Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Jimmie Johnson Interview

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Kevin Harvick sits down with fellow NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson for a wide-ranging conversation. The two West Coast natives reflect on their roots in racing, revisit Jimmie’s historic run of seven Cup Series championships, and share stories from their famous on-track battles. Jimmie also opens up about his relationship with former crew chief Chad Knaus, life as an owner with Legacy Motor Club, and the lessons he’s learned running a team—and how that perspective has changed the way he sees the sport. From the evolution of NASCAR and the challenges of the Next Gen car to memories only two veterans can share, this is an episode fans won’t want to miss. 0:00 - Intro 0:35 - Jimmie Johnson Joins The Show! 3:29 - Becoming A Pro Driver 7:40 - Relationship with Chad Knaus 15:58 - INDYCAR Transition 29:03 - Branding After Retirement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

First Atlanta race, I was able to run on the lead lap and finishing the top five. That light bulb went off. How do we do what Jimmy Johnson and Chad Canals have done and not lay an egg? What motivated me all those years was fear. When I stepped away, I didn't want to be driven by that anymore. It was rare that I got to beat you like that. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. And today we have the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Jimmy Johnson.

Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, glad to be here, man. Yeah, I've had this one circled because it's fun to be able to go back and, you know, you came up at the exact time period that I did. And being able to go through racing during that time, we got to race against so many cool generations of old, new, of all the things that it was. But just talk about where you started and winning seven championships. That can't be what you thought.

when you started racing. No, not even close. And, you know, as we were coming up through the ranks together, we had plenty of conversations around like the dream and what it could look like, and I couldn't even dream this big.

Yeah. So it's been a wild ride, and much like you, growing up on the West Coast, being surrounded by motorsports in the different forms of racing, the different heroes that came along from dirt to two wheels,

four wheels, asphalt, whatever it might be. I just grew up in a racing family. My dad loved racing, loves racing, very mechanically inclined. My mom even raised three-wheelers back in the day. Really? Like grandparents in a motorcycle store.

And so to grow up in that area and have the deserts nearby, the rivers, the lakes, you know, it did matter if it was summer or winter. We were on something that was motorized. And that really gave me a great base to go racing from. And I think when you come to North Carolina, And you might think about this different, but when I came to North Carolina, people, we were fortunate that we were in a time when the Cup series was looking for the next young drivers. But even when I go back now, it feels to me like they don't take West Coast racing as serious as what somebody who did grew up there. Right.

And it really pisses me off. It really makes me mad because when I grew up in racing, you could race anywhere, anything. any time if you wanted to go a couple hours in any direction. And, you know, I think that a lot of people get the misperception of what West Coast racing is because there's a lot of gearheads in California. Am I thinking of that different than what you would? No, I absolutely agree. And I feel like your journey, my journey, certainly Jeff Gordon kind of started that.

I even think somebody like Tony Stewart was helpful because he came from a different background, or Irvin, you know, I feel like we keep knocking down barriers, but still today and even being, you know, on the East Coast as a team owner, for whatever reason that West Coast seems so far away, and I'm not as connected as I should be and need to be. Yeah, and I think even NASCAR, they've, they've struggled with trying to figure out West Coast racing. It's a different, it's a different vibe, but a lot of, a lot of hardcore racers. So when we go back and we look at the, at the, your racing background. Where did all that start to be able to lead? I know this answer, but I know a lot of the fans, you know, want to hear. Where did it start to lead you to thinking that it might be able to

be a possibility to make a racing career out of it? Man, I was determined in going back to my grade school, middle school, and high school that all my teachers shared papers and pulled them out that it reminded me how determined I was. So the dream was always there, but it really all came together. I would say in probably 95 is when it really came together. And it was the combination of my relationship with Chevrolet and the new relationship that was building with the Herzogs.

They were very successful in off-road racing, had been promised a lot by Ford and Dodge, which none of those opportunities ever came together. And I had some Chevrolet backing that I could bring to them. And I was doing television and doing Pit Road reporting for ESPN in the Midwest, this off-road series, and got to know them. And I knew who they were, but found out that they had these kind of broken promises from these other manufacturers. And kind of raised my hand and said, hey, I could bring Chevy. And sure enough, they all, you know, everything came together.

