Barbell Shrugged - Building A Badass — Nascar - I Got Duped! — 5

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everybody, this is Christmas Abbott sharing my personal journey on building a badass. I am actually really loving this process because it is really making me look back and explore these significant events in my life that have contributed to building who I am, who I don't want to be, who I really want to be, and blueprinting the tenacity that I have now and being able to really just have a little bit more accountability on not only my successes, but my failures. So we will get into a little bit more of my failures for sure. But I'm just really, really excited to be sharing this process with you. So thank you for listening. And I hope that you're enjoying this as much as I am. But also more so I really hope that you're getting something out of it and really are able to take something away that maybe you're reflecting on yourself a little bit more.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Maybe you're upping your game a little bit more, stepping outside of your comfort zone and whatever manner or whatever application that you want to hone in on you're really really just taking this as a positive experience and enhancing your own experiences so with that in mind I'm hoping that today I can inspire you a little bit more. Today I'm going to be talking about NASCAR and solely NASCAR. Ultimately, I'm going to have to tell you that I've always been an advocate since my transformation in Iraq, about trying new things. Because in Iraq, I had to try new things in order to be able to get out of my old lifestyle. And without trying new things, I would have kept going back to that old lifestyle, or kept this cycle of toxicity in my life. And when I decided to try something new,

Starting point is 00:02:27 that's when a lot of different doors opened for me. And I didn't even see how many doors were opening, but I still was able to find them and ultimately run with a few of them. And they've served me well. So this experience, I want you to think about your experience in trying something new. In trying something new we allow ourselves so many endless possibilities of creativity, doors opening that we didn't know that were there

Starting point is 00:03:02 and discovering something about ourselves that we just didn't know that were there, and discovering something about ourselves that we just didn't know about. And with trying something new, you really have no idea where your life can lead. And I often get asked the question, how did you find your passions? How are you living this life that you love? And really, it wasn't that I sat down and said, okay, let's make a little list of the things that I'm super passionate about and how can I make a living off of them? It was nowhere near that, really. In a strange way, it was a little bit of an accident to be able to make a living off of my passions. And it was an accident into finding my passions. But how I did find my passions was the willingness to try something new. I talked about

Starting point is 00:03:52 last podcast about being willing to fail, because I wanted the experience. This is exactly that. And trying something new doesn't mean that you have to have an interest in it already. You have to just be able to sign up for that cooking class, to go sign up for that NASCAR experience, to commit to going to a class at a new fitness place three times a week or twice a week or once a week for a month and what that does is it paves this path for you for this new experience and you can then after you've tried the experience a few times I'm an advocate of not just trying it once but a few times so you can really know what that is like then you can decide whether or not you like it and if you like it you can really know what that is like. Then you can decide whether or not you like it. And if you like it, you can decide whether to pursue it.

Starting point is 00:04:49 And if you decide to pursue it, you can eventually, maybe that will ignite a passion for it and you can become a master of your craft and making a living off of it. But how are you ever going to know without being willing to try it so this is a very accurate story of me wanting you know being willing to try something new but also on the same hand being stuck in my own head and having to get out of my own way. So with NASCAR, I'll be honest with you. I had no idea what I was getting into. My family grew up watching the races. I didn't. And I know that there's going to be a lot of NASCAR fans out there being like, what? But I just, I just didn't watch the races. And so I was really naive to the history and culture of NASCAR when I went into it.

Starting point is 00:05:55 And I had no idea that there were no women in the pit crews. And I mean, I knew there was you know Danica Patrick that was the female racer but it just didn't occur to me that that was almost it for the female presence there are a couple other racers besides Danica and um you know we'll we'll get into that recognition but um I really just didn't know what I was getting into. So this wasn't an intentional passion project. This was, again, an accident, a discovery of a passion that I didn't know that I had. And to set this up for you, I will explain that in 2010, I just had a lot going on and I was really just overworked, overwhelmed and hitting a lot of my dreams but I loved it. I loved every minute of my life being busy and chaotic and hustling and I still do which is obviously why I still do it. It was late in 2011 I believe

