Shannon Spake dives into the weekend ahead at Kansas Speedway and is joined by Kansas native Clint Bowyer, who previews the action and gives his championship predictions.
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00:00So whenever we head to Kansas, there is one person and one person only that I want to talk to,
00:04and that's my good friend Clint Boyer, who's checking in right now. Clint's here in North
00:08Carolina. Are you guys being safe and staying safe out there? Well, way safer than people over west,
00:15just west of us. Asheville area, my gosh, all of our friends down in Florida. You're a Florida,
00:20Floridian. They got hammered down there. Just scary times, right? These storms are
00:26vicious and they don't wait for anybody, but we're pretty good here. A little bit of wind
00:30and quite a bit of rain so far. We'll see. All right. What have you been up to lately,
00:35man? I see the playoff beard, the off-season beard going. So what have you been up to?
00:39Well, it's hunting season, Shannon, and I've been benched. I mean, every year we get benched.
00:44Halfway through the year, we have our portion, our fox portion, have so much fun starting the
00:49season off for NASCAR, and we have to hand the ball over to Burton and the boys, Steve Letard,
00:54all the guys. They've been doing a great job and keeping up with them. Watched last weekend,
00:58a lot of chaos ensued. I mean, it was a boring race, but holy cow, was there some ingredients
01:05that I didn't see, you know, didn't see, didn't have Truex getting beat the first round of the
01:11playoffs on my bingo card. I did not see that. Keselowski, I did not see him going out the first
01:16round. And Ty Gibbs, my counterpart, booth mate, Harvick, has been a huge Ty Gibbs fan this year,
01:24and that's two Gibbs cars out of the way already. Yeah, it was a boring race unless, of course,
01:28you're Kyle Larson, part of the five team, part ahead. I think it was boring for him, too.
01:34The best tweet that I saw is from NASCAR Chasm that Larson just lapped himself. That's how far
01:41ahead he was, and that pretty much sums up Bristol. I know also that you love Kansas,
01:47and what's really cool is that earlier in the spring, you got to be part of that call, right?
01:51We've heard it so many times, the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history, and you were in the
01:57booth and you got to call that race. What was that like to be part of that? First of all, it was
02:03extremely exciting. It's hard not to, for me, just to jump through the window and get out there with
02:08all my rowdy friends in the stands and celebrate with them because of what we just saw. Hard to
02:13compose yourself, hard to come up with the words, find anything to say instead of just being a fan.
02:18I remember Atlanta. We were fortunate enough to be a part of that wild, crazy, close finish,
02:23three wide, and Harvick, we got done. Harvick's like, I couldn't say anything. I was like,
02:28man, me neither. I don't even know what the hell we said. We go back on. I had to rewatch it to
02:33even figure out what we said, but it's so fun to be able to be a part of those amazing moments.
02:40Hard not to be a fan. I was such a fan of Chris Buescher. I hate to say it. I wanted Buescher to
02:45win that race. I thought he did win that race. I was so excited for him, and what do you mean
02:50Larson won again? It was so close, so exciting, and it's going to be that way again.
02:56You want to talk about selling Kansas Speedway. It's so easy to do.
03:02So much has become of Kansas Speedway. Legend Shopping Center. My gosh, there's a casino on
03:08the back straightaway. If you didn't have enough gambling on the racetrack with FanDuel, let's go
03:11back there on the back straightaway and throw some down on the blackjack table. It's all right there
03:15at Kansas Speedway. Remember the first race there, watching on top of a Winnebago through a pretty
03:22foggy lens, but watch Jeff Gordon win his first race, the Inaugural Race at Kansas Speedway. Just
03:28a lot of great memories there. Not the best racetrack for me. Not the best racetrack for
03:33NASCAR over the years. I will say that, but they fixed that place. They fixed that baby in a big
03:38way. I'm going to tell you right now, any fan asked Clint Boyer where to go watch a race for
03:45their first race ever, I'm going to tell them Kansas Speedway. I believe in my heart that's
03:50our best product for NASCAR right now. Since the repave, their outside restarts, my gosh,
03:56the restarts are crazy chaotic. Three, four, maybe even five wide. You're going to see it all at
04:01Kansas. You see the closest race in NASCAR history that finished there. Seen some wild finishes.