And they thankfully had the same ambitions to make it the cup. And so off-road, ASA, Bush Grand National. And one of the toughest things for me to do was to go to them and say, hey, I've got an opportunity with Hendrick because they invested tens of millions of dollars in me and so much time. But like the great, sadly we've lost both Stan and Randy now. But they both supported me and said, you've got to take that opportunity. Yeah. Well, it's great when you find a group of people that believe in what you do and support.

and then you build that relationship and always those tough decisions are hard. But you talk about going to Hendrick Motorsports and I think it's pretty well known that Jeff Gordon was behind you and saw the car that you were driving at one of the Bush Series races and recognized the car control. I could have gone so wrong.

I threw a big slider on them at Michigan. Yeah. And if I collected them, man, no chance, I would have got the ride. But thankfully, I just cleared them. Well, it worked out. It worked out. But talk about that transition of going from the Herzogs. You know, you had, I would consider a family-owned, it was a family-owned team that was trying to find their way. He had Crazy Rambo

working on the car and trying to figure things out. And then, boom, you go to Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports. And what was that transition like to go from a family-owned team to the organization like Hendrick had? It was a big shock, to say the least. And I ran three races in 2001. And the team was still kind of coming together. We didn't have our full-time crew chief. Ken Howes was actually the crew chief for me for those three races, which was really cool. Yeah. But man, I think my best finish was like two laps down in 26th. And so that 01 year was like, wow, this isn't just a step up. This is five or ten steps up to go cup racing. So I was pretty worried. And that worked very well because during the off season, once we had Chad in place, you know, I just dug in.

And I leaned on the system that is Hendrick and wore Jeff Gordon out over ideas, notes, how he drives. And he didn't really even have notes going at that point in time. But I was extracting all the stuff and making my own. And, man, I'll never forget the first Atlanta race, which was, I know, second or third race of the season. I was able to run on the lead lap and finishing the top five. And I was like, this place is tough. I ran around, you know, Mark Barton all day long. I finished in the top five, like, I'm going to be okay.

And that light bulb went off just to continue to lean on the Hendrick system and have them keep teaching me. So you mentioned Chad Canals. Was he intense right from day one? From day one. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you look at that relationship, you know, I know you pretty, pretty well. I mean, you're pretty calm, cool guy, and he's pretty high, strong, straightforward, demanding, you know, from the outside looking in and the things that I've been. I guess the balance is what made it, because I feel like Rodney and myself were the opposite. He was the calm, cool, collected guy, and it just worked because I didn't want to offend him, but I wanted to do everything that he said, and I didn't want to do anything dumb to make him mad like I did the previous

13 years as I went through my time at RCR. So that dynamic obviously worked. You won seven championships and, you know, 83 races. So it obviously worked. But from the very beginning, he was just the hard-ass that came in to motivate and push you. He was. More than anything, he had a big chip on his shoulder. He, I think he was a frustrated driver that ended up being a crew chief. So you have that element. I did not even know he drove. Yeah.

He wanted to be. Yeah. Yeah. Did you hear the story? No. Back Stacy Compton's, I think it was the Melling team that Stacey was driving for. And Chad was crew chief in it. They were at Milwaukee.

And Chad was convinced that the car should have gone faster. One of the changes should have made a bigger difference. Something happened. And Chad's like, get out. I'm getting in. He jumped in the car and backed it in the fence, turn four, Milwaukee. And had to call the Mellian and tell him. By the way, we crashed, is awesome.

Like, oh, that's fine. You know, Stacey, okay? Well, actually, I was driving the car. It wasn't Stacey. So did he ever drive your car? No. Ever. Ever.

He finally gave up. Yep. Yep. That's funny. So there was that piece, which was a funny undercurrent between he and I that I could torture him on, but it was really never a public thing. But, you know, he wanted to be a crew chief. And the way Ray hired him, or one of the reasons Ray liked him so much was he sat across the desk from Ray and said,

look, I want your job someday. That's why I'm hearing what I want to do. And so when he left the 24 car and tried to pursue his crew chiefing job or career, you know, he had these failures along the way that just made that chip more pronounced on his shoulder. And when he got back to Hendrick, he knew it was his chance and his time. I certainly had my own chip on my shoulder in a different way where, you know, I got to a couple little later than most. It was 25, 26 of my rookie year. I knew I was going to have one shot.