Starting point is 00:07:09 that I got I got a phone call and my friend called me up and he's like hey Christmas we're gonna be in Charlotte for the day we're gonna um go do some NASCAR, you want to come? And he actually literally said, do you want to play NASCAR? And I had been working my tail off for that entire year. You guys know how 2010 was like. 2011 was just as crazy. And 2011, I was working seminar staff. I was running my gym, coaching full-time. I was going through a separation with my business partner at the time and just really stretched to my limits. Now I also had just lost my grandfather and I just have to have a minute to express what a great man he was. He just loved and adored my grandmother and they were the odd couple. She was like five foot flat. He was six two and he just like would always try and get us to go get his grandma, you know, our grandmother to give him a kiss

Starting point is 00:08:19 and he just had this laugh that just made you want to laugh and feel joy. And to be honest, I never once heard him speak ill of anybody ever. And he had served in the Korean War as an infantry. And I just really want to say that I miss him and that was a very difficult year to lose him and it was a lot. I had taken on a lot. He passed away from emphysema and I just cherish all the memories that I have with him. So even though we knew that he was going to pass,

Starting point is 00:09:10 it still was a hard blow. And, you know, when it rains, it storms, and it shit storms, and everything comes all at once, and that's where my life was. I maybe got one to two days off a month just because of my schedule. And, you know, I loved it. But at the same time, it was very, very difficult. So with that in mind, I got this phone call from my friend. And he says, hey, do you want to come play NASCAR? And I laughed.

Starting point is 00:09:40 And I was like, well, yeah, duh, obviously. I'm a CrossFitter. I want to lift fast. I want to lift fast. I want to run fast. I want to, you know, murder these workouts. Of course, I want to drive this incredible car. And I didn't know at the time when I was saying yes, how I was going to arrange my schedule to be able to accommodate a day off that was not on my schedule. But I did.

Starting point is 00:10:03 So I hung up the phone I asked a friend to cover my shifts at the gym and I was gonna drive to Charlotte from Raleigh and go play NASCAR for a day I really had no idea what I was getting into my friend asked well what are you going to go do I said I don't know he said play NASCAR well who are these other people well I don't know and you know some people could be cringing right now and be like oh my gosh Christmas what kind of situation are you putting yourself into but really for me I knew my friend we were gonna get together with some other CrossFitters and who doesn't love just

Starting point is 00:10:37 a impromptu gathering of amazing CrossFit people it's always a good time so I go and this is my one day off that I give myself and I drive three hours to Charlotte I arrived there we have dinner and then the next morning we're gonna go and do this challenge and I'm hearing them talk and I'm just really listening I'm observing I'm taking it in I don't always have to be the center of attention not always so I'm listening and I'm kind of like putting one and one together I'm like what what are these guys talking about they're talking about pit crewing and all this other stuff and I was like okay well I have no idea what I'm getting into I'm already here so let's just see what what happens tomorrow because I'm I'm gonna drive a car so I go and the next morning I show up and we have to be at this um this facility

Starting point is 00:11:42 and I walk in and I see everybody I'm like hi Diego how are you and everybody's there and there's these two NASCAR guys right and then three or there's four CrossFitters including myself and they start talking you know they give us a tour of the facility starts talking about how these pit crews are the make or break of the races and how today when we change the tire and jack the car up and hit lug nuts that we're going to be doing it in a very true pit pit crew nascar style and i'm going to tell you i had the strangest look on my face there was it was like contorted I was like okay we're gonna change a tire and in my head immediately I realized what's happened I realized that I'm here to change a tire and not drive a car. I am pissed. I'm pissed off. I immediately just shut down.

Starting point is 00:12:51 This is not why I came. This is not what I want to do. I don't like changing tires. I don't want to change tires. I don't want to do this other little competition. This is not at all what I signed up for and immediately I start thinking about ways that I can get out of this I immediately immediately detach from the experience and start strategizing how to get out of this because I know with absolute certainty I am not going to enjoy this day and I have just one wasted my one day off a month two drove three hours one way to come change a tire and now I feel like I've been duped so I am fuming but at the same time I'm trying not to be too obvious about it and eventually I'm walking around and we walk outside so a couple minutes later we walk outside to the track and there's a pit crew there some guys there and this truck comes squealing around the corner

