Jocko Podcast - 417: Put Your Helmet on and Take Some Risks. With Danica Patrick

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

As a racecar driver, Danica Patrick broke barriers and set records with her on-track performance. With her racing career behind her, Danica looks to her next chapter as she focuses on her passions: good food, great wine, fitness and helping others achieve their goals.Danica joined the mainstream ranks by succeeding in the male-dominated world of professional motorsports. Danica was named to TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” list, has graced the cover of many prestigious publications and was featured in pictorials in the 2008 and 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has appeared in a record-setting 14 Super Bowl commercialsSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 417 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. I have to think about everything happening around me. Outside the car, like when to come in for a pit stop and what kind of stop I'm making, whether it's a short stop or a long stop changing tires or just adding fuel or adjustments I want made to the car in my next pit. I'm thinking about where the other drivers are on the track and the order we're all driving in. Who's a lap down and who I'm racing against?

whom will I risk driving next to, especially if they are behind me in the standings. There's a lot happening inside the car too. I'm constantly adjusting my suspension, monitoring all my engine functions, and adjusting my fuel mixture, switching between full power and various conversion levels according to the fuel strategies. When you drive an open cockpit car, there's a constant deluge of flying debris, including rubber from the tires, often referred to as marbles. exhaust fumes, oil on the track, stones or pebbles, and so on.

Everything on the track becomes a potential hazard and a problem when it comes to seeing while I drive. Several times during the race, I remove tear-offs, which are layered plastic-like protecters that sit on top of polycarbonate shield on my helmet to protect my eyes. With all this going on and so much more, I have to keep my mind clear so I can focus on what I have to do that day to complete, to compete. to compete, let alone win. One mistake can cost me the race or worse. Racing is a rhythm, a cacophony of thought, skill, and teamwork. There was a lot riding on this race.

I knew I had what it would take to give the boys a good challenge. Like every other race of my career, I had something to prove. And that right there is an excerpt from the book called Dan. Danica crossing the line, which is written by Danica Patrick, a race car driver who's raised everything from go-karts to Formula Fords to Indy cars to NASCAR. And she's the most successful woman in the history of American Open Wheel car racing. And it's a pleasure to have Danica here with us tonight to discuss her experiences and lessons learned. Danica. Jocko.

Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I love that intro. Well, that's a badass intro. We have a lot going on in the car. Yeah, I was thinking about that. And then you think about the danger. And how much are you thinking about danger?

How much, when you're strapping in to your vehicle, how much are you thinking about getting killed? A little, a little, or at least hurt. So, yeah, I always prayed before I went out for safety. and that the angels would like surround my car and take care of me. But then once I'm out there, nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

I've had a bunch of people on the podcast, a bunch of combat veterans. And I had one guy on that was, his name was Dean Ladd. He's in the Marine Corps in World War II. And he did multiple island campaigns over in the Pacific, where the Marine Corps was taking massive casualties. And he was on, I think it was his third island he was going into it. It was the island of Tarawa. And we were talking about as he was getting ready to go in,

and they're on the little landing craft and he's talking about, I'm reading from a book that he had written and I'm reading it and I look up at him, I'm like, I said, how, are you thinking about getting wounded or killed while this is happening? And he goes, no, that's going to happen to the other guy. That's such a cooler answer.

It's such a common thing for military, like young military people that you think that people can get wounded and killed, but you don't think it can be you. And then I think some guys get older and they start realizing that that's just not true and that they can get it too. So I don't know, I imagine when you're younger,

maybe you're a little bit more cavalier or maybe you think about it less, but certainly you saw enough people get hurt or killed over your career where you had to start thinking about, like, hey, this could be me next. time. When I started my 2006 season, my teammate died in the morning warm up that morning, and then we didn't race that day as a team. The rest of the series raced, but as a team we didn't.

And then my very last race in Las Vegas when I was full-time in IndyCar before I went to NASCAR, Dan Weldon was killed on lap 11, and I was almost part of it. I remember feeling like I really I obviously wanted to win my last race. And I was fast. I think I might have been fastest in practice. And I thought, I know I'm going to have to do some really dumb things if I'm going to win, because there's just a lot of dumb stuff going on out there right now. There were a lot of drivers that just weren't really super respectful of each other and weren't

as familiar with oval racing because it was an oval. And just didn't really follow the rules, the unspoken rules. And I talked to my dad. and he was like, look, you don't have anything to prove. You go out there and you drive like yourself. You don't have anything to prove. And I'm glad he said that because I went out there and I was, we were starting lap 11,

and this car came in front of me and just like cut me off. And my mindset before my dad talked to me was like, anything, you just got to stick it in there. You just got to be aggressive and you just got to crash people, whatever. So I lifted. And it's my instinct anyway, so I'm not hard. 100% sure I could have overcome the instinct, but I went into the race with a little bit of a different mindset than I previously had, you know, the day before. And that car in front of me

was part of this enormous crash in turns one and two that killed Dan. And so the car in front of me was caught up in it. He spun off and crashed. Almost everyone behind me did two. It was like we did one more lap around because they just couldn't red flag the race quick enough. And it was like, a movie scene there was just chunks of bodywork on fire there was just cars everywhere it truly looked like a Hollywood movie scene from a race yeah I want to say this is off the top of my head but I watched that crash I want to say 15 cars were involved in the crash and 19 weren't you order the 19 that weren't put it like that's almost half the field that sounds about right that's most of the field yeah yeah so anyway it was a very it was obviously a very very very

sad day, traumatic day. Dan died, died on impact, really, and blunt had trauma. And, you know, other drivers saw it. I mean, some drove by it. Some got out of their cars and literally saw him. And then we waited around for the decision, and we did one sort of parade lap together and in memory, and we didn't race at all that day. That was it. So mortality is something that, I mean, what's the benefit of Zed's a real question? You know, I mean, you know, when you're young, you're fearless, you're not thinking about dying. I wonder about why it starts creeping in. I really didn't think about how dangerous the sport was until I was done.

Because it wasn't productive before that. It wasn't like I was unaware, but I remember I retired in 2018. In 2019, I was on pit road and I was commentating for the race, so I was sitting next to Mike Tariko, and it passes off to the booth, which is where the play-by-play happens. And I'm sitting down there, and I'm finally having the first opportunity to, like, grab something, a snack or something, something to drink. And I'm like snacking on these apple chips is like the front, like the start of the race is coming. The cars are coming at us at 200 miles an hour for the green flag.

And I at that point went, oh, my God, these guys are crazy. I don't, I can't believe I did this. And now I know why my friends that came to my first Indy 500 were like, you know, I mean, at that point I'm only 23. And they thought, we can't believe you're in that car out there doing that. Like we don't, it just doesn't make sense. And it just doesn't. It's so crazy what we're capable of as humans. And almost like in a non-thought way.

I don't know if the things that you did were like that. But there's so much that just happens. It's like a coming through you. Because if I had to think about it, even if I had to think about something simple like a pit stop. It's so complicated, all the little things that you have to do and the moments and the turn and the clutch and the break and all the, just like sequencing that was so overwhelming. But when you did it, you did it.

Yeah, I would have a similar thing going up to like, if we're doing a target assault, like a direct action mission. And as we're rolling up to the target, so you're maybe five minutes away, so you know it's about to happen. And that's when I would be, that's when I would be thinking through. And that's when I would be worried. And what I'd be worried about is I'd be worried about one of my guys.

getting hurt or killed. That's what I'd be worried about. And you'd be thinking, oh, do we come up with the right plan? Are we doing this right spot? What's the enemy going to do? Are we prepared? And then as soon as we got there and I would say execute, execute, execute on the radio and the thing starts, you're not thinking about anything, but getting the job done and just reacting off what's in front of you and making decisions, but you're not overly thinking the decisions. You're just kind of making them almost instinctually based on the things that you've known. and the things you've learned and the training that you've done. So, yeah, there's definitely some similarities there.

I've heard this expression for the first time the other day, thinking about walking upstairs. Like, if you think about walking upstairs, it's hard. Oh, my God, this is so true. It's totally happened to me. I actually think about it with down. And I have this weird thought. I'm like, why is this creeping in that I, like,

need to be careful for my step and think about my walking downstairs? And I thought, Is this some like subconscious awareness of like maybe in the future I won't be able to walk upstairs well or something But I thought, why am I thinking about this? And when you don't think about it, it's so much it just happens Yeah, so much easier and people get caught up people get caught up and I'm sure you could get caught up in driving where if you're thinking about what you're doing It's going to cause a problem whereas if you just do what you without really thinking about it's going to be easier Why is that? I guess because that computer system in our head already sort of has a protocol to follow. And when we start interrupting it with new thoughts, it just

throws it off. Yeah. And maybe it takes from assessing what else is going on. So the autopilot of the muscle memory and the programming of something simple like walking down steps or even just, you know, what you do when you jump out of the car and you go into, you're going into combat. Like you know all those things. You've practiced those things a bunch. And so what you don't have then, if you're thinking about it, is your extra sensory to deal with. with the new. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Because that's the only thing that matters. Yeah. You know how to do everything else. Exactly. You know the patterns. There's one little deviation from the pattern. That's what you got to contend with. Not all the other stuff you already know how to do.

Yeah. All right. All right. Well, we already deviated here a little bit. All right. Let's start at the beginning. Let's start at the beginning. So you're born where?

Wisconsin? Technically, yes. But then you grew up in. I grew up in Illinois. So I was born in Beloit, Wisconsin. But we lived in South Blood, Illinois. So it was just the closest hospital. But yeah, grew up right on the border in the middle of cornfields.

And what did your mom do for her? What was she? She, so my mom and dad met on a blind date at a snowmobile race when they were in their early 20s, very early 20s. And my mom was actually at the racetrack because she was helping out a friend that was a girl that was racing and she was in charge of putting the studs in the belt of the snowmobile. She was named Captain Traction.

So my dad had a date, a blind date with Captain. in traction and they hit it off and and I came along and and so yeah I mean racing is just totally in our family and my dad my dad was racing at the time snowmobiles he raised snowmobiles midgets motorcross so he he loved it knew how to do it for a living he was he ended up being a glazer so he would install windows and buildings and you know like two-story buildings at the most and but he's like a gear gearhead his whole life But totally racing. Yeah, he knows how to build anything.

He built a sled from scratch. Like he can do anything. He could rebuild the clutches. That's actually what he does now. He has a carbon fiber business, and he balances clutches and builds carbon fiber parts for cars and clutch covers that are carbon fiber. And so he's...

And so my mom, you asked what she did. She was... So they met really young, so she really didn't do much, but she went to school for accounting. So she was an accountant, and then that was that ended. and she lived in northern Minnesota then. And so my dad grabbed her and took her, took her downtown to, to Wisconsin.

So, yeah, they got married in 1980, so they were in early 20s. And so your dad's a gearhead building stuff, and he built you a go-kart. Is that right? Is that the way it went down? He put it together. We bought the go-karts, and then he built everything.

With these, like, standard, like, Sears go-carts-type things? No, they're a little bit more. No, no, no, they're hyped. Oh, yeah. Your dad was a little hyped up on a safe. And actually, the very first time I drove a go-cart, I crashed. What went down? Well, dad, dad screwed up.

So he got them built. My sister started at the same time because actually it was my sister who wanted a race, not me. I've realized. She's older than you or younger than you? Two years younger. Okay. So she was eight and I was 10. And what I've realized as I've grown up is that I really, it's not always my idea,

but I'm up for it. Like I'm up for the challenge. I'm up for the, I love to know, I love to, like, I really, well, I'm sure we'll get into it, but I really love to push my comfort zone. But it's not always my idea, so anyway, so Brooke wanted to race and the go carts are ready. So we went out in this back parking lot,

and my dad put like big, you know, spray cans, WD-40, break cleaner, like made a big circle with all the cans, and it's like, all right, girls, go around. And so we're going around the circle, and I went to hit the break, and it fell to the floor. Like there was nothing there.

And so there's a cotter pin that came out of the lever. And so it just had no, had no attachment. And so I'm 10 and I have no idea what I'm doing. So I just go straight. And I'm like, oh, no. I'm in a crash. I'm going to die. And anyway, so I'm headed towards this construction truck.

You know a construction trailer? Sorry, trailer. You know, they're kind of higher. They're more elevated. Well, it was about yay high. is neck height, and I was headed right for that. And at the last second, I veered over and hit a concrete wall head on. And my arms fly back, and my arm lands on the exhaust and burns my cool puffy jacket.

And, like, I bruise my legs all up the inside because I, because there's uprights that attach to the searing column, and that's where the fuel tank is, is in between your legs right there. So, like, I flew forward after I came back and, like, bruised my legs. and so my dad came over and um and uh guess what he did. Fix the brakes and put you back in it. He bought a new go cart. Okay.

Literally because he, because he was like, it's twisted. So you're not going to be fast in a twisted go card. It's just crashed. You literally can't see that it's trusted, but he's so experienced. He just knows that you can't crash something and expect it to be the same again.

And when it comes true from the manufacturer, that's how you want it. You don't want a crashed go cart. So I got a new one and guess who got my twisted go cart? My mom. My mom started racing. So yeah, it was that was the beginning. And it's a bit of a traumatic beginning.

Even though you crashed and nearly killed yourself out of the gate, you were into it. I don't know if I was into it as much as I was up for it. So we would go to the track and practice. I didn't know this until much later in my life. but Wednesdays were apparently open practice day, so we'd go, and I was asking to go to these open practice days. I loved, I loved the process. Another thing that I've realized that I love is I love the process, and so I loved sort of setting a goal and achieving it. I loved hearing my lap time was faster.

And so when we'd practice, this would happen. And so I got better and better. I mean, I couldn't even keep up. My sister and I couldn't even keep up on the parade laps, like, when everybody's going slow formation laps. Couldn't even keep up on those laps. But halfway through the season, I started winning and I set the track record.

Started winning and getting the track record. Yeah. So you had some kind of natural ability for this. Yeah, I guess. Because there has to be some kind of natural ability, right? He said. He did see it. He did see it.

Yeah. He was like, and then after that, after the first year, he just kept pushing me. Since he knew I could do it, We just kept going for them. Was she not into it? So my sister, she was okay. I mean, we weren't much different, obviously, but she, I probably progressed a little bit more, but she got banged around a lot. I mean, she was probably 45 pounds when we started. So you have to weigh up the go cart to a minimum weight. And her seat was absolutely bulletproof. The thing had so many

sheets of metal on it to get the car the right cart the right weight. And she would fly down the straightways, this little lightweight thing, but then she'd slow down too much in the corners. And people were literally driving over her. And so she just didn't like it. And she quit. What is the natural skill set? Is it like spatial recognition? Is it like hand-eye coordination? What do you think it is that makes someone a really good driver?

I love that I'm talking about this with you because I think that you'll be able to help me with this. So I've been talking about this a bit lately and quite a bit. And just say it simple. I think that not a lot of people have like a killer instinct in them. And in particular, I don't think women do. So I talk about this from my standpoint as a female mostly, but I really believe, like, you have to have to have this killer instinct that when people push you around, you want to push back.

So, like, I could be walking down the street, and it could be, like, dark in the middle of the night and in a bad part of town. And I'm literally walking down the street looking at people going, can we swear on this? Yeah, you can swear on this. Look at it on the street, but like, I dare you to fuck with me. I dare you.

Like, I think that kind of thing. And so I really believe you need to have that level of aggression of pushing back. You also need to have incredible focus. Your ability to focus has to be super high. You have to be able to stay calm because when you get upset and you start getting angry or yelling or getting mad or frustrated, it takes you out of the game. So sort of your your mental capacity to handle a lot of things and do it with a level of calm, I honestly feel like this has to be similar to what you dealt with. Yeah, certainly all those things are very important because you've got to be aggressive.

In fact, I talk about being default aggressive. That's going to be your default mode. Your default mode is got to be like, I'm going to make something happen. I'm going to go attack this problem. I'm going to go solve this problem. If your default mode is like, hold on. I'm going to wait and see what happens. You're going to be too late.

Now, there are times when your default aggressive decision is to not do anything. Like, oh, I see what's happening, but I'm going to take a step back and wait for a second. That's okay. But you have to be proactive in your mindset. And then you absolutely have to be able to remain calm. If you're getting emotional, it's going to be a problem. So those things are really important. And then being able to, and I guess this is part of being calm, but being able to take a step back and see what's happening.

And I know you played basketball too, right? So you're a point guard in basketball. So you're a point guard in basketball. and being able to see the floor, right? Being able to see the open players, being able to see more than just like the basket, your defender, and the ball, you're not going to be a terrible point guard.

You have to be able to see everyone on the court and be able to see where the open people are. So I think those kind of things are very similar that would make you good as a driver, which I don't know what makes you good as a driver. I've done a little bit of driving. We went to a school where we'd learn how to... Yeah?

We learned how to... Actually, I went to a cool school where we learned how to hotwire cars and steal them and then race them. Sorry, this is a school? Yeah, yeah. This isn't a gang?

No, it was a school and we learned how to hotwire cars and then we learned how to go fast in the cars and we learned how to like do pit moves and all that. Do you know what pit stop? You call it pit moves, right? That's a common term.

Pit stop. No, it's not a pit stop. So a pit move, I forget what it actually stands for, but it's when you hit another car in a way that causes a desired reaction Just spin them out or something like that. Yeah, like hit their left rear when they're turning or something.

That's exactly right. So we learned how to do that and then we do it a bunch. And so, but it was a cool school. Yeah. You can't, it's really hard to steal modern cars unless you have special equipment for those cars. But like in the early 80s, late 70s and before that, you'd steal anything. Cote hanger baby. Like you just walk up just, it was so easy to steal them.

And we'd get put on a timer and they'd have a parking lot full of cars. You'd have to like run out, select which car you wanted to steal, steal it, and then drive at a certain time. And what would stealing, what's the skill set for? Oh, you're in a foreign country and you are on a foot patrol or you're doing something very clandestine where you're wearing civilian clothes or you're in a semi-permissive environment. So there's maybe not an open war going on, but all of a sudden you get yourself into a jam and you need to get out of there. Cool. We're going to jack a car. Let's go.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So I learned a little bit about driving. you know, just from doing that. Sure. You know, we went through, you know, some drive, race car driver taught us like some basics about driving. But, I mean, I'm talking like completely rudimentary, so I don't want to get too crazy here. It's already infinitely more than most now.

Which is weird, right? Do you feel like you're good on the road? Did you feel like all those skills helped you to drive on the road better? Yeah. Yeah, they definitely did. Yeah, they did. And I grew up in New England where it snows. Oh, yeah.

And I grew up in New England where we have dirt roads and we have snow covered roads. And so we'd rally race cars all the time. Yeah, we would do J turns and all that stuff. So I was lucky to be able to do that before I came in to the military. So I had a little bit of driving skills. Well, I have an idea for a company that I want to start. Okay. I'm in.

I want to start a driving school, but not a racing school. Like a driving on the road school. That'd be good. Because I drive so easily on the road because I can drive on the racetrack. So I have to imagine that the curriculum for driving on the road has not changed. changed in like 70 years, I'm sure. So it needs to be new and you need to be able to do more because so many people suck. When you think about what driving is on a regular road and the dangers that it entails,

it's a miracle that there's not the people. Whoa, I think we do have like 40,000 people killed a year. I agree with you. From driving. I think to myself, I'm like one decision away from. Yeah. Terrible. You're going.

And some of these people are 15, 16 years old. And yeah. They have no, they just don't have a big enough scope. They've never, why I always tell people when they drive on the road is I'm like, just stay in your comfort zone. That's it. If you get outside of your comfort zone, you start freaking out, right? You start panicking and you make poor decisions, which is why if you do something like what you did where you go and you learn how to spin and steal and drive fast and crash people, like you all of a sudden get a beyond normal scope of awareness of what's possible and now driving inside of that. It's like lifting weights.

Like, if you lift five pound weights all the time, like, you're never going to grab the 50. But if you grab 50, the 5 is nothing. So we need to take you to the 50 or the 100 or the 100 or the 500, whatever, weight, so that you can drive on the car, drive on the regular road really well. So driving school. Danica's driving school. What do you drive right now for a vehicle? I just got a really great car.

And I never really have cared that much about cars. But I got a Lamborghini Uris. And I got apparently people see it and they're like, the Lamborghini SUV. It is. What color is it? It's all black. It's all black.

Black wheels, black, black, black interior. Red seat belts and red brakes. Red's my favorite color. So I... Did you test drive it? Was there something that made you buy that? Well, I really was sick of my range rover. So I needed a new car.

I had it for a long time. I had that car for like six years. So I was ready for a new car anyway. And I thought, what should I get? And every time I get a new car, I'm like, God, where do I go from here? You know? Actually, my first car was a BM, my first car that I bought was a BMW 645. And that was because I got so many cars for free growing up, like racing. So I drove for Bobby Rahal and he had dealerships. So I would get a car from him. And then I, before that, I lived in

England and I would get a car from, you know, someone over there. And I just kind of got whatever. But when I finally could buy one, I bought a 645 BMW. I think I bought it like a convertible even. again, red, red interior, black car. And then I didn't have a car for a long, long time. So the next one I bought was the Range Rover. And I was like, oh, no, sorry, I skipped it. So I bought the BMW. And then I was like, where do I go from here?

And so I bought a Lamborghini, but I bought a used one. I bought a Lamborghini Gallardo. And it took a big, it took a lot to go up from a BMW. Like I tested a few other. Well, like, where do you go? There's no in between. How did you like the Lamborghini? I like the the yardo was fun it was just the car when you're driving that how are you not just freaking getting speeding tickets every 30 minutes and I did and and I did and and I did and especially because you're used to going 200 miles now yeah and I always thought 75 is like a joke I get out of these tickets I thought I thought to myself maybe I should have my FIA racing license and give that to them with my driving license maybe that's like the subtle way of saying hello and then I could make then I would be

not say this but I've thoughts myself then I asked the cop do you have one of these that would have gotten you in more trouble yeah no you have to be super nice but but anyway so I I had a range and I was like oh where do I go from here I'm like a Lamborghini of course that's always stopped too for Danica so and I got the perfamante which apparently is like a more rare one too so it's the sportier version so I drive that sucker around in sport mode everywhere and it's not because regular mode isn't fast enough it's because I hate the alarms. You know, when you drive a nice car

and they have lane departure and they have, you know, closing rates. You're like, beep, beep, beep. And then it slows your car down automatically with the brakes. And oh, that stuff drives me nuts because I'm so outside the bounds of normal people of what they do on the road.

And so I was like, I had my, I was like, I brought it back to the dealership. I'm like, turn these freaking alarms off. I didn't get a nice car so that I could not turn these things off. And they're like, yeah, it's like hardwired in there. But you could turn it to a different mode. and I was like, fine.

