Larson's Triumph, Denny's Tragedy

This week on Podracing, Neil and Tyler unpack an unforgettable — and emotionally complicated — Championship Weekend at Phoenix. Corey Heim capped a historic Trucks season with a validating win, while our guy Connor Zilisch saw his all-time Xfinity campaign fall short late. But the Cup race was the real heartbreaker: After 20 years of near-misses, Denny Hamlin did everything right… until a freak late caution (thanks to a William Byron tire failure) flipped the script and let Kyle Larson steal the title on an overtime restart. We break down how it all happened — and how it felt — from the driving decisions to the pit calls to the way the format itself enabled one of the most gutting defeats in sports history. Then Neil explains how Denny’s heartbreak stacks up against the worst losses ever using a new “Levels of Losing” framework, and we debate how we would fix the NASCAR playoff system once and for all, including Neil's appeal for perhaps a more golf-like approach to viewing the concept of a "champion" each year.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.