Starting point is 00:13:56 and I hear these air guns go off like and the truck slams to a halt these guys jump off the wall and they go and they do this waltz and the waltz is so fast and perfectly executed and then these guys jump out of the way and the truck takes off and the pit crew coach gets in there and I was just in amazement. My mouth dropped open, my eyes were bulging out of my head and I could not believe what I was looking at. I couldn't believe that these guys just jumped in a moving vehicle going so fast, did what they did. I don't even know what they did, but it looked beautiful and effortless, but also wild and intense. And then they got the hell out of the way. And I was like, what, what was that? I looked at the guys that I was with and I said, what the hell is that? And they're like, that's the pit stop. That's you're gonna be doing today and immediately I

Starting point is 00:15:06 was so excited I fell in love with it immediately I was like I don't know what what I need to do but get me into this beautiful waltzing dance I don't know what you need from me but just let me let me in it show me show me show me and I'm gonna tell you before we even got started I just fell in love with it and I had a similar moment to the point to the time when I watched CrossFit for the first time that video that I told you about in the last podcast about Nasty Girls with Nicole Carroll, Annie Sakamoto, and Eva T, I just fell in love with it. I knew that whatever they were doing was what I wanted to do and I had to do it right now. So I hadn't felt that excited or inspired or touched or motivated at that level beyond anything that CrossFit had done for me. So upon discovering CrossFit, this is the first time that I was just so moved and obsessed with something.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And I just knew that something there was magical. So immediately I fell in love with it. And I am so, so grateful that I did not bail the night before or that morning which I was planning on doing and I gave myself an opportunity to see what this was about so instead of having a perceived experience I could have an actual experience and the difference is from those two is that I found something that I loved I was able to do it well and I ended up making history for it so I hope that you listen to that again and hear because I could have gone home and never have been in NASCAR but instead of staying and just being a little bit tolerant I discovered this passion that I didn't know I had

Starting point is 00:17:06 so now we're in it and I'm just obsessed I don't know what it is that we're going to do but I'm like let's get down to business so we had uh in true CrossFit style we decided to do some competitions. And the competitions were three different ones. With NASCAR, let me break this down before we go back to competitions. With NASCAR, there's three different tiers of expertise or the races. The lower tier, uh, the first tier is the truck series. So think about the CrossFit Open. Anybody can sign up for it. Um, you know, you want to, if you want to do RX, this is RX Open and anybody can sign up for it. It doesn't take a ton of skill or talent, but it does take a ton of skill or talent but it does take a bit of foundational understanding skill talent strength speed and that's kind of like the truck series where there are some qualifying um components but it's the the first tier the second tier is nationwide now this is like regionals

Starting point is 00:18:21 or once was uh and so you have to qualify. You're looking at time, strength component, skill level. It's much harder of the best. Only a handful of people in the world will ever get there and even few will ever stay in that top level more than a few years at a time. So that is the tiers of NASCAR. Now let me explain how a pit crew actually functions. NASCAR is actually a team sport. People are like, oh, it's a single individual sport. You have the driver, which is, you know, the all-star athlete, you know, the person that gets a lot of the recognition. They drive the car, fantastic, but without a top tier pit crew, that driver is going to lose every single time. So with the pit crew, you have technically seven members. You have a gas man that gases the car, helps wipe off the windshield.

Starting point is 00:19:38 He doesn't play a huge role, but it's still very, I mean, timing and precise. So I don't want you to disregard their skill and ability. Excuse me. Then you have the jack man. He comes out and will jack the car. I'll explain all of this. You have the front and rear tire carrier, and then you have a front and rear tire changer. Now, these are all separate positions. So my job was a front tire changer. What happens is as the car is going to come into a pit stop, now you have scheduled pit stops, and then you have surprise pit stop. Now you have scheduled pit stops and then you have surprise pit stops. No matter what, during the entire race, which is on average around two hours, you have to be ready to go no matter