So I'm like in this, you know, basically rock it has like these levers. And I'm like, I just pull the sport lever and boom. Then I have to turn it off when I get in my neighborhood though because it holds RPM for a long time before it shifts. So I'll be driving around in like first or second gear in my neighborhood like whey, way, way, way, way. And I'm like, I sound like a jerk. So then I pull it back into regular mode, the other lever and the PC for my neighborhood. Good good. Very nice of you. All right. Well, you're growing up, you're in these go carts and you end up the World Carting Association Grand National Champion 1994, 1994, 1996, 1997. Is that right? So you're the number one. Probably in multiple classes too.

In multiple classes, meaning like different engine sizes. Yeah, exactly. Yamaha's and 820s and different. There's like, I'm not going to make any sense to anyone else. So it's very clear that you have not just hard work, but you have a gift. You have to have some kind of gift. have to win that kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah. I had, I, again, I had the focus, I had the discipline, and I had a tough dad. So, like, I had a talented father to wrench on my go-cart, to know what to do with it. Most, I mean, most of the time, people aren't going to know how to, like, set the clutch, set the, set the carburetor, so it's not too lean or too rich. Like, make the, make the gear, you know, choose the right gear, change the axle.

Like, I mean, these are all things that most people just don't know. But my dad was just so smart. And so he was really technically inclined, but then also he really pushed me. And a lot of people said that, you know, they were really afraid with my talent that it would be what holds me back from succeeding because my dad was so. Oh, like you might just quit. Or like he might make me unattractive to companies and teams because he's just too much to deal with. Did you learn how to deal with him yourself? Like, clearly you must have.

Would your dad yell at you? Like, what hell were you doing on that last lap? A hundred percent. He would, yeah, 100 percent. From the time that I was 10, and it wasn't until, I wasn't until 2020. I remember I was, I went back to Indiana. I was sort of dealing with some emotional stuff. And I was like trying to excavate my life and like, why am I like I am?

And what's going on? And so I asked my mom about racing. Like, I don't remember a lot before I was 10. And that was when I started. And so I don't understand why, but I don't understand why. I think it's because I blocked a bit out. But I asked about getting yelled at at the track. And I said, you know, how often would that happen?

And she was like, every weekend. And I don't even remember every weekend. I just remember sometimes, you know, I remember some fights or some times that we would, you know, I can remember some scenes, like some flashes, like a picture. I can remember being somewhere. But she was like every weekend. I was like, every weekend? She's like, you know, of all things, like that's what I regret most that I didn't.

I didn't stop that. So my dad just, he was just really, he was really tough. And, you know, the thing that I'd say is he did always say I didn't have to do it. But if I did do it, he was going to help me do it the right way. So I, forever, I've always described him as someone that's not really, he didn't really push me, but he would pull me along, like drag me along sometimes. Yeah, drag me through the mud. And you must have realized that your dad.

cared about you and like some of that anger and frustration from him would be you must have made that translation in your head as a little girl thinking my dad's not yelling at me because he's mad at me as a person he's mad because he wants me to do better do you think you were able to pull that off that's a huge reach for a little kid yeah i i i gave me the it gave me the programming that nothing like i was not enough because nothing was ever enough so i took that into my adulthood and i took that into my relationships is what I took that into. I think it probably propelled me in work, but in intimate relationships, it was not a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, because I just always would overcompensate and I would be codependent and I'd be like, how do I fix this? And I'll just do

better because I could always just do better. I knew how I had such huge capacity to do better and dig deeper. And so that was where it didn't do well. But I truly believe that there's like a season for all this stuff. And I'm not mad that I was like that. It made me who I was. It helped me accomplish great things. But that season came to an end. So you're kind of dominating in this world, cart world. And then the next thing that happens is you have the opportunity to race or to, yeah, to race in England. Yeah. And England's, is it safe to call England the mecca of driving? I think so. I think you could say it's definitely like the, Mecca on the planet of racing would be in England.

It's probably the most popular and dense, densely populated with tracks and series and different things. Yeah, I'd say so. And how does this come about? Do they recruit you or do you volunteer to them? It's a little bit more of a recruit. So when I was 14, I was winning everything. And this family had noticed me because I went to the suite and turned to at the Indianapolis 500.

And I was just watching at 14 years old. And I talked to this guy that was a British guy. And I was just asking, I guess, all the right questions. And then I remember him telling me something like, oh, you could learn more in one year in England than five years in America. And I'm 14. I'm like, wow, that sounds really good, really smart idea. Let's do that. Anyway, two years go by.

And, you know, I'm very successful. And so he worked for this family And this family got in touch with my dad And said, you know, we'd like to meet with you guys And so we almost didn't go. It's a four hour drive each way from where we lived And it was like raining all day And it was just like a rough day

It was in Indianapolis. And we lived in Northern Illinois. And so it was a long drive And we were going to do it all in a day And it was like, oh, should we go? And what I end up realizing is that, and this is true for me, basically basically this is true.

To the best of my ability, of course, is that I just usually do the right thing in the end, even if it doesn't rely on my dad. Like, I do the right thing. And so we went and we had this meeting and they wanted to take me to England. They're like, we've watched you. You're amazing.

We want to help you with your career. And so I went over there at the end of that year, at the end of the year when I was 16, and I raced in this winter series. Are they signing you to some kind of a contract? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, kind of. I'm trying to remember.

There was some level of a contract. I don't know if it had started then. I think it might have. It at least started after that. So that was my junior year of high school, and I missed half of the first semester of junior year. So you're 16 years old. I'm 16 years old.

I'm a junior. I was this first month of school. Then I left for two months to do this winter series, and then I came back for the last month of school until Christmas. And I, ended up going back the next year for the full series. How'd you do in the winter series when you gone over there? I think I was okay.

I think I was okay. And what were you racing? It was called Formula Vauxhall. So it was a formula car like an IndyCar or an F1, but no wings. And of course, far less sophisticated and much less horsepower. But basically you're just trying to give you a visual. It's an open wheel car with no wings. And so the wings create downforce.

And so it just makes the car slower so you can't go quite as fast around. the corner so it's you know a little bit of a safer speed probably for a low level so you're learning how to drive an open wheel car but without the full down force yet so so the winter series was not necessarily so much just a test it was more practice to get ready for the next season so I did the winter series and then I I never went after after Christmas break I didn't go back to school again and I moved over to England and I your first time because go carts go carts aren't open wheel right they are actually Oh, okay. Yep, I know. It took me like a really long time my career to learn this, so don't feel bad. Oh, no, no, no, no. I get it. But I was trying to imagine like what I was thinking honestly, embarrassingly enough. I was thinking about like the go carts at a freaking head of carnival or whatever. When they have like the entire bumper system around the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I was remember those little go carts. Yep. They have like a front bumper and a back bumper, but the tires are still like you can still, you can still climb them a little bit here and there. So. And the, the open is open wheel more dangerous?

Because if they connect, it's going to be like an immediate problem, whereas you have a little bit of a buffer if you have closed wheel. For two reasons, you can climb wheels so can have more spectacular things happen. And then, of course, you're exposed, your open cockpit. So your head is exposed to the elements. I was hitting the head with a tire in IndyCar one time. It ricocheted off my helmet. And all I got was a rubber mark on it.

I'm like, I have something. Some serious angels. And that you have like, I was watching videos of you and you have like a full apparatus around your head. Yeah. It's a head surround. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

So they've made it safer over the years because of things hitting drivers. A driver in IndyCar was killed a few years back from debris hitting them. So they created this windshield that goes on the front. In Formula One, one of the drivers is hit with a spring. So then they created this sort of halo, they call it, where it's not. There's an upright in the very center of the car So literally is dead center in the car And then it comes around the head

Right level with sort of the top of the helmet But it's open underneath So you're kind of that's where you're looking So that's called the halo So they've developed a bunch of things over the years To help protect drivers' heads from the elements Why don't they just put a little like enclosed cockpit Why don't they close off the wheels?

What's the advantage of it? Is it just because hey this is just cooler? I mean, why don't they close off the wheels? I guess it would change the aerodynamics of the car. It would turn it into a full body, which takes away from the way that the car operates aerodynamically with just the wings and the underbody. And probably it just wouldn't be true to itself anymore.

It's probably a valid question, to be honest, why there isn't more done to just, even like putting yourself inside of the cockpit. Well, one of the things is if you were, inside the cockpit. And let's say one of the things that we had to do to start the season every year in IndyCar was we got timed how quickly we could get out of the car. If there was an emergency, we had to be able to do it in under five seconds.

And so now imagine that you have an actual something over you, latched and closed. Like now you're actually trapped. So safety, because in an open, in a stock car in a car where it has like a door, a window, you climb out the window. So essentially that's your top is the side. Cool. All right. So now you get over there, you do the winter season.

And how did you think you did in the winter season? I think I did okay. I don't remember exactly how I did. But I was okay. But they saw potential. Yeah. And it was also like part of getting ready for the next year. It was like a good way to get some time on track.

And at this point, at some point you get sponsored by Ford. Yeah. Yeah. Ford does sponsor me. It's they came through the agents. It came through the people that, um, that,

uh, that took me over there. And you end up, when you go back to England and all this is from your book, you end up being there for three years. Mm-hmm. So like 16, 17, 18. Yeah, 19.

It was kind of like at last half of 16 to the first half of 19. And again, coming from your book, you were, look, you're doing all this mature stuff like living over there and being a racer and all this stuff, but you were still like a 16, 17 year old girl that's just like... Yeah.

I mean, what do you do when you're 16 years old and you have no parents and you have nobody to really like double check everything and you're hanging out with a bunch of teenage boys because that's all there was? Like, I definitely, I like partied and had fun and I did what I did a lot of what I would have done at home on some level, right? But I was on my own and maybe I did more of it. Not more than everyone else, but hey, it doesn't matter. In England, drinking is way more socially acceptable.

It's like in America, a pastime is baseball. In England, pastime is drinking. Literally, a pint at the pub is like their pastime. Just normal, everyday type scenario. Yeah, and you didn't, I mean, shoot, you could get in anywhere. Like you didn't, age was not like a hard thing. Drinking age was lower. Yeah, no, I think the drinking.

Just 16 or 17 over there. My wife's a Brit. So like for her, she just grew up just drinking. You know, when she was 13 years old, they would drink at the dinner table with their parents. And it was one of those things where when she moved to America and she saw like the way kids acted here, it was more like crazy binge drinking at a young age. In England, they also have crazy binge drinking too. But I guess her thought was the normal exposure. Like this is not that big of a deal.

Right. But you know how kids sometimes like their first year in college or whatever if they're going full ham on the freaking booze. Echo Charles, you seem to be nodding enthusiastically with that. Did you see some of that over there in Hawaii? We saw some of that. Yeah. Some people getting crazy. Getting crazy.

So that happened to you, Danica being 16 years old, all of a sudden there's no, pretty much no rules. Pretty much no rules. Pretty much no rules. No drinking limit age. Yeah. And you're just rolling in there. And no, like, you know, my parents were super strict about my curfew when I was growing up. And then you, who are you living with over there?

I lived with two different girls, like two women. One of them worked for a Formula One team. And then the other girl just, like, had a regular job. She was just like a regular person. But they were roommates. And then I come along. And so the first thing I do when I get to England is I'm, like, staying. Actually, I'm literally sleeping on a couch.

And my bags underneath the stairs going upstairs. Like, I just was all, like the couch was to. I'd pull out the couch to do the pull out bed and that's where I'd sleep. And then eventually the lady who worked for the Formula One team would travel to London every weekend. So she was like, I'll do the couch during the week. You can have those bedroom. And when I say bedroom, it's more like a closet. It is a shoebox.

It is like enough for a single bed and then like a little hanger at the end of the, it's so tiny. But then I moved into the bedroom after, I don't know, a month or two or something. And are you going to school? No, no books. No, I'm done. Now I'm getting my GED, my good enough diploma. So I'm done. When do you get your GED?

I got it when I came home that year after my first year in England. So I actually graduated before all my friends. Okay. Actually, that's true. That part's true. But I did fail the first time I took it. You failed the first time you took the GED? I did.

Because you hadn't done schoolwork in a year. Well, I'm actually decently smart. I'm not brilliant, but I'm fine. And I have decent recall. And so I would never stop. I hated studying, never studied. But I'd always do my homework, so I'd learn enough from the homework and I was not a jerk in class. I paid attention.

I wasn't disrespectful. So between paying attention in class and doing my homework, I learned enough to know. And so I was like a, I was like an A-B student. Like I was like a 3.5, 3.8 student. Like every year it was easy. I didn't study. No factor. Yeah, just, and so I passed everything except for the Constitution test.

And so I don't like. Politics and government are really not my strong suit. And I just like, it just doesn't make sense in my brain. I don't know if you guys have these things like that just in life, they just don't make sense. And that's one of those things that does not make sense. Like the house and the this, I don't know. The thing is it's not intuitive. That's maybe what it is.

So if you didn't actually like say, okay, how is the Congress set up? What are the free? Like it doesn't, there's no. You can't just kind of logically go, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I got it. You'd have to actually learn it. So if you didn't study, you wouldn't know it. So you failed your JD first.

So I failed the GED because of that. And I only passed it. I only just passed the Constitution test in eighth grade to go to high school. I had to have a 70 to pass. The 16 I was failing and I got a 70. So then fast forward years later, I haven't studied at all. And I take the Constitution test and I fail. And I'm like, oh, they give me like a little booklet.

And I only had to get 30 out of 60 right to pass. So anyway, I failed it. And I had to get this booklet to study. And I have to imagine I only just passed. but everything else is fine and easy but. And so meanwhile, so you're in England, no school. So how many hours a day are you driving? Not.

I mean, just like the weekends. And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, during the week, what are you doing? Nothing, like going to coffee shops and sitting and drinking cappuccinos. And that's when I started getting into health and fitness stuff. I would grab all the health and fitness books and I'd flip through them. And, you know, I'd just sit there and drink like two cappuccinos. And like, I mean, there was nothing to do.

do. There was really nothing to do. I'd go work out and I don't know. And then you go to the pub at night. Go to the pub. Go to the club. Whatever, you know. Where were you? I was in Milton Keynes. Oh yeah. That's right, which is like race central. Yeah, it's pretty close. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a good location. And then on the weekends, what are you doing? Are you? You drive to the track. Are you learning? Are you, is there someone coaching you? Do you have like a mentor or sitting in classes? The guy like, hey, follow me on this run or I'm going to, you know, no. No, you're just driving. You're racing. You're learning by racing.

And so I have teammates, but they weren't really teaching me a lot about the car. It was kind of a lot more like if you can't drive the setup of whoever's fastest, then you have to figure out how to drive the setup. Like they weren't just going to change it. And here's the thing. Every driver has a different style. And so every driver needs a different setup. Fast forward later in life and indie cars, like I loved it when someone saw,

when I was really fast and people put my setup on because I knew they couldn't be as fast as me with myself. up because it's mine. So you're just getting in the, are these the, are you still in Voxel or this is switched to Ford Formula. So this was Formula Vauxhall. That's right. Good. Yep.

It was Formula Vauxhall and then the next year was Formula Ford. And again, you're just basically getting a car that's not rigged for you. It's just a basic. It's just, yeah, exactly. There's not, it's not set up special. I mean, I have my own seat, of course, but it doesn't have, like, it's not curated handling wise for me, really. I mean, you give feedback, but shoot, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know how to change it. I didn't know what was going on. And then how often are you actually racing on the weekends? Most weekends. So I was under the impression that when you were in England, it was like, you know, it was like this school you were going to where people. Yeah, like a boot camp where they're like, okay, Danica, here's how. Let us talk about tire pressure on cold weather days and like that.

None of that. It's just like get in the car and run. race. Yep. And it's pretty much race every weekend. Pretty much, yeah. And is this a series where people are watching it? Or is it just like a minor league? It's a minor league. It's a minor league, super minor league. So there's no like recruits and people coming to be like poaching like, oh, Danica's really good. Let's bring her to the bigs. You know, like it's not like that. It's lower than that. It's lower than that. It's like, can you do this? And then you go to the next. And can you do that and then you keep going like you're you're a few levels away from anyone actually watching to

see if you should drive their top level car how many people how many people are they all like younger people they're all like 16 17 18 19 years old yeah yeah are they all just super rich families some yeah some how could you do this if you weren't kind of rich i mean i know that you weren't rich okay so they all get sponsors yeah like when ford helped or like this family did or like sometimes young drivers will get somebody will sponsor them, they will support them, but they do a contract where if they make it, then 20% of their salary over the next 15 years or something goes back to them.

So a lot of people... Did you have that kind of contract or no? I did not. I got super lucky that I didn't have to do that, but a lot of drivers did. A lot of drivers had to kind of sell their soul a little just to get the chance. And so I don't know, I had this like, so I came back from England when I was 19 and it happened in a dramatic way. The team was, it was only like four or five races into the season.

And the team just wasn't giving me what I wanted. Basically what happened is the season before I was driving for a secondary team within the series. And because the team's the main team, like the factory team said, we don't want to have five cars on our team. So we'll put you in this other team. We're going to give you all of our setups, the cars. It'll be the same thing, which it never is. And then, you know, after that, then you can, then next year you'll, you can come race on the factory team.

So the next year comes, I'm racing on the factory team. And guess how many cars are on the team? Five. So I'm like fifth driver on a five car team. And so we got about five races into the season. And I just, I was told by my managers because I was, talking about that. I was like, I don't understand, and I don't feel like I'm getting what I need. And they said, just don't go to the track. And so I remember not going to the track. And thank

God, my sister was with me in England visiting. And so we just sat home from the track one weekend. And I was like, this is so weird. And I went home. And then I tried to find a ride back in back in the States. So I left England in a dramatic way. So I came back in the middle of a season. And I'm at this point 19 years old. So now I'm not racing full time at 19. I'm not racing. full time at 20. And it wasn't until the end of the year. Do people know who you are at this point? Not really.

Because you kind of made a name for yourself in Go-Cart. So probably people probably saw you. But then you shipped off to England. And I'm a girl. So I like, you know, people, you know, I would say in racing had probably like kind of heard of me or like had known something about it. And I was also on some TV shows when I was young. Like MTV came to my high school and they were filming like some like extreme sports

stuff, you know. And so MTV was. like did put put me on their show and um and then there was also another one called passion to play making of a champion and there was three women featured and it was myself tera lopensky and anna cornicova we were all 14 and um so they followed me around my high school and all that stuff too and so that was like a sad like a sunday special like a narrated by robin roberts who was like the host of it and um and it's so funny too like because i haven't seen robin in a while but i saw her obviously many more times in my life after that because of going on GMA and different things.

So it's funny to have that one be full circle. But I was only 14. And so, you know, I had done some things that had got some attention. And I did so well. But then you get overseas. You're not like a superstar. So maybe people are like, oh, yeah, we kind of remember her. And so you come back to America. And then it was, you had some opportunity to do something with BMW, it sounds like for a little bit. Yeah. So that was my only, that was all I did from 19 to 20. So again, the very beginning of that year when I was 19 I came home at the end of that season which I didn't race at all at the end of that year BMW asked me to come test their car for them and it would be for a sports car ride but you know you just take what you can get and so I went and I was faster than their main driver

and like the main driver had to go put like sticker tires like new tires on to go lay it lap down just so that he could go faster and so they hired me and then that car was made illegal the next year because of the engine was not a stock engine that they would sell, and that was part of the requirements with the series. So they just didn't race because it would have cost like quarter of a million per car to make that a production car with a different engine. So we didn't race. But what it did allow me was me and my dad had the opportunity to pound the pavement.

So we would go to the racetrack each weekend, and we would just see who would be willing to give me a test or a ride or, you know, put me in the car, see what I can do. I mean, geez, we would literally go to the bathroom for something to do. Like we were, it was just like, you know, it was selfless, just arduous, you know, begging almost. And, and people, the best thing people would come back with is like, oh, you know, it's some ridiculous number to just drive their car and test it. It's like, it was insulting to be honest.

Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean ridiculous number? Like they would say, oh, it was like, you know, if you want to test this car, if you want to race this car, they'd put a price tag on it that was so, You mean you would have to pay them? Yeah. Isn't that backwards for the way it's, you would want it? Well, you don't really get paid back in those days. Like at that level, you're not a paid driver.

But, you know, to throw, usually they'll test someone to see if they're good and that might not cost anything or nominal. But like when they were slapping, like, insulting numbers on it if I was going to drive it, which meant they just wanted to see if they could just get some money out of me at least. Oh, okay. So it was. And there's a term that you used in the book. and you're using it a little bit right now, ride.

Like trying to get a ride. Yeah, expand on that a little bit. A ride is like you're trying to get a seat on a team. You're trying to be able to have a spot in the series with a team and a car. And so that's what a ride is. What a ride is, looking for a ride. Toyota Pro Celebrity Race.

You go out there and... I did. I won it. Kind of win. Yeah, it was a fun. So the Toyota did this pro celebrity race. I don't know if they still do it or not, but did it for a long time. They'd get some really good celebrities.

Like, I came trying to remember some. I remember the one that always sticks out as Brian Cranston was in that race, I remember. But anyway, I was in the pro category. And I was also out there with another driver, like, and I became friends with him. His name is Tommy Kendall, and he was a really great sports car driver. And so there was actually some good competition when it came to the other pros that were in it. It would be like 15 celebrities and like five pros. So the pros would have to start.

Actually, this is brilliant. I think in sports, tell me if you think this is a good idea. There should almost always be like a baseline normal person to show you what is really normal. Like take the Olympics. Imagine someone's going like doing downhill skiing. Yeah. And you had to have like a regular person. That's a really good idea.

To have a delta. Like go, this is how good they are. Because people look at race car drivers and they think, I could kind of do that. I might be able to do that. I could drive my car. But you have no idea. And so, and it looks easy because you don't see the car moving because if it moves too much,

trust me, it's going to crash. So it's always moving a little bit. Anyway, so they would start the celebrities like 15, I don't remember, 30 seconds ahead, 15 seconds ahead, a good chunk ahead. And the pros would start back. And so, and I won, I won the pro, and I can't remember where I finished overall. I don't know if I won the whole thing or not. I might have.

I don't even remember. It was 20 years ago. So, but that was like one of those things where PR liked me. And so after I won, the next day, there was a, I had made a bet with this guy, Tommy Kendall, that if he's like, if you beat me, you can walk me down pit lane before the race tomorrow, the IndyCar race, or it was cart then or champ car. You can walk me down pit lane with a collar and a leash. And you did it.

And I did it. So like, you know, there's these moments in my career where I wasn't necessarily like, you know, I wasn't super established, but it caught some traction. And then I did some sexy photo shoots too. Those helped. Was this when you did FHM? Mm-hmm. Was that that year? Yeah.

I was 19. So, yeah, it might have been that year. That was a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I got a lot of flack for that. Wait, you got flack for it? Oh, man.

especially from like feminists and people that think I'm taking women like I'm lowering um lowering the value or the perception of women by doing stuff like that um but I never did anything outside my comfort zone. I really didn't and I I mean I just have different comfort zone than you obviously yeah so you started getting a little bit more popular yeah we started getting approaching moving towards Danica mania yeah a couple we're just two years away from We're getting closer. Now you were talking about going into all these different races and just talking to people and this is where you end up kind of having a pretty pivotal moment when you meet with Bobby Rayhall.