04:07Seen Hamlin knock Larson out of the way. By the way, those are two championship favorites. So
04:13maybe some haymakers come out. The gloves come off at Kansas Speedway yet again.
04:17How far did you grow up from the Speedway? I know you just mentioned watching Jeff Gordon in the
04:22very first race, but was a young Clint Boyer like, man, one day I'm going to race big time
04:28cup series racing here at this racetrack. Heck yes. Probably about 80 miles down the road,
04:34but right down the turnpike. Drove by it every single week going to Lakeside Speedway just five
04:39miles down the road. That was my home track. That's what we did every single week. Drove by
04:44that place and you're like, oh man, if we could go in over here on this Friday night, maybe we
04:49could turn it into a Sunday afternoon race over there at Kansas Speedway Sunday. And finally got
04:54that chance, right? I remember pulling in there. I remember getting on that racetrack for the first
04:58time. I remember thinking this place is so big. And I also remember losing to Greg Biffle there,
05:06which in my mind, I did not lose that race. You need to focus for one second. Listen to my story.
05:12I won that damn race. I won the race. It should have been my trophy. Greg Biffle cheated me out
05:18of it. He ran out of gas. Clearly, you go back from any camera angle they ever show,
05:23you can clearly see he's out of gas. Didn't hold pace car speed, pulls off into the infield because
05:29he wasn't going to physically make it across the finish line. And they dubbed him the winner.
05:34And here I am sitting there. I think it was Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johns, one of them pulled up
05:38beside me. He's like, go, go, go take your win. So I finally pull up. He's driving off over into
05:43the infield out of gas with not even the engine running. And they give him the trophy. Still,
05:48still chaps, both sides of my rear end right now. I can tell you that.
05:53And I pulled some pictures because I mean, listen, if there's one thing that I knew over
05:56the years, every time we went to Kansas, Clint Boyer wanted to win at that racetrack. And
06:00I've, we've, we're friends. Like I've, I've been friends with Clint. We've known each other since
06:042000. Yeah. Look at those. I know I pulled some of that's Bristol. I love that picture.
06:09And then I remember that one. Yeah. Two little baby boys come out. Yeah. Holy cow. We look very
06:15young in a lot of those pictures there. What has happened to us? You know, I guess what's,
06:19what's happened to me. It seems like I've aged a lot more than you have. I don't know what's going
06:25on. I'm fighting father time every single step of the way for sure. Okay. Before I let you go,
06:31who's your championship for Clint? Who you got easy. This is easy. Of course you have the five
06:38ball and Kyle Larson, but you need to go back in the notes. Cause I know you have a lot of notes.
06:42You go back to the notes at the beginning of the year. And old Clint said, listen to me very
06:46carefully. Christopher Bell's very quiet. We all know that quiet interviews, quiet on the racetrack
06:52quietly gets those results quietly in a championship for almost every single time
06:56you look over your shoulder. That being said, I said to begin the year it's Christopher Bell's
07:01he's going to quietly win this championship and everybody's going to go, where the hell did that
07:05come from? And you're going to look at say, I can't believe Clint knew that Kyle Larson is who
07:11he's going to have to beat. We all know that somehow, some way I know. I didn't want to say it,
07:17but Denny Hamlin was probably going to be a part of that for, and, and then I think there's going to
07:23be a surprise. And who's that going to be? It's going to be Joey Logano,
07:26same guy that gets it done every single time. I don't know where, where did he come from? Now
07:31he wins a championship and drives off into the sunset and all those guys, all these teams,
07:35all these organizations, drivers, everybody's going, how the hell did that happen? So there's
07:40a championship for, but I think this time, Oh, Christopher Bell gets it done.
07:45So you said Christopher Bell, Denny, Joey, and who was your other one?
07:49Logano. Okay. Joey Logano. Yeah. I said that Joey, Denny, Christopher and who?
07:55Oh, uh, um, Larson. Okay. Larson. Got it. I wrote it down. I wrote it down in my notes
08:00for you, my friend. Uh, you're awesome. Be safe. Keep the family safe. Give, uh,
08:04give all the family a hug for me. And, um, we'll see a Daytona 500. If not before then I've got
08:09to fly in my room here. Speedway baby. It's home time. Let's go. Bye Clint.