REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 901. Championship Mindset Ft. Ryan Hardwick: 24h Le Mans Winner

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

On today’s episode, Andy and DJ are joined in the studio by 1st Phorm Elite Athlete Ryan Hardwick, who is best known for his victories at the 24 Hour Le Mans, Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the 12 Hour Sebring. They dive deep into Ryan’s early life and the path that led him to become a professional race car driver, his entrepreneurial journey that paralleled Andy’s, and what it truly took to win the 24 Le Mans this year.

What is up guys? It's Andy Fercella and this is the show for the realest say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today we are doing something different. We are going to actually have a full length episode today, which we haven't had in a long time, but I can promise you, this is one you are going to want to listen to all the way through. So with the amount of negativity and stuff going on in the world and crazy shit. We thought we'd take an opportunity to give us a little breath from that and do a full length.

So that's what we're gonna do. But before we get to that, liking your new hat there, bro. Oh, thanks, man. I had a friend gave this to me. Yeah, it looks like you got extra brains. Yeah, is that what that is? Yeah.

Is that what you're doing? You're trying to look smarter? It expands in there. Yeah. Yup. Gotta fill up the brains. Is that what that is? Yeah, is that what you're doing? You're trying to look smarter Expands in there. Yeah, I fill up the hat all up in there. Yeah, let's get what's the sticker for there Who gave you the hat yeah, it's a special special friend gave me this hat and He's actually our guest today on the show. We got Ryan Harwick. Yeah, what's up dude? Thanks man, yeah it's going good. Ryan, what's going on man? Man, a lot actually. Yeah, I have a little bit to talk about. Yeah, so yeah man, dude we've been talking

about this for years. For those of you that don't know, Ryan is one of my best friends in the world. He's also a business partner of mine. We're partners in the race team. Fuck dude, we've been friends for a long time now. How long have you guys been knowing each other? 10 plus years.

Yeah, I wanna say it was around 2015. Yeah, wow. We had met really through cars, and through the car community. Mutual friends like, hey man, you know my friend Andy, and I just, I'd found you online, you know, I was following you, these were Facebook days, I guess. Yeah, I'm like, I know of them, you know.

It's like, oh, why is a friend you guys should meet? You guys are both into cars, and yeah. Yeah, so yeah, going on 10 years, I guess, yeah. Yeah, and then I came down. Yeah, I asked you to come. Yeah, I asked you to come. Dustin had, yeah, you guys had me come down. Yeah. And I met you and Dustin and Justin. And Justin, yeah.

And then. Yeah, had you speak to all our salespeople? Yeah. Yeah, it was probably 2016, 17 maybe. Yeah, it was fun. I think I was just down there for the day. Yeah, yeah, he just came down quick. Yeah, we asked you, I'm in the motorcycle business my you know

right so for those of you don't know just Yeah, yeah Ryan is gonna be humble but Ryan and Justin in the guy they own what is I? Think it's fair to say one of the largest if not the largest Motorsports dealerships in the whole country one of the biggest in the world Yeah, we're in the top three. Yeah in the world. Yeah, yeah, so how many locations you guys have? I have 12 12 and these are not like little You know, they got a few motorcycles. These are like motorcycle ATV

Four-wheeler super stores and you guys have every brand, don't you? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, there's a couple small brands, but all the Japanese motorcycle brands, Honda and Yamaha, the American brands like Polaris, Ducati, the European brands. So yeah, it's a business that Justin and I grew up. Now you guys started the same exact,

the cool thing about Ryan and Justin is they started like exactly when Chris and I started. Yeah Now you guys started the same exact, the cool thing about Ryan and Justin is they started like exactly when Chris and I started. Yeah, yeah, with 99. Yeah, and we're about the same age. Yeah, yeah, about the same age. We don't have to say what that is, but yeah. That's right, you just keep it general.

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, we, that's where we kind of hit it off. You and I had a lot of similarities, you know, and you know, business and probably, I think we both started, you know, probably two, I know me for one, I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I was just, you know, we were, you know, going after it as fast as we could and learning a lot,

but making a lot of mistakes. But yeah, we started in the same years. And then as the businesses grew, you know, kind of our businesses were, you know, close in size, you know, wise, for a number of employees and things like that. So we had a lot of common ground and stuff to, you know, we could share and learn from each other. It's nice knowing that there's someone else out there

having a lot of the same struggles that you're having. That's getting their ass kicked the exact same way. Yeah, getting kicked. Wait, so you got hit in the balls too? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times it's like they come in waves. It's like the same day.

Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, you too? Yeah. Yup. How old were you there? That's right there. Oh, geez, man. I went to the closet. I went to the closet. I'm like, damn, all right, Ryan. Yeah. That was business, right? LinkedIn picture.

Dude, what was it like, you know, before we get into the, I mean, obviously most of the listeners it like, you know, before we get into the, I mean, obviously most of the listeners here are, are success entrepreneurial minded. I mean, dude, just talk about that. You know, uh, they've all heard my story, but I mean, dude, you guys have an incredible story. Yeah. I mean, we, uh, like I said, we, we, Justin and I grew up together.

We were riding dirt bikes, uh, all our lives. My father taught us to ride, and so it was our passion. And we kind of stumbled into the ability to submit an application to one of the manufacturers to open a dealership. And we were, gosh, we were 19 years old when we sent this application in. And I spent a lot of time working on it

about how passionate we were about the sport. And it was with American Honda. And Honda sent us back, responded and said, hey man, we really like your applications. Got a lot of passion behind it. You got a lot of really cool ideas, but you have no funding and you have no experience. You know, two important things to start a business. And so, you know, again, we knew no other way than to go and try to solve those two things. We were told no from, so we went out and tried to borrow money from others.

And then we went to go find a partner that had experience in running a motorcycle dealership. And we worked for, gosh, a couple of years to find both of those things. So yeah, man, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, you could borrow a lot more with a lot less than what you can now. So I will say the environment was ripe at that time, kind of dot com, you know, kind of turn of area to really for a bank to loan a lot of money to two kids. Yeah. That had we had one other partner that he had a Yamaha Kawasaki dealership,

you know, near our town. And we talked him into partnering with us. And that was probably my first really good sales job. Is it trying to talk this, this really smart, you know, entrepreneur into partnering with two young kids. And, and that's how we got our start with a single line Honda store. And we opened in 2000. And fast forward, now it's 25 years, we're the third largest retailer of motorcycles

in the world. And we sell thousands of vehicles a year. We have, gosh, now a little over 300, getting close to 350 employees. And so it's been a wild, wild fun ride. And we, there was, there was plenty of times in there when man, you know, very similar to your sort of what we talked about, you know, wanting to quit, wanting like, man, you know, are we really cut out for this? Do we really know what we're doing? And, you know, competitors that were much bigger. But yeah, and that's why I kind of, I was drawn to racing at a young age and racing's got a lot of

similarities with business and that, you know, you're constantly surrounded by chaos in racing. And business is much the same way. You know, there's things happening to you and around you that you can't control and you're constantly adapting and evolving and changing and so that I think I think that's why I've really enjoyed you know racing throughout my whole life as well as business I mean obviously we're all competitors you know you're not competitive you have no business being in business. Yeah do something else. Yeah do something else if you're not competitive so yeah entrepreneurship and racing just kind entrepreneurship and racing just kind of, you know, went hand in hand. You know, man, I've been fortunate to be able to kind of do both. Um, you know, I feel

like at a, you know, decently high level, you know, kind of at the same time, decently high level fucking wins Lamar one wins Lamar Wednesday, uh, 24 hour, the Rolex 24 hour Daytona Yeah, like stop it. Yeah, I'll toot the fucking horn for you. Yeah, I do it I want to ask you this. All right, I'm being I've asked him when I asked him when I asked I don't know what you said. I can't hear you. Yeah Hey, there you go. All right. All right. I've asked Andy this a few times, but I mean 25 years And I'm not trying to date you at all Right, but 25 years. That's a long time. Does it feel like 25 years to you?

Like when you look back first door in 2000 Everything you've I mean did it go quick? I would say now it feels like it went quick there There were times I can really say about 10 years in that felt I remember looking back at 10 years and thinking man I've been at this a while with at that time, not as much growth as what, you know, my partner Justin and I wanted, you know, and that was coming out of the big financial crisis, disaster 08, 09. I remember around 2010 thinking, man, we've been doing a lot of work for what at that

time was a long time to us with, without know that level of success and growth that you know you we kind of thought we would be at 10 years in and now 25 years looking back it seemed all go by pretty pretty quick I remember those first days like it was yesterday right but there were times along the way that yeah man it felt it felt just grinding yeah grinding yeah I think it just depends on when you ask. Yeah. For real, dude. Like, I think it's the same for us.

You know, when we were 10 years in, dude, I was looking, we almost quit at 10 years in. Chris and I, a lot of you guys know that story. It was, I think the point about this is that entrepreneurship really like recalibrate your sense of what a lot of time is compared to what you thought it was before you started down the journey.

You know, a lot of people hear 10 years and they think, oh man, that's forever. It's a long time. But then when you're 25, 26 years in, you look at 10 years and you're like, man, in, you look at 10 years and you're like, man, I've known you for 10 years. Yeah. Like that feels like it was yesterday.

And I don't know if it's the reward that comes with it, but I will, I do echo that. Like when I was 10 years in, I was like, fuck, what are we doing? Like we're wasting our lives. Yeah. And then now I look around and I'm like, well, this was fucking worth it.

You know, like, it's just, I don't know. I think people misjudge the amount of time that it actually takes. Yeah, I think it's easy. I mean, I know you've said it for, you know, forever in that, you know, it's a problem with a lot of our, you know, younger people, you know, but guys coming up through the ranks right now,

whether it's you're starting your own business or you're working within an organization, it's, I mean, 10 years is, I mean, it's not a short amount of time, but it's super easy to get frustrated around that time, thinking like, man, I've done the work, I'm listening to Andy, I'm doing the things, but it's still, it takes more time than that, right?

And the analogy of driving a race car, I mean, I get a lot of questions like, man, Ryan, you won these big races, 24 hours a mile. The amount of time, I just tell you in racing, the amount of cars I've crashed, okay? Like, properly crashed. Yeah, full send. To develop the skill.

Not bent. Yeah, not bent, like throw it away crashed, right? Lit on fire. You have to crash the car. I mean, there's no way, if you wanna develop the skill, we'll use a racing car, for example, to drive a race car like on the limit. We've just said that to find, if you're gonna drive on the skill, we'll use a racing car, for an example, to drive a race car on the limit. We've just said to find, if you're gonna drive on the limit,

you gotta first find where that limit is, and in order to find it, you have to go over it. You know, this is part of it. In business is no different, man. You gotta, it takes a long period of time of crashing, of making mistakes, right? You know, and having that ability to get back up and say, like, I'm gonna keep going, I'm gonna take, I? You know, and having that ability to get back up and say like, I'm going to keep

going, I'm going to take, I'm going to learn why did I crash? What happened? There was a reason, whether it's physics, stupidity, someone else's fault in another car, whatever it is. What are you thinking? You could do something the car couldn't do, whatever it is, you got to learn from that, and then you got to be able to apply it really quickly, uh, you know, again and again and again, you gotta learn from that. And then you gotta be able to apply it really quickly, again and again and again. And so there's so many,

I think it's why you were first around, like when I was starting out in it, first couple years, I brought it to you, I'm like, hey Andy, maybe this would make sense. The first form was involved and I'm doing this racing at this level. And obviously you're a car guy, we like cars, but there's just something

about racing and I don't care if it's racing a motorcycle, a foot race, a car race, I mean of this competition, you versus the next person right next to you thinking I'm better than you, I'm going to get there quicker than you, better than you, I don't know, there's just some, it's like the purest essence of competition to me, right? And then there's so much connection to business. And I know it's what drove me into it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a hundred percent parallel. I mean, I think we just talked about it on yesterday's show, but it's confusing how people could be competitive in other areas, but then not understand it in the business aspect. I just think a lot of people don't really understand

the rules of business, because they're so parallel to any sort of competition. Team sports or individual sports. But yeah, dude, one of the things that, I don't know if people know, one of the things that people, I don't know people know, but I mean, you were, you were very, very high level water sports racer. Yeah. Okay.

Not swimming, but like, yeah. No. So stand up jet skis, right? Yeah. Yeah. Jet ski. Yeah. Jet ski. My, all my like teenage years, I was racing jet skis

all around the world. And that was an awesome sport. I mean, I still have a lot of friends in that sport. It's kind of what helped really get me semened into the motorsport business and met a lot of the manufacturers and the marketing people and stuff. But that was a fun sport. I got to travel a lot around the country and the world doing that.