That's right? Yeah. Yeah. How's that go down? Again, back to my less or what I know about myself now is I do the right thing. So you remember when I took the meeting in Indianapolis and I was like, we don't really want to go. But it's like, I would do the right thing. So my dad was like, all right, Milwaukee Race Weekend.

we only lived an hour away. It's like, let's go to the track. And I was like, oh, dad, I'm sick of walking around begging people and having nothing happen. I'm just, I'm over it. And he's like, let's just go for like 45 minutes. And I was like, all right. So we go. And I had received a phone call from someone like either that week or the week before that said, hey, I could have a full time sponsor for you, a full sponsor for the Formula Atlantic series, which was the series below Champ Carr, was the feeder series, so like the minor leagues, AAAs, double A's, how does it go? And so I said, and he said, I could have a full-time sponsor if there's a letter of intent that says that, you know, Bobby will do an Atlantic team with you in it. And I was like, wow, okay. So I went to

the track. We went to pretty much straight to Ray Hall's hospitality. I saw Bobby. And I told him this. And I was like, I've also realized I'm very direct. So I'm like, I walk right up to him. And I'm like, hey. And I was like, so I talked to this guy. And he said, we could have a full-time sponsor if you do a put me in an Atlantic car. And he looked at me and he went, okay.

Done. Done. Done. Go home. Celebrate. It truly happened. Two weeks later was the next race, the next Inde next champ car race. And they were racing at Laguna Seca in California up north.

and we signed a letter of intent at a press conference with everybody there with the media that Bobby was going to start an Atlantic team and I was going to drive for him. That's it. And I found out much later on, this is just years ago that I found out like everyone told him he was crazy.

Everyone told him like, I can't believe you're doing this. And I said to him, obviously later in life now and I was like, I am so glad that you looked smart. Like, you know, when somebody's questioning you and you feel convinced that it's a good idea or the right thing to do. And you just hope to God you look smart in the end. I'm like, I just really was glad that I was glad

that I made him look smart. How hard does it go from different types of cars to different types of cars? You know, luckily I was able to do it, but it's somewhere for a lot of people, you can get lost in it. Sometimes it just doesn't translate. Like you watch people in sports go from college football

to like NFL, and sometimes it just doesn't translate. They can be the number one draft pick, and then they are a flop. Like, sometimes it just doesn't, sometimes it just doesn't translate. Yeah, I was shooting, and I used a certain type of pistol my whole life, because that's what we used in the SEAL teams. They don't use it anymore, but I use a six hour my whole life, and whatever platform from a six hour, and I was going through a course, and I was using a different platform,

and it definitely took some, like, getting used to. Like I wasn't close to as good as I would have been with a sig. Accuracy and everything. You know, it was more like the mechanics of moving. Because once you're on the trigger and you're looking at the site picture, it's pretty, that's pretty much, I know how to do that well. But just the way the other mechanics of the pistol are just a little bit different. And so you'll be like reaching for something and it's not there.

Anyways, I could imagine where you're in these different cars, that there's some people that it's going to be really difficult to go from this one to that one. because it's just different. Yeah, it could be downforce and how it works. It could be how the brakes work. It could be like how the car, like what, how to be able to decipher what the car is doing to feel it accurately to translate that back to an engineer

so you can make changes to make the car better. Like maybe you just don't feel it really well. Yeah, maybe. And also, I think a really big layer of this is your mind. I think a lot of people as they progress, they just don't have the, they just aren't strong enough. To make the changes?

To stay confident, to not get overwhelmed, to not take themselves out of the game, to, like, I think they, I just think that, I just think you,

you have to have, like, a really, really focused mindset, and you have to just have a lot of, you have to have enough confidence to dig deeper. I guess, too,

the fact that you race different types of cars growing up, you weren't always in the same car, so you already got used to making those adaptations in your life. Yeah. Maybe that helps. Maybe I was just good. Hell yeah.

I'm not going to lie to you. I've never actually said that out loud like that before, but I just thought of it. And I was like, maybe I was just good. And, you know, my dad has tried to tell me this over the years too. But because I, I mean, when I look at myself, if I'm looking really objectively and honestly, was I good.

Obviously, I was good enough to do what I did. You don't stick around and you don't race for 27 years because you know you're just a girl like trust me there have been plenty that there would be a lot more girls if it was about just being a girl um was i the best ever no but was i good yeah and so like why was i able to to to trant to go from one to the next and be able to do it it's like i guess i was just good yeah yeah you had talent that's what that's what i was saying when you're winning like even as a little kid you're winning like these these national champions like you you have to have some level of natural talent.

Yeah. And, you know, I've, you know, seen throughout my life, there's people that are good at stuff. Yeah. Like people that are just good at stuff. And maybe they're good at this thing, but not good at something else.

And you're really lucky if you can find something that you're good at. Like you got, look, you might have also been able to be a great guitarist or a great, uh, whatever other kind of athlete. But you,

thankfully you found something that you were just naturally talented in that you're good at. Do you think that someone when they're good at something? because I mean, you're going to have to agree with me on this one. You can do so many things well like you because you're such a perfect example. You've been good at so many things. And so I'm like, for me it's a curiosity of like, what is it that makes someone so able to plug and play themselves into so many different things? And like you can't just say you're just lucky.

You're able to, you have this a skill set or a mentality. There's a skill set and a mentality that makes you a plug and play person. There is, but people have natural talents. And the best example I can give because it's very, very clear is fighting. So there's people that are good at grappling. They're naturally good at grappling, meaning wrestling, meaning jih Tjitsu. There's people that are naturally good at that. There's people that are naturally good at striking, meaning punching, kicking, elbowing.

There's people that are naturally good at that. There's people that are naturally incredible grapplers that they are not good strikers. And they can't really make that transition. And there's people that are naturally good strikers. they don't make that transition. So even though they're maybe even world class in some cases at grappling or world class at striking. And sometimes this is such a good example too because sometimes people, they've trained almost just as much in, let's say they started off as a striker. And then by the time they're 13, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to wrestle. But they never

get as good as they are for that natural gift that they have of striking. And they never, or same thing in the other direction. So there's people that can be really good at basketball, but they're not quite going to be as good at baseball, right? Now look, could we look at Michael Jordan and be like, well, you know, Michael, he tried to play baseball and obviously he would, but he had dedicated his whole life to basketball. So maybe you could take Michael Jordan and say,

hey, Michael Jordan, go back in time, now just focus on baseball. Right. Would he have been? He probably would have been hell of good at baseball. Right. But there are other people that they could be really good at one thing, but it doesn't necessarily translate to everything that they do. So you, I bet there's,

I bet if we got to look at your freaking like blueprint, like God's blueprint for you, he probably have like seven things. You're like, oh, look, she could be really good with these talents. She could be a really good race car driver, really good. Well, you're small, like really good jockey, really good gymnast. Just really like there's probably seven things that you could have totally excelled at and then there's a bunch of things that yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh trust me there are things that I am so bad at and like I mean details

Um being sweet and like like demure and like and indirect with people like there's just there's some or like I don't know I I don't even know how to say it correctly like there's there are things that I am just not very good at so I and this isn't me trying to say like oh if you're at one thing, you know, if you're a talented person. But I think that you can plug and play your talents that make you good at one thing and into other things. Now, when we're talking about just racing itself and like how are you able to transition from the levels and continue to achieve at the next level, I think you just have to have a lot of raw natural talent. You also have to have to have incredible timing. You have to be with the right team at the right time so that you can look good. So I also think that I had a luck on my side. I had fate on my side. I had I had, you know, I had, you know, I put myself in the arena a lot, yes, but I also had to be with the right person at the right time, too,

and not get stuck in a car that sucked and made me look like I sucked, right? Because there's only so much a driver can do. Yeah. The other thing that, well, when I was going through your history and reading your books, is like, sometimes you would win first place or you'd win poll or you'd have the best, like, track times or lap times during the warmups. So you definitely had the requisite skill to win. You definitely had it. And then, you know, like you said, you got to get lucky. Maybe you run out of fuel. Maybe you get a hit. Like all there's a million little things that are going to happen.

And there's a different game, right? There's a different game when you're alone on the track and you can go wherever you want than when you're jockeying with a bunch of other people. And that's a little bit of a different game. And I'm sure there's people, like we have people in mixed martial arts that in training, they're annihilators. And they get in the night of the event and they don't do as well as everyone thinks they're going to do. Literally we would have guys that would, you know, guy A wins in training every single time. Guy B loses to that guy, to that same guy in training every single time. They go into and fight, you know, other people.

And the person that usually wins in training loses and the person that usually loses and training wins because someone rises to the occasion. Someone gets intimidated or they get nervous or they get hesitant or whatever. So there's so many things that are coming into play. And how much a racing is like just mental. Yeah, so much mental. So much mental. I'd say like my arc of the weekend was usually like, you know, yes, I could be fast in practice, sometimes not.

I would say my strength was the race. I'd say that like qualifying was my weakness. My biggest weakness is probably qualifying. Like first practice, I just was not one of those drivers that blitzed it. Like I wasn't one of those that just like went way past. I'm much more methodical about it. So I'd say like first practice and qualifying were not my strong suit, but the rest I was good. and so the race always got better for me.

But the mental side is so important. Like just keeping your head in the game. When I was younger, I used to get so angry inside the car. Like I could come on the radio and I would just say every swear word I could think of. For us, like, mad at someone in front of me. And then it was kind of pointed out and I realized that I'm probably not helping myself on track, actually, because I'm taking my mind so out of the game that I'm not, that I'm not, that I'm not passing them as quickly as I could.

And also just realizing it ends up being my damn responsibility. Like I can complain all I want, but I'm just making up excuses, really. It's my job. Even if they make it harder on me than someone else, it's still my reality. You still have to deal with it. So once I realized that,

I was like, I just need to shut my mouth and get by them as quick as possible because that's my best bet to making this go as well. Did someone tell you this or was that a self-realization? I think I've somebody kind of had mentioned like you know you take yourself like you take yourself out of the game when you are mad like that and I remember thinking like okay that makes some sense yeah how old were you when you started realizing that you should not get so mad probably in the middle of my IndyCar day so I would say like uh late 20s there's a lot of stuff we got to learn it's so crazy isn't it I mean And what's crazy, too, is how much you learn after it's all over with, right? Because it's so hard to take it all in.

It's so hard to even, we can't see ourselves clearly. So it takes a lot of time and growth and other people and experiences and patterns to be able to show us who we are. When we're in it, we're in it. We're so distracted that we're not able to really be very philosophical about ourselves. for like deeper understanding ourselves on the mental side of things or why we do things. So it takes time. Yeah. And what's hard for you is it's all recorded history.

Oh, yeah. Like you're everything that you did when you were freaking 22 years old out on the track. It's like, oh, you can go watch that on YouTube right now. Yeah, but thank God there wasn't phones doing what they do now. That's true. England would have been a lot worse. I see every now and again, I'll see a photo. Somebody's like, oh, look at this picture.

And I'm thinking like, what do we have the bulbs that flashed and broke? Is it that old? And I'm like, I'm looking. I'm like, oh, dude, do I look drunk in that photo? It'd be like four people at a club. And I'm like, oh, geez. Yep. Thankfully, there was no cell phones back then.

Well, there wasn't England. It was actually cell phone time. There wasn't in America, but like. But there wasn't cameras on the cell phones. Totally exactly right. And we still had to use like, you still had to go through the letters on each number. Oh, yeah. We didn't have like a full keyboard.

so it was a bit of effort. All right, so now you're in the Toyota Atlantic Series. You get the first podium by a woman in Monterey. We go into the 2004 season. First woman to win pole position at Portland International. You finished second in that race. So your old Ray Hall made a good bet. He did.

He did. And I finished third in the championship my second year. And I remember, so it was a two-year contract with the third year. being an option for the team for me to go race IndyCar. And my attorney did a great job negotiating this contract. My sweet Jack, I love him. I actually just talked to him a couple of months ago. Is he still your attorney?

No, he's not. But he did this deal, and it was two years. And the third year being the option, it was for $500,000. If Bobby wanted me to go to IndyCar, I was going to get paid half a million dollars to go race indie cars, which is a great deal. You're like stoked.

Yeah. And so obviously you want them to re-up, right? So it's the beginning of the second year of Atlantic's. And I'm standing in the pagoda in the media room at the Indianapolis 500. It's that weekend. And it's Thursday, which is media day. So Bobby and his drivers are up doing their media availability in front of everybody. And I'm just watching, again, just watching.

and somebody asked him about me and he said that I was going to race in the Indy 500 the next year and I didn't nobody knew and he just like dropped this was May too like the season just started like we have the whole rest of the way to go so so so now I know all the sudden that I'm going to race in the Indy 500 the next year he's taking he's picking up the third year option year of my contract I'm going to get paid half a million dollars and I go race Indy cards the next year pumped. Yeah. And now this becomes what,

the Rahal Letterman? Yeah. Is that when it becomes that? Yeah. So David Letterman's into freaking racing. Yeah, he's from Indiana. So that's where it comes from. Yeah, he grew up there and he grew up going to the track.

And so he's super hyped on it. And you roll into this, I think your first race, you crashed your first race. Big one. That was when that was a really big crash. That I, it was, there was an accident in one and two was about three quarters of the way through the race. And there was a car. sliding down the track and I was going underneath the car and I didn't make it

buy-in time and it clipped my clip the right rear in my car and shot it nose going turning to the right shot it up into the wall hit not head-on but you know added at a pretty steep angle and slid down the track ended up you know it was kind of on fire slid on slid on onto the grass the medical medical team came over the truck's there and I get out of the car and I'm like stumbling and I actually am so out of it I turn the opposite direction of the ambulance, which tells me I'm really out of it. I get in the ambulance.

I don't remember any of this. I get to the medical center. I don't remember any of this. I wake up on a table and I open my eyes and I see a bright light above me like this one. Oh. And I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead. I had no idea where I was.

And I was like, what's going on? What's going on? And my mom was there. And then a priest. comes over the other side. I think I'm dead. You know, the only next thing I could remember thinking other than like, am I dead? My mom was like, it's okay, honey, you just had a little accident.

I'm like, accident. I'm dead, mom. So, and then the next thing I remember thinking is, oh, I hope they don't take my suit off because I didn't wear underwear. Like, I just wore my suit because I'm not trying to, like, have provocative information, but I like my hips would be the belts are so tight that I'm not heavy enough to to have a lot of like fabric like a lot of skin and fat so the hips my hips needed no wrinkles so underwear and things like that would like wrinkle under there so I just limited all things that could wrinkle and like have a seam on my hip bone have you guys ever gone skiing you know and there's just like one little thing that's on your shin or on your ankle and by the end of the day it's a giant problem. them, it was like that in the car. So I didn't wear underwear ever. And so I was like, I hope they don't take my suit off because I don't have any underwear on. And then I got yelled at because I didn't

have the right ear pieces in. And I'm thinking, this all seems like a lot right now. I don't feel like you should be yelling at me for not having my accelerometer earpieces in when I, you know, I'm like dead. But anyway, so I got rushed to the hospital and the ambulance. I'm in the ambulance on the way. And I apparently kept asking the nurses the same question over and over again because they said, honey, you've asked that question three times already. And I just couldn't remember, right? So I just kept asking, did it look bad? I come like, was it spectacular?

And so I get there and, you know, do the MRI and scan and everything. And at that point in time, I was married and he was a physical therapist. So he knew all the like technical lingo to get me out. And so I didn't have to stay overnight and left and flew home. And I had a race two weeks later at Phoenix. So I sat on the couch with ice packs all over me because I had a lot of bruises. I also did some electrical sort of like it's like lights and noises

to reprogram my brain. So I did this for like two weeks. And then I raced at Phoenix, which was a hard race. And I sucked and I did terrible. But I was cleared to race. Yeah, you had a massive concussion. Like today's concussion protocol, they'd probably not let you. Oh, I don't know if they do that in car racing.

No, they did. We still had the, You still had to go to take the test. Okay. So since I had two weeks, I went and took it the week of the race. And it's the same protocol as they do now. It's like the dots and the lines and the numbers and the, yeah, it's all the whole memory cognitive thing.

It's the, it's the concussion protocol test. Check. And then you sucked in Phoenix. I sucked in Phoenix, but you end up fourth in Indy Japan, the Japan 300? Which was only another few weeks after that. So that one was Homestead. Two was Phoenix. I don't remember what three was.

I think there was maybe one more. And then it was Motegi, which is the Japan race. And I qualified on the front row when I went. And I finished fourth at Motegi. And then the next race was the Indy 500. And the Indy 500, you're rolling into this. What I was talking about earlier, you had one of the, you had the fastest practice speed.

Yeah, I won practice a lot. It did pay. Yeah. So people are freaking hyped. I mean, people are thinking, like, if you're the fastest practice speed. Yeah. And I, and in qualifying, I was fastest on Fast Friday leading into qualifying. Oh, no, that was before the race.

I was actually fastest on that day. How old are you at this point? 23. What's a normal age of a driver? I mean, that's young. I mean, that's a young normal age. Okay. That's a young normal age to start.

Yep. And I, I went into qualifying. It was a really cold day. And I was so nervous. And I just, I kind of, similar to. to like the last race in IndyCar that I did, I felt like I was just gonna have, I was like no matter what, I'm not gonna lift.

And by lifting it means come off the throttle. So I thought as soon as I go out, I am not coming off the throttle. I am going to, once I start my lap for, and you had to do four timed laps, and they take your average. So I was like, I'm not gonna lift, I'm not gonna lift. So I went in to turn one,

it's a really cold day and the track's cold and I didn't lift until I had to lift or I would have crashed. So I got completely sideways, caught it, which is actually, the best thing I could have done because if I had just qualified on the pole, everyone just said you had a fast car, a fast engine, like you just qualified on the pole. But I actually showed some skill and I caught the car at 225 or 35 miles an hour.

And then I finished that qualifying and I never lifted after that. And I qualified fourth. Damn. Okay. So talk to me a little bit about the fuel like strategy in like the Indianapolis 500. So there's so many stops that Indy 500 is where there's the most amount of sort of different strategies that play out. So, you know, you have to pit like every, you know, 30 or so laps. And that's for tires and fuel?

Fuel, mostly. Mostly fuel. Yeah. So like at the end of the race, I ran, I had 50 lap tires on, but that's because I had already done a bunch of laps. And then I came in under a yellow because I had spun. and had to go to the back. I came in under a yellow. We topped off, and then I never came in again.

So I had 50 lap tires at the end of the race, but I was running out of fuel as well because we were stretching it. So I inherited the lead through a pit stop cycle, because again, like I said, I splashed, topped off on a caution, and then I never came in again. So everyone else came in, tires, fuel, everything. And I took the lead. And I led for a long time.

And then came in, then there was a caution. And somebody had gotten by me. And so I was starting second on this restart. And there's not that many laps left. And I remember coming on the radio, I'm like, everybody say a prayer. And they're like, we've been saying them all day. My sweet Ray, my engineer. And so Green Flag came out.

I timed it perfectly and got a great run. And I passed Dan into turn one and took the lead again. and there's a really great clip. It's my favorite clip on YouTube. It's like 30 or 40 seconds long. And it's of me taking the lead, but it's from the stands and it's from a fan. And so it's like obviously low quality, res.

But what it shows you is what the fans were doing. And after that race, everybody asked me, they're like, well, not everybody, but many people asked me, could you hear the fans cheering when you took the lead? I'm like, no, I could not. not with all of my friends with their 800 horsepower or whatever we had back then driving 240 miles an hour,

but it was a big moment, and so it was a really cool clip, and it gives me goosebumps every single time I watch it. And so I took the lead again. I led for a while, but then I pulled away, but then we had to save fuel. And we didn't really have the same fuel monitoring system that I had moving forward after that,

which is sort of a sensor that was needed to see exactly how much that fuel I had. Anyway, so I was detuning myself. So there was fuel mixture. So you can full rich is like full fuel. That's full power. And then you can detune yourself by taking fuel away from the engine, which takes power away. So I was like fuel slot one.

That's the most. Full bore. Pulling away. Fuel slot two, pulling away. Fuel slot three, pulling away. Fuel slot four, maintaining. Fuel slot five, maybe not maintaining as much. Fuel slot six and seven.

That eight, was a caution map. That would cut cylinders under caution. So it would be like you'd never run fuel slot eight. But six and seven was I was now getting caught. And so I got passed. And they were kind of just telling me like just finish the race. The only thing, I mean, I wouldn't change my life for anything.

I love the whole way that it's all gone. And I'm totally a believer in like the butterfly effect and sliding doors. One thing leads to a change in everything. But I mean, in hindsight, I could have just said, screw it and I'd run whatever fuel slot it took for me to just maintain so they wouldn't catch me and just rolled the dice and I would have made it to the end on fuel. Oh, that's what you did a post-mortem and you're like, yeah, you have this much fuel left. I guess I had like two and a half gallons still left, which is two and a half laps.

Jack. So you end up getting fourth place. I got four. Which is still enough to cause kind of initiate some some. Yeah. So that's when Danica mania started. And I remember before the. race I was told I was they were like hey if you win you're gonna be on the cover of

Sports Illustrated I'm like okay okay and so the race got over with and they're and they're gonna want a photo shoot they're gonna want to take a picture like they're gonna want they're gonna want something I'm like whatever I won't care if that happens and so the race Kate got over with and my my publicist was like they still want to do a photo shoot they're not know if we're gonna run it for the cover but they still want to do a photo shoot and I was like are you freaking kidding me. I'm like exhausted. And so I remember I poured a giant solo cup of red wine, went to this location where this photographer had a set up, and it was on the way to dinner, and I was there

for about 15 minutes and did this photo shoot and then went to dinner to get absolutely hammered and celebrate the night. And then they said the next day they're like, they're running it as a cover. and then they took that cover and the next race was Texas Motor Speedway which is the guy that ran it is a huge promoter and so he like made a huge billboard of me of this cover and yeah

would proceed along the years to be a very big promoter meaning like at one point I think the next year Dan Weldon and I had a fight at Milwaukee before we went to it so we literally were painted on like a billboard looking like fighters yeah like fighters so anyway so I have this huge

billboard now at Texas the next race and that and then and there was a lot of people that got pissed off along the way like there was some autograph sessions every single weekend we had to do and they would separate it by driver right so it's just like you get in line for whatever driver you wanted and um and so my line was so long and there'd be nobody else in any other line so at one point in time the drivers from the team that i ended up driving for next the andretti team they all they all um like vetoed the autograph session they they sat out they're they're like we're not doing doing it because you have separate lines and you should have one line and nobody comes and this doesn't seem fair. And so, yeah, so. You made people angry. Yeah, I did.