And I really felt like one year. If I didn't perform that first year, I thought, you know, Hendrick would move on. And so we had that common piece. And much like you and Rodney, although you guys were much different, the things that mattered were the same. You know, those core values and your ambitions as, you know, together as a team which wanted to do. We went about it in different ways.

And it sounds like you and Rodney similarly, but we had those core values together. So when you look at that, the dynamic of that team, obviously you guys figured out how to win your first race and then you kept going so when you look at the dynamic of the team was it always chad pushing the team or and you or when would you interject to to be okay i don't like this and i assume that was probably somewhat hard with chad sometimes and it would lead to a a heated conversation he was good i'm sorry he was the bad cop i was a good cop within the team yeah and exactly how i would envision that yeah by the way he was a good he was a good cop he was a good cop within the team yeah and Exactly how I would envision that, by the way.

He did so much pushing that I didn't need to. But I knew the way he pushed others, he expected that for me. And I felt like I needed to take some stress off of him, and I made sure that I had my shit together. That was the responsibility I took in hand. It nudged me occasionally. And there were certainly moments where it got heated, and Rick would have to get involved.

But the great thing, and for some, so long it was never personal and it was also funny because when somebody says you know i'm really how would it go um when there's always that but like somebody says you know i really like what you did but chad always had that but that he would throw in and uh our our pressure in in what we put on each other was fine until maybe two or three years left in in our run yeah and it it's became personal. Like I was afraid and frustrated that my career wasn't winding down the way that I wanted it to. Chad, the same. And so where we were always aligned and never kind of personally attacked each other, we started to indirectly. It wasn't something that we intended to do,

but it became personal and that eroded away at our success more than anything. And then eventually Rick separated us. Yeah. And I think when you look at that run, you go and you win the seventh championship, which was probably at the end of the moments that you're talking about. Because I don't, when you look at that, the end of that year, I don't know that anybody really expected you guys to go out and win that championship. Shoot, even that night. Yeah. We were the fourth best playoff car there, you know, and just circumstances developed for

us. Yeah, so you go and you win that last championship, and then you have the last three years. I think the last race you won was at Dover and 17. Yeah. Yeah. And then you go through that last three years. I mean, that's like night and day from where you started, the run you guys went on. What was that time period like just for you personally and going through what was kind of a rebuilding process? It seemed like at Hendrick in general.

Yeah. And just what was that like to experience that those last few years based upon everything that you guys accomplished before that? Yeah. I mean, it was tough to say the least, you know, changing. is always difficult. I wanted to have my entire tenure with Chad at the helm, but it was just getting toxic and tough and not only taking a toll on us, but, you know, our trusted staff around us. Cliff Daniels was our first engineer and he tapped out and said, hey, you know, I don't like this environment and headspace. I'm going to go do sim work for Hendrick Motorsports who came off the road. You know, so we had a lot changing around us. And, you know, then Chad and I,

separated. Kevin Mendering and I start the season together. We just weren't jelling as we needed to. Cliff comes in and I could see when Cliff came in, I grew up in a certain kind of system and Cliff Cliff is that guy and I needed that pressure from Cliff. And in all that being said, there were a lot of great learning moments in that. But when the 2019, yeah, 2020 season started, I just knew that my fire had gone out in a lot of ways. And I just couldn't go any further. And I knew that Cliff was going to build the team that I wanted, the team that I could win an eighth championship with,

but I just didn't have it in me anymore. Yeah. And I think that's the, I'll never forget this. And we sat down to have our pre-season meeting in 2015 after we won the championship. And we talked about our goals for the year. And the first comment that I said was, How do we do what Jimmy Johnson and Chad Canals have done and not lay an egg the next year?

Because you talk about the motivation and things that it takes to keep going in that fire. But I didn't want to be embarrassed of going out in 15 and saying, oh, yeah, they won the championship last year and now they can't be competitive again. I just, I don't know how many of those conversations or what motivated you. I can't believe what you guys did. but the motivation that it takes to win on a weekly basis in the Cup series, and I talk about it on here all the time, about the younger guys not being able to manage their time and motivate themselves in order to put together 38 weeks.