Starting point is 00:20:32 what as the pit crew. So you have to be ready to execute proficiently and consistently every single time or else you're just going to lose your job. There's no easy way around it. So as the car comes in, say we get a call, car's coming in for a pit stop. As the car's coming in down that lane, the car is coming. They are allowed to go up to 55 miles an hour. They usually go a little bit faster because they're trying to get to their pit crew as fast as possible, right? Time is of the essence. So as the pit crew, we're on standby. We're standing on the wall and you have two lines. So you have basically like a parking spot that the driver can come into. As the pit crew, we cannot be in that spot at all until the car has come into it at some point. At that time, we're allowed to come off the wall and start changing tires. So as the car is coming in at 55 miles an hour,

Starting point is 00:21:35 we're all waiting on the wall and there's a timing component that as soon as the nose of the car touches or passes that line for your designated spot, your foot can touch the ground. It is literally a very like one-two movement. So as the car is approaching that line, the tire changer leaps off of the wall because as soon as the nose crosses it, your foot can touch and you position. Now you get into an athletic stance so you run across in front of this car that's going 55 miles an hour and it's not like you have a couple hundred meters. It is a couple feet that you have to run in front of this car and get positioned on the opposite side of the wall. So it's you, the car, the wall. And as the car

Starting point is 00:22:26 comes in, the driver will lock up the brakes. And you are finding, as a tire changer, you are finding that first, what I call front sight focus, because I'm a shooter too, that first spoke to hit. And it's always, for me, I always start it at 12 o'clock noon. And as I come in and the car locks up, I can move with the car and get focused and aligned with my air wrench in my cell. So as soon as the car stops completely, I'm hitting that first lug nut and there's five lug nuts, five spokes that will come off and then, um, they come the same as on. So as the car is screeching in, the jack man gets the car jacked up, but I'm already at work. So before the car is even at a complete stop, I'm hitting that first lug nut. I'm hitting the second one as the car stops. I'm hitting the third one as it's

Starting point is 00:23:30 starting to get jacked up and I'm hitting the fourth one as it's up. And by then I've already hit the fifth one. I put my gun down. I pull the tire and throw it to the right side of me. I don't worry about it because that's the tire carrier's job is to catch it. As I'm pulling it and rotating it out of the hub, my tire carrier is throwing another tire on. And it's so precise because those spokes are not big. There's not a lot of room for error here. And as he's pushing that new tire in I'm coming back around and hitting these new lug nuts onto the spokes five in a row. Now we glue them on to the the new tire so it's not like I'm putting one on individually. And then as soon as I've hit that last one, I stand up and I

Starting point is 00:24:27 race around to the other side, hit the five lug nuts off, pull the tire, my tire carrier throws the tire on, I hit five lug nuts on, and then I get the heck out of the way. Now a lot's going on there, right? Lots going on. When I went to this experience, that's a normal pit crew. So the front person does it, the back person does it. This waltz is happening all at once and this collective team is just really, really working together very fast from start to finish the average pit crew the average pit stop for two tires is about 13 seconds 12 to 13 seconds that's for two tires

Starting point is 00:25:17 okay so let me rewind that's for two freaking tires front i get to change two tires the back changes two tires from start where that car comes in to finish where that car takes off is 13 seconds on average anything beyond that is a little bit unacceptable um I've seen it get down to 11 seconds which is gnarly fast so keep that in mind as I'm telling this story now Now, in true CrossFit style, we're going to have some competition, right? And so they bring the car in and you have to jack the car up, which usually will be a larger guy, right? A larger person. And they should be able to have the car completely lifted with one to two pumps. This is kind of like an upside down push press for me. That's how I had to associate it, where I would use my hips,

Starting point is 00:26:13 push my arms and pump the car. Well, I was able to do it, but not well, like really not well because I just didn't have that weight in my body to leverage what I needed to do to jack the car so the guys did really well on that I did I was able to but not very proficiently the second attempt or the second challenge that we did was to hang the tire so we take this tire and we hold it in a certain position and that's the mass per so it's big and it's flat and um you know it has the five uh spokes holes and you have to twist your whole body and carry the tire and throw it into where the the spokes are without without getting it caught. Now, you want to talk about precision. Whoa, it's so hard. It's like trying to, if you're shooting a gun, you're trying to get your grouping with your five bullets in one very small, tight grouping without throwing one off. And if you throw one off, then you've missed the tire and you've just lost your job so I was able to hang

