Hammond ended up third, Tyler Reddick ended up fourth, leading the most laps from the pole, and uh Larson uh rounds out the top five. Without Kyle Larson, Daniel Sorres does not win this race. Uh pretty pretty clear there. But this is the first time that all three NASCAR races in a weekend don't make the full scheduled distance. I mean the truck race got like 80% done after being postponed like two days, and the Coke 600 got like 90% of the way done. Uh, we don't talk about O'Reilly's being like 45, not even halfway, but because it was after stage two, they're just like, yeah, screw it, we'll call it. So uh not not not good there, but just so much rain this weekend, and you know, in the days leading up prior and you know, days after, it's just man, just it it it's hard, it's hard to not call it a complete washout, but we still got all the races in, so I guess it wasn't a total, total washout, but mmm, it's pretty close. But our picks and standings, I still lead the points, small extension of my points lead. I lead Haley by 49 points, Stacey by 121, Bernardo by 127, who jumps Evan, uh, who's 140 back, and Noah is still 249 back. Our picks, I did pick Carson Ospar. Terrible pit stops, ended up 23rd, uh, like I think a lap down or two laps down, one of the two. Uh Evan with Ryan Blaney. Uh Blaney actually managed to come back from his bad pit stop and ended up in seventh. Haley with Ross Chastain was running okay for some parts of this race before getting absolutely just plastered by Ricky's uh Ricky Spinhouse, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. uh on the back stretch, and Ross Chastain just DNF, just the defending Coco with 600 winner and the O'Reilly's winner from uh the night before. Just nope. Nope, nope, nope. Stacey with Bubba Wallace ended up 22nd. Just I don't even really Bubba Bubba Bubba did not have the car at all. Bernardo uh with Ty Gibbs ended up sixth, led 17 laps, got the Xfinity Fastest lap as well. And Noah with Zane Smith ended up 10th. Uh those 31 laps led. I was I was pretty impressed with Zane Smith. I feel like when front row is good, like they they have they have some capable flashes here or there. So that's good to see. Uh real quick, the uh how's hostbar segment? Uh how is Carson Hospark? Great question. Uh on iRacing, he ran the Indy 500, so he had some fun with that. Uh he really didn't have fun during the Ko 600, though, as we mentioned, then really bad pit stops took him out of contention despite being second in practice and having the fifth fastest lap during the race. So uh bad pit stops. But hey, I mean we we got an asheville um next week, and you know, he finished second there last year, and it's it's a good track for him. He is a truck win there, so we'll we'll see what he can do. Um, and then uh he was actually he was with Cletus uh running a drag car, uh, one of his drag cars that Corvette uh earlier today. So hopefully he didn't crash the thing. Um but yeah, but thank thanks for listening to short, short abbreviated segment of How Sosafar. Uh, what do you need to know? Uh Carsten Nospark, he he had a little fun, but he didn't have a lot of fun. He didn't have as much fun as he thought he would. I thought he was gonna win the Coke 600. He did not win the Coke 600. That's about all you need to know. But huge weekend coming up with all three top NASCAR series at Nashville Super Speedway. Indy Cars on the Streets of Detroit, as you know, we're the week after the ED500, and NHRA with the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals presented by Jegs from Maryland International Raceway. That's right, full house weekend on tap. That's the first time I can say that this year. NASCAR, IndyCar, Natrey, everything. We got everything. Um, and we'll preview it all on Friday, but that's all we got for today's episode of the Throttle 4 Podcast. Uh, make sure you tune in and listen and watch and download on Spotify, have a podcast, YouTube, check out the chill photography and throttle for podcasts, Instagrams, and TikToks. I just got the um anytray photos from Route 66 raceway from that event uh from a couple weeks ago. I just got those uploaded. Um, the the race picks, the the victory, the winner's circle picks. I still have to upload, which I will after this episode, but um that's all we got, and we will preview all that uh uh action on Friday. So have a good night, y'all.