Preview NASCAR's newest Insiders Roundtable presented by Goodyear streaming Monday, June 10 at 7p.m. ET on YouTube.
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00:00 Here in the first half of the regular season of 2024, we've already had two of the four closest finishes in the history of NASCAR.
00:08 When you think back to the Atlanta finish, when you think back to Kansas,
00:12 you think when you have a finish like that, people don't care what happened in the rest of the race, the early part of it?
00:17 It depends on the fan. I think if you have a fan who, and we've seen it,
00:21 I think as we've allowed more fans to kind of see the data and to see the engineering and the whole process of this next-gen car,
00:28 there are a lot more fans that we hear that are deeply invested in what John Probst has to say at the end of the race,
00:35 of why a tire didn't work at the All-Star race or it did work at an All-Star race,
00:38 but there are also the fans that it's the, "What have you done for me lately?"
00:42 Fans really do remember, one, how competitive the whole entire race was,
00:46 but the finish and that photograph that goes up on the end of the wall when you win that race with that checkered flag,
00:52 fans remember that stuff. It sticks.
00:54 It really creates the lasting impact of, there may have been 10 lead changes that whole entire race,
00:59 but that last lap really got their excitement going.
01:02 That's the important thing, right? Because you can have a great stage one,
01:05 and it can be competitive and compelling and wrecks and dramatic moments,
01:09 but if the rest of the race just lulls you to sleep, then it's not going to be a great race,
01:14 regardless of what happens, maybe in one-third or even one-half of it.
01:18 Yeah.
01:19 I think it's different for us, too, in our sport. It's a winner-take-all mentality.
01:23 We don't have podium finishes. We don't have two teams battling it out on a gridiron,
01:28 and you can walk away and be like, "All right, we're still 10-1, still in the playoff hunt, still going for it."
01:33 With us, it's a driver won and 38 drivers lost.
01:39 I know that better than most, probably. I've been on the losing side a lot in my career, on the Cup Series side,
01:44 and that is painful, right? But we lay it out there every time to go try to get that number one position
01:49 because in our sport, nothing else matters. And Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last,"
01:54 and it hurts, and it hurts week after week, but that's what drives us.
01:58 That's what drives us.
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