I mean, yes, they, they, you know, at the end of the day, people's reaction to you says a lot more about them than it does about you. Sure does. Always does. And so really like what that's saying is that, you know, they were, they were feeling insecure. They were mad that they didn't get the attention.

for things that they did or they're like, what could I have done to, you know, that says a lot more about them than doesn't mean. I didn't do anything, but yeah, they got pissed off. What's the equivalent? Echo Charles. Yes, sir. What's the equivalent today to cover of Sports Illustrated?

Because back in the day, look, you know, internet wasn't quite as what the internet is now. So if you were cover of Sports Illustrated, that was a big deal. Yeah. Right? What's the equivalent right now? I don't think there's an equivalent. There really isn't one. Yeah, because it's all like fraction of, you know, fractured or whatever.

Yeah, Sports Illustrator, that was the hub. Yeah, like you had the unified attention of the world. Yeah. Like, there's no way you could get that much unified attention of the world right now. Maybe if you were, well, no, you couldn't. When you think about it actually really, Sports Illustrated in the sports world, you know, because you got the sports world, then you got like, I mean, this is way smaller, but like Black Bell magazine or something, you know, like you have your certain hubs for.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And there's cropping for sure. Yeah, yeah. So now it's kind of the same deal, but now instead of like three or four or five hubs for each activity or whatever, there's like, I don't know. Yeah.

That's an interesting thing to think about is like what's an equivalent to that? Like for a younger listener right now that doesn't remember Sports Illustrated and what Sports Illustrated was and how huge it was. Like it's a huge deal. Oh, yeah. And so you end up 12th in the overall standpoint. endings, but you're rookie of the year, rookie of the year for the Indy 500, rookie of the year for the IndyCar series.

There's a documentary called Girl Racer that comes out. You start your first of your famous Go Daddy ads. So all that's happening. You're female athlete of the year. You go on freaking tour. You're on the late show. You're on the Today Show. You're on Jimmy Kimmel.

Good morning American. CNN. Every talk show in America. So this is, it's on. Yeah. Yeah. It got real busy. Back when I was in England,

racing only on the weekends. I remember thinking to myself, how does anyone make a full-time job out of being a race car driver? And then I found out. When you're in between races now that, like with this, I keep visioning, you know, people like you breaking down with your car and like, how much time do you spend driving

when you're not racing now that you're a pro? Is it all the time, all day, every day? No, no, it's, I mean, it's, there's, it's expensive. So there were a lot of actual rules got put in place to help the teams out with budgets. So we didn't have that many test days. There'd be like a certain amount of test days that you could do in a year,

and it might be like four. What? Yeah. Okay, this is weird. In my mind, I thought you drove that car freaking every day, all day. So you'd really pretty much just do the weekends.

So, but there'd be practice on the weekend. So you get there and they might have two practices on Friday, practice on Saturday morning, then you might qualify, and then the next day you race. Right. So there's like, I can't remember.

There's a, every series has a different flow. and sometimes they'd change it from year to year. But basically you'd end up having a lot of times like three practices of qualifying in a race. So you'd get three to four hours of practice and then qualifying in the race. Damn.

So it's actually like a half day of practice. You get kind of like a half day of practice because when you go test at a track, you'd practice from 9 to 12 and then 1 to 5. How about video game simulator type things? You ever tried those things? Oh, I hated them. Did other people use them?

Not back then. then, but now they do. And now, like, especially in Formula One, I do a lot of stuff for Formula One now with hosting or with analyst stuff. And F1 drivers do a lot of simulation work. Like, they're in the simulator. And it's, like, super real, and they wear the helmet.

I did a little bit of it in NASCAR, but we didn't do any of that in IndyCar. And so, no. But, you know, I learned a trick really young when I was in go-karting and a visualization. And no one told me. Like, I don't know how I, I don't even know why I had the idea, but I just, I knew, I knew that a way to practice was to close my eyes.

And I would, it wasn't like I just, like, drizz my way around. I would discipline myself to like, but I would do it perfect. I didn't have to be like an accurate lap time in my mind's eye of the lap, but I just had to make sure that I was driving the lap and I would hit every corner just perfectly. So I would practice a perfect lap. And I did this a lot of times before I went out for qualifying or, and then before the race. like visualizing a perfect lap. So, but that's, I mean, obviously, you're not doing that many of those laps.

All right. So now you're signed for another one with Ray Hall, Letterman. Yep. Yep. You end up doing the 24 hours of Daytona. Oh, yeah, yeah. I did, yeah. And that's with a few different drivers.

Usually do four drivers total. And you're going 24 hours. See how far you can go. Yeah. So I think that first year, I feel like I was like with Rusty Wallace and I don't remember who else. There was a couple of really good drivers. And we were pretty fast.

It was because the season was so short in IndyCar at that point. I think we only had maybe 14 races in the season. It was our shortest season we'd ever had. And, man, maybe we didn't even start to like April or something. So I think I was doing that because it was like, my dad was like, you know, help me out. Like, probably should get some more seat time instead of sitting out of the car for six months. Check. Yeah.

And then Toyota Indie 300. This is where Paul Dana got killed. Yeah, beginning in 2006. Yeah, exactly. My second year in IndyCar. He died in the morning, and then we didn't race that day. I mean, yeah, I mean, there was a crash, and he came around and didn't see it in time and hit it head on. And he died, and he were getting a hold of his wife.

His wife was in church. She was pregnant. He didn't know. Or maybe he, I don't know. I feel like for some reason my mind said he didn't know, but she was pregnant, and she was like in church on Sunday when this happened. And so he So yeah So we sat out that race

But that was the first time That was not the first time I had actually been at the track When someone died though When I was in England There was someone that died in at the track He crashed and hit an armco barrier And how it has like gaps in it

You know the armco? There's like maybe three or two or three levels of the armco And he hit the armcoe and And he died immediately And your When's your next race after that? Probably within the next week or two We race like either week or every week

or every other week. Any sort of hesitation? So what was interesting is that we didn't race that day. And I basically was like felt bad for my family and loved ones around me because I, knowing that that's a potential for me, I was totally ready to go out there. And I kind of had this feeling of like, I feel like I don't know what this says about me, but I feel bad for you guys that I don't worry. Like I'm not that's not as concerning enough for me to go like I need a minute

I was like I would have gone out there yeah yeah the weird thing is to I was just hunting you probably can associate with that well definitely can associate with losing friends but I was out hunting and I was hunting for white tail in Iowa and you're waiting waiting waiting waiting and is a little bit boring I guess yeah it's a little bit boring like you're sitting in a tree stand or you're sitting in a blind and then all All of a sudden, it's just like, Buck comes in and it's over in 30 seconds. Yeah. It just all happens so fast.

But what I noticed, I watched a bunch of your races. I watch a bunch of these crashes is everything is just normal, normal, normal. I'm not saying it's boring, but it's normal, normal, normal. And then in a split second, it's just like someone's dead. Like so fast, it just happens. And it could literally happen at any moment in that entire race from the first lap until the very last lap. You could do it by yourself. Something could break on your car and you could hit the wall and you just hit at a weird angle.

and something happens and you die. Absolutely. That's exactly right. So when you're in the car and you have a vibration and it's getting worse and you're radioing in, let's say you're in the race and you're like, I've got a vibration, it's getting worse. They're like, okay, we don't see anything on our end

because they're getting live data streaming from the car. They're like, let us know if it gets any worse. And it's like, oh my God. Like you feel like your life's in your hands of like, how much do I compromise whether or not I feel, like I should be careful versus screw it. Because you don't know what screw it means. What if a wheel falls off?

And that stuff happens. And it happens. I literally drove down the front straightway at Kentucky one time testing. And I felt this weird feeling and I jumped out of the throttle. And I'm going 200. If we're on an oval, Kentucky was an oval,

you're going over 200 every time. And I lift out of the throttle. And as soon as I lift off, like this thing and it spins around. And the right rear literally fell off the car. Yeah. Yeah. Jack.

All right. You end up six. Look, there's so much stuff that you've done. I was trying to tell you this before the podcast. Like, you've done so much stuff in your life and so much stuff in racing.

It was kind of hard to capture it all. But you end up six that Grand Prix and St. Grand Prix at St. Petersburg, eighth in Japan, 300, 10th at the Indy 500. You end up ninth in the final standings. This is 2006. And then you switch to Andretti Green.

Why did you make that switch? Offer comes up. This is big negotiations. We weren't as fast the second year. Like I just, you know, I felt like I needed a new opportunity. Obviously at that point in time negotiating everything from like the best team. The most important thing was driving for the best team you possibly could, but also money, salary, sponsors. So I just felt like it was a better opportunity somewhere else.

And And Andretti, obviously there's a big name there. When you say the best team, is that the people that are working in the pit? Is that the people that are designed in the cars or what is it? That is what it's made up of. But usually when I say best team, it just means they're the fastest. They are, they have a good, maybe they have a good combination. Like the engine manufacturer that they're running, the chassis. Like they just, and they have good engineers and they have good pit crews and they have a great reputation.

And year and year out, they're really strong. 2007 seasons like 8th at St. Petersburg 7th in Kansas, 8th at the Indy 500, 8th at the Foyt, 225. This is where you're getting a fight with Dan Weldon. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember every year, it's so funny you're saying this. This is such a dumb story, but I remember going in to get facials because I've been getting facials for like 20 years. And my friend Shannon and I should be like, how'd you do this weekend?

I was like, eighth. She's like, I'm sick of you finishing eighth. Can you finish something different than eighth? I'm still friends with Shannon. And so we were pretty fast, actually, but yeah, things kept happening. So this race at Milwaukee was an exciting one. And I've realized that part of what makes me remember a weekend is not necessarily how I start, but how I start and then finished in the Delta.

So this was one of those weekends that was a huge delta. I started off. I was slow in practice. and then we just like hail married a whole different setup for the race qualified in the back and i had passed all the way i was passing dan weldon for fifth place in the first stint so the stint just means how long you're running those tires so this is in the first like 80 laps of the race and the race is hundreds laps long so i haven't even pitted yet and i'm already passing for fifth and i go into turn one and i go underneath them and he comes down and he just chops me and

hits my tires and it bounces me into the grass on the inside now we're not going to 200 because this is a short track, it's a mile. But I mean, what are we doing? 150? 180. And so I about lose it and I come back out and I am so mad. And so I end up finishing fifth in the end. I go all the way back to last when this happens and end up finishing fifth. And after the race, you don't normally see drivers. Like you think, oh, we're with everybody all weekend. But shoot, you get in, you go to your team, you get in your car and you know, you don't see drivers. So Dan's literally like right behind me on Pit Lane when he stops his car. And so I just go over and I just go over to him and I grab him by the neck and I'm like putting my hand around his shoulder like I'm like hanging out, buddy.

But I am grabbing his trap so freaking hard that if you look at a picture you can see it. And you can see him like cringing as he's walking. And so I asked him like I was obviously pissed off and I was asking him what he was doing and I was yelling at him. And then yeah. So that was, you know, these are. all things that just like propelled the mania and propelled the popularity and the curiosity. I get it. Like I don't, to some degree, I don't like myself for all the things that I've done.

But they were just all part of growing up and they were part of my decisions. And they were honest and authentic, right? Like I, we were talking about before we started about this authenticity thing. I've said forever that I totally understand that not everyone's going to like me. It's not possible to be yourself and have everybody like you. But at least they can respect your authenticity. So if I got an interview, if I was being interviewed, I mean, when I moved to, when I went to NASCAR, Goddadi sent me to media training because I never would say their name.

Like I didn't say my sponsors. Because I'd answer the question. I wouldn't be like, oh, how can I like fit all my sponsors in and give some bullshit answer about like the guys back at the shop? You know, I would answer the question. So I was always really honest and authentic. And so I was really mad and everybody knew about it. Is that being mad?

How much of that being mad is like you could get killed? and how much of that being mad is like I could have won this freaking race I could have won this race totally yeah because actually I remember when I'd like pray before I'd went out on the track and I would actually feel like I was catching a little loophole by asking to do really well

because you know most people would be like let's be safe and yes I wanted to be protected but I asked to do really well because I was like because if I do really well I didn't crash like I felt like I was asking in a loophole It felt a little selfish, but I was like, look, asking, you shall receive, right? Apparently, you had some kind of a meeting with the president of Indy to reconcile with Dan after this incident. Oh, I'm sure we were totally called to like the penalty box.

I've been called to the penalty box many times. The other time I was called to the penalty box was because I was leaving Loud in Motor Speed, like Loud in New Hampshire at the racetrack, and they weren't letting all the golf carts out after the race. and I was like, we're on a golf car. Our cars are parked outside. We're trying to hurry up and get to our car that's parked there and waiting and staged for us so we can drive to the airport and hurry up and fly home.

And so I was like, here. I was like, well, give me your radio. And so I got on the main radio. And I was like, why are they not letting? And so Mike Helton and NASCAR, that was another like penalty box weekend where I was like, he's like, you can't ever do that again.

I'm like, oh, shoot. You end up second in Detroit, you end up seventh overall in that season, 2007, 2008 10th in St. Petersburg. Indy Japan, 300. You end up winning. Finally. Yeah, and that's exactly how it felt.

Like, there was opportunities along the way in the years previous. And, you know, all the way tracking back to my fourth or fifth race in Indy car at the Indy 500. And it just felt like it was just, it just took a long time. And so it felt like such a relief. Yeah, it was a big relief. And first woman to win a top level sanctuary. open wheel car racing event. Yeah.

Ever. Really, any racing. Yeah. I'm not great on history and stats, but I'm going to say any because none of ever won a NASCAR, none of ever won an F1. I'm going to say in any racing. How much hype was there when you won that race? Any top level, I should clarify that, not any racing, because girls have won.

How much what? Was it crazy? Did you get the cover of Sports Illustrated again? Yes. Oh, yeah. It went. I did, yeah. And the cover this time said, yes, she can.

I can't remember actually with the first cover set I was trying to remember it I just remember it was all red and I signed over Arod's head every single time I autographed because of the positioning of where I was on the thing and I kept remember thinking he'd probably get mad at that but I got on the cover of Sports Illustrated again we shot that before the race weekend because it was going into the Nd500 and yeah I I um it was a busy time

We flew straight, flew straight, took the helicopter to, from the track to the airport, drank a whole bottle of sake, like a giant, giant, giant bottle of sake with my, my mom and dad were there, thankfully. And Haley, who's been with me since then, she's my VP, my manager, my assistant, my name, one of my best friends. But we all flew to Long Beach, California. And the last ever champ car race was that weekend. It was they were going to, it was done after that, and they were merging with us as the IndyCar series.

So I went to that and was, yeah, I landed and slept for about two or three hours and woke up at 3 a.m. for hair and makeup to be on all the morning shows on the East Coast. And yeah, it was a bit media tour. Just hype it all up. Yeah. Fourth at Kansas Speedway, then the Indy 500 comes around again. And you have a collision in the pit. Oh my God. I was the only, yeah, other than my very last one, that was, yeah, I was, I would have, I was running sixth.

And Ryan Briscoe came out of his pit box and he just went straight to the wall, which just means there's a wall separating the track and the pit lane. And so there's only so much room. And so he came out of his pit box and they just sent him. And you're not, you're supposed to make sure you're clear all the way out. You go lane by lane. And he just went all the way out. And he hit my left rear. and it broke the suspension

and I pulled off to the side and then they wheeled me back all the way back to my pit box. I was so mad. It was the last pit stop of the race. I was running sixth and I got out of my car and I didn't, you could find footage of this very easily and I got out of my car and I didn't give a shit what anyone said.

I just got out and I started walking down pit lane with my helmet on, stomping my way down to Ryan Briscoe's pit stall because he was in his pit box And all I kept thinking is if I can't go back out, you can't go back out. And so I was like, I don't know what I'll do. I don't know if I'm going to jump on his front wing and break it or take his steering wheel or what the hell I'm going to do.

But he's not getting back out. And so I make it like three quarters of the way down there. And I can actually hear the crowd now because they can see what I'm doing. For all I know, I'm on the JumboTron. I don't know. And I'm not thinking about any of this stuff, though. Like when people ask about feeling like the crowd or hearing or thinking about things, I actually don't feel like anyone's watching once I'm out there

because there's so much to watch, I don't think they're watching me. And so this very large security guard who is in charge of all of security for IndyCar Charles came in front of me and he stopped and stood there in front of me. And I'm like, I'm looking up and he's like, and he points his finger back like, get over the pit wall. And I was like, okay.

And I went over. And in the meantime, Roger Penske is on Ryan Briscoe's radio and he's on the radio going, Ryan, put your visor down. What? He's, put your visor down. Because I was heading down pit lane and just didn't want him to,

he's like, just put your visor down. So anyway, but I got sent back over and then I had to walk my way back to my pit stall. And so I was super angry. Again, one of those things that like, it's not the, like, I got, I created drama outside of just like the actual on-track stuff because I'm just different.

Like I just, I get really angry and I'm not afraid to show it. And, um, and, uh, it's just part of my personality. Yeah, it's really wild that you can go watch. Like I watched so many clips of you and my, my YouTube algorithm right now is just overflowing. By the way, you're on a high algorithm with mine too. Yeah. Freaking NASCAR and, uh, indie racing and all these little clips of you.

So like I was watching because you know, I read about it. I was like, I would read what happened. and then I'd be like, what does that look like? And I was like, wait, is this story like, what's the spin on this? You know what I mean? You think what's the spin on this? And like, what does it really look like?

And so you go watch it. And you can watch it in slow motion and you can watch like an analyst and like all these different things. So all these little crashes and stuff. I've watched them all probably from nine different angles. Oh man. And to watch you to watch you, yes, you are walking back to the pit with like full freaking anger. Full FU energy. Full FU energy 100%.

It's so funny to watch. Funny. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's just one. I mean, I've kicked, I remember one time I got so mad. I ran out of fuel at the end of a race in Michigan, and I was coming back and I, like, threw my helmet, and then I got back to the pit, and I kicked what I thought was a full water barrel thing, and it was empty, and I knocked it over, and I literally ran forward and picked up

and put it up because it stood it back up because I was like, oops, that's not what I meant to do. I just wanted to kick a tire. Oh, check. You end up 2008, six in the final rankings. you're still just going media crazy. You're on American Chopper, by the way, right? All kinds of different stuff. 2009 season, in the off season, you go.

You do another 24 hours of Daytona. You guys had some kind of issue. You didn't finish that. I think the car got jacked up. I think it's overheating or something. Fourth at Long Beach, fifth in Kansas. Third at the Indy 500. Yeah, yeah.

Had a shot to win that one, a really good one. That was probably my most legitimate. speed should have won. I mean, the first one was good, but there was some strategy involved. This one was an authentic, like, you're running third. You could have won the race. There was a really long, long caution late in the race. And when my teammates crashed and they had to fix the safer barrier.

It took 14 laps of caution to do that. And so I was good on fuel, but everyone else started to get gooder and gooder and gooder. Oh, because they're off topping off. No, because they were under caution. Oh, so they're running. They're running slow. So instead of having to run full speed, they're running slow. They're in level eight.

Yep. And while they might have, they might have had a pit with 10 laps to go, maybe five laps to go, now they don't have to pit. So I was good on fuel and would have won. So I run third and I'm like all over, I think it was Castornevas's ass forever and I just couldn't fight, I could not get by him and I ended up third. And I came into the pits afterwards and I remember getting out of the car and looking at my engineers and and they were like hmm and I thought I didn't know this scenario by the way they

didn't tell me like those guys in front of you um like you would have want I don't know anything about that like I'm just doing the best I can with what I have and um so I find that out after I come in and they're like you really should have won the race because everyone else should have run out of fuel and you should not have put that caution was so long and they said they were so bummed because like we had planned it perfect and uh and we were third so it was like we were running really well and we were totally the winning strategy. And so they were really bummed and then I found out why. Because I thought afterwards, I thought, I did good.

I did third. Like good, right? What are the unwritten rules for like you're trying to pass someone that's blocked, like kind of blocking you? Well, in Indy cars, because it's open wheel, there's not much you can do. I mean, you could just, you try and trick them a little. You can like fake them out a little bit here and there. But there's the only thing I'd say is.

is on ovals where there's multiple lanes. When you're running in front of someone, there was just kind of an unwritten rule that you weren't supposed to, like let's say, I'm running the bottom lane and someone else is running the middle lane. If someone came down in the middle of the corner and came in front of me,

like that's pretty shit because it takes so much aerodynamics off of your car that what's going to happen is that the front is going to stop turning and then you're going to catch the next lane and then you're going to have a wheel in it, which means you're turned, and then it's going to catch and then it's going to snap

because the back is going to react to the amount of steering you have into it once you hit clean air. So a lot of times it end up in this really big like slide snap moment. And so that was kind of the only real unwritten rule that you were kind of not really supposed to do. So as you're behind this guy,

you're trying to fake him, but there's really just not much you can do. I'm just trying to get the perfect run. I'm trying to like, I'm just do it. I'm trying to like time it so perfectly because the car is aerodynamically. You can't just like run really close and then you have to have a run

and that run has to come down the straightaway but you have to be close enough in the corner, which is hard when you need down force to get a run actually. Otherwise you just get close to them. So you need a run where you're like half the distance that you normally are but you time it just perfectly that you come off the corner and you finish it off

halfway down the straightaway and then you pull out and you get by them. Yeah, so you just have to have enough speed and you have to time it right. And the cars are all like they're all, their top speed is what's the difference between the top speed? If you're running a really fast car or really slow car, what's the difference between that? Like a mile an hour? Yeah. So it's not like you're going to blow by anybody.

Yeah, no, no, no. It's not. I mean, it's more talking about percentage wise at 240 miles an hour. It's not much. Check. You end up fifth in the overall standings that year. That's 2009. You have the most viewed Super Bowl ad in 2009, which was for,

Go Daddy. It was the enhancement ad where they had a bunch of girls that had enhancements Echo Charles. Yes. And then you had an enhancement on your website. So that was the joke. So many of those fun commercials over the years. GoDaddy

made a bunch of classic commercials with you. 2010. 7th in St. Petersburg. 6th at Indy 500. Second of the Texas Motor Speedway. 10th in the overall rankings. And this is when you start a little bit of stock car activity. Yeah, so I was kind of curious, and there was more and more road course races on the IndyCar

schedule than there was. Like we had started with three, and then I went to five, and then it was like seven and eight. And I just loved, I really loved oval racing. And so I liked road courses, but I, and I was becoming increasingly unhappy with where I was team-wise. And there was, you know, more behind the scenes, business stuff with sponsorship and money and all that stuff that was frustrating. And so I was like, well, maybe NASCAR.

Are you pulling in, like, awesome money from like GoDaddy? Is GoDaddy your car sponsor? Are they your sponsor? They are the car sponsor. So at that point in time, it's going through the team. So what had happened was, actually, I can tell this story. I was put on a five-year gag order after it happened. So I never told this story out loud, but I'll tell it.