And yeah, that's I, I'm for sure. I do think I've definitely the only person that's one of the 24 hours of Lamar and also a jet ski world championship. So I think I, I think I have that one. That's pretty cool. That's my only one on that one, you know? But yeah, that was a fun sport. I mean, that's where I kind of learned, you know,

the cut my teeth. But I'll tell you one big difference, like coming from motorcycles and jet skis, I would say those are much more individual, you know, racing type things. It's really about the rider and the bike or the jet ski. Or car racing, I think is even much more similar to like a business and an organization.

It is, to me, car racing is like the quintessential team sport. The only thing even close to me is like football, American football. If the center isn't doing his job or the guard, I don't care how good your quarterback and running back are, right? Like it has to be a team. Yeah. One person has the ability to fuck the entire thing. The entire thing.

Yeah. Car racing, like drivers get talked about all the time, whether it's the NASCAR driver, the Indy car driver, or the formula one driver, all of those forms of car racing is a massive team sport. I mean, our team, the team that, you know, we won Le Mans with this year, Manti, you know, Porsche, we have 62 people within the team that are at the races,

all performing different roles, from engineering to mechanics, the car, you know. Is that per car? This is total over two cars. For the whole team. Yeah, so we, my car has a touch more, 34 people, of the 62, so those running two cars, so 34 people on my car, you know?

Um, and man, one person, I mean, one person doesn't pull their weight, whether it's the preparation of the car before it gets there, the pit stop. I mean, like in the 24 hours of Lamar, we're, we're doing a pit stop roughly every hour, um, where we're changing tires, filling it up with fuel, fixing anything that maybe, you know, mess up. It is a wild thing to see. I had the opportunity of coming down and watching you at the 24 hour Daytona.

Yep. And like, just the level of like how zoned in everybody was. Like everybody on the crew was. Like I remember I got one of your, one of the crew, he was taking tires to go, I guess like you guys recycle them, right? Yeah. And then I take them to the tire station, right? Yeah get changed. Yeah, it's a good change out, right? That's right. Remember ride like I used to like hey you want to roll? I'm like, yeah

I want to go like this would be cool. I'm like we're doing just dropping them off and we got We got there and then we waited and then they loaded us back up and we just set them I were you doing he's like I got like 10 more seconds before I got to go because I have to Time it up with the net like even being early puts the other guy but like it was It's a wild orchestra of just like everybody's in sync man I'm just like dude that's crazy to even think about like you can't even you don't even want to show up 10 seconds early Because it's gonna throw somebody else off. Yeah, you're in the way. It's crazy

Yeah, these guys like the our pit crews like these I think. These guys like the, our pit crews, like the, I don't, I think a lot of people don't understand like how much of an athlete you have to be like these guys that are doing the tire changes or, you know, the fuelers, a lot of they're all, most of them are athletes, you know, from some other sport growing up, whether it's football, you know, soccer, baseball, basketball, um, man, they're, they train like unbelievably, you know, and every like movement is synchronized, right? You know, soccer, baseball, basketball, man, they train like unbelievably, you know, and every like movement is synchronized, right? You know, from where they place their knee, their hands, you know,

the tire placement and all this. And like at the 24-hour races, these guys are doing this at, you know, three in the morning and four in the morning and five in the morning. And like the drivers sometimes when, you know, like there's three drivers on our team, you know, for the 24-hour race. So yeah, I drive like two-ish to three, two to three hours at a time, and then I'm out of the car and I get to rest for,

you know, four to six hours, right? While my teammates are going, these guys on the pit crew, they don't get to rest. I mean, they don't have backup guys. You know, they're nonstop, you know, 24 hours. So it's just like a well-ran organization that every single person within the organization knows their role, they're experts at their role.

We have authority as well within the race team. You have your superior that you're listening to and you report to, and the best race teams have an unbelievable organizational culture. They have an unbelievable framework of who does what. And you don't question that person next to you or, or, you know, trying to get to that next level because you play that key role within the team. And maybe the next season you can apply for another position, you know, within

the organization and train for that. But when we're at a race, everyone knows their exact job, their exact role, their exact duty. And you know, things run very smoothly, you know, with that. But when we're at a race, everyone knows their exact job, their exact role, their exact duty. And things run very smoothly with that. There's other race teams where I've been a part of that aren't ran so well, just like businesses that aren't ran well. And you can see it, man.

You can feel the culture when you walk in the garage of, man, is everyone not really wanting to be here? They don't like who they work for. This is just a job they're taking because they, they got turned down from that other team and they're, they, you know, they're really just trying to get to the next thing versus like this team that I won with this year with Porsche. I mean, this is, they're, they're highly regarded as one of the best teams in the paddock and the reason why is every single person, they love what they do.

They love who they work for. Yeah. As driver, you know, you want to, as a driver, you want to earn their respect, show all the pit crew that you respect what they do, and it goes vice versa, right? I've seen so many teams where no one respected each other. The drivers didn't respect the crew members, the crew members didn't respect the driver and the whole thing, and the results tend to match, right? That effort.

So it's, uh, it's another great example of how culture, you know, in winning organizations versus culture and losing organizations, it's, uh, it's extremely, it's extremely parallel. Yeah. I think a lot of people also misjudge how fit you have to be to be on one of these teams, you know Like these guys who do the pit crew these guys train for that every I mean, yeah every day. Yeah Yeah, every day and by the way Driving the car is not easy. It is very very physically intensive. I think a lot of people think when

They see a race on television They think it's like driving their car on the road sort of fast. Yeah, you know what I mean? I won't lie. I misjudged it before I got into it. You know, you know I did Remember my first ten laps in a race car. Yeah, dude. I went ten laps in the in this fucking the Ferrari. Yeah, and the for our challenge car, I think it was. Yeah. And, uh, first 10 laps I'd ever been in a race car and dude, I got out of the car. I had to lay on the ground. Like I was, it was legit. First of all, you don't know how to breathe. So you're like,

hold your breath the whole time because you it's i mean dude you're driving it's it's just so different to suck you have to like do it to understand how different it is even if you're a great driver on the road yeah it's just a different thing like for example the braking the braking you know like when you when you go on the road and you see a light The braking. The braking. You know, like when you go on the road and you see a light coming up and it turns yellow, you'll start to ease on the brakes, right? And then eventually you'll come to a full stop.

Racing's the complete opposite. You're trying to basically shorten the amount of time that you're on the brakes to save time, which means you're going to go as close to that light as possible, stand on the brakes as hard as possible, hoping that you will slow down enough to stop. And dude, it's just a completely different thing than driving, than driving on the road. It's completely different. It's, it's, it's addicting. I mean, you saw it when I, you know, what Andy's talking about, we took them to this like racing school in Vegas. This was, gosh, when that came to that car.

That was just when you were in 2017. 2017, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's when we won NASCAR, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, you can, like you said, I mean, you can take like, we all drive cars, right, on the street, right? So you think, you know, how hard could it be?

You know, you go left, you go right, you know, slow down, hit the brakes. And one thing, a racing car, like you drove the Ferrari challenge car, a racing car compared to a street car. I mean, the nicest, the greatest street car you can make. I mean, you've driven some of the best cars in the world, right? They're unbelievable. They perform really well.

They usually go really well with speed. Right. But with a racing car car the ability to stop at a tremendous rate in a very short distance is unbelievable. And it's not just the brakes, it's the tires, it's like the downforce. If you, the force that you have to hit to stop a race car, you know, at speed, at pace, is so unbelievably hard. I mean, when, you know, you like I told Andy Andy you got to hit the brake hard, you know He was okay, you know, you look at anything like this guy can hit the brake, right? You know, he'll be fine, you know

And he goes out there his first few laps and we because there's a there's a sensor on the brake pedal and mounts Measures the pressure per square inch and we come back like hey Andy the brake pressure You know, we need you know, you can hit it, man. You hit it hard. He's like, dude, I am hitting it hard. Yeah. Yeah. Well, dude, you don't, like you don't understand, you don't understand what they're saying.

Like you think they're saying like hard on the road. It's like, dude, it's like as far as you fucking can. Yeah, try to break the pedal off. It feels, it feels counterintuitive. Yeah. Like when you first start. Everything feels wrong, because honestly, if you were in a street car and you hit the brake

as hard as what you have to on the racing car, you would probably crash the street car. It doesn't have the suspension and the downforce to just suck to the road. It would, you know, you could lose the car, right? In a race car, it's designed to, at the last possible moment, you go from zero brake pressure to it's undeniably.

And it's not like you're coasting when that happens. You're at full throttle. Full throttle. Okay, and then you're off the throttle and on the brake, full brake. Yeah. And it's, dude, it's a thing, dude. Like you get out of the car and your first time

and you're like, it's disorienting. Well, one of the most things, and you'll see at Formula One, IndyCar drivers, one of the toughest in your first time and you're like, it's disorienting. Well, one of the most things, and you'll see at Formula One, IndyCar drivers, one of the toughest things in training that we're all working on is our necks. Yeah. And obviously there's G-Force side to side, but then also when you're racing,

you have a helmet on, right? And this helmet, you know, weighs a decent amount when you're sitting still. Well, when you're traveling fast, it weighs a lot more. And the biggest is the G-Force you have under braking. Yeah. And your head is, yeah, you're traveling fast, it weighs a lot more. And the biggest is the G force you have under braking. Yeah. And your head is, yeah, you're strapped in with your body with the five point harnesses, but your head is loose, right?

So the amount of force that you've got to be able to withhold with your neck from your face wanting to slam into the steering wheel, it takes some time getting used to. Dude, it was awesome. It's awesome, dude like and once you like it's like golf it's like you go out and you play golf and For 17 holes you fucking hit the ball all over the golf course and you're like this sucks Yeah, and then like there's like one shot that you hit and it goes straight down the fairway. And it's like, I'm going pro. You're like,

you're like, this is the coolest thing ever. And that's how it is with racing. Like it's, it's, you know, I'm very inexperienced in a race car. Okay. But I have enough experience driving, you know, like you said, the best cars in the world to have a good, you got, you got a great foundation. You weren't that bad. No, we turned out good. We got some funny stories. So I'm ultra competitive, right? Like everybody probably guessed this. So the other thing I struggled with was the f*****g spinning of the car.

All right. Like I think I spun the car over the weekend. It had to be some sort of record. Dude, it had to have been. Remember we were talking about finding the limit, right? You gotta go past it. Yeah. And, uh, what's his name? Uh, Enrico? Enrico was like, Hey man, you know, at least you're aggressive. Most people are not aggressive. They drive the whole time. Yeah. I've ever spent. Yeah. So, so dude, we're like at like, there were at this race and like all these other dudes that are there are like guys who have been through the school already.

And it's like their year end race. I had not been through the school. So like, we just went out there and like I just was with all these dudes. So I was the least experienced person there. And we started doing these, we start you know running these practice laps and I got this coach, I forget his name was JR, I think his name was. And bro he's screaming in my ear first of all like like dude when people scream at me I'm like, you know, and he's like gas gas gas break break break Fuck like just screaming in your ear from this far away to telling you what to do and from the first second you pull

On the track. I'm like bro. Can I like go around once? I got to know what the fuck we're looking at so we go around the track a whole bunch of times for like three days and Dude, I'm spinning the car and we get like the third day dude, and I don't remember what happened dude, so So there's this guy Who was my race partner so they pair you up with a with a yeah another guy all right? And they like you're gonna run the first half of the race and they run like this. They paired me up with this dude, Craig,

who was, you know, he was a little bit older than us. Fucking awesome dude, he's from Australia. We're still friends on the internet. In fact, he runs a dream racing in Australia. In Australia, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that. But his son was there, his son's like 12. So, do you, do you, do you, yeah but what happened?

Well, there was like a qualifying, right? It's a proper race, it's gonna be a proper race at the end of this like week long deal that you only came for the last few days of, but you know, you had to do a qualifying so each driver could go out to try to set their one fastest lap time, just like we do a real race. And that would determine how you would start and line up. Well, you had a spin in the last practice and got completely down on yourself. You were ready to go do something else.

But you were the one that was supposed to qualify for you and Craig. If you didn't qualify, then Craig would have to start like dead last yeah you know so then the his son comes over so dude I come out of the car and I'm like this is fucking I'm fucking pissed bro like you guys see me like when I'm top-level pissed that's how pissed I was and I'm like, fucking Ryan's like, yeah, just leave him alone. Let him leave me alone. So dude, I go sit by myself way over there. And fucking this, Craig's son, who's 12 at the time,

comes over and sits next to me. And I'm like, I'm fucking mad, dude. And like, and that choker kid. No. to me and I'm like, I'm fucking mad, dude. And like, and that choker kid. No, but like, how can you be mad at a 12 year old kid? You know? And he's like, he's like, hey man, you're doing good. He's like, he's like, no, listen. He's typing.

