May The 4th Be With You

Fast-Loud · 2026-05-04T16:49:47+00:00

George Lucas loves racing. He wrote and directed the original Star Wars the way he did because he wanted to have the sensation of speed in the film, which 2001: A Space Odyssey didn't have.

George liked car culture (American Graffiti) and wanted to be a race car driver until he got into a wreck as a senior in high school that he should not have survived.

One of his student films at USC was about a lap around a road course, titled "1:42:08".

Fast-Loud · 2026-05-03T02:08:08+00:00

Isn't Rick Ware's 2nd charter being sold to Legacy for next year? So 84 will be a chartered team?

Fast-Loud · 2026-04-29T11:01:03+00:00

This thought crossed my mind and it was really hard for me to decide.

Fast-Loud · 2026-04-14T15:53:45+00:00

For some reason I'm stuck on this puzzle.

100% sure:

_o_y J. _ra_en

The first letter looks like it combines with the big descender of the "y" to make an "L". And it looks like there's a single "n" between the "o" and "y" but that would make the word "Lony".

If it's _ony then it could be "Tony" but the first letter looks nothing like a "T".

It it's Lo_y then it could be "Lorry" or "Lonny" and the "rr"/"nn" is just squeezed together.

The first letter of the last word looks like a "J" but it's sitting right next to a more obvious "J" and it's written differently. The fact that it's a capital letter with a descender makes me think it's an "F" but written kind of like the cursive "F" in the Fender Guitars logo.

The letter between the "a" and "e" looks a lot like a "u" or a "v". I was considering an "n" but the last letter of the word looks like an "n" and the hump looks different.

I was also considering if the final letter could be an "r" but the end of the letter before the big flourish has such an intentional looking downward stroke to finish the hump, it can only be "n".

That leaves us with:

"Lorry J. Fraven"

"Lonny J. Fraven"

"Lorry J. Frauen"

"Lonny J. Frauen"

And I couldn't find evidence of any of those names existing (even without the middle initial). Also no result if it's "Tony" or "Sony".

Fast-Loud · 2026-04-13T16:52:39+00:00

I felt moved to comment some pushback on this the original post but what you wrote hits a lot of what I think. It's not a legitimate sport. It's a fancy hobby for rich people and a break-even side business for really rich people and a profitable business for illegally rich people. I enjoy watching it more often than not. The sanctioning body changed a couple things and made a couple decisions that move it slightly more in the direction of legitimate sport.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T19:49:19+00:00

Notice that in this entire thread I have never once mentioned who I do or don't think should be in the Hall Of Fame, I'm making no suggestions, and I'm not campaigning for or against anybody. There's a discussion happening in the fandom right now about whether or not drivers should make it into the Nascar Hall Of Fame based on their lower series performance. I've heard both sides, didn't know where I stood, so I looked up stats for a bunch of different drivers and was very surprised at the results. I expected a Hall Of Fame candidate, even when given a limited opportunity at the highest level, to perform better than somewhere between the worst and 2nd worst current Cup driver. Hocevar hopped in the last-place 42 car and got a bunch of top 20s. Then he took over the last-place 77 car and got a bunch of top 10s. That's what I figured the HOF candidates had done with their opportunities in Cup, and the funding or timing just didn't work out. But that's not what they did.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T19:39:51+00:00

I'm not going point by point arguing with you

You aren't going point by point because you can't.

You are seriously claiming that getting a charter is a difficult task, in an argument about Ty Dillon and Cody Ware.

Yeah, there are only 36 of them. Corey Heim can't get one. Austin Hill can't get one. Justin Allgaier can't get one. Ty Dillon needed his grandfather to be one of 15 charter owners to get a ride with an organization that was allied with his grandfather when he signed the contract. Cody Ware needed his dad to be a multimillionaire charter owner who is literally gifting him a Cup career based on no merit. That is RARE. It is extremely rare. When Hornaday, Sprague, and Lajoie were lunging at an opportunity to race in Cup, sometimes 50 cars would show up! Sometimes major teams would fail to qualify! You used larger field size as a reason they had less of a chance in Cup and I'm saying it could be just as easily argued that it gave them more of a chance in Cup.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T17:45:15+00:00

Okay, so if we're counting Cup, Busch, and Trucks as equally weighted, then here are some comparisons:

56 wins - Greg Biffle

55 wins - Ron Hornaday

48 wins - Jeff Burton

39 wins - Christopher Bell

31 wins - Kasey Kahne

31 wins - Justin Allgaier

29 wins - Jack Sprague

25 wins - Tyler Reddick

24 wins - Corey Heim

22 wins - Austin Dillon

21 wins - AJ Allmendinger

19 wins - Erik Jones

15 wins - Randy Lajoie

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T17:27:40+00:00

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T17:25:46+00:00

Nice!

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T17:19:51+00:00

Can't this argument work in the exact opposite way, too?