Why not? And so I'm driving for Andretti. And I have a profit-sharing contract where I get over $9 million, I got 40% of whatever came on the car. So we were able to do math because some of the sponsors I helped bring over, which I paid for in the front end too. When I was driving for Rahal, those sponsors, there was a couple of sponsors that came with me,

and one of them was Argent. Another one was maybe one America. I can't remember exactly the other one, Meyer. And so I didn't get paid at the end of that contract. So I didn't make my second year an IndyCar, I didn't finish getting paid that year. And I had to also pay additional because those sponsors left and they said it was a breach of contract because I told them where to go. And there's a lot of rules on like that kind of stuff of what you can say and not say.

So I mean hundreds of thousands, three or four hundred thousand dollars, which was like half of my earnings in 2006 went back to the team. I didn't get it. But half of it was they didn't pay me and the other half I had to pay them to like get out of this scenario. So I've already helped the team that I'm going to Andretti with these sponsors by paying this problem off. And so, and settling. And so then we get into a profit sharing deal. And I mean, I have Argent. I have GoDaddy.

I have One America, Meyer. Like, I have tons of, I have really great sponsors. And we also know that the minimum amount that anyone can be on the car for is half a million dollars. And so, you know, this car has way over $9 million on it. Like, I think the primary was. seven so like you know there's a ton of money on the car and so it comes time to get paid and we were supposed to get you know paperwork on that like we should see what's coming in and we never got any we just we just get paid and I got paid more than the base salary but only based on like a nominal

amount and I was always like that's bullshit this doesn't feel like it makes sense and so uh after a couple years I um and we can't get any we don't get actual any official documents that are qualify for anything. One point, we got a one pager. And by one pager, I literally mean it said, like, the company, how much they paid, how much went to me, and how much went to the team. Like, it was like, it was bullshit. It wasn't documents.

This was one contracts. I have no idea what the actual numbers were. And so I went into mediation and then arbitration. So while I was still driving for them, I mean, I was suing them essentially for a year and a half. Damn. And so I had like $3,300, I had three quarters of a million dollars of legal fees that I had racked up in a year and a half.

We went to arbitration. And, I mean, one of the sponsors, Arjun, literally wrote a letter that said the only reason why we went to this team was Danica Patrick, the only reason. And they didn't even award me that money. They stood on the sand and said like, oh, well, you know, they came because, you know, Daria Frank Heady was married to Ashley Judd. and they thought that was cool. And it was like, they just lied and said a bunch of bullshit.

But then ultimately, one of the guys, the attorney for them, said, why should she get all that money? And when he said that line, I knew that was the truth. They did not think I should get all that money. And so the settlement was something called splitting the baby, which is, I guess, in legal terms. And so I was awarded a million dollars. And so I didn't lose money, but I didn't really win.

And so, I mean, I was suing for honestly like 20. Because, I mean, there was millions of dollars every year. They didn't pay me. Millions. And so we were also going in on like trouble damages and like, you know, we went in really hard. But we were awarded a million dollars. I've never told this story before. No one knows these numbers either.

I'm telling you honest numbers too. And when you got that million bucks, you also have, even though you. I paid $750,000. I wanted to also get legal fees back too. That was part of my part of what I was. was suing for as well. And so they then they literally like never provided documents like went in and like my attorneys went into their office and they like barely provided anything. And so anyway, that was the last day that the attorney for that team worked. He was done after that.

And I saw that coming. And so that was the end of that. And so I wasn't really happy. Like they weren't paying me. They were, it was like the racing was shifting. And I was like, screw this. I just don't want to be here anymore. And there wasn't really much, everything world, where to go. And Reddy was one of the best teams. And there was Penske, which is really good, but I wasn't going to get a seat on Penske. And, you know, Ganesi was a good team. But, you know, like, maybe they don't pay their drivers. And they've got some bad reputation here and there. So I'm like, I don't know. And they had a full stall, too. So I wasn't going to drive for Andretti either. So where was I going to go? So I'm like, screw it. I'll go to, I'll go race NASCAR. Boom. So I did. And how did you like that when you showed

up there um well i actually loved it when i drove uh drove the car for the first time i had a blast like i thought i was like i'm home yehah i remember oh my god you'll it's funny because it includes 104 um but uh there was two things that were said in this first test day with this i mean i love my crew chief um he's such a nice guy and he was so nice and he was helping me out and at one point in time he was saying you know when you come off that corner there and you get in that y'all you know it's uh that's right where you want it and i was like they say y'all for everything but he was saying yaw and then i remember after on the test he had sent me a text message and it said 104 and i was like what does one zero four mean 10 four that was a wild thing listening to how much tony erie junior

was his name he's such a great guy how much you rely on that who's the person that's like coaching you as you're driving. That's like telling you like go down, go down, go up, you know, coming on. No one.

There's no one doing that. There, I hear like radio calls. I heard radio calls. People talking to you telling you like. The spotter will give you some feedback. They might say, okay,

so they're not telling you exactly what to do. They're telling you where other cars are around you. So if you're out there running, they'll say like, you got, you know, the eight car is four, you know,

five car links back, three car links back, looking inside, inside, inside, inside, clear, you know, like they'll go through what someone else is doing.

They're not necessarily telling you. They will sometimes say, hey, you know, you're everybody's, you know, you're pulling everybody off of two, but you're losing a lot out of four. You know, they might, they can see that stuff and they'll give you some feedback, but they're not necessarily telling you what to do. They might say, hey, the track is, you know, the line's changing. Everybody's moving up. They're, you know, the high lines coming in, you know, something like that.

And then what about the engineer who's like, hey, you're this heat, this, monitors going up or like or you're saying back hey I'm getting vibrations over here what's that relationship like they're the ones that you tell for the handling so um you know I'll say like you know it's a really pointy on turn in um the center's fine and just a little tight off or something like that and they'll they'll think okay what can I do can I like maybe a little left or spring a little left or air pressure and they'll make the change they won't check with me necessarily they'll just make changes on the car for me. So sometimes they can suggest things in the cockpit. In IndyCar, there was a lot more to work with. We had shock adjusters, track bar adjusters, breakbys.

We had various different things we could adjust on. But in NASCAR, it was very minimal. It really didn't have a lot of things that we could adjust. So they would do that on a pit stop. So they would change springs, tire pressure and things like that. And you must have to obviously have a great relationship with these people that you're talking to so they can kind of like, you know each other, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that it's like, oh, when when Dan, Like I said this, I need to do this for her. Oh, sure. Just like you learn people, you learn people.

You learn, you know, I'm going at this new gym for the last few months. And one of the things they ask in the gym is like, okay, on a scale from one to 10, like how hard was that? One being super easy, obviously 10 the hardest. And so everybody has a different read. So mine is like, eh, seven, you know, but like, you know, like the eh is my answer, right? And then I give kind of a number like, are all. I'm like, I don't know, six, you know?

Like, how many more could you do? I don't know, 10. You know, I mean, like there's numbers, but there's more my body language, my voice, my reaction. So you learn people, right? Like, I could not give a number to my trainer now and he would know what it meant. And so you really learn each other. It's the same thing with relationships, with coworkers, and with engineer and driver.

You learn each other and you learn what the reactions mean. And when I say the car is tight, like, or I say the car is understeer. They're different languages and different sports in IndyCar NASCAR. But if the car is not turning, they know the way that I say it, probably how bad it is. You know? So, and we still use number systems, but you really learn each other, yeah. So you kick off this stock car thing, Samstown 300, the Ford 300.

You end up 43rd overall after only 13 starts, which is like. Oh, yeah, because I didn't run the full series. Yeah. You end up doing some acting this year where you are you're in CSI, New York, and it's a real stretch of a role because you play a race car driver that's suspected of murder. I love it. Everywhere I went, like, I'd go on to talk shows, and they'd be like, we're going to do a go-kart race around the set. And I was like, okay. You did your own voice on Simpsons and South Park.

So, again, there's still a lot of mania going on. Actually, the Simpsons I did. I recorded it in Iowa. I remember I was racing in Iowa at Iowa Speedway, and we had to go into some sound studio in like, you know, Des Moines or something. And I recorded for the Simpsons, but the South Park one just came out. Oh, okay. They never tell you either.

But they came out a very similar time. So I knew about the Simpsons and I recorded for that one, but the South Park one just happens. Do you watch South Park at all? I like it. I've seen a bunch of episodes. I don't, I'm not like one of those. I'm not turning it on at night when there's nothing else.

on but I've totally watched tons of episodes. Those guys are freaking brilliant. They are brilliant, aren't they? Yeah. And they get away with murder. They get away with just. It's unreal, right? It's amazing.

What do you think about like the Simpsons too? Like, I feel like if anyone dips into conspiracy theories at all, you'll see that it, like there's so many clips of like the Simpsons told the future. Yeah. Isn't that creepy and interesting? 2000 and whatever. They're talking about stuff. You're like, yo.

I mean, it's weird, isn't it? It's like an interdimensional show that's like not running a timeline that we're not a linear timeline or something. Yeah, yeah. But you're still, now 2011, you're still doing indie. Yeah. 12th in St. Petersburg. You had a couple of collisions, but you still came in 12th. Fifth in Milwaukee.

This is when we already talked about this earlier, but this is when Dan Weldon got killed at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The last one of the season. Yeah. Just freaking nightmare. you know um it was a it was also there was a there was a big bounty on the race the promoter randy bernard was running it at that point in time he was a pbrr guy he would like run pbr and so he came over to run indycar super nice guy but promoter and he had taken out a big insurance claim on some on whoever and it was on it was for dan to win the race and i think it was like he started in the very back and if he

won he won like five million dollars or something like that and actually dan was going to take my seat and drive the go daddy car at and reddy so um no hang on sorry yeah he was coming back he had run for ganassi and then he went and then he went to a different team John Barnes's team and then he was coming back and he was going to he was going to drive the go daddy car um and uh and so there was a lot on the line like for him to go win the race i mean five million dollars is a lot of money what does that mean a bounty on it's i don't know that's how they described it like or Not a bounty, but it would have been a, I feel like they used that word, but there was an insurance policy taken out. Sorry, Bonnie probably is the wrong.

I just for some reason, I feel like I remember that word for some reason. So the insurance policy is for him to win? Well, it's because the insurance money that they paid to get this. So basically, you know, if he won, it was $5 million. And instead of paying the $5 million, this insurance company, they used. And so he just had to pay like a fee. So I don't remember what it was, a few hundred, $800,000. and that was enough.

So basically it was an $800,000 promotion. So if they won, the insurance paid the $5 million. So IndyCar didn't end up having to pay the $5 million. It would have been this sort of someone that was hedging their bets that it wasn't going to happen. So they took the $800 grand or whatever it ended up being to get this paid if he did win. So anyways, there's a lot on the line and it's lap 11 and chaos breaks out. And honestly, there was just so many drivers that were not. oval respectful. They were like Europeans and different people like drivers that just didn't get it

and didn't have the right amount of respect and we're just doing a lot of stupid things. And stupid things is what? Cutting into people's winds. Yeah. Totally. Cutting them off airwise, chopping, swerving. Like swerving is so dumb. Like honestly, you're running an open wheel car and you know, it's just not smart. So climb wheels pretty easily. Explain serving. So swarving. So like, you know, if there's a car next to you and you like swerve into them. Just literally swerving into them. That's so dumb. What do you get out of it?

There was some thought about like side, like a little bit of like the wind next to the car would kind of help you. And that's more of a stock car thing aerodynamically. But I think also just to intimidate. Jack. Well, as you mentioned earlier, you guys kind of a, that race got abandoned because there was such a bad accident. Yeah, Dan died. Yeah. Yeah, Dan died.

Yep. And you end up that season 10th overall. But now you're into NASCAR. Now I'm gone. Yep. 15th at Daytona, 12th in Phoenix. 10th at the subway, Halapeno Open. You end up 26 overall.

And then it's full on 2012. It's full on NASCAR. 2012, full on NASCAR, yep. I mean, I done, so I did, so in 2010 and 11, I did 10. I was legally allowed to do one NASCAR race a month. as long as it wasn't in conflict with my IndyCar schedule. So we didn't race every year, every weekend in IndyCar, and NASCAR basically raced every weekend.

So every month I could race all the way up until the IndyCar season started. And then once IndyCar season was over, I could race all the races in NASCAR. But in the season, I could only do one a month. So I raced a ton. I raised basically every week. I did 30 races, I think. And again, that seems crazy going from car to car to car to car.

Yeah. That seems crazy. Yeah, it was a little crazy. Seems like you would mess something up. Are all the, you know, controls the same? No, not at all. I mean, I went from a, I went from paddle shifting to an H pattern. That's wild.

Rolled back the clocks a few decades. Luckily, you're so good. Well, that it was just no factor. And I think, too, sometimes it's like, you know, when you were to jump into a certain situation that you've been in before, you have like a, you have a, you have a, you know, like a constellation of muscle memory for that environment, right? Like you have like all the systems are ready in place. It's it was harder when I did full-time NASCAR. Like in 2012, I was racing full-time nationwide, which was the series below.

And I did 10 cup races to prepare me for the 2013 season where I did full-time cup. And so it was harder to go from the cup car to the nationwide car because they were so similar than it was to go from an indie car to a stock car. Better to have something that's radically different. Exactly. Exactly.

Do you're not getting confused on the little things. It seemed like to me, when I, like, looked at your history of 2012, Daytona 500 crash, hit a wall at Eldora Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway crash, Hollywood Casino 400 crash. It seemed like a rough introduction to NASCAR. Dude, it was a little bit. And some of it was my fault. Some of it was not my fault. Yeah. I mean, I think I feel like at Auto Club, I remember I got absolutely taken out.

I mean, I know there's footage of this. The car, I was driving down the back straight away, and I was on the inside, and the car on the right of me just literally turned my right, right, just hooked me, just literally crashed me. Like, there's just not much you can do about that. There's, how much of that happens because they're pissed at you or you're pissed at someone else?

There's a lot of, a lot in NASCAR, it's kind of like, it's got a very good old boy feel. Like, they're like, you know, you're not coming in here. Even if you were a guy, like, you know, there are some F1 drivers or IndyCar drivers or stock or even sports car racers that are like road course experts, let's say. And they'll come in and like the rest of the field will be like, oh, no, no, no, you're not. Oh, no, you're not.

No, you're not. And so they're not just going to let you come in and just rain all over their parade. And so now I'm a girl too. And look, I didn't like being, and I'm coming from indie. I'm coming from indie. I'm an indie car driver. I'm a girl. I'm like coming in.

And they just like, I'm just a triple hate girl. Triple hate. Not triple threat, triple hate. So then 2013, though. I don't blame them, to be honest. Can you? I can't. I didn't like being beat by a girl.

I didn't like, you know, like I can't really blame them. It's all right. Everything is such a, there's such a balance with everything. I can fully understand someone comes in from a different category. Like in jiu jihitsu. Like when a wrestler goes against a jiu jihitsu guy, all the jih Tijitsu guys are like want that wrestler to lose. But when that wrestler,

goes against a boxer, all the grapplers, including the jiu-jitsu people, are all together, wanting that person to beat the striker. So, yeah, I can see where if you're coming in from Indy car and they're like, oh, these yuppie Indy Indycar. Indycar. Wine and cheese people. Actually, I was just doing an appearance for a company,

and he asked me to describe all the different series. And I was like, you know, IndyCar was wine. Let me hear them. Okay, Indycar is like wine and cheese, you know. It's sophisticated, but, you know, it's nice, and you're, you truly did have wine and cheese at night sometimes. Like, there'd be, like, chef, you know, like, one of the cooks would be making something. There'd be, like, a little wine party. And, and then go to NASCAR, and it was, like, beer and guns, you know, and just, like, good old boys and hanging out.

And, you know, they're the ones that are going shooting guns at the end of the night after drinking, you know, not at the racetrack, but I'm just, like, sort of painting you a picture. but they're wild and crazy and fun and you know they're much more relaxed and uh and then you go to f1 and f1 is like champagne and caviar oh it's just next level and there literally is champagne and caviar and lobster and you know my friend went to the austin race and she did the whole big like $15,000 a ticket for the paddock club and she was entertaining some important guests and so there's four of them and they like she's like you roll up and they literally have Ferrari champagne pouring you as you walk in and there's lobster and everything you could want. And so Formula One is very, very champagne and caviar.

And so it's, and it's very, very, very perfect, you know. And like, you know, the hospitality is have Michelin Star chefs. And if you get your glass of wine, you better believe that sucker's in like a fancy Riddell glass. You know, that's not, it's not, you're not getting a solo cup. Is this reflected in how much it costs to run the teams? For sure. Yeah. Although, I will say NASCAR's expensive because there's so many.

races. And because they could drive so much, they could probably get it because it was so popular for a while. But F1 is Uber expensive. It costs a couple hundred million dollars to run a car or a team. To run a team. Yeah, a couple hundred million. The budget is 143 million, but that's not the budget budget. That's just like there's certain flying items that they can audit and keep within that budget. But then, of course, there's loopholes always. Like, how can we allocate this in a different way that is outside of the budget and just whoever does the best job of that because as my dad taught me when I was young,

speed costs money, how fast do you want to go? That's what it boils down to. I mean, it's the same thing I would imagine for like equipment, whether you're talking about knives or guns or trucks or helicopters. Like, I mean, the best stuff is better. It's more expensive. It's the way it works.

Check. So we go from, so you went from wine and cheese to beer and guns. To beer and guns. Yeah. It was fun. too. It was really fun. So 2013, that's your first like full time, full time doing the full sprint series.

Yep. First woman to clinch pole position at the Dayton and 500. So again, to me that when I would read that, I'd be like, oh, like you had what it takes. Like you could win this stuff. Yeah. Right. Yeah, there was some. And that woman's a little different.

Like just being super honest, that's not a hard track to drive. But I, you know, you still have to do the race. And the race is hard. It's weird. Like it's actually harder in the straight. than in the corners because the car's a little lighter and you're packed up in a huge pack of cars and so there's a lot of movement floating around

and sort of like jockeying for position and like setting things up for the long run and meaning like long term meaning how am I gonna make my way up there? Like how do I chess match this? So and there's just a lot, you're really, really tight with all the other cars so it's constantly on edge. You led for five laps there in that race.

You got it eighth place, which is the highest history, highest placing for a woman in history. And you're one of only 14 drivers to lead both in Indy and Daytona laps. You led laps for both those. That's my favorite stat, the Indy 500, Daytona 500 leading, because it's just, it's a genderless stat and there's not many. You know, and there's been a bunch that have done both. Yeah, 14.

Yeah. That's not really a bunch. Well, considering only 14 that led both. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool. years, so. Well, I guess how old is NASCAR 50, 50 some years? Yeah, something like that.

But it seemed like after the Daytona 500, again, it's kind of a rough season after that. Oh, yeah. My first year in Cup. Oh, my God. Yeah, the Daytona 500 was definitely the start off really well with the pole. I was third going into the last lap. And so I thought maybe I could win too. I was like, right, how am I going to set this up?

And then Dale Jr. pulls out and everybody goes with him. because everybody loves Dale Jr. It's all on super speedways. It's what's behind you that's more important than what's in front of you. So in Indy car, you wanted to catch a toe.

You wanted to catch, that's what you call it. And so what's in front of you matters. What's behind you doesn't matter. But in stock cars, you need people behind you to push you. What's in front of you matters a little bit, but we don't have,

there's no wings in stock cars. So you're not really, it's not really as important. You need people behind you pushing you with like their air and energy. Like their inertia of power will, it like pushes the air actually. So it's,

you want people behind you. That's what creates a lot of speed. And so when someone like me pulls out, my first full-time year in cup and I don't have any friends. The wine and cheese girls. Are you kidding me? Wine and cheese girl. Danica is going to win the first Daytona 500

and first season she races full-time. No ma'am. And so Dale Jr. pulls out and everybody's like, let's go. Damn. So anyway, I finish eight. Cold-blooded. Kind of cold-blooded. uh 2014 you you you're you're with the stew i forgot to mention this year with stewart hoss

racing now um Daytona 500 crash that year 22nd easy to crash at Daytona tauta it certainly seems like it uh six at Atlanta motor speedway finished 28th overall in points how many how many drivers are there total 43 okay so now you're 28th overall in points 2015 get 21st of the Daytona 500 at the STP 500, ninth at Food City 500. You get fined, I enjoyed this,

you get fined $50,000 and penalized 25 points for what's called intentional retaliatory crash. So this was a very exciting weekend where there was, it was like later in the year and it was during the chase

and this one driver, he's a total ass. The chase is when you've got like people that are going to make it to win a series. There's so many races in the season that they had to create some excitement for the fans and some reason to watch at some point and a reset. So they started doing stages during the race where there would be a caution and a semi-checkered flag of like results. So the top 10 would get points based on the top 10 would get points.

And then it'd be a caution and a restart from where you were. And then as the season went on, the last 10 races of the season is called the Chase. chase for the cup. And so the top 16 in points would make it into the chase. And so each weekend there would be four eliminated until there was only four left at the last race. And then whoever beats who wins. So it's very Super Bowl like where it's like the last game is the only thing that matters. The last race.

Of course you had to get there. So it's not totally like that. But you know, you had to beat everybody else in the chase. So even if you finished 20th in the race at the last race, but everyone in the other three in the top four of the championship were behind you, you still won. So anyway, so the chase came along. And so it was during a chase race.

And Lugano has pissed off so many people, including me. He is, like, I remember running like 10th at, you know, Charlotte Motor Speedway having a good race, and it's like halfway through the race. And he just freaking dumps me. He just crashes me going into turn three. And, I mean, I absolutely went over to his bus after it was all over with. And I laid the F into him. and I'd probably cash some checks.

My ass couldn't, my cashed some, how was it? You wrote some checks at your ass couldn't cash. Thank you. And that would be like, I am going to make sure that you don't win this championship and I will take you out. And like I was terrible at taking people out. I would take myself out, which is where the story is going. And so I didn't have a lot of practice in open wheel cars.

There's been since go-karting since I worked on that. And so this driver, driver crashed me and I hit the wall and I came back out and I was lapsed down and I tried to crash him I also crashed myself again and him a little bit but this was I it was not for position so based on so that was what I got penalized for but then also the reason the big reason is because some it was Matt Kenseth had been taken out by Joey Lagano the week before and he was leading and he was going to make it through the next round of the chase but he got taken out and and and and and joey didn't even need to win he just did it and so um so so so the next time at martins next

week at martinsville he goes out there and something happens to kenseth and he's like now a lap down and so he goes out there and the green flag is coming out and lagono's in the top three somewhere and he starts the race and kenseth absolutely annihilates him and he completely in the wall like they're both done. And so Kenseth took Lugano out, but it wasn't for position. And so this was like a very, very aggressive retaliation at the very front of the grid for very big, big points for moving through in the chase. And so NASCAR felt like they had to do something. And so since I crashed someone for not a position based on the fact that something so much more dramatic happened, like my incident was like nothing. Like that was, we were for nothing points and nothing positions.

but but at the front of the grid Matt and Joey and so they had they like had like a hundred thousand dollar fine I think I don't remember was a $70,000 fine or whatever 60 or whatever and points and but anyway so I got a huge penalty and yeah I remember getting that call and being told what my penalty was and I was really sad about it I'm like this sucks and I had probation then I was on probation oh geez I watched it it looked very intentional oh yeah I was like oh that's she's definitely made I'm making that happen. Yeah.