He gives him some pep talk. He gives me like a pep talk. He's like, and he meant it, dude. He's like, hey, he's like, you're doing good. This is your first time on the track. He's like, you're doing really good. My dad said you on the track. He's like, you're doing really good. My dad said you're doing good too. And like, he gives me this pep talk

and like five minutes later, I'm like, all right. I'm good, let's go. So like out of all the pep talks I've given in my life, I get the best one from a 12 year old kid. If I remember right, don't remember right. We won qualifying. Yeah, you qualified, you went out, you won qualifying. So you beat all the other cars.

So there's like eight cars or something. And then, um, yeah, you got, you started the race. No, I finished the race. You finished it. You qualified then, Chris started from your position, then you finished. But yeah. And I remember you telling me like, man, dude, I took the kid came over and was like, Mr. Andy, you know, you're doing good.

And like that I realized like, man, I can't let this get like yeah I can't get mad and leave dude and so in the actual race bro like I don't remember how many laps we run or whatever I don't I think it was it was it timed was that an hour yeah probably I don't remember what it was started in the day but finished into the night yeah yeah so but dude I hadn't gone that long the entire weekend without fucking spinning the car like so somehow I Went through the whole race and didn't spin the car and we won. Yeah, which was cool. Yeah, but uh Dude, the best laps I ran that race were when we went

I don't know if I should say this or not, but we were at the bar drinking, like having a couple drinks, and then we had to take a helicopter from the hotel to the racetrack for like a night event there, and then they let you like drive a, Take a couple laps. Yeah, whatever car you want for a couple laps.

And I had a GT3 RS at the time, so I was familiar with the car. Fuck dude, I did fine in that car. I had a couple whiskies in me. But you know there was nobody else. Nice and loose. Nice and smooth. I was. I was nice and relaxed. Don't recommend this approach. I don't even know I should say that. He's a professional. It is truth. But yeah man. I'll never forget that weekend. I didn't know when you were so upset after the qualifying, we were just starting out like we were racing together that year. It was your first year sponsor.

We were doing Lamborghini Super Trofeo. Super Trofeo. Yeah, so it was the first time we had first form on the race car. And I was sitting there thinking, like, man, this is probably going to be the first and last time I have a first-form sponsorship and he's gonna be he's gonna hate cars so much. No it was awesome. Dude yeah you did great man that was a good time yeah it's great great business out there. We were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Yeah dude and remember I don't even know I should tell these stories dude. Enrico running those two Jettas oh yeah so dude learning car control yes

so Enrico's like former f1 yeah he drove okay so this dude i don't know what do you think he is 60s yeah probably probably yeah early 60s yeah yeah he's late 50s early 60s italian guy awesome guy super awesome guy super cool like exactly like every other race car driver that's like just fucking. He owned the racing school. Yeah, he owned the whole thing. And he's like, you know, hey, it'll be due like, just not, doesn't give a fuck.

The only thing he gave a fuck the entire time was where we were, he goes and he rents these jettas, bro. And he's like, all right, we're gonna go do, what do they call it, where you follow him? Yeah, lead follows. Lead follows. So him and I went out on the track together and raced each other.

You're trying to learn how close you can be to another car in front of you or beside you. Like we all drive on the road and you think, oh, I'm close to the car in front of me. When you really learn what close is, you know like close means they touch you. They touch you. Well don't hit you know. Rubbins racing. That's right. You know where the movie that's from? Yeah. The greatest movie ever. But yeah so ever. That's right. Uh, but yeah, so you are learning, um, you know, car control and car proximity with lead and follow with two rental

cars. So I'm driving a Las Vegas Air Force. I'm just trying to pitch your Andy in a fucking jet. No, bro. This is awesome. So we're racing these fucking jet is around the racetrack and the coach is like, you can get closer, get closer, get closer. We're like bumping each other's shit and like we get done and I'm like the only thing I'm mad about is we were going down there we were going on the straight and I like like a fucking fake car and he's like can't do that that's against the code like he got super fucking pissed but dude so we got done

and I'm like so so dude I'm like so how come you don't use your own cars for that? And he's like, well, cause we beat them up. And I'm like, so like the rental place doesn't care? He's like, no, we just get the insurance. He was dead serious, dude. He was dead serious. I'm like, so they have a car on?

He's like, no, I don't care. Like, no big deal. That's crazy. Yeah. Learning to drive a race car. But yeah, man. That was good times. I'm like so they have a car on he's like no, I don't care Yeah learning to drive a race car, but yeah, man good times That's what we should honestly do that again, dude What we should do is get like some of our guys here that you know Make them like we'll do a contest or something and take them and get them in a race car Yeah, cuz like dude you cannot appreciate racing and get them in a race car. Because like, dude, you cannot appreciate racing.

Because here's the best thing that came out of that. It wasn't what I learned about driving, which I did learn a lot. I mean, you wanna learn how to drive, you're gonna learn a lot in a very short amount of time in a race school. But it's like playing a musical instrument. Like when you start to play a musical instrument

and you realize how hard it is, and then you see like somebody who's really good at it, and you can appreciate it, it's the same with racing. The best thing that came out of that race school for me was how much of a fan it made me of racing. Because now I'm like, dude, these guys are really good. If you'd ever been through that and you watch racing, you're like, I could probably do that

You know and it's like dude. It's a different. It's a totally different thing different Yeah, I mean if anyone's there you're into cars. I mean going out on a racetrack Even just completely by yourself. It's it's awesome to learn your you know, you think you have limits, right? And then if you ever get a chance to be around a professional driver And as soon as you start thinking like, man, you know, like I'm doing good here, you know, I'm really killing it. If you ever get a chance to ride like passenger seat with a with a top level driver, your eyes will really get open about what's possible, right? Yeah, in terms of breaking. Yeah, and we're the limit really is on a car like

Do I mean, you know so far past it is what people think it is where you when everything is right? like when your tires are right and like What that car will do is Like almost double or triple what you think it'll do. Yeah, like what you feel when you're in the car Oh, it's yeah, it's what's what takes people so much longer. I remember telling you that one of the wildest corners in all of racing anywhere is turn one at Sebring in Florida. The race car here that we won, this corner is like you enter the corner in fifth gear on a car. We do have one more gear, but you enter it at around 150 miles an hour from a really long straightaway before it, and there's bumps all the way through this thing.

There's a concrete wall that marks the apex of the corner on the inside, and it's virtually a 90 degree corner. So you're going straight and it's a hard left. That's a 90 degree. And this corner, our minimum speed in a GT3R is about 132 miles an hour. That's the slowest that you get in the middle of the corner. And I remember walking you through that one and doing like, no way, 134 is like the slowest. And like, believe me, when you first go at it're there's also a concrete wall that you're staring at Don't you start that on the on the outside and kind of like try to cross it straight almost across you do Yeah, you start you any any high-speed corner

You want to start as far to the outside of you know the corner and you know Make the apex and then utilize all the track on the exit you try to open the corner up as much as possible And that one's just wild because it's basically a hard right. There's a concrete wall on the inside, a concrete wall on the outside. So if you mess up, there isn't like a sand pit or some gravel or, you know, everything, if you mess up, like you mess up really bad. And like I said, the slowest, the slowest you get down to is roughly 130 miles an hour and like that one, when you can wrap your mind around, like when you actually The slowest you get down to is roughly 130 miles an hour.

That one, when you can wrap your mind around, when you actually do it once, you have a whole new understanding of what's possible. Then that's probably one of the gnarliest ones here, but I'm sure you guys, I know you in Formula One, big fan of Spa in Belgium. This is the greatest racetrack in the world. There's no question. There's a corner there called Eau Rouge. It's actually a series of corners that are all tied together.

And that is without a doubt, the craziest thing I have ever done. That's the downhill one, right? No, you go uphill. So you enter this section of corners at top, top gear. So six gears, fast as the car will go. And it's a series of corners that you first go left. Is that it right there though?

Yeah. All of these corners are it. This is all it. So it's a combination of like four corners tied together. And it's, if you mess up here, here again there's no like runoff there's no say this is it's also like this is like the deadliest corner in racing a more it's more more drivers have died at this one corner than like anywhere else in the world um because it it can be done like in a gt3 it can be done flat without lifting but this is like perfect

weather conditions you you know, perfect grip from the tires, perfect weight balance with the car. And then if you, where most people make a mistake, if you lift, you know, your heart and soul and everything in your body says, Hey man, we should, we should back off here a little bit. If you lift, you actually take downforce off the car and make the car. Squirrely. Squirrely and move.

And if you lift at the wrong moment in this series, of course, there's no saving it. I mean, there's no, there's no catching it. You're, you know, and it's a, it's a really bad crash. Now I say all these bad things. When you do it the first time wide open without lifting, it is the most exhilarating feeling on planet earth. I don't know anything any better. And maybe it's like, oh, you cheated, you know, this, you've seen

all the massive crashes and stuff, but there's nothing that I can even like closely describe to it. And like when you first arrive there, you can watch it on TV as much as you want. But when you first arrive, one, it's, it's going uphill. This hill is like, you're climbing like three stories and it is, I mean, it's a hard left, a hard right and a hard left back again. And you're like, wait a second, this is flat? Like we don't, by first thought approaching it was, we need to not only lift, we need to probably break and maybe consider a downshift.

And we should consider all of the above, but this place, like, I've been telling you, like you've got to go to like watch a race there, one, and then they have driving events. You can go and Porsche and Manti, they do track days where you can turn up and drive a GT3 RS or whatnot. You got to go drive at this track. You don't have to do Eau Rouge Flat, but just to go up it, it's an experience in person.

As a car person, anyone, if you're ever into it, like go to Belgium, go to spa, watch the F1 race. They have a 24 hour race there as well. I've won that race. Probably some of my best driving ever done. I was on pole position there for the European Le Mans Series championship one year. And that was probably the best lap I've ever done in my life. But that place is cool. So dude let's let's kind of shift a little bit and let's talk about moving you know through the big races you know we started it with Lamborghini's series race yeah yeah supertrofas a single make series where all the cars were exactly the same.

And that's a great place to start as a driver because as a driver, you're the only difference. I mean, everyone's car is exactly the same with the rules and teams can make small adjustments like the rear wing angle and the ride heights, but not really a lot. So it's truly a competition of the driver where now and just like Formula One or what we race now in GT3 you're racing against other manufacturers so you know there's always differences between a Porsche and a Ferrari and a Lamborghini so there's more variables but single make series like the Super Trofeo for Lamborghini those those awesome because you know there's no excuses man if you're slow

you know. And every major man for those of you who are you know not familiar with this so Porsche has one of these single makes Ferrari has one of these single makes there's basically one for every major manufacturer and that's where most like what we would call gentlemen racers that end up doing what you've done yep come from. Yeah, that's where you go. I mean, it's one of the least expensive forms of racing. A lot of guys that do it for fun,

they like that part of it, that hey, the driver's the only difference. But yeah, it's where you go to kind of get your start, I would say. And in racing, if you do well, like they have a championship with Lamborghinis here in North America. In our second year of racing that,

we won the North American championship. And then you go to a world championship where they have a series in Europe and they have a series in Asia and America and all those drivers come together at one race, they change the location. And this is the same with Ferrari, this is the same with Porsche,

and for Lamborghini in our second year, we won the world championship. So once you do that, they kind of kick you out. They kind of like, because they want it, they want it to be like, you know, a place for, you know, drivers that are coming up, can they go to, so yeah, that was in 2018. Well plus, you gotta realize, these are their best customers can go to. So yeah, that was in 2018. Well plus, you gotta realize,

these are their best customers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, there's, you wanna keep, yes. Yeah, you can't have one guy there winning all the time and they kind of politely ask you, hey, it's time to move on. It's time to move on. Yeah.

So then we moved in. That was 2018, right? That was 2018, yeah. And then we moved into IMSA. Yeah, yeah, the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship we moved there in 2019 which here in North America that's kind of like our top level of sports car and endurance racing it's owned by NASCAR so the France family and all and that's the home of our biggest races like the 24

hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring and and that's where all the manufacturers come to compete against each other so you know the Lamborghini races against the Porsche and the against the Corvette and against the Ferrari and so yeah that's our first year racing there was in 2019. And then we, that was what, 2021? The portion of 12 hours. That was 2020. 2020. Yeah. We won the 12 hours of Sebring, you know, and, um, that was our first, like big, uh,

well it was, I mean, that was our first big, you know, kind of marquee race that the 12 hours of Sebring is one of the, uh, triple crown of, of sports car racing, which is, uh, you know, Sebr Sebring, Daytona, and then obviously the 24 Hours of Le Mans being the biggest. We won that race in 2020. It was the last race of the year that year. And man, that was an awesome time with Andy. Andy was going to come to that race.

He had something coming. Last minute he couldn't come. And I had a feeling we were pretty competitive in the championship that year. We had been on the podium a couple of times, but we hadn't won a race at this high level. We were, it's a 12 hour race and we qualified well. I think we were in the top three or so in qualifying. So I kind of knew we had a decent car and all. Started the race off, we were always kind of around the top five.