You guys put together 36, 38 weeks for a number of years. That takes a toll on you. And you just talked about that toll that it takes. When you finally said, okay, I'm to the point where I've lost a little bit of fire, don't know that I want to do this at that level anymore because I've already done everything that I can do in one seven championships and 83 races and all those things. How do you turn and switch and say,

I want to go race an indie car? What motivated me all those years was fear. And fear, fear of failing, fear of waking up some day and it was a dream. The fear that started all of this was the fear to be employed, right? Yeah. when we're teenagers.

How do I eat? Like everything in my career has been driven by fear. And that just takes a toll on you. Yeah. And when I stepped away, I didn't want to be driven by that anymore. I didn't like kind of who I was becoming in the way my head space was during the course of a season and living through those moments. Kids really helped define that. I'd realize and see, man, I just didn't handle that rider.

I wasn't thinking right. My head wouldn't write. whatever it was. So when I went IndyCar racing, you know, that was the dream when I was a kid. And I'm like, you know, my give a shipmeeters broke. Like, I don't care. And I'm not driven by fear anymore. I want to enjoy one opportunity. And that's why I just kind of ignored, you know, the challenge that I had ahead of myself and committed to it. Just went to go have fun. Yeah. And I think when I look at it, you know, just from the outside looking in, I'm glad you said that because I've always just sat here and I'm like, okay. one of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time. You went through the last three years of now I know where you were mentally.

And I look at it. I'm like, do you, you didn't worry about your legacy. You wanted to go have fun because Jamie McMurray said this a couple weeks ago on here. He said the biggest thing that he regrets is he didn't have fun and enjoy what was, what was special about his childhood dream, being able to live that out. And that's, am I hearing that? Absolutely. Out of your thought process. It's not a poor me thing by any stretch. Like I, and I know you've experienced this as well. And it sounds like Jamie got into this headspace too.

Very blessed and thankful that I've had this career path. But it's really driven by fear. Fear of failure, fear of mistakes, all these different elements. And you do lose the fun in there somewhere. And that's what I'm still trying to do now and why I'm still hopping in a car. And I know it's not great for my statistics. And there are a lot of other ways to look at it. But damn, I just want to have fun. Yeah. And when you, did you have fun racing the IndyCar? I did. At the end of the second year, I started to get serious again. And I had Carvana eager and ready and on board to sign up for a third year. Gannasi was hopeful I was coming back and expecting me to come back. And I got to that point again where I was being too serious about it and a little critical on myself and didn't like my headspace and took them step away. That was it. So now you've ventured into, you get done with the Indycar thing. couple years, kind of off, right? Yep.

And then you decide, and now you're back. On the team ownership side, back in the car, what was the motivation? Did you miss any piece of what was happening? Why come back and do the team owner thing? I missed it for sure. Missed the people. And there's just a feeling of being in this industry. And as I was racing the indie car and spending time with CGR, there was an opportunity

there to maybe control and run the 48 car in CGR and have ownership there. And as I look closer at it, as much fun as I was having and as interesting as it was, the financial piece without having a charter system, man, it just seemed like a tough road to hoe. Yeah. I'm not sure I've picked an easier road to hoe here with NASCAR and how complicated this is, but from a business opportunity, that the NASCAR space made sense for a lot of reasons. Yeah. And I think when you retired, you tired from driving, and now you've taken on a team ownership role, would you classify it as a 24-7 job? I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. What's running through my mind right now is when you owned your team and seeing you and delayed. You laughed at me. And how stressed you guys were. I laughed at you.

I'm sitting in the same. Yeah, you laughed at me for a number of years. He's like, I don't understand why you would want to torture yourself like that. And now it's- You guys did such a good job at it, too. It's so hard. You guys, you must have worked countless hours. Yeah, well, I appreciate that. And I think that for me, the biggest challenge with, or the thing that I like the most about the team ownership side was the challenge of pushing the pieces around. And then getting to the racetrack and saying, I did it better than them. We're competing against Hendrick Motorsports. We're competing against all these teams that have done it for a long time. And now I look at your team.

And you've been involved for a while now. But it seems like the performance is starting to shift into the right direction. Yeah. Is that a fair assessment? It is. And it's been an evolution. You know, I'm so thankful, Mory Gallagher. I had an open mind and brought me in.

