All right, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Untitled Jeff Gluf podcast.

I'm your host Jeff Gluck, and I'm here with the best podcaster NASCAR to say.

It's Nate Ryan from NBC Sports.

He has agreed to join my podcast for the final edition post race of the year.

Just to give you some setup here, we have just watched the end of the race. I mean,

like, probably didn't even end like 15 minutes ago at this point. So everything we're saying

to you here is very fresh. We haven't had a chance to talk to everybody yet, to work through

everything. So we're giving you our very sort of raw initial reaction, uh, here. And, and Nate, um, you know, you know, I think you're one of the best

big picture thinkers that I've ever met. And so I guess I'll ask for your impression first.

Joey Lugano is a NASCAR champion. What does this all mean? I think it's good for NASCAR. It reminds me

a little bit of when his teammate won the title in 2012 Brad

Kislauski was the first millennial to win the championship for NASCAR and I think that

generate a lot of positive discussion about that and you know NASCAR tried to play up the

young driver narrative all year long and for the most part it wasn't successful

and I think it's funny. Joey Lugano often doesn't get included in that young driver narrative even

though he's actually younger than Austin Dillon, the Daytona 500 winner who is often referred to as

part of that changing of the guard, new kids on the track as Eddie Gossage attempted to

gin up as a phrase that didn't really catch

fire.

But yeah, I think it's good for NASCAR.

I mean, most of all, it's good for Joey Lagano because here's a guy who, 10 years, we've

heard about this guy and we're waiting here, you know, see him fulfill his potential.

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