We got up to the lead for a little bit. And then you kind of fall back, obviously there's lots of chaos. But I remember about halfway through, we were somewhere in the top five. And I'm out of the car at this point, my teammates are in and I'm texting with Andy. He's back here watching it. And he watches every minute, he knows everything going on. He'll ask, why are we pitting right now? Is everything okay? Yeah,, like, well, yeah.

I'm definitely that guy. Yeah, you know, and it's like, dude, when they're racing, it's on TV. I'm, I don't sleep. Yeah. He gets the, he wants to know like the inside, like, well, we're pitting now cause we're saving some fuel or so. I have to explain to him the strategy, what's going on. And I remember it like with six hours to go, he's like,

dude, we're going to win. And I'm like, ah, you know, it's a long way to go. There's a lot that can happen. He's like, no, man, I feel it. We're gonna win this one. And I just dismissed it. I'm like, okay, I'll keep you posted, you know? And I went in for like another stint or so.

I come back out, there was like two hours to go or so, and we're in the lead, you know, we're going, it's getting, it's dark now, Sebring always ends at night and I'm done with my drive time. My teammates are going to end. Um, Patrick Long was our teammate that year. Um, uh, who's in the new F1 movie. You get a chance to see his, uh, he's got some plays himself in the movie.

Was it Corey on the team that year? No, Corey wasn't on that was the, um, the, the next year. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, we were, we were leading and we were in this battle with the Ferrari, I remember, and the Ferrari was faster than us that year. They just had pace on us and we were scrappy, you know? And Andy's texting with me. We get down to the hour that's left and he's like, dude, I'm telling you, we're going to win. And I'm like, don't say it just don't jinx this, man. Like, you know, you never know.

And, um, man, there was a, there was a yellow flag cause there was a crash with like 15 minutes to go. And so that bunches the whole field back up. So now it was just kind of us and the Ferrari up front, but then now there's like the whole field is now bunched up and they cleaned the wreck up and then you it's green flag again, there's like 30 minutes field is now bunched up and they cleaned the wreck up and then it's green flag again. There's like 30 minutes left in the race. And man, we had an awesome battle,

but we won the race, crossed the line and finished. It was super close race. And man, I just, I can't, you know, it was like, I'm not a guy, you're texting something like, I'm not gonna say I told you so, but I did tell you so. I did tell you I was gonna win. Dude, what was that race that we won that Fuck there was like a was that the one was that the race where there was like a wreck right at the end

Like right at the end those see bring yeah, that's what that's the AMG car fucking wreck. I think so. Yeah. Yeah I think so me is Mercedes. I can't remember. I just remember this Ferrari Yeah, Adeline and you And you guys recycled that engine because that car is sitting in the lobby. Then that same engine went to next year and won the 21 Daytona. No, it's like we, no, different engine. That engine is in his house.

Is in my house. Oh, you got it. Gotcha. Porsche did a cool gift. Andy, we got to keep the car from Porsche. It's here at First Form headquarters. But they had told us at the time, hey, we have to take the engine out

to do some maintenance before it goes into storage or display. But yeah, Porsche made a really awesome gift for me. They took the engine out that we won, and they made the engine, the whole block and everything, into a coffee table. And they gifted it to me. And they took the six pistons out and they gave like the two other drivers, they made the piston with like a frame and everything

and like our lead engineer and the lead mechanic. So six people in the team got like a piston, you know, in the rod. And then they gave me the, it's still in my basement, my man cave, you know, today. But yeah, that, that was, that was, I had one other time that Andy had a, you know, I told you, so when we won Daytona, uh, two years later in 2022, we won the 24 hours of Daytona. Um, he was again, like during the race, like, bro, I fit, we're winning this. And I'm like, Oh God, not again.

Like we got the text to prove it. Yeah. Yeah. We got the text. So we were like, dude, we're, we're going to win. Like, I'm telling you, we're going to win. And you know, dude, we're gonna win. Like I'm telling you, we're gonna win. And every time I'm out of the car, No, we were talking about that before the fucking race.

We were, because remember we put believe on the back of the car. On the back of the car. Yeah, I had this whole, yeah. That was a FaceTime call too in the locker room before that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the team. Yeah, we had Andy called to the,

we always have a team meeting before the race day and Andy called in on FaceTime, he'd spoke to all our mechanics, all our, you know, guys from Gather Round, and he said, guys, you gotta believe, like, and he said, I already believe, I already believe, we are going to win, we're prepared, we're ready, and we are gonna win.

And it got everybody pumped up, you know. And yeah, we had, out of that, the team made a little sticker right on the back of the bumper. We just put, uh, believe. And that was kind of our inner mantra that before you can do anything great, you gotta believe. And that all came from Andy.

And, you know, the race went up and down again. You know, we had to try to win that race a number of times before this. Oh yeah. And it was, yeah, four times before it. Yeah. And, uh, you know, Mike, Andy,us is one of the hardest races in the world. You know, I'm just... Some dudes will race their whole lives

and never win that race. Same with Le Mans. Yeah, yeah. In fact, most people. Most people, yeah. I mean, the guy who owned the team that we were racing with that year, John Wright, he spent his entire career.

Awesome dude. Yeah, awesome, awesome guy, owns Wright Motorsports. He started as a mechanic for a team for Porsche, worked his way awesome, awesome guy owns right motor sports. He started as a mechanic for a team for Porsche, worked his way up, got to own his own team. And I mean, he's been racing professionally as a mechanic and team owner for 30 some odd years of his life and done Daytona every one of those years, he never won. And you know, I'm telling anyone, Hey man, most people spend their career trying to win this race. And he's like, well, we're, we're going to win.

And, uh, uh, and dude, and I'll never forget, we still have it to this day. We cross the finish line, we won. And I was, you know, obviously it's very hectic and all of this. And, um, uh, we were going up to the podium. I checked my phone, Andy had texts. He goes, Hey man, you know, I love you brother. And I want you to know know I always believe in you. And one other thing, we're going to win the 24 hours of Le Mans.

Like immediately, we hadn't even gone to accept the trophy from Daytona. And Andy's already telling me, we're going to win the 24 hours of Le Mans. And again, I'm like, oh Andy. Which started a whole new journey. Yeah, so next year off we went to Europe trying to start to qualify for Le Mans. And it took a couple years. Yeah, the first two Le Mans did not go very well. Did not go very well. What happened, Ryan?

I mean, you know, a lot of shit can happen in 24 hours. Or the first hour. Or the first hour. Yeah, yeah. Gosh, the first year we crashed out. I mean, I think I made it into like hour two or something, but I was in the car, we crashed, and actually another guy crashed.

Yeah, see what happened was. I arrived at another crash going on, and I joined that crash. It looked like a good time. Thought we would all, you know, things happen. That's why these 24-hour races are so difficult to win. I can't explain to you. This year at Le Mans there were 62 cars in the field.

We're in a couple different classes, but there's 62 cars out there running around. And you put 62 cars with type a personality drivers who all think they're the best in the world and are all, you know, trying to win the biggest race in the world and man, shit happens. And you're, you're constantly in this environment of, of chaos that is uncontrollable. And you know, it's so easy for you to do everything right. Like, our first year at Le Mans, I was at the right spot on the track. I was looking, I did the right thing and just this other guy, he crashed literally right

in front of me. I mean, there was, and everyone's like, oh, Ryan, don't take it so hard on yourself. Like, no one could have done anything. Max Verstappen couldn't have avoided that crash. You know, you always think that there's something better you could do, but a lot of times, you know, you can be prepared and something happens out of your control and that's it, man. You know, I think people, you guys gotta understand, like you,

you can literally like to finish a 20, even a 12 hour race or a six hour race, much less a 24 hour race without a car, without the car braking, without you slipping on something on the track, without... Flat tires. Flat tire, without, you know, I mean, dude, there's so much shit that has to go right.

It's, you know, like you said, somebody could crash in front of you. Somebody could make a stupid move. Oh by the way you're in GT3 or GTD class Which is the slowest class out there? They're also the hardest class to win in the biggest class yes Because the these you've got all these other cars like the prototype cars that are ten million dollars apiece flying by you. And like it's dude, you have there, there is an element and I hate using this word,

but there is an element of pure luck. There, there is without a doubt. I mean, without a doubt you have to, we say all time, like these big races, you have to be prepared. Yeah. Right. I mean, and because you're going into this uncontrollable situation, you have to execute on every single thing you can control, like for the driver, like my fitness, I can control that.

I can, I have to execute. I can't be fatigued. I can't be overweight. I can't be, you know, I have to be perfect. I can control that. We can control our pit stops, right? We can control if we make sure that the wheel guns are working properly. We can control that if we practice that and choreograph that. We can control that the tire pressures are set correctly in the tires. There's lots of things we can control and we have to execute on all those things because you're going to go out on track with these 61 other idiots, all that you can't control. You can't control the weather. You can't control track conditions. You can't

control safety cars when they come out. So there's all these things that you just have to focus on the things that you can control. And so you can be perfect on all those things and have a run of bad luck. People don't understand, dude, like there's guys out there, like there's a, you can basically buy your way into these things. So in every race, and this is no knock, but I mean, this is just the way racing is. Like you're going to be on the track with guys who are super professional F1 champions, the best drivers in history. And you're also going to be on the track with the dude next door that has a medical device company that fucking has enough money to run

the race who doesn't know shit about racing. So it's like, dude, it really is chaos. There there's there's there's always, There's always a handful of those guys. Yeah. You know, that's what a lot of it takes to win. I get a lot of those questions. You know, what does it take? And how do you pull it off? And honestly, you've got to have the thing that I think is rare is, one,

they're definitely better teams than others. So you've got to get to a position as a driver that you're on the radar of some of the best teams if you're shit slow, or you don't have, there's a financial element. Like for me, the rare combination that I've been able to spend the time to develop the skill set in order to drive the car fast,

that's one thing that is rare. And then also, I've been able through spend the time to develop the skill set in order to drive the car fast. That's one thing that is rare. And then also I've been able through my business life, through my relationship with you, sponsorship, you know, some driver has to bring financial element to the deal. Whether that comes from your own money, whether that comes from outside sponsorship. You can find either of those two. You can find super talented fast drivers that don't have a penny to their name or no sponsorship or no connections, right? They're not that valuable because the car, someone has to pay for the car to go around or you can find guys that have tons of money, a bit of a liability, a

bit of a bit not with the skillset. So I've been able to devote a lot of my life, you know, on the business side, uh, the things to be able to bring some own financial means to a team, been able to devote a lot of my life, you know, on the business side, uh, the things to be able to bring some own financial means to a team. Been able to make great relationships with guys like Andy and have bring sponsorship to our team, our team first forms the title sponsor. And still you can have all that, you can bring all that stuff, but someone has to drive the car at an extremely high level for hours and hours on end without a mistake.

So, um, like the first year when we arrived, I had all this, we had the, everything was there. We had a good team. I felt like I had done the work. The car crashed with me in it. So I, you know, I can't, it wasn't my teammates fault. I got, you know, and yeah, you can say, oh, wrong place, wrong time. I was in the car, man. What's that like, dude? Like, how does that feel? Like for real? It's, cause I mean, when you do it, when you crash, it feels bad.

Like when your team, I've been where my teammate crashed and you're like, shit dude, I didn't even get to drive. Like, you know, so like, I wouldn't have crashed. Yeah, I wouldn't have crashed. You know, there's easy that then that feels bad. But dude, when you're, when you're at the wheel, dude, and like you crash it, not like, oh, we got to come in and fix it. Like you're at the wheel, dude, and you crash it, not like, oh, we got to come in and fix it.

You're out. I've been, because that's the first radio call, is we're out. Because they have sensors and stuff on the car. They can tell the car stopped, right? They don't know what happened. They're like, oh, maybe he can get it back. When you properly crash it. Yeah, it's not like how you see on F1 TV, on the show, on the show where they, the guys have so much data. They know they, they, they

know. Yeah. I mean, our guys have a tremendous amount of data, but they, they know if you stop, it's not good. Can you get the car back as you, you know, can you get it back to the pit lane? But when you're sitting there and like the whole front is smashed off or whatever, and you got to tell them like, we're out. All the, you know, and that all of this work, all this money, all this time, all this preparation, it's all, you know, and the preparation is for a year. Like that's like you start prepping to run the Daytona the minute after the Daytona finishes or the Lamar finishes. Like obviously we have other races throughout the year,

but like it's just like- They're all tuned up. That's right. I mean, everyone wants to win. Le Mans for sure is the biggest race in the world. I mean, like, you can ask like any driver, any formula one. I mean, look, right now the talk in formula one is like McLaren is making a new car to come to race at Le Mans.