Starting point is 00:27:26 the tire well but it's usually a little bit like of a medium build body not as quite as large as the jackman but the tire carries are a little bit larger versus tire changers you just got to have that power to be able to really you use your body weight to hang the tire and and really and do it well so I did okay I think I beat most of the boys in that one um but it didn't it didn't just wow me now I heard the air gun the wrench the and I was like I don't know what that thing is, but I want my hands on it. Let me, let me have a shot at it. So then the last challenge was that we were going to hit, uh, lug nuts. And so if you think about your car, it has five spokes and it has a lug nut for each spoke. But with NASCAR, we get these air wrenches, these air air guns and so you get to punch the spoke you know it's

Starting point is 00:28:27 just kind of like an air drill um it's just a little meatier so with this you hit five lug nuts and they should all pop off now you have to hit it with the same power and consistency every single time in order to be able to do it accurately. If you hit it too hard, then the lug nut can stay on the back and I hang it. It's called a hanger. If you hit it too soft, it doesn't come all the way off and another hanger. So you can't actually pull the tire off. And so there's this balance of kind of like a consistent punch super powerful super fast and super consistent every single time and then you have to keep your speed up be consistent with your speed so you can imagine that my experience with crossfit of and specifically competing with CrossFit understanding how my body is working how much more torque do I need how much do I need to throttle back or more and all of these components

Starting point is 00:29:35 really kind of dialed in to this one moment where I was going to hit lug nuts. Now, when you're a tire changer, you have to sit on your knees and have your butt literally touch the ground and then hunch over. So let's say that like my abs were on fire and I had pretty good abs at the time. And then you punch this hub with this air gun to have these lug nuts fly off and they come off with such velocity that during practice I had had everything from a black eye busted lip um I mean I cracked my eyebrow open and I would have lost a tooth ahead I had not been wearing a mouth guard these lug nuts are hard and they come off like popcorn all right they don't just kind of like lazily fall off they come off of popcorn and you can't flinch you can't lose focus on what you're doing at all so it was pretty pretty fun so this day of this, we go and the boys hit lug nuts and they're doing pretty

Starting point is 00:30:46 good and I hit lug nuts and I love it. I'm like, this is, this is what I've been missing in my life. So for me in the final challenge, I hit five lug nuts and my hand speed was 1.7 seconds. Now you're like, what? That's not per lug nut nut that's for all five. So if you think about this let me put it into perspective at the highest level sprint cup which would be equivalent to the CrossFit Games my the average hand speed for sprint cup tire changer is 1.2 seconds. Now, day one, third attempt, I had a 1.7 second hand speed. And I literally saw the two guys there that were, for me, unknowingly recruiting, look at each other and kind of smile because they knew what they had with me. It was equivalent to somebody walking into a CrossFit gym day one, female, having a sub three minute Fran RXed

Starting point is 00:31:58 and also the strength and the speed. And they knew at that time that they had somebody that they could pretty easily tweak and take to the games. Same thing as these guys saw with me, they had some really great fundamental talent that they could tweak and take to NASCAR sprint. So that's really where I discovered or had the first experience of this tire-changing world. Now, I had such a great time, and I finally went home, and I obsessed about it, and I looked into it, and I just didn't know what I was getting into. In a sense, I was like, I just wanted to know more about it. Now, fast forward a little bit, the next week, the guy calls me and he's like, Hey Christmas. Um, I wanted to ask you how much did you love that experience? I was like, are you

Starting point is 00:32:55 kidding me? I absolutely, I'm obsessed with it. And I told him, I was like, I was just looking into how people did this. And I was just trying to get more information. And he asked me, I was like, I was just looking into how people did this. And I was just trying to get more information. And he asked me, he was like, Hey, so we're looking to recruit and we'd like to recruit you. And I was like, that's awesome. I love it. What does that look like? and they explained to me the schedule the schedule for NASCAR is pretty aggressive so the sport is from February to November every weekend for the most part and then they have quote-unquote time off in December but really it's just for the holidays you know Christmas uh Hanukkah for about a week and a half two weeks there um and they train Monday through Thursday and then they have um truck series on Friday nationwide on Saturday