You finished that year, 2015, 24th overall in points. 2016, Daytona 500 crashed, didn't finish. Auto Club 400, you crashed. You also got a $20,000 fine for gesturing at the other driver. I'm sure I called someone number one. I believe that was probably when, I bet that was when Casey Kane dumped me on the front straightaway, maybe. And I almost flipped. Like he, you're going really fast at, at, at, um,

at, um, auto club speedway. It's a two mile track. So you're going probably 220. And, um, he came down the front straightaway and came on to my right side door and got so close that he turned me in the middle of the straightway. And it's not even straight. It's actually at a bit of a, it's a slight turn. Um, and, uh, I call it a dog leg.

Um, and so it's a very long sweeping dog leg. so it turned me up into the wall, boom, hit. And yeah, so I'm sure. I mean, yeah, I've, it was either that or there was another time where I flipped someone off for sure, though. I definitely, like, it was at Bristol, I think. Somebody took me out. And then I went up to the track and I gave him the finger.

You are not happy. I gave him the number one. We've all done it. Talladega, you crashed. 11th at Charlotte, this year, 2016, you finished 24th overall in points. 2017 4th at Advanced Auto Parts

exhibition race 33rd in Daytona you crashed but you got 33rd 10th at Dover 28th overall that year and 2017 you announced that you're gonna you're planning to retire

from full-time race I did at the very last race so the whole season went by and what happened in 17 was that I had this new sponsor starting in 16 I didn't want to give them credit because then they get attention

and they literally just pulled out the next year and it was before the second year started and it was a three-year contract. And it was some bullshit reason and they said and it really didn't make sense and it didn't have to do with me. It was something about like something of other sponsors on the car anyway.

It was just they just didn't want to do it and it was a lot of money. It was like, I don't know, they were paying $30 million a year, 20 or 30 or 30. And so, yeah, so I didn't know what was going to happen when the season started like, were they going to tell me I couldn't raise? what was going to happen, but, you know, I had more races sold on my car for the next season

because I still had other sponsors. They did most of the races, but not all of them. So I had a bunch of other races still sold for that year and the next year because this is like a three-year chunk contract. And so the plan is set. And then other cars on the team had. There was other cars on the team that didn't have as many races sold for the current year we were in, let alone the next year. And I'm like, okay. So anyway, I go race and some other sponsors step up a little bit. And then they announced late in the season that I'm not going to come back to the team. And I just had to go through this process

of like, what do I want to do? What do I really want? And at first when this happened, I got this like inertia of like, I don't want to be done. I'm not ready. Like, holy crap, I was not ready for this. And then as the year went on,

I just kind of sort of falling out of love with the atmosphere and what it took and it was just so grueling and cutthroat. And you just had to be such a dick to do what you needed to do, whether that was on track or off track even with just politicking. And it was just, and I felt like, man, no matter what I did,

I just didn't feel like I was getting what I needed. And even lobbying didn't help. And I just didn't love the team manager for the team I was driving for. I just don't like them. And I don't think he liked me. And I don't think he believed in me. Like the first year I was in Cup, I never got a new car.

I had a full, full budget. I have paid for other cars in my teams for my whole career. And I never get you attract massive sponsorships. Exactly. And and they and and and and so I didn't get any new cars the first year I drove because apparently word was like, oh, well, you're just crash them anyway. And so then I finally get a new car the second year at like, round, 10 races in or something like that. And we go to Kansas. And somebody is a total dick to me.

And so I go to try and take them out and I take myself out with my first. new car and I don't like that I know that I'm probably like justifying this idea but but but I got an how much is a NASCAR cost? I don't know like when you trash with that car I don't know hundreds of thousands I don't know 100,000 I don't know and yeah probably yeah I mean I can buy a regular car for 100,000 so yeah check all right so you trash it so you're never getting new cars Well, I finally, I get one at, I get one. I can't remember exactly the order again, but I'm not sure if it was the very first one. My, the second one I got.

But anyway, I go to this track and I finally get a new car. And I go and I'm, I end up finishing seventh. I qualify in the top 10. I pass Tony Stewart and Dale Jr. And three and four in the same end of the, and I take third place at one point in the race. And like, I'm like, I wish these guys would have given me some more new cars. And so there was a whole big thing with my crew chief And I was not didn't think he was putting in the effort

And as the season went on it seemed to be trying harder And I was like look I'm happy But in the end they took him away from me And they gave me a worse crew chief And one that another driver didn't want And so he just was never on my side And I just didn't like him I think he was a chauvinist

I think he was just a good old boy chauvinist That just didn't like me personally And and so it made my my life at that team not great. And I just didn't feel like I was getting what I needed to show what I could do. And the only, what I really loved. And so going back to all full circle back to the very beginning and when I was racing go-karts, I loved the setting a goal and achieving it and this process. And so if I didn't feel like I had the opportunity to finish better, to have a better season, to accomplish more. For me, there was no more process to have. Like I wanted the delta.

What did I do last year and what did I do this year? I wanted to get better. I wanted to finish better. I was not going to be able to drive for a better team than what I was at because they were a pretty good team. And I then was going to also have to take a big pay cut. And I just didn't, I just was like, I'm not attached. I'm not afraid of change. It doesn't mean it's not scary. It's just like I'm willing to do it.

And so I just hit a point where I just wasn't happy anymore and I let the universe sort of take over. And I was like, look, if a sponsor comes along and they're wanting to do it and they're wanting to do it and there's a team like I will race but if there isn't then we're just going to I'm just going to let the universe handle this one and um you know a sponsor came through and I ended up being like all right I'm done and I remember my dad came to North Carolina and I remember talking to him and telling him like um you know dad like I don't really love racing and I actually like never really loved actually racing like I loved aspects of racing and I've always felt like so hard for me to say that for the first times

first times, meaning like to my dad, too in public. But it wasn't my passion. Like I think a passion is something you do no matter what. And I don't do it now. Like I don't go play racing. I don't go like, hey, I don't, you know, people have passions and they do them all the time. Even if it's just for fun. And I just don't.

And I loved aspects of it. And now I plug those aspects into other things in my life. And I'm plenty busy, trust me. But they're just doing other things. And it wasn't racing. Racing was just the medium. And so I was just ready, I was just like, all right, it's time to be done. And yeah, so then I announced at the end of 2017 at the last race that I was going to be done racing full time

and that I was going to finish my career doing the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500. So the Daytona 500 is February. The Danica Double. It's called the Danica Double because there's something in racing called The Double. And the double was where you do the Indy 500 and the Coke 600 the same day. Indy 500's midday and Coke 600. 600s at night so that's 1100 miles and I actually wanted to do it I thought it'd be kind of cool and interesting and so the first year I didn't because it was kind of the first year in NASCAR and then the

second year I was like all right let's try and do this and this jerk of a of a team manager that I talked about he told me if you if you do this everybody's going to question your how serious you are and I was like okay so I didn't do it and and and so I I did what what I called the danaica double which is just because it represented, you know, the bulk of my career being in these two sports. Are those the only two races you raced in 2018? Yes. And your sponsors or people were just like, yo, for this hype situation, we're in. Yeah.

So for the first time, the sponsors were actually mine. So I went and got the sponsors and negotiated with the teams. Got it. So I had GoDaddy came back on board. They were off my car for a few years, but they came back on for these last two. and some others and we went racing. You made it happen. And the Daytona 500, you crashed.

Oh, yeah. I crashed both of them. Crash both of those races. You want to talk about the universe. Like, yeah, you're done. Yeah, you're done. Yeah, you're really done. You're done early.

That's like a bummer. You're done early. You know, it is what it is. Sorry, let me crack a go. All good. All right. So in the meantime, you wrote another book. The other book is called Pretty Intense.

This is a really good play on words. Thanks. The pretty intense thing. And the book really is about, well, the subtitle is the 90-day mind, body, and food plan that will absolutely change your life by you. A book, clearly, it's broken in three different sections. And this book is kind of like how you live your life. And actually, we met at the CrossFit games. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. So this is when I was in the throes of CrossFit when I wrote this. CrossFit and just cool information. Like you start off in the mind part. I'm gonna read a couple of rules. Three rules of happiness. Rule number one, flow in the right direction. Remember, your thoughts are extremely powerful.

You talk about that, be light, be positive, keep your mind river flowing in the right direction. Rule number two, start by assuming the best. I try to see the good in people and move through my day with the expectation that pretty much everyone is doing their best. It's a very positive attitude. Rule number three, do the next healthy thing. You don't have to master these skills all at once.

You don't have to completely change your outlook on life in an instant. Just do the next healthy thing. What I like about that, there's a thing they say, I didn't really have this attitude, but going through seal training. It was like just make it to the next evolution. Like just make it like whatever you're doing right now, surf torture, pushups, freaking squats, boat carries log PT, whatever we're doing.

Just make it, just do this thing. So this attitude of like just do the next. Don't think about you got to eat healthy for the next year. Echo Charles? Yes, sir. Just think about the next healthy thing. The next meal. What are you going to have for dinner?

And there you go. So pretty cool. And you've got to look. I'm like going to completely summarize some of these sections. Not going to read them all. But that's the type of thing that you talk about in this book, kind of what your mindset is. Because the mind sets up the rest. Yep.

Yep. So it's the first part. You go into this here when we get into the body part. You say a decade ago, I was exercising a lot, but I wasn't particularly happy with. the way I looked. I was running 30 to 45 minutes every single day and doing yoga a couple times a week, but I didn't look like I spent a ton of time working out. Had a small frame, but no muscle definition. I was 95 pounds and didn't look that great. Now I weigh 110 pounds and I look far fitter. Back then, I never really thought about the level of intensity I was

putting into my workouts. It was more about how long I went or how far I could go without stopping. Nowadays, the only running I do is short, fast challenging, all-out intervals, followed by a short walk recovery, repeated 15 to 20 times. Fast forward a little bit. High intensity interval training or hit is the primary force behind my workouts. Nowadays, hit refers to a simply to a workout in which you go hard at maximum intensity for a certain amount of time, then back off for recovery period before going at it hard again.

You can do hit workouts with weights on a bike and a pool, on a treadmill. Basically, whatever your favorite type of exercise, you can modify to create an interval approach. And you've got to look, again, this is like good information for people. you go into the the the good positive things about hit hit releases your bliss compound which is like the exercise yeah yeah and endorphins yep uh hit burns fat faster hit builds endurance you've got definitions around all the stuff hit protects you from diabetes hit

builds muscle and keeps you young hit gets the job done faster hit makes you happier and less stress and then hit is just more fun which is only your opinion but I have to agree with it um you really have that classic, what is it, the classic story arc of where you were working out before and you've always been kind of into working out, but what you were doing was like long runs, long treadmill, long exercise bike. And what's interesting about you is,

like you said earlier, you were in magazines and being photographed this whole time. Yeah. And you actually put in this book, you've got pictures of what you looked like when you exercise like that. Yep. Which, by the way, you were like 22 years old.

19 years old, 20 years old. Everybody looks alright in 19. Yeah, right? And yet you've got pictures of you now. Yeah. And I think most people would be of the opinion that you look fitter and better now than you did then. It's not like you look bad back then. But you just fitter.

And so you went from this trajectory of people training from, hey, I'm just going to run. And that's kind of a workout. And if I sweat it a lot, then I worked out hard. you got into the mode of like using resistance so lifting weights of some kind and then going hard doing the high intensity training making it difficult like don't just say you went right but like show you went because you did huge difference for people to think about if you're a person that's exercising and you're not kind of seeing the results you would hope for there's a really strong possibility that you're not exercising with the kind of intensity that you need.

Yes. At the end of the day, if you aren't exercising with intensity and if you aren't weight training, so weights will always shape the body, right? You can change the size of your body with cardio and movement-like, but you're not going to change a shape of your body.

And when you're looking at a picture, it's one thing in person. There's a little bit more you can see in 3D what's going on. But if you're looking at a picture, what translates is shape. And so muscles are going to give you shape. and they also translate to leanness because yes, you do need some level of

leanness to be able to see muscle, but they give you shape. And so I'd say the only thing I'd add to this book because this book I wrote in 2017, 16, 1617, and it came out the beginning of 2018

is that you can't go hard all the time. And I did not know that. And so when you can only pull a lever so many times and the body is incredible at dealing with the things that we put it through you know I'm sure you know very well but it does take a toll so I've learned since then how important because I went through a pretty big health journey in the last few years of well I can get in as much or as little as you want but it really took my body away from that and I gained weight

and I looked different and I was like what's going on so what was What's going on? One of the things is I did too much. I worked out too much. I would work out, sometimes I go to CrossFit for like two hours. I do a class and I'd be like, hey, what do you want to do? What else do you want to do? And we'd you do all another workout.

So so much intensity, which is cortisol and which spikes your cortisol. And then cortisol will dump the blood sugar from your muscles into your bloodstream. And so then you get into more of like storage because you're using what's readily available instead of what's stored and because it's getting dumped into the bloodstream. And so there's just so much trickle-down effect that happens when you just are only doing hard stuff all the time. Also, recovery. So I would just like, I didn't know what it was like to not be sore.

You know, I'd just always be, like, taxed. And so then your body's in a state of inflammation. So that's hard on the hormones. Then my diet was not ideal, meaning I was super good at it. Like I was very disciplined. But there's only so long that you can have a certain way of eating and restrict yourself. So I ate paleo forever. And so I didn't eat beans and grains and, you know, carbohydrates really, other than starches like sweet potatoes and some squashes and stuff and berries and fruit.

But I was probably too restrictive in that way and just like not nourishing the body and giving it what it needed totally. And then I had breast implants. So that was one of the vanity things that I did for myself as a girl back when I was like 32. and so 33, and I had them for seven and a half years, and I got them out a year and a half ago. And so those things are toxic. So those things did, had horrible gut health. I started like my hair wasn't growing anymore. And you can see in some of these pictures, I used to have super long hair.

It just wasn't healthy anymore, so I cut it short. So I was like, well, maybe it's just age. And so it's finally growing out a little bit. But my hair wasn't as healthy, gut issues. I had super high heavy metals, some mold. all my homeroes were tanked, all of them, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, everything. My cortisol spike was in the middle of the night instead of in the morning when I woke up, so it was kind of flip-flopped.

So my adrenal function was totally screwed up. And so I just, it took a couple years to get things back. And it's honestly finally the first time that I'm back where I was like back then, when those photos, back in 2017. Like it's been a long journey. Damn, that sounds like a rough one. Six, seven years of like trailing off, like gaining weight, not knowing why. It's one thing when you gain like a few pounds.

You're like, oh, okay. But then like, I mean, I probably went honestly from like 110 pounds. I mean, I weighed like 107 in these photos. Like that's and so, but from 110 pounds to probably like 125, which is a lot on someone like me. And to not have any way to fix it. Like I couldn't eat less. I couldn't work out more. Nothing worked.

And my body was just in a total. total shutdown mode of like we're we're we're we're not we're not we're not showing up for you anymore and uh took a lot of time like loving loving not loving myself metaphorically but like being kind to my body like doing a workout and then having a recovery day I used to take no rest days like it's in the book to not take a rest day because I said they happen naturally and they did they did happen naturally for me but you can't red flags over here for jocco because that's the same thing I say. I'm like, oh, you're going to get rest days, you know, like when you travel or when the water heater breaks. Yeah, when you get sick that one day or like, you know, you just like,

you have to, and that's what I would do. The rest days, they were a little bit more built in for me because I would go race every weekend. So like, you know, so they were a little bit more built in, but I just like take no rest days. I didn't do cheap meals either because I'm like, well, I don't need that food. I don't crave a pizza. I don't crave feeling bad because that's exactly what it made me do. But one of the problems was, is that my gut health was so bad that if I did eat anything off the menu, it really did make me feel bad. Now I know I don't have that anymore and I can eat whatever I want and I don't choose to eat whatever I want. But if I do, I used to literally take a bite of something that was not on the paleo menu and it would make me have, I would be bloated

and uncomfortable. Now it doesn't do that to me. So it's like nice to be able to just like function and just be able to, oh yeah, I'll have a bite. Oh, that's nice. Okay, fine. So you, so, So what changes you make diet-wise? I just went away from, I just started eating like complex carbohydrates again. So I started eating rice and oatmeal and things like that. I still don't eat gluten on purpose, but if I do, it's okay. It doesn't bother me. I just, it's not in my favorite foods anyway.

So I don't love pasta. It's not my favorite. And I mean, pizza, I don't really care. I don't really get that that often. I mean, I like it. It's fine. But it's pretty not very. nutritious.

And then what's the rest protocol looking like? I literally only lift three days a week. That's it. And I walk other than that. That's it. I lift three days a week. Echo Charles is a huge proponent of rest and rest days. Where were you when I needed that info?

No, it was around. Well, look at you, you're jacked. So clearly you know what to do. Resting does work. Resting does work. Look at Echoes. He rests those biceps. I mean, look at you're wearing your mom.

on the outside of your skin they're so big that's the byproduct right there yeah did you learn the hard way no um I was fine then I always had rest programmed into the thing I was a personal trainer at one point in my long life so you didn't have so you you did it on faith or you did it on evidence of your results or like because if you love fitness it's so easy to take fitness to the extreme yeah and still we'll do that too sometimes still where you know I did the no rest days and oh I feel good or whatever until the day comes you're like wait I had like a few days in a row where my workouts are like shitty then I'm like oh wait I'm not and then I just won't but no the the programming that I kind of you know there's all kinds of approaches to exercise even just

resistance training alone there's so many protocols and they all work if you don't correctly so the one that I kind of stumbled upon early on had rest programmed in and they explained really specifically why you need to rest this much at this time and stuff like that so you're convinced. The literature convinced you. Oh, yeah. And the program was so freaking effective at the time. It still is, by the way.

But it is this big beyond belief. Big beyond belief. Leo Costa, Jr., hell yeah. But it's like, you know, it's one of those deals where it's like, hey, these three protocols right here, like the exercise, what you do in the gym, what you do out and the two outside the gym, which is what you eat and then how much you rest. Like you have to do all three.

Otherwise, the whole table collapses. Yeah, protein is also very important. I forgot I took a little detour with protein. I watched what the health at the end of. 2017 and I was like oh shoot maybe I shouldn't eat meat anymore and then I went through this I went through this mental game of like maybe protein is like propaganda and maybe we don't and so then I stopped eating meat meat I'd only fish at night pretty much and I was eating like substitutes of things and protein powders and pea protein which pea protein is laden with heavy metals because it's in plants

and so and so I and fake eggs you know and I was like it was and so so then I so that's another thing so Then I wasn't eating protein. How long did you do that for? Years. Oh, yeah. I had a friend and, you know, a friend that I lives on the other coast and I'd see him occasionally and his wife was like vegan and so he became vegan. And I saw him and he looked like terrible.

He probably like gone. I felt horrible when I saw him. I thought he said he came into my house. He's like, I have to talk to you. And I was like, oh God, he's got like cancer or something. Yeah. And it turns out that him and his wife were having some issues. And that's what we wanted to talk to me about.

But when he said that to me, I'm like, oh, this is like, I'm about to lose my friend. And it wasn't that at all, you know, he was going through a hard time with his wife. But I was like, dude, we're going out. Like, let's go, fill me in. And he starts talking to me. And he's like, well, you know, I've been vegan. I was like, bro, we're going to get steak like right now. We're going to get steak right now.

I go, you look just like terrible, bro. This is not good. And sure enough, it's like one of those things. Like, you do that to your body. you take that protein away. Totally. I mean, look at all the stack of this.

Too much working out. Not enough protein. Stress. I was in a stressful relationship. I had retired from racing. Like there was just so many things crashing down that my body went, bye-bye. So rest is something that I have,

I would have to add as an amendment to this because, and just like, you know, having some variation. But basically lift weights have rest, eat enough protein and, and be in a Catholic, calorie deficit if you want to lose weight.

Like that's it. It's really, it's not going to, it's, it's what it is. I also had someone trying to convince me that calories didn't matter if your blood sugar didn't spike because that's the mechanism. And I'm like, so, you know, I like try everything. Yeah. But I tried everything in the health department. Like I did peptides.

I did, um, ebu treatments, which I really loved, just like a blood dialysis. I did, um, I did, uh, NAD. I don't know if you tried NAD. I did a bunch of NAD. I did enemas. I did coffee enemas as well as like suppositories. I did, I mean, I tried everything, everything, including like taking 40 pills a day and expensive urine basically is what that makes.

Elimination diets from foods based on what my food sensitivity test showed. I went to the, I did lymphatic massages. I did, you name it. Like I did, it was exhausting and it took so much time and it took so much money. And I know that I don't, I have so many more resources in that department and I know so many more people. But what I said the whole time, everybody was like, you're just also getting older. I'm 41 now. And they were like, you know, you're 39 or you're 40.

And like, that's just, you know what happens. And you know what I said? Screw that. Yeah. That's not how it's going. going down. There is no reason why I can't look the way I want to look, feel the way I want to feel. I'm not buying it. I'm living till 120 and this is not how it's going for me. And guess what? I look like I did when I was in this book. Yeah, you do. Freaking outstanding. Now,

you get, this book comes out, what else? You got all kinds of crazy things going on right now. You got a wine company. You make wine. I do. I do. I love wine. I went to, I went to Napa Valley back in 2006 on a vacation. And I was standing. So the trip started off with going to French Laundry, which is a super fancy restaurant with the tasting menu. Oh, yeah. That's where Gavin Newsom went during the lockdown.

Yeah, because that's... He got in a lot of trouble for that one. Yeah, exactly. He didn't go to a restaurant. He went to the best restaurant. And he was maskless and, you know, we got to practice what you preach, man, especially. I mean, what do you expect when you go to a public place

and you're not following the rules? Like, you know what? that shows is that he's never following the rules, right? Because when someone like gets caught in a situation where you're like, duh, like that means they're doing it all the time and they're not getting caught, so they just think they're not going to get caught. It's like when people cheat, you know, and they get away with it and they're like, oh, then they just start getting sloppy because they think they're never going to get caught. And then you're like, dude, how did you, how many more women, you know? I mean, girls can do it too. I'm not just

But so I went to French Laundrie for dinner, and then there was a wine tasting set up for 10 a.m. the next day, and I thought, oh, my God, how am I going to do that? Like, I'll be just so not feeling good from dinner, because it's going to be 20 courses and so much wine, and I didn't, and it's a much more sophisticated experience than that. So go up to the, it was Quintessa, went up to the top of this property on, like, one of their trucks and got out, and there's rose petals leading out to the end of the knoll with a picket. table and kishes and fruit and wine and everything and I'm swirling my white wine at 10 a.m., which is 100% acceptable in Napa Valley. And I just remember standing there going, man, it'd be really cool to have something like this someday. And I thought to myself, but I don't have 50 million dollars yet. And so I was like, I thought it cost $50 million. I just made up a number. And I thought, and I also knew yet was able to be put on the end of this because I'm again, only like 25 and and so that was received. It was in that time frame.