Like Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri versus Stappen's talking about he wants to come to Le Mans. Like every, every driver, I don't care who you are, you want to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Indianapolis 500 is up there, you know, his biggest race, the Monaco Grand Prix and F1. But it is, Le Mans is one of, I would say the top three races in the world that everyone wants to win. It's the most viewed.

Yeah. The most viewed motor race ever. So that amount of pressure you have like everyone from F1 to NASCAR to IndyCar like everyone wants to be at this race so the preparation that goes in if you have and one you can't just sign up to come to Le Mans you have to be invited so even as a driver or a team there's only so many slots that you know cars can physically fit into the pit lane. So you have to earn an invitation. And so even then during the invitation, the amount of preparation that goes into being

ready for the race, both from a personnel standpoint and the car, I can tell you our car at Porsche, they work on that car. Every single part of that car has been gone over time and time and time again. We have a splitter, the front splitter that's in the front. I can't talk to you about a lot of the secret things, but I can tell you the front splitter we have, the rear wing that we have, there are certain parts on the car that are Le Mans only. They are designed exactly for this one race.

To make, Le Mans is kind of interesting because we have these super long straightaways like the Molson straight where we're going top speed for a really, really long time. And then there's also super high speed corners and then some very, very tight first gear corners. So the track, when you first look at it, it looks kind of simplistic. When you're there, it's like the combination of everything. You have to have a car that's fast on the straights because if you're not, you're just going to get passed and it's the easiest place to pass. You have to have a car that has enough downforce to be stable in the really

high speed corners, like these ones down here at the end, corners like 20 and stuff through here. Those are called the Porsche curves. You enter those corners and fifth gear and you're going through there at a hundred and forty to hundred and thirty miles an hour? And then you have corners like the final chicanes. Those are called the Ford chicanes You're in first gear in first gear. You're barely crawling There's these huge curves that you got to climb and go under so the car has to perform at low speed medium speed high speed And it also has to be fast, right? So it's, from an engineering standpoint, it's super hard to have a car that's good at all of those things.

And you'll never have one that's perfect at all of them. You'll always have some inadequacy, but that's what's so kind of special and unique about developing the car that can be good around that track. But if you can be faster, you can be fast anywhere. Let me ask you this. How hard was it for you to learn that skill of just trusting your other teammates, right? Like whether it's pit crew, whether it's like your

your engineers like having to have that faith trust in somebody else to control something you can't control. I think I know for you? I think, I mean, to beat the business analogy, horse, but I mean, I've been a part of large organizations for so much of my life that you have to trust. If Andy Frisella can run all of First Form completely by himself, there'd be no need for these hundreds of employees here, right? So no one can do anything

this complex and great, you know, on their own. In the racing car, there is something that is just, I don't wanna say balls or blind faith, like when the engineer is telling you, hey, the Porsche curves, you can enter that, you know, at 140. And you're like, okay, that sounds good. And then you arrive there in the real car and you're, or I would say even first on the

simulator, we do try things first on the simulator. And like, okay, the engineer says 140 miles an hour at this corner. And you arrive there and you're like 160, 170 flat and you think, oh my, let me tell you, it's a hard corner. And you break and you downshift twice and you turn, you let me tell you it's a hard corner and you break and you downshift twice and you turn you look down you're like 110 and you're and you're thinking oh gosh I'm on the limit here and you go back to your notes and goes wait 140 he said okay let's try again you know and you crash and you

crash and you crash and you're like called engineer back like hey man question so the simulator helps with these types of things then you arrive to Le Mans and you get there for the first test day because this this track is mostly country roads it's there's there's only a small bit of it that's like a proper racing track and then you're using the rest of the country roads in France and And again, the race is 100 years old, right? But 100 years ago, they only raced on the country roads. So you can't just go here and practice anytime you want. They only close the roads for this one race a year.

And so you're flying down the road the first time, like the first practice day, and the track's always dirty at the first time, because it's a normal highway. There's trash on the sides and stuff, right? And you go flying towards that corner and man, let me tell you, you know, yes, you do have to have a lot of faith in your engineers and what they tell you is capable of the car and that takes some time.

I mean, that takes, you got to make like, is he lying to him? Is he sure? Like how sure is he? Dude, from an amateur very amateur perspective I found it very helpful to have someone telling me what to do when I was 100 when I when I was yeah cuz like dude for me at a very amateur very very amateur level now I you almost have to have someone telling you what to do because you have no idea what the fucking car will do.

And if you trust them, you'll be fast. We have a ton of data. These cars collect like you when you and I drove. I'm just like you. I'm much more comfortable if I can see that, okay, another driver on the same day on the same car, he broke at this point. I'm breaking earlier. The guy didn't crash.

He made it. You know, I'm, I'm, I've been able to just get myself wrapped around rather quickly. What one man can do, another man can do. Right. So, but I'm usually not the first person to go do it. In some of these situations, I let, you know, my teammate does it. And now the good thing is there's a lot of like amateur drivers that you can show them the data over and over and they'll spend a week, a day, like going there and they'll never

make it to the breaking point, right? I've been really quick. I like, I'm real quick. If you show me, hey, Brian, your teammate breaks here at the 50, it doesn't take me four laps or three. Like I go to the next lap. I will, I will. The learning curve is short.

It's very short. Yeah. I inherently know what one man can do. Another man can do. So that's, whether that stupidity bravery, you know, I don't know, but I've just, I've arrived. Wouldn't you say though, like that's one of the most important elements to, I mean, to, to becoming a great driver quickly. It's, it's easy to say it. You're right. Say it. Yeah. Let me tell you when you like on like in this world of

simulators, right? They're awesome by the way. I mean, these simulators are actually really, really good. But there's always that element on the simulator. You can always just hit that magic reset button after you crash and it costs no money. Yeah. You're, you don't have to go to the hospital, you know, and

you, you know, you can reset. When you arrive at the real car, there's real consequences, you know, and you're, that's real speed and that's a real concrete wall right there. You know, that's the difference. Everyone can say, oh yeah, break it the 50 meter mark, no problem.

Hmm, you know, easier. Some people can do it and some people can't. I mean, dude, it's a parallel to business too. I mean how fast can you learn? How fast can you learn? How fast can you watch someone else do something and then know that you can do it too? Or do you say oh but he's an anomaly or that's a special circumstance or we're not them. You know because none of that shit is true dude. It just isn't. You've got to be able to learn quick. Another thing in business that relates is

a lot of people don't realize a race car, if you drive it for one hour on one set of tires, and you see a racing driver who can run virtually the same lap time for over the one hour, or very, very close to it, that is such an unbelievable skill set, because the tires are consistently wearing out. Every lap that you go, the tire has less grip.

And when you go for one hour, let me tell you, those last five laps at the end is so incredibly hard because it's like driving on ice. There's literally like no grip left in the tire. And for you to achieve anywhere close to the lap time that you did at the first of the few laps is really, really hard. It is possible because when you start at the first lap, you have a full tank of fuel. Fuel weighs a lot when you have it all. The fuel is burning off over the hour.

So the car is actually getting lighter as the time goes on, but the grip is going away. So you start with a lot of grip, super security, but you're just slow because it's kind of heavy and sluggish. Then the car gets super light and nimble, but you have no grip towards the end. The best drivers can achieve a similar lap time all the way across. There's a big parallel in business, right? When the conditions are perfect and everything's fine and everything's good, and you can achieve one result in you're in sales in the month of May and you can achieve a good result. Being able to achieve that same result, maybe in the month of January with, you know, or when it's a different trend, it's a different, this is more difficult. It takes a skillset. So there's,

the, the only constant is change, right? And that's for sure in racing and for sure in business, you know, it's just another reason why I love it so much in life, right? You, what, what you can do now doesn't mean you can do it later. And if you really, if you really develop the skillset, it is possible. Yeah. Man, it takes. And the really, the really, really great championship people actually perform much better when the circumstances are much more difficult. So, they're the best drivers? Yeah.

When it rains? They're great. Everyone talks about Ayrton Senna? Yeah. Man, I don't care what driver you ask. Driving a race car in the rain with like slick tires, we do have rain tires you can put on, but a lot of times it's dry and then the rain comes, but you have the dry tires on. Let me tell you, dry tires on a wet track,

I can't explain to you how slick it is. I mean, you can think to touch the gas pedal. You don't actually do it, just your brain thinks, I wonder if I should hit the gas now. Bam, you're spun out backwards in the wall. I mean, it's so difficult. And Ayrton Senna was like, he was the man in the rain. And the feel that it takes, he was unworldly, okay? But man, this is also another analogy. Like sometimes, I mean, out of the blue, it can rain. Yeah. There's chaos. it goes from fucking perfect conditions. Everything's good.

Yeah. And then it's chaos in a lot in the driving world. A lot of drivers are so the right, Oh God, it's raining and we have to pit. We have to pit now. And you know, the pickers like, dude, you can pit. We're going to go to last place. Like survive, you know, can you survive in Lamar? It's super specific.

Lamar the racetrack is like over eight miles long. So almost nine miles all the time when it rains in Lamar, it's super specific. Lamar, the racetrack is like over eight miles long. So almost nine miles all the time when it rains in Lamar, it very rarely rains the whole track. The track is so big. It can usually rain only in one section and the pit crew, they all know that they have radar and everything coming. So you arrive and you're like, I've done it. I've arrived like, Oh my God, if we have to pit now, it's like monsoon. They're like, ah, you gotta survive, Ryan. If you can make it past Tetra Rouge or the next sector, it's actually dry.

And you're like, I can't go. And I remember, this was last year, it came huge rain towards the end of the lap. And I mean, I was surviving, I was surviving, and a lot of the guys I was racing with, they all peeled into the pit lane. And our guys told me to stay out, like it's gonna dry up. I mean, I didn't question them,

but I did ask like, are you sure? Like everyone's going in and they're like, no, trust me. And sure enough, we cycled to the lead. Everyone came in for wet tires. I made it several corners later and then it was the sun. So we kept going and man, we made a big lead right then because all the guys that came for wet tires Guess what they had to do when the rain stopped they had to come back into the pits again to get dry and so

It's such a good parallel for business Because like change yeah, dude because the people who truly get ahead in business and who win Are people that when the chaos comes they don't freak the fuck out. Stay the course. Yeah, they keep moving and actually, I think there is an element of being wired for that, but the best operators that I've seen and probably the best drivers that you've seen are very similar and that they will make a,

it's kind of a paradox People who are truly great at what they do when things are perfect will you usually be hyper almost? Insane about how much better it should be yeah, but then when shit gets fucking crazy Those people calm down dude. They're suit. They're like ice super calm Chaos is happening tragedy happen The storm came out of nowhere on the racetrack the storm came out of nowhere in your business But it's here and those people they they go from being

like almost people, they go from being like almost hyper aggressive and like annoying and intolerable in terms of like their aggressiveness and their, you know, like, yeah, fuck, we gotta look out for this or that or this to like, Hey, everything's good. Yeah, we're good. We've got to do this and this and this. And I think that's a trait. I don't know if that's something that I don't know if that's something that people can learn, but I do believe you can get better at it.

Yeah, because it takes an actual effort. Yeah. Everything in your body is panic. Yeah, like you, I don't know if it's something you can become great, great at without having it be wired into you, but I do think it's something that people can get better at. Yeah, I would agree.

I mean, I would agree. There's like, um, like, you know, we all, Ayrton Senna, I'm sure this guy was born with some things that other humans just haven't been born with. Um, I tell you, like, and I'm this way in business on the racetrack, when it starts raining, I immediately get excited. Yeah. Deep in. I know this it's about now I immediately get excited. Deep in. I know this, it's about now I can make a difference. Yeah, dude.

And the business is the same. It's the same. Like fucking everybody's getting, like dude, in a bad economy or a, you know, like COVID, like COVID comes, everybody freaks the fuck out. Bro, my main thought when COVID happened, and I know it was yours too, because we talked through it, was like, all right, dude,

everybody else is gonna fuck up. We can jump miles ahead. We can pass a lot of people. And by the way, both of us did in our businesses. That's right. Man, we always talk about, there's two types of drivers. I think there's also two types of entrepreneurs yeah when the rain comes it's either oh shit yeah we have to pit we like oh god what are we gonna do and then there's

those that smell the blood in the water yeah yeah and let's be fair we both have tremendously talented and skilled people around us too that are also that way yep you know there's there's a you Justin, I got Sal and Jason and Chris and then each other. A common trade amongst all those people, they're all great operators that I think they also, if they were on the racetrack and it started raining, they would have the same thought.

They'd be like, this is it. Yeah. I heard Chris is a terrible driver though. Chris is, I don't know, I can't tell if Chris is a great driver or a terrible driver, but I know this, I don't know, I can't tell if Chris is a great driver or a terrible driver, but I know this, I hate riding with him. I fucking hate it.