Starting point is 00:33:52 sprint couple on Sunday and they travel every weekend now this just didn't accommodate my schedule but nothing would have accommodated my schedule. But this was just so outside of that possibility. And I said, thank you so much. I love this, but no, I can't. I have my gym. I'm a level one CrossFit trainer. I have the games that I'm training for. And, uh, you know, I appreciate this, but I just, I cannot. And he said, okay, I'll call you back next week. And I hung up the phone. I remember going into my best friend, Lindsay's house. I was like, they just offered me a job, but I have no idea any of the details, but I just can't do it because it just doesn't work. You know, I can't accommodate to it. And we started talking and I still became obsessed. I was like, is there any other way to do this?

Starting point is 00:34:51 And to be quite frank, there wasn't. You had to go all in or not at all. And the next week he called back and I was like, you know, I've been thinking about this and I have no idea what this entails but I'll tell you that I have not found something that I have been so passionate about and obsessed with and cannot get out of my mind since I started CrossFit so I don't know what the timeline is I don't know what this means but I would like to come train and he just had a field day I had no idea what I was saying yes to I didn't know how I was going to make this work but I knew that I had to take the chance I knew that I was going to love this in some way and it was going to serve me in some way and I just had really no idea so I had to get some affairs in order I mean talk about jumping through hoops I it took a while right but I had to bring on um my now business partner to run my gym, which is not an easy thing to do.

Starting point is 00:36:09 That's just literally giving away, you know, just like, here's your baby. Please take care of it. Now, I did stay involved in operations from a distance, but it was a leap of faith. And it served me well then I had to talk to you know accommodate with CrossFit HQ about my training schedule and how much I was able to get away and they were very accommodating and I just really appreciate it because I love I love teaching seminars and I didn't want to give that up yet and they had always just supported me in my endeavors. So with that in mind I pretty much had everything kind of locked in eventually

Starting point is 00:36:55 where I could relocate to Charlotte and start training and so I was finally able to do it. So I relocated to Charlotte and started pit crew training with Michael Waltrip's team, specifically Clint Boyer's team. And I didn't know when I took this opportunity that there were no other females in the pit crew specifically at the sprint cup level now I believe that there had been some females on the truck series maybe one or two on nationwide at the time but um nobody ever being on pit crew at the sprint cup and um so I I really just didn't know that I was making history. You know, I mean as bizarre as that sounds, it's much like my baseball experience where I didn't know that there weren't any girls on the boys team.

Starting point is 00:37:57 I just wanted to play baseball and same situation here. I didn't know there weren't any girls in the Sprint Cup. I just wanted to hit lug nuts. So with that in mind, this was not an intentional political stand. This was just, I want to play. And, you know, whatever that means for the effect of that, then that's okay. So I got there and started training with the team. Now, because there hadn't been any women in this sport at that level yet, I got a bit of pushback, honestly. And a lot of it was about thinking that it was a publicity stunt.

Starting point is 00:38:53 And I kind of, when I first heard it, I was like, what are you talking about? And I just thought that I was kind of getting a little pushback because I was a girl. And, you know, it was kind of a boys club. And the girls that made it had just been really tough. And was like okay I have to prove my worth here and I have to show that I'm here for the sport and that I can hang and handle it so that eventually you know not eventually pretty quickly the guys that I was training with saw that I was serious about what I wanted to do. Now, the rest of the world may have taken a little bit of time to see that, but at least with my team, they were able to see that I showed up before everybody else. I was ready to go. I did all, you know, I went above and beyond every single practice.

Starting point is 00:39:47 And then at home, I actually had a hub. So I had a little faux hub. It was actually a real hub. And I would hit lug nuts every day. So I'll get into my training regimen in a minute. And I don't think the guys really took me seriously as a competitive athlete specifically with my ability with NASCAR until they saw me in the gym so we would do practice and at practice you hit lug nuts you run pit crew pit stops but it's not a lot of stops you get about five stop practices per practice and the rest of the time is sprinting and skill work so you don't excel at skill work in front of everybody else you know you just kind of get lost with everybody and we were in the gym and I asked my coach if I could kind of lead some some workouts because I could see the deficiency in their strength training