You know, as the minority owner and not having control of the company for a while, you know, there's only so much that I could do. And Mori's philosophy and the way he likes to bootstrap stuff and make it happen, you know, he won a race with like 65 employees. He wanted a cup race with Eric Jones in that first year of the next gen car. But as it's evolved and moved along, you know, it's just a much different environment for a two-car team and head count and resources and all the different elements. So when he fatigued and brought this opportunity to me to kind of fast track my position, of course, I jumped at it, been very thankful for the opportunity. we've done a lot of evolving and growing since Knighthead Capital came in as an investor and partner

in the team. And headcount's gone up. Our technologies increasing our resources. And we're getting there. We still have a long way to go. As you so well know, it's all about people. All about people. And our recruiting window last year went well. We're running better this year. That recruitment window is going to open soon. And there's just a cycle here that we're working through. So what's been the most surprising thing that you've had to deal with just that you didn't expect? Is it the time? Is it the money people? What's been the thing that you probably misread when you got involved from the ownership side? How slow change really takes place? It's a big, big ship to turn. And I think in today's in today's world, it's probably hard to change the people. And even if

you have all the money in the world without the right people like you're saying it's it's impossible so you're still driving some races yep do you have any more this year no more this year no more this year okay so do you think that's helped you understand just what they're talking about in the in the meetings and has it helped you as as an owner it yes it has um i have a better appreciation for uh what the drivers are experiencing and just how subtle i mean you hear the guys drop the back a half around and all of a sudden car picks up three tents. I'm like, there's no way that's what happens. And then I feel it. I'm like, well, they're right. But with that being said, I have had far less time in the competition group than I have in the

business ops group. Just the need to generate revenue and to help steer and run and operate the company. I just have had more time there, which has been interesting. Well, it eats money. It does eat money. It's a money-eating machine. It's a hungry beast. You get behind on that part of it. You're in big trouble. The lights go out. The lights go out and the performance goes down. And I think, you know, from the driving standpoint, I look at part of what your success was in the Gen 6 car in the previous generations when you were at Henrik Motorsports was car control.

And I look at the first few races that you did in the next-gen car. Man. It's an angry beast. When it decides to get sideways, you don't try to. save it, you wreck it. And I watch Kyle Bush, and that was always his strength was being able to go past that capability. What was the, is that a fair assessment of the next gen car? And what do you think of the car and where it is today? Yeah, it is a fair assessment. It's interesting being an owner and the way you look at your bottom line and understand that a spec car, you know,

the way I look at it, it's kind of a soft cap that we have in the sport. There's only so many chassis we can have, only so many parts and pieces you can buy. So it does provide help. And I don't think I would be a team owner if we didn't have this combination, this setup of a spec car. I would like to see some changes. I think a car that gains side force in Yaw is a better car,

one that drives better and more interesting and puts on a better show. This car does not do that. But to make those changes, and the way you'll have to, all three OEMs have to submit wind tunnel time, all the expenses that go with it, I know it's a slow-moving machine. The other thing that I would like to consider is a taller sidewall on the cars.

The lower profile sidewall, I think, takes a lot of the feel out of it and being able to slide it and understand it. But with all that said, a lot of these drivers have never experienced anything else, and certainly the next generation that's coming in, and you watch these guys exploit it and go fast, And, you know, so it's wild how evolution just continues to move.

And, you know, the things that I've always looked for, I mean, you can't make him go. Yeah. And even Chase Elliott had a conversation with him in Richmond Saturday night. And he's like, man, you just, it's not like it used to be. You can't drive the same. Yeah, yeah. And I think when you talk about the young guys, they don't know what they don't know. Right.

And I think that's why you see some of these guys that have come in and it's kind of flip the who's competitive piece of the puzzle and the approach from the teams has been different. I think that this car has changed the dynamic of every aspect of what you race. So as you go into the future, are you going to run more races as you go into next year? Yeah, I would like to. I am finding that I am more impactful for the business side of the house out of the car and in the suite or in our hospitality area with our sponsors. And the biggest thing that stood out to me last year, I ran the season finale in Phoenix and I had meetings with Toyota scheduled on Friday and Saturday. They had some issues, couldn't get to town.