There's something about his casual nature of driving very fast that almost, I'm like, you don't know what you're doing here, do you? I'm not a good passenger almost with anyone. Bro, no. Do you drive? Okay, how hard is it for you to leave the track at the track when you're driving down? I'm always pretty good. No, I'm always pretty good.

I tell you, there's two people around me that are usually with me at the racetracks all the time. One's my father. He comes to a lot of the races races and he's the worst at this. The other's Justin. He's there. They'll be at a long race, you know, whatever, eight hour race, 24 hour race. And no matter what the situation is, usually I'm a bit tired afterwards. And so I'm not driving the rental car back to the airport or wherever we're going. My dad, my dad is like, when he gets in the rail, fucking cold trickle. It's like, it's his stint, man. He's in. Like he is fired up, dude.

I mean, we are like breaking every traffic rule. He slams on the brakes, like coming into the corners, you know? And we're like, dad, bro, like, it's easy. He's like, no, it's fine. I've just, you know, and he says it. He goes, I've been watching racing the last 24 hours. Like, I'm ready to go, you know?

You should have taken a turn like this. Oh, dude. That's hilarious. He's hitting apexes, you know? I'm like, dad, bro, like, if the race is over, man, we're all good. That's funny. That's hilarious.

What a good looking car, though, man. Oh, yeah. Well, dude, that's a whole nother thing we could talk about. We developed that. That was our strategy. I mean, the blue, obviously, this is the first form blue and our Panto. But I mean, I'm sure everybody that drives any kind of race car says, Oh, mine's the best looking car. But I mean,

we had we get so many compliments from fans that this is the baddest looking race car. And we get so many comments on like how bright it is and the sun it shows up so bright. You can see our car on TV, it picks up the light so well. You could definitely see even when it's just panning across. Yeah, you see the first car. This year my wife and son got the opportunity at Le Mans to ride in the Goodyear Blimp. They got to go up during the race, and they have these videos from the blimp of the cars coming by. And dude, you can our car coming like all the way down the mole

sign. It's so bright, you know, but it's become iconic now. I think, you know, we're building something that'll be looked back on, you know, especially now we're going to have three different Porsches that have won the three largest races in the world, you know, and the fact they were all blue, they're all slightly different in design. We changed the design a little bit, but they're all the blue first form Porsche, you know? Well dude, it's like we talked, you know, when we first started,

the first few years we switched the livery every year. Yeah. We were kind of trying to find our way about, you know, where we wanted to be. And then I can remember you and I talking extensively because we're both hyper detailed about this. That like, we wanted specifically to develop a look and feel to the car that would be lasting and iconic. So for- You already talked about-

Richard Petty's car. Yeah, you already talked about it.ty's car. Yeah. Yeah, so like if you don't NASCAR Everybody knows the number 43 STP car from all the way from the 60s till now Yep, and that was kind of our goal is to create a livery that yeah, it might change a little bit Yeah, but you know 20 years from now They're gonna have hot wheels and models and you know, right? Everybody knows that car dude. Yes, no matter what driver ever drives that car and livery. That's the that's a Richard Petty That's right. That's TP. Yeah, I think we're doing a good job. I mean I can tell you now we're racing

We raced in Asia this year We raced in the Asian Lamar series raced in Abu Dhabi, you know, in the Middle East, and in the World Endurance Championship, which is what Le Mans is a part of, which that's the next goal by the way, you know, that's what we're doing after Le Mans to win the World Championship. But in this championship that we're in, you know, we're racing in Europe, we race once here in America, we race in Japan, we race in the Middle East, and this car, even when we arrive, even if people aren't as familiar with first form, they know in the Middle East, and this car, even when we arrive, even if people aren't as familiar with first form, they know, they're like, oh, that's

the blue first form Porsche. They know about it. That's the first form Porsche. That's what, you know, the fans, Japanese. It's so cool to be in Japan or to be in the Middle East and people associate it. You know, that's why I knew that, man, we've created, you know, we're not done, no, but we are doing a good job along the way of creating a brand and an association. Porsche is a big part of it, right? You know, but we're creating this association of the bright blue.

Well, dude, and what a better, I mean, there's not a better brand to be attached to. I mean, Porsche is the most, the world's most valuable luxury brand. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah, to me they're, I mean, obviously I have a biased opinion, but you and I are both fans of lots of cars. Yeah. I mean, you know.

But I don't think we would, I don't think either one of us would debate over who makes the best car. I mean, for me- From line to line. If you were gonna only have one car, if there could only be one. I truly think a Porsche 911, we can all we you and I would disagree on which one,

which one? Yeah, there's but I agree versions. But you had to, you know, go to the grocery store and, you know, and also turn up at the racetrack and do a good lap time and drive the back country road and somewhat be comfortable, drive across country. What I would I would choose a 911. There's no question. The design hasn't changed since the early 70s, late 60s. People like our racing car. I mean, it's gotten longer, wider. There's some different things, but yeah, it's the same formula.

Now, just while we're on the topic, because you've owned all the 911s, I've owned most of the 911-elevens which one's your favorite It's a tough one, but if I had to pick one I do really like the 997 Model which was my favorite is the last year was made 2011 2011 I like both the GT 3 RS 4.0 that year and also the GT2 RS that's the turbo but those two cars the physical size of the car was much smaller than what we have now and to me it was just the most balanced you know the 2 RS with the turbo is the fastest it

has most power the 3 RS that's naturally aspiratedated I just either one that I would say that's my favorite I think there and I mean those are both justifiable as picks yeah yeah yeah they've gotten more comfortable bigger but to me that was the best I've also owned both those cars you know and I yeah so what's yours dude you know I I think the 991 to RS my you know my acid green car. Yeah that that to me Even though you know the purists will say oh, it's PDK. It's not manual Yeah, the amount of power that the car makes and the nimbleness of the car yeah For me feels right You know the other cars.

They can be underpowered. That's what I'm saying. They feel slow to me. And you know, that's not, that's just because of the other shit that we get to drive. Yeah, yeah. Right, like we both have the fastest cars in the world. You've got a super sport, Chiron.

I've got the pure sport. You know. Everything feels underpowered. Like once you've driven a p1 and once you've driven super sport or a pure sport Everything feels slow like slow slow and then like but that but that 9-eleven still feels quick and And that's what I think I like about it because even with the 2rs manual The 997 it still felt you know people like oh the Widowmaker yeah To who you know like yeah, that's how it felt to me at the time. Yeah, right

Yeah, I still like them. I think they're great cars But yeah, that's what that's what I would pick. It's a it's impossible I get that question all the time what's your favorite or can you only pick one? I mean, that's what's so great about cars They're all they're all so different and hopefully no one has to pick just one you know or whatnot but it's a great question you know. Yeah. Man, they're just, they're so different. There are so many. I think we both agree on what the greatest Porsche is though. Yeah. Probably the greatest car. Carrera GT. Which is cool because I actually own his

old Carrera GT. That's where I I actually own his old Carrera GT. That's where I got mine from and then he got a different one. I had to get a different one. Yeah I made you know we all make mistakes. I had a lapse in judgment once. No take-seat back seats. Yeah but I was fortunate to be able to you know years later get another one. I realized you know how great of a car. Yeah you called me like man I'm wanting to buy a Carrera GT. You're like oh shit man I was thinking about selling mine I'm like done. Yeah shortest call. Yeah because it was dude it was the color I wanted and everything. Black and black yeah. That car is special. So dude you know switching from you know really

what we came here to talk about let's talk about Le Mans dude you know, really what we came here to talk about. Let's talk about Le Mans, dude. You know, this, two weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah, so this was our third year, you know, attempting it. And I'll say, I came into this race, I don't think you ever expect to win a race like this. I mean, you know, we surrounded ourselves with what I think is the best team.

They were the defending champions from Le Mans the year before. Did the Grelow car win last year? No, it was it was it was just it wasn't the Grelow. They said the Grelow car only they run with only top factory drivers like at the Nurburgring. Yeah. So no, it wasn't the Grelow, but it was it was their team. And I was with a different, you know, bronze driver who was who was the best. They they last year, they won the championship, Mantai, Porsche, and they also won Le Mans.

My teammate, Richard Leets, who was also my teammate in Daytona when we won the 24 Hours of Daytona, he won Le Mans last year with Mantai. When I came back, had the opportunity to come back with Mantai and bring first form, Richie was available to come be my teammate. So he's won two in a row. Yeah, so he's won Le Mans two years in a row and Richie's the guy in the middle there. He's now one of the winningest drivers ever at Le Mans. He has won Le Mans six times.

Holy shit. Won it six times. He's been on the podium several other times, but I think the winningest driver has won it seven times. So he's one away from tying that record. Um, but yeah, he's won two years in a row. So anyway, I knew like, how old is he? Richie is just about our age. He probably won't like me telling you.

He's like, he, he had a great response in the press conference, like Richie, what do you have to be to, you know, win LeMars six times in a row? And he said, well, the first thing you have to be is very old. I've been doing it so many times, but, uh, no, man, Richie, uh, you know, having him, it's special, you know, where I won Daytona with him. And then I was able to have him as my teammate, you know, come in here, man, I knew I had the co-drivers, um, also the third driver we have on our team. Uh, his name's Ricardo Para.

He's a silver rated driver. Um, we, I mean, do we, we went after this guy trying to get Ricardo as our third driver, you know, uh, pretty ambitiously he he. He's been, the last couple of years, he's been one of the fastest drivers at Le Mans specifically. So like he's a bit of a specialist. I mean, he's a great driver. He's Italian, he's won many races and championships around the world,

but at Le Mans, he's like the man on sheer speed. So we put this team together with this race like specifically in mind. Richie's won it the most, Ricardo's one of the quickest, and then me coming in. As bronze drivers, I've been one of the top in the world the last few years. So any team, I don't know if you know the rules in Le Mans, all drivers are rated by category and it's based on experience, right? We're all professionals, but it's based on experience.

You gotta have one gold or platinum rated driver. It could be either one. Platinum is reserved for Formula One drivers or if you work directly for a manufacturer, Richard Leitz is platinum. You have to have one silver rated driver and you have to have one bronze rated driver. And exactly what you mean. I'm the bronze rated driver. I would have exactly what you make. I'm the bronze rated driver. I would have the least experience of these guys on the team.

Ricardo's a silver and the trick in racing is you, we're all trying to be the absolute best in our category. Right. If I get a little too good, like for me, if I were to ever become silver one day, I would not be very valuable as a driver because there's lots of really, really great silvers. Same with Ricardo. Like when you go,

kind of you step to that next level, you kind of could be on the bottom tier of the next level. So every team's trying to get the absolute best bronze and the absolute best silver and the absolute best platinum, you know, at that specific time. And I think we achieved that. I think I've, I'm, I think my performance I've been right up there in the top three or so bronzes in the world last few years. And Ricardo, I think is definitely on that verge of probably becoming a gold real soon.

So we got a good combination here. But yeah, the week started like we, we were decent there in our class is the largest category. There's 24 cars in the, in the class is the largest category. There's 24 cars in the in the class all different manufacturers And we were kind of in the practice sessions hovering around the back half of the top 10 really we were each time between like fifth to tenth Better than the average but dude we were like everyone knew it from the start the Ferrari and everyone knew it from the start, uh, the Ferrari and the Lexus, which is actually a Toyota, but the Lexus were just like so fast. I mean, they had, they had more top speed than everybody else. Their lap times were the best.

Like everyone was talking about it through the practice sessions. And I mean, they were a lot faster than us and we were pushing. I mean, we were all out, you know, you kind of can never tell in practice or everyone just people holding back they don't want to show their whole cards just yet you know and so you don't really know we were kind of leaning we were we were kind of showing it and we the talks just went into hey this might not be our year you know Porsche won last year this year let's get good points for the championship even though these guys are fast you know like we said, in 24 hours,

a lot of shit can happen. A lot of fast cars can have issues and break, but our goal for sure was the podium. We, we thought if we executed perfectly and we made no mistakes, we would have a shot at the podium, but that was realistically the goal. I definitely wasn't calling you or calling home saying, Hey man, this is a year, but we're going to smoke these guys. So that, I mean, that was our mindset, you know, going in. And we got into qualifying. We had a good qualifying. Each driver has to qualify. The bronze has to qualify, then the silver, then the gold, and you kind of,

it's an elimination style, kind of like Formula One. I qualified P3 and was really close to the top, you know, a bit surprising, you know. Ricardo did the same, he qualified P3 out of the silvers, and then Richard went with all the Platinum's and goals and he was P5, but they were all like, like super, super close. So that was actually like the closest we had been, you know, to the, to the front. So that's where we started, the race was from fifth. You start where the final, where the Platinum's qualify. So yeah, we started from fifth. So yeah, that was our goal.