Starting point is 00:40:46 pre-season so we we did some fun training drills and it piqued their interest because I was outlifting these guys and they were like wait a minute here's this tiny little girl hitting lug nuts and like yeah she does good over here with the skill, but how is she outlifting us? And it demanded a bit of respect, which I appreciated that they gave me. So getting into my training regiment, it was serious. Let me walk you through what this looked like Monday through Friday you specifically Monday through Thursday we trained and Monday morning we would have practice at 7 a.m. no matter what it was like outside so we started this in January

Starting point is 00:41:40 and it was cold and you still had to hit lug nuts and be explosive and powerful no matter how cold it was so we practiced outside rain or shine with limitations on rain but you practiced every single day so morning we would have pit practice I would come home a couple hours later and I would take a little nap, eat, and my lunchtime I would go and to my local CrossFit there where I would do weightlifting because I was still competing in weightlifting. And then I would do a CrossFit workout. I'd come home, rest, eat, and then twice a week I would have evening pit classes, or pit practices. So twice a week I would train for about an hour and a half in the evening. So collectively on a day to day schedule, I was training minimum five to seven hours a day with between pit weightlifting crossfit

Starting point is 00:42:49 and then while I'm home so that didn't even include time that I would have to like I'd wake up and literally wake up go to the bathroom and sit in front of the hub and hit uh lug nuts you know because you just have to practice it's a skill that you need to be able to do effortlessly with all the effort, if that makes sense. And my training regimen was so hard. And I remember my first few weeks of practice, I was like hobbling around, I was so sore. And I was like hobbling around. I was so sore. And I was like, man, this is more intense than training for the games. And it was in a way where there was actually less people in my position than ever went to the games. And I'm taking Epsom salt baths. I'm using Rock Tape.

Starting point is 00:43:39 If you've never used Rock Sauce, holy cannoli. It is amazing. So just be careful of where you put it and where you touch after you put it on yourself. And, you know, and I was eating so well. That's when I had my diet dialed in. And I'm just really, I'm a full time athlete. I am a professional athlete. And I loved it. I loved it. And in my downtime, I would do operations admin for my gym. I wasn't doing a lot of social media. I wasn't doing much of anything because I wanted to focus all of my attention and energy into this tire changing passion. So the season starts, my debut is in Daytona 500, specifically at the Truck Series.

Starting point is 00:44:28 And that was the first one on Friday night and the lights were down and it was amazing and Reebok had made me this awesome fire suit and there was a hundred thousand people in the stands just cheering. I know not just for me, right? But it still felt damn good to stand on that wall and to see that many people and that much energy. And this was my day one. Like this was it. This is what I trained for.

Starting point is 00:45:05 And this was kind of like when you go into competition, all of your training up until that point is what matters. Then you're in the moment and you just have to let your body take over. You have to let what your body knows to do via your training to execute. So I'm in there and there's 100,000 people standing there cheering and I just had an amazing experience. I just, what I cannot describe to you how incredible this was. And that was the intro into my NASCAR experience. Now with Michael Waltrip, uh, specifically Clint Boyer, I didn't always change change tires I was part of the crew but there was um not always a front tire person so I have to you know let you know that that that was what happened but I still I was on the team I'm front tire changer or assistance and it's amazing because I was just so excited about all the experience that I didn't care that I always got to change tires or not I was grateful for when I had the opportunity to

Starting point is 00:46:15 and with this um every weekend like I said you travel Friday Saturday Sunday depending if you work one or all three of the series you travel one or all three days and then you go to back to work on a practice on Monday to Thursday and then you know they say you have a long weekend from Friday to Monday but you work those weekends so you're literally working every day of the week in some capacity and the as we grew into this um team you know my team and I trained more together we started doing hot yoga together we would um cook together and we started just forming this really incredible family and I'm grateful for them because they taught me a lot. They gave me insight on the sport, on the skill, on what it took, but also they respected me for my hard work and my discipline and what I brought to the table and they didn't look at me and go, oh you're just a pretty face

