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On this week’s Frontstretch Happy Hour, hosts Trey Lyle, Dalton Hopkins, Caleb Barnes and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s Davey Segal talk about Joey Logano‘s walk-off win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Logano’s win earned him a spot into the Championship 4 for the sixth time in his NASCAR Cup Series career. He did so on a game of fuel mileage strategy and continued a 10-year-long streak of his entry in the playoff finale in every even-numbered year. The four discuss whether or not the Team Penske driver’s win was earned or if it is another example of luck produced by the NASCAR playoff format.
The quartet then discuss the different playoff outlooks of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. Bell sits second in the Round of 8 with a whopping 42 points separating he and the cut line after a dominant performance in Las Vegas ended in a runner-up result. But is he a shoo-in for the Championship 4 finale at Phoenix Raceway?
On the other hand, Hamlin finished the event in eighth and now sits 27 points behind the top four drivers in the standings. After recent comments made by the Virginian that display a loss of confidence for the No. 11 team, is it still possible for him to finally earn that elusive first championship in 2024?
Finally, it was announced on Tuesday (Oct. 22) that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would reunite with Budweiser to run a late model featuring the iconic No. 8 of Earnhardt’s early NASCAR career at Florence Speedway and select races in 2025. The boys talk about the news and their emotions of the popular reunion. Afterward, they discuss which other driver/sponsor combos they would like to see returning in the sport.
Watch the whole show below or listen to the audio version wherever you get your podcasts.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
A Graduate of Virginia Tech in Sports Media and Analytics, Trey Lyle has been covering NASCAR since 2021 as the producer of the Fast Lane with Ed Lane on VTRN Sports 93.3 FM in Lynchburg, Va.
Trey joined FS in 2023 to cohost Happy Hour and help out on the podcast front as the producer for Brining the Heat with Bryan Nolen. Now, he oversees the entire podcast operation for Frontstretch.
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!