It was in it. It was 2006. So it was just a year and a half after it got really going. And I thought that it was just an idea. So this is a total example of thoughts become things and how important it is to think about what you know, what's going through your head and know what you want. I can think about what you actually want because this was a seed idea. literally said in my own inner monologue, this would be really cool.

And then two years later, went back out there on a trip, and the winemaker at Quintessa was now working for some other people. He was like, oh, you come back to the Valley, let me know. So I did and went up and visited him and also went and saw some properties. Like, oh, I wonder what it's like. How expensive is it? No, let's check out Sonoma. Maybe that's the right area.

And I'm like, nope, Napa Valley. Came back over, found something I liked and ended up buying it at the beginning of 2009. and sort of working on planting the vineyard and it started from dirt and so it starts from scratch so I didn't need $50 million but I did need some millions and you know you start by buying the property and then you planted and I finally had a bottle of wine for sale in 2017 so you know it's a long game process

and I'm still in the hole and I'm still I still have to put money into it but it's totally a passion project and I and really all of my companies outside of racing so what I loved and like so really revered and like respected about what I was able to do in racing was that just being out there was enough for people like just being out there was inspiring to people and it was never enough for me I don't know I'm curious actually when you hear when you hear athletes saying things like I'm just honored to be here do does that resonate with you like I'm at the Olympics I'm just just honored to be here meaning I'm not here to win I'm just

happy to be. That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah. It doesn't really resonate. It doesn't resonate at all with me. The only way it would resonate with me is like if I was making sure I was mentally staying humble and being like, hey, it's an honor to be here representing the United States of America and I'm going to pour everything I can into this competition.

Yeah. Yeah. Something like that I could understand. Okay. Yeah. But just being like, yo, I'm just happy. And maybe it's my own like triggers seeing it as like, because I have so much of like wanting more. And look, clearly it didn't result in me winning all the time.

I didn't win all the time. But I had that level of drive. And so I don't know if I would have accomplished what I did if I didn't have the level of drive that I couldn't even relate to someone. Even if they were just putting sort of like a nice humble answer together. Like I was so much more like, I have to go out there and I have to do it. So I wonder, would I have had a worse, a less successful career if I wouldn't have thought the way I thought. I'm not sure. Would it have been better?

I don't know. I can't do it over. So I just can't relate to that. And so everything I want to do, I want to do at a really high level. And so I, so anyway, so I start this winery and I do it with the best. I'm doing it with, you know, the wine makers picking the property and the, you know, the winemakers picking the grapes and the farmers. And so make great wine. And it's doing okay?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it still costs money, but it makes money, but, you know, it's like things also cost money. And then you have to take, it takes money to make money. So then it's like, open up the tasting room in Calistoga. And then we need this new equipment. And then, oh, a fire came through your property. Now that's expensive too.

And so. How often do you go up there and just chill? I don't, not that often. I go up there a couple times a year, but I also do a lot of events outside of it. So, but yeah, it's just, I mean, it's just, it's just, it's, It's just thoughts become things. And it was just this idea of like, and that's why the name of the wine is called Somnium,

which is a Latin word that just means to dream. Do you ever have ideas? Well, I shouldn't ask you this question. I should say sometimes I have ideas and they're dumb. Oh, I'm like, I'm glad I didn't do that thing because it wouldn't have been smart. I have so many ideas. Like we started and I was like,

guys, my first idea, my idea for a new company being like to do a driving school, but like a school for like driving license, not like racing license. and teach 16-year-olds how to drive so that we can have a new generation of better drivers because the curriculum that's 70 years old can't, it needs and must need an update. And it definitely wasn't written by a race car driver, I'm sure. So if I drive well on the road, well is, I suppose, up for negotiation because I don't

follow the rules, but the rules are just a little tame for me. So, and I can do that, and I have a large comfort zone because I have a good experience. So I'm like, maybe I should do a driving school. But I have tons of ideas. And will that ever come to fruition? I don't know. I mean, my idea that I didn't even say out loud came to fruition and started a, you know, started a winery from scratch.

So thoughts become things. You have to be careful of what it is that you're putting your mind on. My mind, my manifestation of things goes really fast. If I want a house, I look at, I'm like, oh, I want a house. And then I'll just buy a house like within a year. I'm like, oh, shoot, that happened really fast. What made you decide? Because you have your own podcast.

Yes. What made you decide to start that? I like talking to people and I like asking questions. And I like learning about people. And I realized that my empathy is in the form of understanding. So I'm not one of these people that, like, feels your feelings. I'm not, like, crying when you're crying. And I have a lot of empathy for dogs and animals.

That's where mine lies. Like, I can literally see a dog suffering in a video, and I start crying. Or I'll just swipe. I can't even watch it, you know? But humans, I'm like, eh. Suck it up. It's right. I know.

I had an expression that I said for years. which is try harder. Literally try harder. Everyone knew it. And I try harder is also why I had to tell you the health story, by the way. So, or the health journey. But I, yeah, so you, I'm a hard charger. And I was listening to your podcast and one of the things you did,

you were talking about doing like ayahuasca. Yeah. You've done that. Yeah. Yeah. What was that all about? Well, I'm very curious about the mystical, world. I love being in the mystery. So I don't buy it all. I don't think that it's all true necessarily,

but I'm very curious. Like even when I, way back when I, it's when I got married, I became a Catholic. And so I went to catechism classes. I get that word a little messed up sometimes. But I was always such a skeptic. I would question everything. Like one of them was like, why do we not meet on Fridays during Lent? If you're going to do it, why are you doing it? And I was like, oh, because it was a luxury back in there. I'm like, oh, well, then, so I just pick something that's a luxury because it's not me. I mean, it's not a luxury. That's like normal now.

So I want to know why. So my, like, understanding is really important. So I, so yeah, so I love to understand people. And so I ask a lot of questions. And it can read off in not a podcast setting in a regular life setting. Like, if you're telling me about something going on, I'm like, oh, and then I just dive into it. And I'm not really like hearing you out and just sort of whole.

holding the space to listen, I start asking questions. You might think I'm actually doubting you or questioning you or like not buying it or just not very sensitive to you and maybe you even get defensive. But that's how I understand you. It's how I can relate. It's how I, it's just my empathy language. You're intensely curious.

Intensely curious. Yeah, I love to get layers and layers deeper. So, you know, ayahuasca is one of those things that gives you access to these other space. that are to learn. Like to learn, I love to learn about myself too. And sometimes doing podcast, actually, anytime I do interviews, I learn about myself

because I'm willing to process out loud. So I really just love to learn about myself. So I planned a trip and, yeah, it was back. I mean, Aaron has talked about it. This is when I was with Aaron. And he talked about it on Aubrey Marcus' podcast. And it was my Christmas present to him.

And what did you see? It didn't work out for me. I don't know. It worked out all in the end because we went in March of 2020. And there was a trip was supposed to be like four or five days in Machupeachia and then in Peru. Also it's right as COVID kicked off. Literally. Well, this is the story.

And then the second half the trip was supposed to go to Patagonia and like have a relaxing part of the trip. And then all the stuff with COVID was kind of coming along. And there was another couple with us. and they have children. And so they were a little bit more like up on what was going on in the world. And I'm very Pollyanna when it comes to how everything's going to work out.

I totally think everything's going to work out. I don't know where I got that, but I do. And I was like, it's fine. It's no big deal. Everything's fine. And then it was like, okay, well, all right, maybe we won't go to Patagonia. I guess we could go home.

And like the luxury was Aaron had a plane. So everything was very flexible. And so it was like, well, we'll just, we'll do integration because you have to do integration afterwards to talk about the experience and what happened and really like take the information because doing the medicine is not necessarily the, it's not the work, it can be work because you can get kind of sick

and I did, but it's sort of where it shows you something. It gives you some information and then what you do with it is really the process. So the integration is important to talk about what happened. And then, so we were gonna stay for the day, like during the day and then fly home. And then in the second ceremony, middle of the night, and pop up because the shamans are like,

Danica, Aaron, wake up. The pilots called and we're like, what? And I, like, what? And I sat up. And it was like, they say we need to leave. The borders are closing by 10 a.m. And I was like, what? And so it was midnight.

And we had to leave by like 6 a.m. to go to the airport because the border was shutting. And so we had to find like a big enough vehicle to get us on. Anyway, so go back to the room, pack up and leave in the morning and do integration on the plane, took the shaman's home because they actually lived in Costa Rica. And the only country open on the way home to California was Costa Rica. And if we would have left in the afternoon, we would have had to stop in Lima because of the altitude.

We wouldn't have had enough fuel to get to Costa Rica. So leaving early, it was cooler. and we actually were able to get all the way to Costa Rica. So like it was by the skin of our teeth, we got out of there. And yeah, that was how, that was, that's the ayahuasca story. Did you like discover anything deep and meaningful about yourself? I did. I did.

That you could apply? I did. And I didn't. And I haven't done ayahuasca since then. Mm-hmm. And I've been applying it for years, working on applying it, which is basically, I had this idea that I would find a partner that would complete me, that would make me, that would be like a perfect balance and like would be,

everything was like perfectly symbiotic. It was like everything was magical and loved each other reciprocally and, you know, everything was just perfect. I just thought that somebody would complete that circle. And I was shown that I was not going to get that and that I was going to have to get it with myself. it was only going to come from yourself. And I was really, really, really, really sad about that. I was really, really sad.

And I cried a lot. And I, and I, and then after I sort of was like, okay in this experience in my mind, I accepted and it was like, you actually will get what you, you get what you'll get what you want actually. It just won't happen until you find it with yourself first. Like the feeling you're looking for. you can't find it with someone else until you find it with yourself first. So that is what's been happening over the last years.

And honestly, like I had people ask how my life's going. I'm like, wow, it's like really fun. It's a really good life. And I don't look at relationships like I used to being super codependent and feeling like I had to adapt because remember the conversation about my dad and about like not being good enough. I would always overcompensate

and always try and fix myself or change something. And now, and I'd always take it so personally. I'd always be like if somebody didn't like me, it's like, what's wrong with me? And something is wrong with me. And it was something I needed to fix. And now I look at it. I'm like, well, it doesn't mean something's wrong.

It just means we're not right. Like, somebody, people can be great people, but not match, you know? And I also used to mistake sameness for compatibility. And that was a problem too, because, you know, you don't want someone that's exactly the same as you need someone someone that complements you in certain ways.

Like you can't have two alphas, right? You can't have people that, you know, You can't have one person that always wants to go out and one person that never wants to go out. Like you have to be compatible and sameness is not compatibility. So, yeah, I learned a humongous lesson. It was the great, it was honestly of all the things that I've done. And I've done the things. I've done mushrooms.

I mean, I've done a mushroom journey. I've done one like specific one that was a very high dose to learn. Is this the heroic dose? Yeah, I did a hero's dose. I did a five grams. Don't you see death or something like this? No, actually I did have a little bit of a moment where, it was at one point in time, there was this energy of like collective energy of people that

was like, oh, come this way. And it was like upward. They're like, you know, and they said, if you want to be an ascended master, you have to leave your form behind. Just come on. And I was like looking up going, uh, no, I think I want to be human. And I had to choose to be human. And then I came back down. And then from that point on in the experience, I had to build every construct that it took to being human again. And the first one that I had to agree to was the mind. I had to agree to this construct that's not real. And I, in the experience at first, I knew that this was not real. And I was like, oh, shoot, how am I ever going to come back? Because I know it's not real. And you actually have to believe it's real to be in this experience.

And the first thing I thought was my sister's going to be so mad at me. Because she just doesn't understand this part of me. She's like a mom of four. She loves being home. She doesn't do any of this stuff. And I was like, my sister's going to be so mad at me. And I'm going to miss my family. And I was like, Oh, shoot. And so, but I built those constructs back to being human. And then I also feel like I understood why we have amnesia as people. Why don't we remember where we came from?

What's the point? Why don't we know? And that's because if we knew the full extent of the truth, then we wouldn't be able to play this game because we have to, we have to forget to play the game. Right on. Have you ever done any? I'm guessing you probably haven't done that stuff.

No, no. It might not call you and it has to call you. Yeah, I've not done it. any of that stuff. I've never even smoked pop before. So like I drank for a while when I was in the SEAL teams, you know, there's a big drinking culture and I got like, that's what we're doing. Okay, cool.

That's what we're doing. And then pretty much when I got out of the teams, I didn't have any reason to drink anymore. And I just kind of stopped drinking. And that was that. And now I'm very, I'm definitely anti-alcohol. And I've become more and more anti-alcohol because it really messes some people up. And-

You mean just like on a like sleep and that. Or do you mean like mentally like they just, it's like a coping method. Like the sleep stuff, I kind of feel like whatever. Hey, but when people, I've seen the lives get destroyed, you know, through alcohol. And I look at it like probably, I don't know what the number is, but out of every hundred people that drink, there's probably 97 of them that are going to be totally perfectly fine and good to go. And there's three of them that's going to wreck their lives. And they don't know who they are. You know, you don't know if you're one of those people.

And so you just get sent down a downward. spiral. And so I just can't really support it. And then the freaking ayahuasca and stuff, you know, it's like a big thing in the veteran veterans right now. Oh, well, I mean, have you heard, I mean, Bob Parsons who owned GoDaddy? He is, he was in the Marines. And he, he contributes coming home to doing LSD mushrooms, ayahuasca, doing those

experiences, helped him finally come home. And he's an advocate for others to do the same to like it. And he's talked about it publicly. Like he, yeah, it was for him. It was very important. Yeah.

And so I have a bunch of friends that have done it. I have a bunch of friends that are working with organizations to grow it and make it more accessible to people. I just feel fine. And you don't need it. Yeah. It's totally fine. You don't need it.

And like, and yeah. So I've, the way I described it to some of my friends that have that were like, oh, you should try it. And I'm like, I feel like, and you can relate to this analogy that I've given, that I feel like I'm going down the highway at 80 miles an hour. And you want me to pull my car over, take the engine apart and then put it back together and then like start driving again and hopefully everything works.

It's not for everybody. I don't think I need to do that. I really don't want to take that risk. Yep. You know, the screw gets left out or whatever. You know, like the cotter pin that your dad left off the freaking break. Like I don't really need that to be happening with my brain. So it makes me a little bit, a little bit nervous.

but yeah so so true I but I have friends that I've had been helped immensely by it so I'm not like anti yeah the the medicine yeah I'm not anti it sounds a lot better than drug yeah I'm not anti the drug but I or anti the medicine but I just it's not for me but it is also used more medically in my mind like there's sometimes I use mushrooms recreationally but I mean when I'm talking about the ayahuasca experience like the heroes dose that was I was I was using it not to escape or not to, I was trying to, I wanted to have a deeper experience. Yeah. And like I said, I have some friends that have absolutely been helped in a huge way by it.

So great. I am hearing now that there are some people that it's not helping and it's making worse. So that's not a story that is getting propagated very much. Right. I'm not sure why it's getting not propagated. Probably because they're kind of, you know, when you're going into the downward spiral, you don't say, yeah, let me come on a podcast and tell you about how, fucked up I am now.

Well, if it's also a downward spiral, it might mean they keep doing it. Maybe they're using it as a coping. Maybe they're not actually doing the work and they're just doing the drug or doing the medicine. And it's not really being used as medicine. It's being used as like they would call it in the spiritual world like a spiritual bypass or you're sort of bypassing the actual work that it's meant to provide you as opposed to. So you're just doing it to do it. You know, you're like, oh, if I do this, then I'll. But it's not in the, like I've only had truly two real experiences.

and I mean over the course of from 2020 until, you know, for over three years, three and a half years. I've really had two experiences and they have shown me so much. And you can integrate for years. That ayahuasca experience in 2020, I've been integrating for years. When you stopped racing, was it like a weight off your back? Did you feel like, when you were racing, was it always like, how am I going to do? How am I going to do? How am I going to do?

Everyone's watching. Did you feel like massive pressure for those 25 years or whatever it was that you raised? I did. Did that leave a mark? I think that was, you know, I mean, I retired and all this stuff. So that could have been my body also just like nothing's free. You know, as they, you know, many great philosophers have said and psychologists that nothing is free. I think Jordan Peterson is the one that comes to mind.

You know, you just don't get away with anything in life. And so I can't get away with working that hard, being that stress, putting myself in that, in so many compromising positions, emotionally, physically, mentally, and not have some sort of like come back from that, right? Some sort of rebalance that my body and mine need. And so, I mean, yeah, it was very stressful to the point where now I do this F1 stuff. And I've been asked by, you know, multiple teams. Like at the end of last year, Red Bull was like, oh, like there was a word of like, hey, we'd like to put you in a car, not to race, but just to drive it. Like, do you want to drive a Formula One car? And I didn't honestly, I was like hard for me to say,

feel bad I feel like I should just oh yeah no problem I don't honestly I don't have the confidence like I don't it's too much stress it's too much pressure I trust that I would be able to do what I do but I don't I am not ready for what it takes so when I say yes to anything I'm saying yes to everything which means like I'm not just yes and then I wing it or like when I say yes I'm I'm saying yes to the whole kit and caboodle because I know I don't want to be bad at anything so like back like track to 2018, I was asked to do the SB's, to host the SB's. And at first, I didn't know if I should do it or not. And it took a long time for me to decide because I knew that like, I'm not funny. I'm not a dancer. I'm not a singer. I'm like, why me, right? I'm like, I don't know.

I'm not really like a, I'm not like a present the SB's kind of person. I'm not Drake. I'm not Justin Timberlake. I'm not Jimmy Kimmel. Like I don't know what I bring to the table. And so it took a long time to decide because I knew that it was going to require. me to like find that what is that thing about me that I can put on stage that will be somewhat entertaining and so I knew that it would require me to dig pretty deep and do a lot of work and so I it took a long time to say yes because I knew I was saying yes to all the work and I do it's the same for everything I do everything I do so this whole post racing life it's been like a journey it goes kicking in by yeah I like that the this whole post race life that's where

you're at now. And it seems like you're in a pretty awesome spot. Yeah. I feel like I'm just, I'm having so much fun in life. I mean, I work a lot right now. I do need a break. I'm ready for that. I feel like I've been going since basically May, like almost every day. I had one week where I did nothing when I got back. So I left in May for the Indy 500. I was at home for about three weeks in Indiana with my family. And I did the Indy 500. I did, um, I did, um, I did, um, you know, um, Montreal, F1 race, I did some work in between, and then I went to Europe for six weeks and vacationed, which, look, it's a vacation, I get it, but I'm not home.

And then, and I was traveling somewhere every three to five days. And then I finished out of vacation. In my opinion, going to some other country, people talking other languages, being in a different room, getting on a train, like all this stuff. It was a lot of work. There was a lot of work in there. I don't want any of that. So then I finished up with Budapest for Formula One.

And then I flew back to Indiana and I did some more. That's actually where I ended up staying longer in Indiana because it was 120,000 degrees in Scottsdale. And I was like, and my sister is obsessed with CrossFit. And I love it, but I don't do it anymore. And so she loves going to the game. She follows all the athletes. She knows how they're doing they.

She watches the competitions. I watch none. But I don't mind. I love going to the games too. It's fun. I love watching competition. And so I'll go to any sporting event. And except cricket.

That seems like it would be really boring. Sorry, sorry for the cricket fans out there. But I, so I was like, all right, I'll stay and we'll go to the cross-bic games. By the way, cricket's the number two most popular sport in the world after soccer. I'm obviously missing something. There was like something that just happened in India and it was like the most watched thing of all time crazy. Yep. So, yeah, cool.

I'm wrong. Go ahead, Danica. Just talk smack about most of the world playing their cricket games. Exactly. This is why people don't all like me. But at least you can respect my authenticity. I don't like cricket. but many do

and so I'm missing something but I and so I decided I was like all right well fine I'll stay and then we'll go to the CrossFit games and I was so lucky to meet you and the way that happened I was like thinking oh my God Jock's sponsoring this

I was like I wonder if he's gonna be here I so want to meet Jock and so then a couple days had gone by you came to the last day and I was I didn't think you were coming and I was like that would make sense I understand that and maybe you're just sponsoring it and that's totally fine

and then I don't know if it was your manager or like someone that was managing the new product line. Someone in the crew or whatever. The team. And so somebody said you were there and I was like, oh great. And then he started walking, you guys started walking towards the direction that I was in.

And he looked over at me and waved and was like, Danica and I was like perfect. And I might have said hi to him, but I can't remember for sure or not, but I was like, hi, shoo, and I went over right to you and I just started talking. And I realized that I'm, this is the direct me as I just like, go right in. Well, they said something to be like,

they're like, hey, Danica Patrick's here. I'm like, where's she at? Let's go. Let's go say what's up. Oh my God. Great. Well, I'm so flattered. We had equal interest or at least interest. And so sometimes I don't know if anybody even knows some of it doesn't even know who I am. And that's totally fine too. But we had a great little 15, 20 minute conversation that we decided we'd end up finishing this way. I brought you, I brought you drinks. You did, which is so good. I mean, I've finished all the cookies. By the way, the cookies are like the best snack. Like, I don't know why they're so satiating. But that in a cup of coffee is, and they're gone.

I've ate them all. The drinks are so good. There's a pink lemon. I like the pink mist, but I also like the sweeter one, the savage one. That's a little of the sweeter one. That's, and I, you know, but the pink lemonade's great. We have coffee flavored milk coming. Oh, stop it.

No, I'm serious. Oh, that's going down. Yeah, that's going down. That's going down. I don't really like coffee, but of course I had to try it. And it tastes kind of like tiramisu, like that coffee flavor. That's, it's so good. It's ridiculous.

So the products are seriously, like, well done. Appreciate it. Yeah, and the drinks really do work. The goes really go. Yes, they're for real. What is it that makes you go so much with the go? It's really the neutropics. So there's only 95 milligrams of caffeine in there, but it's got alpha-GPC.

It's got thermobroming. So it's got other things in it that make it feel like it's more than caffeine. Oh, 100%. But it doesn't get you all jittery. So, yeah. We put a lot into it. it. Go works. Yeah, go works. So basically today I've drank a mulk for breakfast and I haven't, I haven't drank enough water.

I've definitely been drinking all these liquids. That's my life right there. Mulk for breakfast, maybe a go for podcast and then it's on. Does that get us up to speed? We good. Does that get us up to speed? We covered your podcast. We covered your wine. Oh, I heard in your podcast you make candles. I do. I have candles. Yeah. So I took a, actually I'm headed to Egypt in a few more days again. I went to Egypt at the beginning of 2021, and I'm obsessed with, like, obviously loving the deep ancient history as much as I love excavating, like, the nature of reality, which is where sort of those plant medicines come in. And so I love it, and I love Egypt, and I went there in 2021. And at the end of the trip, we went and visited this aromacologist, and he was telling us about the smells and what they do and the sort of the bio-reaction, a biochemistry reaction to, you know, everything for. from mur to frankincense and all these different oils.