Starting point is 00:47:19 that can throw around a barbell. You're here just for the publicity. When they saw how serious I was, they respected my position. And I miss them. It's like a distant family. And they were just always so loving and so kind and supportive once I earned their respect. Now I only pit crewed for a year and people often ask me, why aren't you still doing it? Why don't you do it longer? And there's a pretty simple explanation for it is I went into the sport at 30 years old when people at my age were retiring from that position. The impact and wear and tear that I had on your body specifically for a front tire changer and back tire changer, you get knee replacements in your late 30s. You have hip issues for the rest of your life or hip replacements early on. And it is a much younger person's sport. Now, had I found it a decade earlier, or even six or seven years earlier, I would have stayed in

Starting point is 00:48:34 that sport for as long as possible. But for me, I had already established myself as a business owner as a trainer as an athlete and I was doing nutrition seminars as well and so I was able to kind of balance all of those things but when I started NASCAR I had to only do NASCAR so it literally came down to either I pursue NASCAR and get to play with one passion or I can go back to CrossFit and teaching which is my super passion uh and in multiple capacities and be able to balance a little bit of a more diverse lifestyle which I preferred and I have to tell you like I didn't go into NASCAR with any intention other than exploring what this passion was and what it would do for me and when I left I didn't feel guilty for not you know riding this career out as long as I possibly could, or jumping on every opportunity

Starting point is 00:49:46 financially that there was, because there was a lot of sponsorships to be, you know, money to be made in it, because my happiness and my passions for CrossFit and teaching, I got to do both of those versus just one of my passions for NASCAR. So that is why I didn't stay and a couple years later I actually did have to get a knee scope and it's just because of the no other reason other than just that that's the trait of the training and the the cost of having to do that style of training for that that sport. And I would never have discovered that sport without being willing to try something new even if I knew exactly that I was going to hate it I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to hate changing a tire I had never even changed my own tire at this point in my life. I didn't even know how to.

Starting point is 00:50:46 And I just remember being so pissed off in that shop that I was furious. I was furious and just thinking of a way to get out of it and ended up changing my life. It ended up just giving me an entirely different experience, entirely different perspective. And I almost forfeited that willingly because I knew that my experience was going to yield this. When in reality, my experience yielded a passion that I didn't know I had. And that's what this was about for me was perceived experience over real experience. And my perceived experience would have taken me home and never have put me into a NASCAR pit crew ever. And my perceived experience would have limited my life passion and love and so I'm really really glad that I stuck it out and was willing to try something new even though I knew I was not going to like it so with that in mind I advocate for you even as adult, no matter what your age is, you can be 92 and maybe you're

Starting point is 00:52:07 not going to go do pit crewing, but maybe you're going to go try a new board game and try it a few times before you make a real decision on what your experience is. And then I'm also going to challenge you a little bit more that if you have tried something in your life and you're like I didn't like it then but maybe it's been a few years go ahead and try it again what are you gonna lose a day an hour 20 bucks it it could ignite something inside of you that you didn't know you were having or had also try and go with an open mind people are always always asking me, well, what do you think that you're going to do with this? Or, you know, aren't you nervous about that in case this happens? And I've gotten to be much better. I'm not always great at it, right? I still have my challenges,

Starting point is 00:53:00 but I've gotten to be much better about going in and saying you know I'm not gonna have a preset decision on how this experience is gonna be for me and I'm gonna take it for what it is and what that allows me to do is to be able to receive things in that experience that I might not have been able to receive had I known or thought about what it was going to be like for me. I hope you guys get that. So if you go in and you're like, man, I think that this is going to give me X experience, then you will either be disappointed or just enough or more than thrilled, right? It's going to go above or beyond. But if you just go in and say, hey, look, this is gonna, I'm gonna just take it for what it is and try and take it all in,

Starting point is 00:53:51 then you might even find something that you didn't know was there. And to include a little bit of a passion or doorway to something else that could lead to a new passion. So I'm excited to share with you my NASCAR experience or at least getting into it and how I got into it and my why. And I'm going to challenge you to continue to try new things no matter what if they sound weird or whatever it may be. But, you know, challenge yourself. Get out there. And whether it's once a month, once a week, that's how you discover what you like. That's how you discover a little bit more about life and what it has to offer you.

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Barbell Shrugged - Building A Badass — Nascar - I Got Duped! — 5

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