I mean, we just, we thought the podium would be kind of the goal, but I would say we spent the first six hours of the race. Well, how close, just so people understand, it's eight mile track. Yep. Okay, how close are the times from qualifying first to third to fifth? Oh, I mean we can pull it, but just off the top of my head a really fast qualifying lap time. If you're going under four minutes is really fast. I want to say our pole laps were in the

close to 355 yeah, okay, and The I mean the top I know my qualifying that I was p3 the top 11 or 12 we're all within the same second. Okay, so we're within tenths sometimes Okay. So we're within tenths, sometimes hundreds of a second. So that's what I'm trying to, from the perspective, I'm trying to let everybody understand. Yes. You're talking about an eight mile course. There's 32 corners. So 32 opportunities to break and accelerate, you know, or not. Right. And the top 11 cars are in the 355 mark.

Within the same second. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we, I got it right here. We're constantly pushing for yeah. Tenths of a second. Yeah. So that's, that's just so you guys that don't know racing, that's how close it is. And we get a lot of questions. I get a lot of guys like, Hey, what's the difference in a bronze like Ryan versus, you know, a platinum like Richie? And Lamar is a bigger track obviously at three minutes, most of our tracks are much shorter,

right? But you know, the difference from me to Richie was probably one-ish second. second, what is this, man tie. I did a three 57, two and Richie did a three 55, one. Yeah. Rich is the last. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, within two seconds, that's crazy. Yeah.

It's cause most tracks I'm within one second of Richie, but that's also about a two minute lap time. So this is a four minute lap time. So here I was under two seconds. I was 1.9 seconds from the guy who's one of the greatest drivers in the world, you know. So that's what it takes to, you know, be the least experienced guy. You got to still be within like one second of the top, you know. Yeah. Oh, bro. But here's the thing.

How long has Richie been racing? Oh, his whole life. Okay. So you got a guy, just so we understand, I think this is important to point out. You got a guy that's probably been racing since go-karts, okay, his whole life. And you have a guy who's been racing for less than 10 years.

Yeah, nine years. Who's one within, you know, right there next to him. And you have a guy who's been racing for less than 10 years Nine years Who's one within, you know, right there next to him. So like Most guys will spend this is the point that needs to be made. Most guys will spend their entire life Trying to make that time up that gap between Richie and Ryan They will spend their entire life to get to make up that less than a second or one second or two seconds. That's how close that's how that's how precise and close racing really is. What I've found what's so crazy what I've found is you know through like you know nine years yeah you can get I mean I'm so I can get within a second over to it. And, and we're talking

one second spread out over 20 corners. Yeah. I mean, bro is a, it's less than it like hundreds of a difference in the braking and the acceleration right in, in each corner, right? Less obviously less than a blink of an eye. If you were watching a video of their feet right next to each other, it would look virtually identical. Look identical. Yeah, look identical. Yeah, it would look identical. And then what I've found is you can get within that second, but let me tell you, the last half a second, the last five tenths, this is what takes a lifetime.

The guys that do this, that have dedicated their life, they've dedicated their entire life to a half a second. To a half a second, more than what someone who could come in much later in life can do it. And let me tell you, that last half second, it's hard. Yeah. It's very hard, it's very, very hard.

I just think it's important to point that out. Because as an average, I flip on the television and then there's race cars going around the track. You don't think about it like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean,'re we're going a lot of times You know you watch the video back and you look at the data and you're like golly I'm you know, one second or nine tenths like where could it be? It's never in one spot or two spots. It's it's Fractionally around, you know, yeah, you know each corner and then to be able to do that and execute it

Like we said over an entire hour with tires changing, fuel changing, weather changing, temperature changing, that's one hour. Yeah. Then times 24. Yeah. In the middle of the night. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, that's where the skill set comes in.

So we start the race. I say, I can break it down pretty. So I, this was honestly a pretty straightforward race. When it's kinda going your way, it's kinda going your way. We spent the first six hours, I would say, in the top five, and kind of, I don't wanna say crazy. You ran four hour stint to start the race.

Yeah, I started the race four hours in a row. I did the only quadruple stint in the entire race. No one else did a quadruple stint. I'll say it wasn't planned. The plan was for me to run a triple, which that's about, it's pretty hard. That's pretty hard. And a lot of guys, most guys will run double scents. So like two hours at a time. It was planned for me to do a triple. My physical fitness has been strong, you know, I'd say compared to most other drivers. So, you know, it's been a strength of ours and they knew the more I could drive towards the start saves our fastest drivers for the end and saves them more fresh, right? So they called me at hour three and I was we were hanging around

that top five, you know, and they're like, hey Ryan, you know, how are you feeling in the car? I'm like, man, I'll be honest with you, like I'm feeling pretty good. Like we're, and I, you know, it's'm feeling pretty good. It's fun when you see the leaders and we're doing well. I'm like, man, I feel great. If you guys, if it helps, I'm good to do another one. They said, let us come back to you. They rummaged around, I guess, for a little while. They came back and like, hey, man, if you're okay, it would be a big advantage if you could do four. Man, if it's an advantage, let's go. If you could do, you know, four and, uh, so the man, if it's an advantage, let's go. And, um, I did it. It was, it was awesome.

We, we gained a lot of space there and what that did, that set off, I think. What had eventually helped us win the race. Yeah. Uh, a lot of the other teams as we got towards the night, they had to put in their bronze drivers in cause they were running their faster drivers early where we had saved. We put in our platinum and silver drivers against a lot of their bronzes. So that enabled us to jump up quite a bit.

And then the next thing that did a big difference was the nighttime. I mean, the night at Le Mans is some of the most difficult. You can ask any driver. I mean, it's not like Daytona, the 24 hours of Daytona. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it's easy. It's not easy, okay? But as far as driving in the night, it's extremely well lit.

It's damn near the daytime. I mean, all the big, you know, from the Speedway, you've got all the lights from NASCAR, and it's basically like driving in the day. Let me tell you something. The back country roads in the Midwest of France are not well lit. My first year when I went out for the first night practice, I came out of the pit lane.

The pit lane, it's all lit up, so it's like the racing track there. So it's like Daytona, it's all lit. You go to the first three corners, it's all lit. Then you merge out onto the Moulson Strait, and this is where you leave the racing track and go on the, go on the country roads. And I was, you know, radio silence for a little while and I'm driving down the Mulson straight. I went to the first chicane and I'm on my way to the second chicane and I called on the radio and I'm like, guys, it is dark. I can't explain to you guys.

Is this supposed to be this way? You can watch all the video, like we have video, you can go on YouTube and watch, my videos are on YouTube right now, you can watch my laps and stuff at night. And you have a like, oh yeah, it kind of looks dark but it'll probably be okay. Like bro, what got me is that, you know, we have headlights, but the headlights, obviously they shine in front of you, right? Well, when you're on a racetrack and you're about to come to a corner, the front of you's fine. You can see out there, but all the time, like you're in the day, you need to see where you

break. But then your eyes are going to the corner. So let's say it's a right-hand corner. Your eyes are going over to the right looking for the apex. Well, bro, it's pitch black, dark, you know, so you're breaking and you look and you're like, I think we turn now? And then the headlights move and they're like, nope, too early. So you have to, it's nothing but time, you have to develop time and you have to look at

things on the road that you can see like right in front of you to give you visual clues of where the turn-in spot is. You can see the break points like there's you recognize signs and different things on the road to where you know where you have to break but the turn-in point this has to come from just muscle memory and feeling and stuff so anyway back to my original story driving it the night is very difficult. Most bronze drivers don't drive at night. Most teams they drive their bronze drivers a little bit in the day at start and then they put in their silvers and their Platinum's to go back and forth back and forth all night long and then when the Sun comes up the next day the bronzes go in you know when it's

the Sun is back out. I drove those four hours to start, that helped get us ahead, and then I drove, it gets dark kinda late there, around 10 o'clock at night, actually it's pretty, it's the summer solstice, so longest day of the year. I drove going into the night, so as the sun was going down, I drove from 10 to about midnight,

where no other bronze driver was out there then, and I came out for just a couple hours, and I went back in at 3.30 a.m. and I drove from 3.30 into the sun coming up, some comes up kind of early around 5.30. So I did like a, it was a triple stint that went into the sun. And again, no other bronze drivers out there. We were in the top three, both those times, we were in third, second, first, and like the team was on the radio, like Ryan,

your pace is, is doing great. Um, like the Ferrari had caught me. We were in second, the Ferrari caught me. It had their platinum driver in it. And they're like, Ryan, this is the platinum. Don't, don't like no, don't risk anything. If he's faster, just don't fight, let him go because they still have to do like four hours of their bronze driving.

We'll catch them. And you're done in the next hour. Like you're, you know, so I did the most driving at night, which ended up being like a major step forward because then when the sun came up, I was done. Like I had completed all my, I have to drive like seven and a half or eight hours of the 24, I was done and And every other team still had their bronzes, had to come in and bro, we went straight to the front. We passed with a lead when the sun was coming up. And then we led the entire rest of the race.

Which is a huge advantage because it keeps you out of the shit. Oh yeah, oh, leading is always better. Yeah. And in the back, but yeah, that's pretty much how the race went. So dude, what was it like, you know? When we won, I mean I know what it was like cuz for me but like I mean, what was it like dude man that

Dude, the I mean I had a similar feeling in Daytona, you know But when you know, we were leading we had a big lead but you're constantly counting down every minute, every hour, and the factory Ferrari was in second, and they were the only car towards the end of the race that really had the speed. They were, again, they were the fastest since we had turned up, and man, I'm like, golly, if anything happens to the car, and this Ferrari is super fast, and... But we had this kind of manageable about one minute lead, you know, that we just kind of managed all the way through So you're obviously worried about something just like by chance happening to the car a flat tire a mechanical issue But our car was perfect, you know the whole time again back to that preparation work, but dude, I would say

the last Stint for Richie, which was right at an hour like probably 50 minutes to go We did our final pit stop and our engineer was super good on the team. He's talking to the pit crew before, you know, Richie was coming in for the final pit stop. It's like, guys, this is the last one, you know, for the whole 24 hours. Make sure every wheel gun is perfect. Fuel man, make sure test the fuel, the fuel flow, make sure it's perfect.

Take your time. We're normally trying to do it as fast as we can, right? He's like, we have a one minute lead. We gave up at like what, 20, 30 seconds? We gave up almost 25 seconds because we re, he said, take your time, make sure the wheels are torqued. We even added a bit of oil to the engine, just to, we didn't have to, just a precaution, you know?

Took our time with the fuel flow, looked over the car, just, uh, we didn't have to just, just a precaution, you know, took our time with the fuel flow, looked over the car just, and then set them out. You know, so we, we lost some of that minute lead, but on purpose, right? Just keeping everyone calm. But yeah, I was there with my, my son was sitting right next to me, my oldest son, uh, and my wife, you know, Whitney was there, my dad was in the garage, Justin and man, dude, I was like, I was, I mean, you know, I couldn't stop shaking my feet. I'd stand up, sit down, walk around, go back up, drink an energy drink. I'm like, I'm pacing. Cause that always helps.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's what calmed me down, you know? Definitely not an ad. Yeah, yeah. But dude, it was, it was, it was awesome. I mean, I, you know, I'd never thought, you know, we could win this race. I mean, just, just to come and compete in it, you know, I'd never thought, you know, we could win this race. I mean, just, just to come and compete in it, you know, is one thing. But, uh, yeah, when he, when he crossed the line, I mean, dude, it just, the garage erupted, uh, you know, I lost it. It was a good, my son and my wife, you know, it's just, it's, you know, for me, it's like, you know, you dedicate your life to, you know, perfection and we all

want to be perfect, right? You know, we're all trying to leave a legacy. And for me, having my son there, it's my hope. Seeing his dad do something at that level, I mean, dude, as a dad, it just hit me. No one can ever take that away from us, right? We're in the history books. No, bro, you're etched in,

your name is etched in history. Yeah, all those posters like you have in your garage. Yeah, we'll have that. There's gonna be a poster of our car, right, you know, now. So yeah man, it's hard to put in the words, but yeah. It's fucking awesome, dude. And you sent me the screenshot, you were like, oh by the way, from back in, however many, three years ago, we were gonna win Le Mans. Yeah. Yeah, you're right again Yeah, dude. Well, I mean look Winners fucking win bro. And you know, it's it's I think people I think people think there's a there's a magical

Element to it and I don't think that's what it is at all. I think it's being meticulous and relentless towards whatever it is you choose that you want to go towards. And I don't think that success in business or success in racing or obviously there's limitations, you know, a five foot one person is highly unlikely to be the MVP of the NBA, right? Yeah. Yeah. But outside of that, I really think it comes down to like just an obsessive commitment to achieving whatever it is that you've decided you're going to achieve.

And it's not a, oh, I'd kind of like to do this. It's an obsession. Yep. And for you guys listening, I can't articulate the amount of hours that Ryan and I have spent on the phone talking about winning this race. I mean, over the years.