And so I bought $500 worth of oils and brought them home. And so I ended up making these candles. I made four different candles out of it. And they're curated for different places in the house based on sort of the essential oils and the vibe that each one has. And so they are really good. And they're in a wine glass. So when you're done with it, you just wash it and you have a wine glass.

So it's called Voyant, which is stand. Yeah, exactly. Vointe means the seers. So it's kind of about sort of seeing more of the truth. Right. So anything else? Anything else I'm missing? No, I mean, race broadcasting and podcasting and wine and candles.

And I feel like I always forget one, but I, but let's just call that good. Let's call that. Some sponsor got. My new sponsors are all in the health and wellness industry. They're like, they're like stem cells and PRP and like all kinds of super cool stuff. So I'm into all that as well. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible, incredible deep dive on my life.

Well, I'm glad we did it. Was there any stories that surprised you? Well, I did a lot of research. So I didn't think I was going to get surprised. I mean, obviously it's the first time you talked about that one deal where you had to work through some sponsorship and some payment and stuff like that. So that's the kind of one I hadn't heard before. But, you know, in reading your books and then doing research and watching interviews with you

and stuff like that. I don't think I got surprised. No, I didn't get surprised. But I definitely, it's interesting. I guess the parts that you didn't really talk about in some of the other things was just like, what I wanted to know was, first of all, like how you're dealing with fear.

And I'm always interested in someone that's really talented at something and what it seems like for them to be talented in that thing. And do you realize how talented you are and when do you realize that? And at a certain point being like, well, I wasn't as talented as this other person who was more talented me. And that's why they were able to win. And I was only able to get fourth place or seventh place.

I was only able to. Like, that's a real thing that people contend with in life. And everyone has to deal with that unless you're like Michael Jordan. Or I mean, how many people just get to be like, oh, I'm literally the best person in the world? Not many people get to do that. Even like a story, Lewis Hamilton's won seven championships. He was so close to winning his eighth a couple of years ago. and it was a very controversial ending

to the Formula One season with Max for Stappen, and he won. But even, you know, we were just, I'm, I don't know when this is coming out. I don't know if I can conclude this, but I'm going to be in the new Drive to Survive series season. And so we were doing a huge sit-down for like six hours the other day. And one of the things that came through was, like, Lewis at one point, like in the year has, like, doubted his talent.

So you can be the best in the world and still doubt yourself. I doubted myself all the time. The amount of times I would go back to the bus and cry about how I qualified or what happened, Like all the time. I mean, it's just human. I think it's just, you know, I think it's part of being good at things too. It's like you have to to get better. You have to think you need to.

Right. Yeah. And I always need. I'm like, I'm not the best at anything I do. That's the same with me. And I think that's the same with people that are constantly trying to get better. They're like, because, let's face it. If you're like, oh, I'm the best driver, well, you wouldn't care.

You wouldn't go in the bus. Cry, you just sit there and be like, that was only because the car, that was only because the track. A hundred percent. Instead of being like, I wouldn't have done this better. Yeah. How can I fix it? Yeah, I don't know.

I'm always growing, always learning. And if there's one thing that I, is like the point of life to me, it's to grow and evolve. Yes, indeed. People can find you. You're at Danica Patrick.com. You can pretty much link to everything from there. You got to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all at Danica Patrick, which is very nice, very easy. Echo Charles, you got any questions?

Yes, I do. Okay. I'm very, I'm hopeful that I'm, I'm going to be oval respectful on these, but hey, you want to never know. You can't make a mistake right now. Okay, there we go. Your intention is because you care and you're curious. Yes, ma'am.

You ever watch Days of Thunder? I totally have seen Days of Thunder. Is that your jam? Excellent movie. Oh, okay. That was the question because I love the way that they described drafting. Yes. Okay, that was going to be one of my questions.

Oh, so it's not accurate. That's not a thing. No, it's kind of just laughing because he was like using sugar packets on Nicole Kidman's leg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I ain't got to make you romantic for sure. But he was talking. about losing his ride. Remember?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then that's what you were talking about, like, the ride or whatever. Yeah, that was always hard to understand. Yeah, losing your ride just means out of the seat, out of the team, need to find a new ride, you need to find a new team and a new car to drive. Yeah. So it's like, it's almost like two working, well, more than two, but those two main working parts, you got the driver, you got the car,

and they can kind of interchange kind of a thing. Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. The driver, the driver can plug into a new team that has a car. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Are you a defensive driver on the regular streets?

I'm an offensive driver. That makes sense to me completely. I actually, if someone wants to go faster than me, I want them to. Because I'm already driving fast. Okay. Like, into me, they're a rabbit. Go catch the cops for me. Like, if I'm doing 85 on the highway or 90 and someone passes me, I'm like, thank you.

If you're at a stoplight and someone like pulls up by you and like revs their engine, is it on? Oh, I look at. I'm like, you have, I look it over. I'm like you have absolutely no idea who you're dealing with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and I'll two-foot it at that point in time. If it's really on, you got to take your right foot off the break and put your left foot on the brake, right foot on the gas,

and you trim some transition time down. Yeah, you got to make sure that things not on auto restart. You don't want to have to run it back up for you. No, no, sport mode, baby. All right. Last insight to be gained. You ever played the game Mario Kart? When I was a kid, I don't play video games,

but when I was a kid I played like duck hunt, track and field, Super Mario Bros, and then Mario Kart. Yeah, Mario Kart, I figured that'd be the jam. Wait, so Mario Kart is a video game about driving a go-kart? Yes, that's exactly what it is. So, Super Mario Brothers. It's exactly like you can pick up mushrooms that give you special powers. Oh, yeah, that make you faster.

Oh, yeah. There you go. There you go. Oh, yeah. And wait, so it's good? It's good? Oh, yeah. It's old.

To me, Mario Kart, especially the old one, the OG GameCube. or whatever, not the, you know, they update them and stuff. Did you get that old school Nintendo that came out a few years back where they're like, oh, we're going to kick it old school? Oh, you got that smart. Yeah, oh, yeah, big time. It's a little USB. It's like a chip has all the games in it.

Oh, yeah, for sure, Dr. Mario, all day. But Mario Kart is GameCube, though. That's later. And that feels like something you'd be into. Yeah, I did play it when I was young. Yeah. But I didn't keep going. I'm not a big fan of video games.

You didn't go pro. You like the real thing. I didn't go pro in that. No, no, exactly. Yeah, it's, I think I feel like video games are, I feel like it's a guys love video game. Like most, a lot of guys like video games. Same thing with car racing usually. Guys like a lot of that too.

That's true. Hey, hey, one of those. I don't know. Look at Echo Charles. Respect, respect. Respect. But hey, do what you dig, sister. You're doing great.

Great to meet you in your life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dan, any, any closing thoughts? Man, just thoughts become things. You know, your mind is super powerful. know who you are, find out who you are.

Don't be afraid of alone time. That's, I think, where you really, really figure it out. And try and trust that the, that try and try, try accountability. I think, you know, accountability. It's like, it's that, honestly, if there's one thing that I'm the most proud of myself for, it's learning accountability.

It's actually saying like, oh, I'm sorry, or what is this situation saying about me and I'm sure I don't get it right at all the time, but being more and more accountable all the time in my life for the reality that I live in is super powerful. Super powerful. Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us.

Appreciate it. You've lived a freaking wildlife doing wild stuff. It's pretty amazing. And you're sharing your stories. You're sharing your lessons and I know you've inspired a ton of people and you're continuing to inspire them today. So thanks for what you've been doing. Keep doing it.

Thank you. Thank you. And with that, Danica Patrick has left the building and then I recorded a podcast with Danica Patrick. And now we're doing the support sex. So that's what we're doing. Pretty cool.

She interviewed me or I interviewed her. Is that an interview? Oh. Or is it a discussion? An interview, isn't an interview like I'm asking you questions? Yeah. This is more like a talk or an exploration or a or a discussion, right? I like the exploration.

I would have a hard time classifying that as an interview. Like if someone said, oh, did you interview Danica Patrick? I'd say, well, no, but we talked about like her life and asked questions. That's a great area, I guess. Technically, was there questions asked? Yes. You know, she answered them, you know. What's the fast?

You've ever gone in a car? That's the I ever got in a car or motorcycle Obviously not nearly as fast like 200 miles per hour to me is for is psychotic like good that's going back and that's that's that's the norm Yeah, so one Fifteen mm-hmm I remember that going down. I can't remember going faster than that I got a one forty I got a buck forty But in a car or more than a car Yeah, uh JP then now hell yeah we were me and Sarge were in Vegas for the UFC and so we were like up there cornering somebody coaching somebody something like this and JP was like I we so we had tickets you know we had backstead we had the whole nine yards so I texted JP you know something like hey bro just FYI I'm in Vegas going to UFC you got tickets got whatever and he's like on my way right and at this time he had one of those

kind of legit Chrysler 300s. You remember when those cars were pretty hyped? Oh yeah, when they first kind of came out. Yeah, but then they put like a big hemi engine in them and souped it up a little bit. So he had one of those legit, hemi Chrysler 300s. And so I texted him like, hey bro, you know, like,

what's your ETA? He sent me like a picture back. He's doing like a buck 47 on the highway where you could haul in the mail. JP used to race motorcycles. Like it's a mirror. Like JP is why insurance is high for young men. That makes sense.

Right? Teenage kid. Can you imagine trying to insure JP to know for a vehicle when he's 17 or 16? Yeah. There's no, there's no, you need to put the, it needs to be a, it needs to be a thousand dollars a day. Yeah. Very unrealistic. Yes.

Because he is going to get after it. Yeah. Have you ever seen the. Isle of Man Race It's a motorcycle race And it's around this island And these it's motorcycles

And they're going whatever 160 miles an hour But there's just It's just a road And there'll be like a stone wall Next to it And these guys get a little bit of air And they're just hauling ass

There's buildings because it's in The Island Isle of Man So there's buildings like on the road You know how in England and in Ireland and in those parts of the world, there's a road and there's like a pub that when you take one footstep outside the pub, you're on the street.

It's like that kind of thing. And these are old stone buildings and stuff. And people die every year. Like every year. But let's say JP got a terminal disease. I would sponsor JP for I Love Man TT. I would sponsor him. buy him a sick motorcycle, a sick set of leathers, and just like echelon front jaco fuel.

Just go. Just freaking get some. Turn them loose. Can you imagine, look, JP taking risks as a normal person. But then imagine he's dying. He's going to win that race or he's going to die. First of all, his normal state of mind would be he's either going to die or win the race. But if he was dying, the reason I would only.

sponsor him if he had a terminal disease is because if he didn't have a terminal disease now I just gave him one I gave him the disease of victory because he'll do anything but yeah talking to Danna because she got conditioned right to just speed yeah you know what I mean like it's not that big of a deal to her but yeah 200 miles an hour 220 miles an hour yeah other cars are six inches away eight inches away that's that's hauling ass yeah it's hauling ass And again, the pressure that I talked to her about, that's a lot of pressure to be on her all the time. The whole world was watching her, by the way. Yeah. You know, like everyone, oh, how'd she do?

How'd she do? Oh, yeah, the hype. Yeah, the hype. She was the, yeah, what's the, what's the term they use in MMA when someone's like super hyped, the hype train? Like, she was just hype trained for years. Yeah. So a lot of pressure.

Making a big splash. And also interesting to hear her kind of, you know, getting healthy. getting healthy and how she kind of she didn't fall here's the interesting she she she didn't fall off the path from a discipline perspective she just was doing the wrong things yeah you know lots of long distance slow cardio eating the wrong stuff she straight up went vegan for a while like that's just kind of many many many many many many cases not going to be real good for you yeah so if you're working out hard oh yeah bro you can't it's not sustainable it's not really But definitely awesome to hear from her and cool to sit down and talk with her. So there you go.

Danica Patrick. Hey, speaking of getting on the path like we're doing deaf reset. So this is going to start January 1st, but actually starts immediately because if you're not in the game right now, you're not going to be ready for it when it comes. So that's what we're doing. We're going to be working out with Jason Kalipa. We're going to be doing leadership with Ashland Front. We're going to be doing discipline directives from me fueled by Jock Fuel. Check out. the deaf reset.com. Get registered. This is where you have the opportunity to change your trajectory of your next year. That's what you can do.

Change the trajectory of your next year. You could be flat, you could be going down a little bit, you could be going up three degrees or you could be going up 19 degrees, 24 degrees going up. That's what we're doing. Get better life,

get better health, get better fitness, Get on the path. TheDeafreset.com. We're all going to do it. And we're going to get some. Hey, by the way, when you're doing that,

you're going to need fuel. Any recommendations? Jock fuel all day. And, you know, I haven't shaken out the numbers or whatever, but, you know, the, so how much do you have to eat protein-wise?

If you just start with protein, how much to eat, do you, like, Jocko, me, this guy, this guy, like individually, we all got to eat. to eat a certain amount of protein to get the amount of, you know, to gain your muscle. Yeah. Or maintain your muscle, yeah.

Yeah. And I think, and you might be different just because actually I'm different. I know I'm different because I got freaking primal, tricky beef coming. I got all this stuff. So my access to steak is pretty abundant. But the normal person, it's not like that. It can actually be kind of hard to get that amount of protein. Like day after day after, it's kind of hard.

So I figure if you do the numbers, like the, the, you know, we're on the deaf reset, we're lifting, we're doing all this stuff. You do the numbers as far as Jocco Fuel goes, the Mulk. I would say that would be the number one thing you want. Yeah, that's probably going to be the number one thing you want. Put that at the top of the list. Like the difference between having it and not having it, to me, is going to be the biggest, I think, with Mulk. By the way, it's, you know, it's winter.

And look, I know that in Southern California, winter doesn't hold a lot of weight if you're from Minnesota or you're from Maine. But let's face it, it's a little cooler out right now. And I'm back on that Warm or let's call it hot chocolate milk Yeah in the morning Yeah Wait the RTD one and the mix No the mix

Oh yeah yeah yeah I dig it so and here's a couple key components Number one heat the milk Then mix it with the milk That's component number one Component number two Heavy whipping cream With monk fruit in it

Mix that up you can make whipped cream Kind of like a keto whipped cream And you put that in this, you'll be, you will, you might as well go to whatever, do you like chocolate milk? You like hot chocolate? I very much like hot chocolate. Where's the best hot chocolate that you would get from a store? Oh, I don't know. I have no idea.

So, but you know when you go to certain coffee shops and you order a hot chocolate? Yeah. It's really good. Sure. Just be like that. It'd be that level. That level. I'm not kidding.

Restaurant level. That level. Restaurant level. It's that good. Okay. So it's chocolate milk. Heat the milk up then add the chocolate mix it then put the heavy whipping cream with monk fruit that you made into whipped cream put it in there you're gonna be you you will be 100% 100% gratified and satisfied all right and still be on the path by the way that's the crazy thing you can be on the path

Yeah, while you're doing this yeah it's amazing. Yeah, yeah Christmas time. So Lonnie my brother's girlfriend. Yeah, she makes these homemade cookies and they have like I don't know don't know what they got in there but it's I know it's probably not that healthy I'm saying I know I think there's like Oreo chunks in there there's marshmallows in there and then it's like homemade chocolate chip it's kind of a thing she made a lot of them too so yeah when they're cruising there and they're in there it's like oh you know this is kind of a rare occasion they're here or whatever anyway to say no to that kind of stuff when it's in your house or whatever tends to be harder around the holidays in my opinion so if you got a substitute then I think that's gonna pay dividends that's what I think so I'm telling you so there you go

go hey by the way deaf reset you're gonna need hydrate you're definitely gonna want some go in the vicinity right yeah super cruel yeah joint warfare because you're you're working hard so there you go to go to joccofuel dot com get this stuff all so you can go to vitamin shop you can go to wawa you can go to gnc military commissaries a hatterford dash stores in maryland wake fern shop right hb mire out there in the midwest hb down there in teos hires teeter lifetime fitness shields small gyms hey if you go to gym which I hope you're going to a gym you're doing jiu jitza you're doing crossfit you're doing weightlifting you're doing yoga you're doing yoga if those gyms aren't selling jocco fuel and you want them to tell the owner to email jf sales

at joccofuel.com we'll get you set up that way on the way in you have a go on the way out you grab a hydrate and then when you're in the car for the drive home mulk rebuild. Got a plan for you. Tacofeel.com, go get some. Yep, it's true. Also, we're doing Jiu Jitsu. If you don't have an origin

ghee for Jiu-Jitsu, get an origin geese. Do yourself that favor. Best Gis in the world. Also made in America. One might think, you know, we're focused on Jiu-Zitsu. We don't necessarily care

about where the geese made. We do care about where the geese made. Because after you get off the mat, there's still a world out there. You know, you want the world to be a good, fair, balanced place. I'm saying. Origin, that's where they represent heart.

You know, and you can get rash cards, you can get t-shirts, you can get truckers hats. You can get everything. You get jeans, blue jeans. So go to originusa.com and support America, support freedom. Never mind America, support freedom. You might be over in Europe right now. You can't buy in Europe. Maybe they're not making jeans anywhere in England.

Maybe they're not making jeans anywhere in Germany. It's okay. You don't need to buy them from. China slave labor you can buy them from origin USA that's what we're doing origin USA.com go get some true also jocco has store if you want to represent discipline equals freedom while you're on this path the idea of good you want to represent this is where you get it jocco store dot com some merch on there some good stuff check it out if you like something get something also speaking of liking something subscription scenario new design on a shirt every single month

called the shirt locker you did you just post the deadlift video on YouTube yeah why what made you decide to do that um oh because I there's a campaign like an email campaign I was emailing everybody because over the years Sherlock has been in service whatever in full swing for like two years already so you know people email oh I like this one I like the if you're a member you can buy the past shirts so people would be like hey wins this one coming back you know like a just not a random one but you know one from long time ago. So I'm going to be like, oh, when is small coming back in stock or whatever.

And a lot of time anyway, they'll include, oh, I really like this one. I really like this one. And people, when I see them, I really like this one. So it's like sorted itself out to have like a list of like the ones that everyone seem to like the most. I call it short locker favorites. That's what I called it. So I emailed people, everyone on the email list that, hey, these are the short locker

favorites. So look, if they're in Christmas time, something like that, they want to buy one for their friend for their wife, husband, brother, whatever. Is it illegal or immoral if I'm part of the shirt locker, but my wife isn't and I order a shirt and I give it to her? Yeah, that's kind of the whole gig. So that, no, it's not illegal. That's why I encourage that.

Oh, okay. So I'm saying. And you can buy ones from the past is what I'm saying. So if you're a member, you can go and they can buy whatever. So that's why I posted that video because on the email it had that video as well. Sure. So it included some of the shirt locker favorites. the whole comprehensive message.

Was it a little bit of a humble brag to like put your big effects into us? I was very happy with the way the video turned out. You know, you performed very well in that video. Bedlifting. My shirt chain, go watch the video. There you go. So jocococor.com shirt locker. We got it going on.

Also Colorado craftbeef.com or primalbeef.com. Look, Echo said, hey, he's what, has stake in abundance. Yep. We can all have steak in abundance. So go to primalbeef.com, go to Colorado Craftbeef.com and get yourself some steak, some burgers, some beef hot dogs. Get it. That's what we're doing. We'll ship to your door in a good frozen package and you'll be able to eat. It'll be a beautiful thing. Subscribe to the podcast, get jocco underground.com. It's a little separate podcast that we do. You can check that one out. It's also, we did that so we can have control over the platform just to make sure we don't get kicked off.

don't have anywhere to go. We'll have somewhere to go, always, in the underground. YouTube, check those out. Psychological Warfare, Flipsidecanvas.com, Dakota Meyer. A bunch of books. Obviously, you got Danica Patrick's books crossing the line and pretty intense. You can get those. Also, I've written a bunch of books if you want to get those books.

Go get them. That's all there is to it. I recommend you check out the kids' books because you're going to have a, speaking of trajectory, like, look, you can change. change the trajectory of your life right now and it'll be cool it's going to have an impact but you change the trajectory of a kid's life and it changes so dramatically everything so get those warrior kid books one two three four five also echelon front we have a leadership consultancy we solve problems through leadership so go to echelonfront dot com if you need help in your

organization with anything anything that's going on in your organization that's not going the way you want it to go it's a leadership problem we solve problems through leadership ashlamfront.com also we have an online training academy that teaches you to take ownership of your life so check that out out extreme ownership dot com also if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families gold star families check out mark lee's mom mama lee she's got a charity organization if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot work also don't forget about mike

Think he's up in the mountains actually right now factually He is gone dark He texts him. He's like hey, you're not gonna hear from me for a month Sure, I'll be off all Electronic devices He's probably right now gnawing on the femur of a bear Sure of course out in the wilderness So check that out as well

Also if you want to connect with Danica once again on the interwebs She's got Danica Patrick.com. And on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, she's at Danica Patrick. She was like in the time where she got it all, right? She got her, what's it called?

Her URL. Yeah. She got all of her handles. That's legit. That's hard to do this day and age. Yeah. Especially with, well, it depends on your name, I guess, right? But I got mine.

Yeah. All my. Danica is a unique enough name. I think it's kind of at the border though like to get everything but I think that's timing right because she was around 2004 2005 she just got each so I I wonder if she did that or someone was savvy yeah you know be interesting I have jocco.com and I have at jocco will and got jocco it's the same on everything yeah the only thing it's a little bit of confusing is jocco podcast at jockel podcast on YouTube yeah I don't know

who has that one you do we do that's our Ours is, is, is a, is Jocko podcast. It is? Yeah, the YouTube channel. Okay. There you go. I thought it was Jocko podcast official. Oh, okay.

But it could be. Yeah, no, you're probably right. Yeah. So, there you go. That's how you connect with Danica. Also, Echo is Atco, Charles. I'm at Jocko Wong. Just watch out for the algorithm.

Because you heard me. Like, I, what I, my algorithm is just racked filled now. Yeah, man. With Danica Patrick crashes. It's real. Danica Patrick victory. Danica Patrick yelling. Danica Patrick crashing.

So that's getting fed now. Danica Patrick interview. So the algorithm, it's tracking you. So just be careful. Don't get sucked into the algorithm. And thanks once again to Danica for joining us today, sharing her life lessons. And thanks to all the military personnel out there around the globe,

putting yourselves in harm's way to protect our way of life. We thank you and also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol secret service and all first responders Thank you for serving and protecting us here at home. We are grateful and To everyone else out there, it's a scrap It's a scrap You can't expect anything to be given to you You have to work for it and even here's the thing even when you work for it There's no guarantees

even then there are risks but the biggest risk the biggest risk there is is not taking any risk at all so put your helmet on and go get after it and until next time this is echo and jocco