I couldn't have my meetings. The executive group is walking down the grid as I'm getting ready to climb in the car. I'm like, I should be in the suite right now. Yeah. And I'm climbing in this car to go slide around. They want to have the meeting on pit road. And the next thing you know, you're worried about, you're worried about things that are not anything to do with driving. But, you know, I think I'm happy that you're in the NASCAR.

garage, you're a part of the sport because it's not fair to have a seven-time champion, not in there all the time when you look at Dale Senior and you look at Richard Petty. I mean, you guys are in an elite group. And one thing that, and I've talked about this for a number of years, you were winning the most races. You'd won, didn't matter at that time, you'd won four, five, six championships whenever I've talked about this in the past. I always felt like in a sport, in other sports, one of the most popular guys is always the guy that's winning the most.

When you look back at your situation with yourself, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, do you ever wonder why that dynamic didn't always trend that way for you? Because for me it was very confusing as to, And I look at it now. I mean, Dale Jr. is obviously what he is from a popularity standpoint because of his name and his success and the things that he did. But I always found that dynamic very interesting. Did you ever, did you ever think about it that way? Or am I just looking in at things that I should just keep out of? No, you're right. You're definitely onto something. And you were years ago when we'd have these chats and you publicly spoke about it as well. I didn't have maybe the environment that Jeff had with Dale in that passing of the torch or whatever that moment was. The timing was incredible.

Junior, you know, sure the last name, but the more I spend time around him and watch what he and Kelly are doing, they're smart. They're very intentional. They are working their asses off too in this process. And when I reflect on myself, I, I, I. I had infrastructure, but all my infrastructure focused on was doing the bare minimum outside of the car so I could do the maximum inside of the car. And now as I own a race team and realize the worth of the JJ brand, I haven't done a good job, like really blowing that up and leaning into it.

I've done a job, it's there, but it could be far greater. I walk around at Richmond the other day. There are seven-time shirts for Dale, for Richard, all these other. aspects of licensing, I have nothing there. That's my fault. I just haven't been working. I'm working on other things. But that's the advantage of being the team owner at the racetrack and recognizing your brand and almost now you're in there, almost rebuilding it differently. Yeah. And that's, that's the part that I'm really excited about right now is I want to build a motorsports property with Lexington Motor Club. I feel like there is a way to not be exactly like a stick and ball for

franchise, but there are many aspects that can be. And motorsports, you know, it's a lifestyle. And there is a lifestyle branding opportunity that's here for legacy. But before I really get there, I've got to make sure that my legacy and my brand is where it needs to be to then have it spill over into the company. And so that's the journey that I'm on right now. Yeah. And I'm finally seeing it because I'm on the other side. And seeing it on the other side. And I think that many of us look back on what you could have done different. But that doesn't matter anymore if you learn from it and you grow with it because then there's when you get out of the car if you really want to have a brand you have to work at it as hard as you did when you started ed driving so true and it's

it's it's probably difficult from your standpoint because of the fact that you won so much and you had so many obligations and so the sponsorship time was so much different than we would leave on a wednesday you'd go to an appearance and then you'd go Thursday and you'd get to the track and and And so I think that that's a pretty interesting perspective of an insight from what you've done. What's wild is I wake up now as excited as I did is a 25-year-old going to work at Hendrick, but I'm doing all these things that I was irritated with before. And I never thought I wanted to be an owner. I didn't want to build a brand.

I just wanted to drive. And it's wild to have this affirmation that I am doing the right thing and to have this excitement about the sport that I know and love so much. So I'm really energized and feel like I'm 20 again. Yeah. Well, that's pretty awesome. I'm glad you're having fun because that's really what we're supposed to do when we retire. Right.

And I tell people, I retired from driving. I didn't retire from working because I enjoy the business aspect of it as well. A couple more questions. If you had to pick one race through your career, what was that favorite race? Favorite race? I have to say my first one. at California. The hometown, you know, home track, I guess is probably a better way to say it.

We're on two tires. Kurt Bush is stalking us and it had a better car throughout the day. We ran well, but he's back there stalking us. And like seeing the white, I'll never forget the feeling and the tingles. Like, don't screw this up. Get it around. Get it around. Come down the front straight away.

