This week on Bringing the Heat with Trey Lyle, Harrison Burton and Michael Massie talk over the season for the Sam Hunt Racing No. 24. Burton believes his team has had to fight through the “bad luck bug” and that their points position doesn’t reflect the speed in the car.
This is the second straight season Burton is racing in the O’Reilly Series since his tenure as a Cup Series driver, but he made a return to the Cup garage filling in for Riley Herbst at Daytona, where he finished 12th. Burton shares what that weekend was like, and his impressions of Michael Jordan’s buy-in into the NASCAR world. As far as the future, Burton is confident he’ll keep driving, but he is still working on where.
After the interview, Massie joins Lyle to review this week’s hottest topics. That includes a meeting between NASCAR and Ty Gibbs after Gibbs threw a water bottle that hit Massie during the post-race chaos Saturday night at Bristol.
In other news, Jeremy Bullins announced his departure from RFK Racing after serving as crew chief for Brad Keselowski for the past two seasons. The two spent time together at Team Penske as well. Bullins is moving to Legacy Motor Club to crew chief for Herbst next year. Massie wasn’t surprised by the separation and believes the veteran leadership could benefit Herbst. Meanwhile, RFK has plenty of question marks for their future.
On Wednesday, Richard Childress Racing announced two new key leadership appointments to try and strengthen the technical side. The changes are more efforts Massie believes can better effort more speed into the RCR cars to get back to competing for wins on Sundays.
Massie and Lyle take another look at the Chase standings, debating which drivers are out of championship contention and which drivers still may have a shot at winning it all in 2026.
This week’s soundbite gives both the Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar perspectives from Bristol. Blaney dishes on the on-track contact, and Hocevar breaks down the race and the scuffle on pit road. After no penalties for either driver was confirmed, Massie shares why NASCAR made the correct call. He believes this could be the start of a new precedent being set under new leadership with Steve O’Donnell.
Watch Bringing the Heat with Trey Lyle here or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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!
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 co-host Happy Hour and help out on the podcast front.
He now hosts Bringing the Heat with Trey Lyle and oversees the entire podcast operation for Frontstretch.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.
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