Ep 389 "Critically NASCAR is Back"

February 19, 2026·1 hr 9 min·4 clips

Tyler Reddick won the Daytona 500, then people got upset about him joking with his son on camera.

The episode starts with the host wrestling the setup into shape while the theme music gets its due. He jokes through the technical mess, resets the intro, and keeps bouncing between being thrown off and trying to get himself together. The mood stays loose and unruly from the first minute. A brief memorial beat lands when he notes the passing of the voice actor behind King Julian. That moment quickly gives way to a blunt pivot into NASCAR. The host makes it plain that this is his lane. He walks through the Daytona 500 as a 198-lap grind that came down to a wild restart with two laps left. Joey Lugano is described charging from 14th into the mix. Chase Elliott is there too, trying to hold position before getting clipped and spun. Tyler Reddick, meanwhile, is in the middle of the mess and somehow drives through it cleanly. The finish is pure chaos, with cars going three-wide and people getting bumped, nudged, and shoved out of shape. The host keeps marveling that no yellow came out because the incident stayed just contained enough to let the race finish straight up. He treats the ending like a perfect bit of racing luck. Lugano crosses in third with his car nearly spinning itself apart. Elliott ends up fourth after getting turned around. Reddick wins by being in the right place at the right time and driving through the traffic. The host frames it as a real Daytona 500 win and jokes that Michael Jordan gets the championship. He also drops in a few more driver names and team references, including Ricky Steinhaus Jr. and Brad Keselowski, to keep the field feeling crowded and real. From there the episode wanders into lighter banter and family talk, including a thread about kids, birthdays, and who gets along with whom. That stretch is less about racing and more about the usual group texture of teasing and catching up. The ending leans fully into that familiar back-and-forth before closing on a Rick James quote and a goodbye that sounds half-signoff, half-inside joke.

As heard by us

A lively Daytona 500 recap that hits hardest in the late-race chaos.

The episode starts in a hectic, self-aware mode before settling into a sharp Daytona 500 recap. Its best run comes when Tyler Reddick threads through a crowded late restart and Joey Logano and Chase Elliott get caught up in the shuffle, with the finish described in a way that…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a Daytona 500 finish that sounds like it happened in the room with you.

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