Had family there and around. and also knew that I was going to have a job and stay employed. Yeah. And all these different layers there were just like unreal. Well, when you talk about California Speedway, that was my second go-around with you at California Speedway was more, it was more exciting than the first go-around when I didn't win the race. So I got to know, as I guess it was 2011, I think it was,

when we raced there coming to the checkered flag. What were you thinking down the back straight away? I pushed you all the way down the back straight away. Yeah, yeah. Did you think I was going to keep pushing you? Or how did, what did you, do you remember that thought? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

I remember the push. Because this is one of my favorite moments because of I got to race with you. Hell yeah. And it was rare that I got to beat you like that. I couldn't believe I left enough space up there from where I was sitting because you had me going there faster than I wanted to. And I thought I slid up enough to take the top because you're rolling the top. Yeah.

And then I heard outside. And I'm like, there's no way. I was there you were. Well, that was a pretty special moment because for me personally, California Speedway and being able to know the success that you guys had, and that was just two California kids going at it. How far is Bakersfield from there? It's about an hour and a half. Okay, so you're probably closer than what I was to see in Diego. Yeah. Oh, for sure, closer. Yeah, so for sure closer. But the home track for me was kind of the

opposite because you won so much there. And it was every time we were in position to do anything there went wrong. So it was, but that was a pretty cool moment in one of those moments. That's where the horseshoe was the first one, right? Yeah, the horseshoe. Yeah, that was funny. And I think that the second, my second favorite Jimmy Johnson moment was 2014. I'm sitting in the lounge and I remember it was like it was yesterday. We were struggling in practice. Side door of the trailer opens up and here he comes in, eating an apple, sits down on the couch, what can I do to help you guys? And it was, well, you need to pull the side out. You need to do this. This is what my car is doing. Finish his apple, threw it in the trash can, walked out and said,

if you need anything else, let me know. So that was really the beginning of the Stuart Haas, the first year of the Stuart Haas alliance that we had with Hendrick. And obviously, that got a little more combative as it went through the years. Chad was not happy with all those things that were happening with Stuart Haas at that time. But those were two of my favorite memories that we had that we can talk about on this show. I'll never forget walking through the transporters as we all have our little alleys to stick around. And I knew you guys were struggling. And I just wanted pop and make sure headspace was good. Yeah. It wasn't. Yes. Yeah. Noticed. One thing that I realized

in having a chance at those multiple championships, through them all, there still was the same amount of anxiety and stress. And then I also realized that my competitors all had that same anxiety and stress. And that was my goal was to share like, hey, you might be having a bad day, but I promise you, they're just as freaked out, even if they're having a good day. Yeah, and I think that the other thing that I'm learning today is we're all more similar in the enjoying it part of what we do. We work our whole life and dream about getting there. And then you're just frustrated and so ingrained in the competition side that you lose side of the fun.

parts. And I think that's, that's something for the young guys to take from this conversation. But last question, what was your first car that you drove on a street? I had a, uh, 1986 Ford Ranger pickup truck. Okay. Yep. But did just standard pickup truck because this sounds a lot like McMurray too. He's like it was the most boring. No, mine had a little lift on it. It was a black truck, had a little lift, um, course, a stick shift. And, uh, San Diego, you needed something with a little bit of lift and go out in the desert and bomb around. And also there were a lot of dirt roads where I grew up in the rural area in El Cajon.

So it needed something I could rip around on some roads. Yeah. Did you wreck it, sell it? No, I sold it to a buddy. I was racing a little off-road buggies. So I had some money and bought my first truck before I turned 16 and had sitting in the driveway. I'd like wax it and wash it once a week. But my dad had great piece of advice.

I was starting to drive for Chevrolet and he said, you should put some big blue oval stickers on this thing and park it right at the front of the test sessions. I'm like, why would I do that? I hide it in the back. He's like, because they'll give you a free truck. You're not going to drive for Chevy and show up and a Ford. I was like, damn, dad, that's perfect.

That's a great idea. I parked it right at the front of the test and a week later, I had a new Chevy truck. That's awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time. I know that you're busy, but it's fun to catch up. Yeah, great to catch up, dude. We appreciate the background. We could probably do this for three or four hours.

I'll come back anytime. Thank you. Yep, thank you.