I wouldn't even know where to start. Yeah, yes. And to see you do it, bro, it's just, it's. I wouldn't even know where to start. Yeah, yes. And to see to see you do it, bro, it's just it's one of the cool. It's one of the coolest moments of my life. I can't imagine what it's like to actually have done it, you know, and to stand out there on that podium with fuck what hundred thousand people. I'll never forget that. I mean, I hope I haven't rewatched the TV yet.

Yeah. I hope they showed it and hope it did it justice. When we walked out on the podium, it's a, it's an F1 style podium that's elevated, you know, and when we walked out, they opened the track up after the race for all the fans can come down like on the front stretch and there was no end to them, bro. It was as far as I could see wall to wall people. I mean, the race is one of the most, uh, highest attended sporting events in the world, right up there with Indy 500.

And, um, I think it's like 370,000 people or something. And it looked like they were all there, you know, and I, you know, you talk about it for me, I mean, you know, for you and, and this company, you guys, you know, believe in me, like at a super early stage when I was just starting out and racing into, I can't tell you the amount of pride to stand up there. We had some screaming freedom, you know, energy drinks with us and we didn't know if like the officials were going to try to take them from us or whatever.

So we, we kind of snuck them in our suits, like as we went up. But to stand there like with the can, wearing our hat, with our logo on top of the podium at without doubt one of the world's largest, take out racing. It's one of the world's largest sporting events. For me, it was that Super Bowl type of moment, right? And to be able to do that when I walk back in this building too and see all these employees and all these team members,

same with Mountain Motorsports, our motorcycle dealerships, the amount of pride that we were able to help create for all of these employees, customers. How many customers that have reached out and like, dude, we've all loved First Form or we've loved Mountain Motorsports, but now we know someone who's won. I mean, it's just, it's a tremendous amount of pride. Well, dude, and I, you know, we have never talked about this publicly, but in 2022, 2022, was it 2022 or 23? That you know, there was an opportunity for you to invest in the company and Ryan's actually,

people don't know this, but like, you know, you own a small person a small portion of the brand at this point Yeah, so, you know to get up there and be a part of the brand after all these years of being a fan of the brand Yeah had to be fucking I mean dude. Yeah. Yeah, it means I mean it means a lot I mean to be able to like say you gave me that opportunity a couple of years ago, um, you know, I'm a small part, you know, big, massive thing that you. Well, actually a really big part because, you know, having you as a partner for the, for the knowledge and the experience and the strategy and all of those things is

is invaluable. So, you know, it's, it's, uh, for us to go from, you know, where we are now to where we're going. It's it's like the skills needed. Yeah, well, we're yeah, this there's there's going to be a long story, you know, written about one day where we still have many more chapters and that's right. But yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm super gracious of mostly the friendship. You and I were friends before anything else, and Sal and Jason and Chris, I mean, all you guys give me the opportunity

to be more involved with the business. There isn't a business that I believe in more outside of the one that I started with Justin. If you asked me a question hey Ryan you have the opportunity to invest in any company in the world any company man there's not one that I would want to and see more promise and upside than first arm I mean I well dude it wouldn't feel right it wouldn't feel right doing it without you at this point. I mean, that's what it comes down to.

You know, we've been, I mean, fuck, how many conversations have we had over the years about the company strategy, not just the race strategy? You know, I think people, you know, like you've been one of my biggest, you know, I don't know, you know, sounding boards, advisors, you know, partners, without officially being part of the company for a decade. People don't know that, but I don't think anybody here would feel right doing it without

you. Well, that means a lot. I'd say I get one question all the time about, you know, we have so many fans and people look up to First Form and I get a question like, Ryan, how on earth did you get First Form as a sponsor? And I have the same answer back to them and I think this is a great thing for a lot of young people to hear. If you're ever looking to get investment or a sponsorship from a company, the number one

way you can do that is to give more than you're asking to receive. And you said this a lot in an interview. I've always tried from the first time that you and I became friends, and this isn't any friendship that I have, I try to give and share more than I asked in return. And I do it in a way that I'm not even hoping or expecting. Yeah, it's selflessly.

I do it just to try it selflessly. And I think if you can truly master that ability to, in any relationship you have, whether it's friendship, whether it's business related, or whether you're trying to build something, attract a sponsor, you have to find ways that you can give. A lot of people say, well, I don't have money, or I don't have, you know, giving is a lot of ways. Like you said, I was there as a soundboard a lot of times. You just needed somebody to talk to,

or somebody to bounce somebody else off of, and that was valuable at the time. And yes, eventually you decided to invest in racing with me, but hopefully it was always, and I think that's what, there was yes, I received, but I always felt that I was, I was giving in a way that made it, so. I know that. It's been a blessing for a lot of years. I know that, but I don't think, you know, it's never been talked about in public. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I mean it's look bro pretty awesome to see it's fucking awesome. It's the coolest thing ever I thought this was six or I just found this online The the video game grants reason. Oh, yeah, somebody has that livery in the game. Yeah It's already everywhere. Yeah in the game. Yeah. Oh, it'll be, it's already everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

People are making it in Gran Turismo on all the, the Cert IVs. I get all, you know, cause these are individual designers that, that, you know, make the graphic designers in the game. They sell those skins, like you buy the skins. And some, some guys make them in the games. Some people just open source it.

Yeah. Most people it's free. They build them and yeah. It for, you know, it'll cool. Most people it's free. They build them and yeah. It'll be a very widely used video game skin after this win. It's freaking sick, man. But I wanna ask you this, Ryan, because you put them all together.

You got Sebring, Daytona, Le Mans. Like that's the pinnacle. Like so what's next? Like how do you reset a standard? How do you not celebrate too long? What's like what so what's next? Like how do you how do you reset a standard? How do you not celebrate too long? What's the next? What's next? Like I mean, how do you how do you top that? That's a great question. I mean without a doubt Any competitive person, you know, I think no matter how big the mountain is that you climb, you know There's there's always another mountain right, you know, you start thinking about, you know, what else is there to achieve?

For me, I got a short term and a long term answer. You know, the short term is simple. We're currently leading after the win in Le Mans. We're leading the World Endurance Championship, which is ran by the FIA, and that's the highest form of sports car racing in the world. There's Formula One, FIA runs two series.

They run Formula One, and they run the World Endurance Championship. Every manufacturer is involved with the World Endurance Championship, so we are racing with the factory effort from Porsche. We race against the factory efforts from Ferrari, from Corvette, from BMW. So it is the top level, you know, sports car racing. And it's a series that goes all around the world all year. And the best, you know, the team that has the most points at the end of the year is world champion. So outside of the Formula One world championship,

this would be the next highest level of a season-long championship in the world. So that's the goal. We're currently leading the championship after Le Mans. Le Mans is worth a lot of points. We've won one other race. We won in Italy. We're the only team to have won two races so far this year. We're in a pretty close battle with the factory Ferrari as it was, probably the, I'd say,

strongest team. They're strong. I mean without it out there, the next... Big brand. Well bro, I mean that's their whole thing. It's the two of us. I mean it's, I would, I don't want to say head and shoulders, but there's great competition amongst Corvette as a strong, you know, it's we're, I would, I wouldn't want to say head and shoulders, but there's great competition amongst Corvette has a strong racing team. Uh, you know, Toyota, BMW, there's a lot of great teams, but. Ferrari and us are, are, you know, the, the leaders and, uh, we have the lead. And so that's, that's the short-term goal. I want to be world champion, um, and have that as a title, you know, here,

that's the short-term goal. Long-term, I just start now. I was at my old goal was to win Le Mans, you know, to try to win that race and win the trifecta. Believe me, my wife is asking like, Hey, so you know, you've won Le Mans now. Like, yeah, well dude, it's a big commitment from the family. Like people, people. Yeah.

I mean, look, it's. Sacrifices a lot, you know, and, um, I'm super fortunate, you know, decided, you know, with, with her, my kids, you know, it's a lot of time away from home and, uh, um, but my, the answer to your question, my long term goal is legacy, right? I'm starting to think about legacy and, and like, I look at, you know, is there, you know, how many times could I win this or how many, you know, championships, you know, is there, you know, how many times could I win this or how many, you know, championships, you know, could there be?

And, um, so I would like to live, leave a lasting legacy, both in the racing world and as well as the business, you know, community world. And I think obviously associate with their parallel. Yeah. I think because we have to continue to grow the brand if we're going to continue to have the legacy in racing. Yep. Yeah.

So it's, uh, I think about legacy both for the brand personally and you know, so that's so it's actually pretty cool because like when we talk about When Ryan and I talk about the business Like it's it's funny because a lot of it correlates to and if we could do that we could do this That's possible yeah, I mean possible. Yeah, that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, my long-term goal, like we're going to be in F1. I was about to ask.

I didn't want to like break no seat. I mean, that's, that's where you're going to ultimately see our car, our livery, everything that we're doing. You will 100% eventually see that in F1. Yeah. We're making, we're making all the right headways. you will 100% eventually see that in F1. We're making all the right headways. We know the connections. Let me tell you, we are first form

and like that blue livery, we are on the world map. That's what it takes. I mean, you can't just turn up and formula one, even to a team, you know, obviously these teams want to be associated with great brands and Yeah, we're we're we're on the way. Yeah, we will be Owners, maybe I don't know if Ryan will be driving F1 cars. I think we may need to maybe yeah, we're ready to go. Who's 20, you know, I

May be like the Brad Pitt character in the new. Yeah I mean we might sneak in a couple laps. You know what I'm saying? We can go do some, boy, that'll be an expensive lesson if we. Yeah, don't cross that line. It's kind of a little bit of a saver. But yeah, man, well, dude, look, fuck. It's been awesome.

Dude, yeah, there's no other way to say it man You know the whole the whole thing dude like our friendship Seeing you know you guys grow your company our company now our company You know the partnership with the with AB and Dana and the guys like the partnership with the with AB and Dana and the guys like The for fortune. Yeah, the rate takes all the time like man. It's pretty good life. It's weird. It's fucking surreal, bro It's like it's like, you know, and we were it circles back to the thing that we were talking about, you know what You know the time right like ten years in you're like fuck

Like it would have been so easy for you or me to both been like yeah, let's I'm gonna do something else Yeah, you know and now here we are Fucking doing it like for real doing it and It's just I know for me dude like as much as I expect to win You know because people ask me a lot personally As I expect to win, you know, cause people ask me a lot personally They're like dude, did you ever imagine and I'm always like yeah, dude, I fucking wanted to be here ten years ago But like now that it's like real real it is kind of surreal like it's like to stop You know just for a second and be like, yeah the the brands summer smash at an as a bush at the distillery

Yeah, you know we've we've, we've transformed more lives than any other company ever. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just, it's surreal, dude. It's a surreal thing to sit, to sit and think about and look at. And the time invested, you know, it's not like we're 70 years old, bro. You know, we're, we're, you know, early side of 40s, not, not backside. And, um, it's just, it's, uh, you know, I think you guys should all remember that. I think you guys who have the dreams and have the goals and I think you guys got

to, you know, not, don't get caught up in the short money You know think about the big picture what you can do You know the one thing that these guys have turning it back to entrepreneurship for just a second that we didn't have is they have the ability to Generate capital doing side hustles that were not available to us and what I see from a lot of the young guys that were not available to us. And what I see from a lot of the young guys is they get addicted to this side hustle shit and never actually build it into a real fucking brand.

And dude, I hope you guys remember, like it's not just about the money. It's not just about, you know, making a few dollars and make us a cool Instagram post. Like the journey, the the time the friendships that the stories the That's that's your life dude like it's not a Balance statement. It's not a it's not a number. It's it's it's the story created through that journey and

You know when I stop and think about it, dude, I wouldn't trade that for anything You know when I stop and think about it dude. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Yeah I mean, that's very well said it's all it's all in the journey. That's where the magic happens. Yeah, it's not at the finish line no well, bro Fuck man I'm proud. I'm I couldn't be more proud of you, dude, and I couldn't be more proud to see you do that The whole thing you know everything that we've done everything we're doing and and just fuck it's it's one of the coolest things my whole life man so proud to do it with you but yeah so yeah I love you man for

real that's real shit yeah so absolutely all right guys I know that was a little different for a for a Tuesday show, but I thought you guys might enjoy it. And, uh, a couple of car guys just walking cars. Yeah. And a story. And there's so many parallels for any of you guys trying to achieve anything, you know, the endurance, the, the persistence, the, the perseverance through the hard shit, you know,

the time that doesn't go fast enough. And then when it does go fast enough. It goes too fast like it's just such a It's it's just it's It's fucking crazy way to live your life, but I wouldn't trade it man absolutely yeah, so Alright guys well Ryan. Thank you, bro. Thanks for coming on the show a long's been a long time. Yeah. Yeah. It's been awesome. Alright guys, we will see you later on this week and don't be a hoe.