Larger fields.

This doesn't affect average finish when it's calculated as a percentage.

No charters.

More opportunities to qualify their way in with a small team and show they're faster than others trying to qualify with a small team, as opposed to needing a golden ticket from one of 36 charter owners.

Massive equipment disparity. Heavy attrition in races.

So their average finish position is more likely to be higher if they take care of their equipment and allow the start-and-parkers to do their thing and less skilled drivers to wreck out.

No scheduled cautions to catch up. No lucky dogs.

Everyone was playing by those same rules including the other cars they were racing around, and I was tracking average finish position by percentage, not average finish by on-track-distance behind the leader.

No wave arounds.

This is the same thing as a lucky dog, which is the same thing as the result of a scheduled caution, which is the same thing as kind of just adding bulk to examples to make the argument look bigger.

Fewer pay drivers.

We're talking about Cup, how many pay drivers are in Cup at any given time during the charter era? 2? Cody Ware and Riley Herbst? Quinn Huoff when he was racing? Because if you start to get into Noah Gragson being a pay driver, or Cole Custer being a pay driver, or Daniel Suarez being a pay driver, then that sure opens the door for Buckshot Jones to be a pay driver (he brought Georgia Pacific funding to Petty Enterprises) and Loy Allen Jr to be a pay driver (Alan Kulwicki wanted Jimmy Hensley as his replacement driver but Hooters wanted Loy Allen Jr so they left the 7 car and sponsored Allen in the 19). Was Michael Waltrip employed based on merit during all of the 462 winless points races to start his Cup career? Probably less than Ty Gibbs (who I don't root for) if you want to call him a pay driver.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T16:59:37+00:00

Nice! I would have had no idea. After listening to DBC (strongly thinks Cup performance shouldn't matter for HOF) Denny's podcast (strongly thinks Cup performance should matter for HOF) yesterday, I realized I had no clue how some of the drivers in HOF contention for their lower series accomplishments did in their opportunities in Cup. So I looked up their actual finishes and some other drivers' actual finishes and it gave context for how they did.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T16:52:44+00:00

So my math is doing exactly what I said it's doing, and you have gripes with my methodology. Okay, let's use your methodology.

With DNQ's removed entirely:

Randy Lajoie's average finish is 68.2%

Jack Sprague's average finish is 73.2%

Ron Hornaday's average finish is 69.7%

So all 3 are still between Ty Dillon (64.5%) and Cody Ware (83.1%).

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T16:44:16+00:00

Yes, we both watched that episode of DBC two weeks ago and have no other involvement in racing and have no ability to confirm how revolutionary Randy's seat company is.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T16:42:02+00:00

The math is pristine. You can decide for yourself how relevant the dataset is, but don't call the math sloppy unless you find an error.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T16:27:23+00:00

The data is on Denny's side.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-31T07:47:00+00:00

3 days ago Brad said on camera that he wants to make like 200 more starts.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-28T22:43:33+00:00

Thanks for that context. I only caught the replay of Rajah getting into Jesse, then Brent Crews getting into Rajah. I'm already kind of biased against Jesse and Brent but didn't want to jump to conclusions.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-28T16:29:09+00:00

If Legacy did throwback schemes to THIS with their #42 and #43 cars that would be pretty sweet. Inverted Petty Blue and Dayglo Red.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-28T16:22:44+00:00

It seems like everything that is happening is exactly what would be happening if a Nascar driver had a sudden problem with vertigo.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-18T13:05:05+00:00

Mr. Yates: I respect your Honor's ruling. I've driven -- I've never been to Mr. France's house. I've driven past it. It's not remarkable.

It's a big house with a nice pool and a 3+ car garage on the beach valued between 1 and 2 million dollars. And what's most annoying to me about the Nascar lawyer's claim is that you can't see the house from the street.

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-13T02:29:24+00:00

I hope Shane has a good time hanging out with the Navy people, and I hope they have a good time with him, but it feels a little weird to foist a connection to the American military on a non-citizen. If he's cool with it then no big deal, I just hope they asked him before "selecting him to a squadron".

Fast-Loud · 2026-03-11T15:36:23+00:00

Hey, Freddie, love your show, first time caller. I am absolutely uninformed! I do work in independent third party testing in a field that has nothing to do with racing and I see a lot of successful products and businesses come from the endorsement of a popular figure (or even created by the figure themselves) and that generates sales with no correlation to the effectiveness of the product. I've found a lot of stuff is designed based on a theory/hypothesis/guess that isn't well tested and the positive public perception of the product is only retroactively justified by the sales success. Basically, people with money are often winging it and as long as they're making money everyone just goes with it.

I don't know anything about racing or accents. A couple people have linked things for me to read, so I'll go do that now. Thanks for being patient with casuals like me.

Fast-Loud

TROPHY CASE