The Dale Jr. Download - 350 - Josef Newgarden: Inflection Point

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Dale Earnhardt Jr brings two-time Indycar Champion Josef Newgarden to the studio for a conversation that turned out to be one of our favorites of the season. Why? Because the American open-wheeled racer is a dynamic personality in the sport on and off the track. Dale Jr. gets Josef to tell us about his forbidden desire to become a racer and how his first shot at racing came in sanctioned international scooter racing. From starting with scooters, how did a Nashville, Tenn.,-area native take a path through Europe to end up an IndyCar driver? It's a story that doesn't make much sense to some but is certainly intriguing.Newgarden credits his father's influence, belief, and sometimes "hands-off" approach to making him into the racer he is. Oh, plus he played a role in introducing Josef to a Disney princess, who then became his wife. Oh yeah, it's that interesting of a story!He talks about a Team USA racing scholarship that paved the way to success overseas. However, that success was met with challenges and at one point depression admits Newgarden before coming back to the states at the low point of his career. Then the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself and the determined young racer seized it. Fast forward a few years and he's a two-time IndyCar Champion racing for one of the biggest teams in the sport, Penske Racing. Newgarden opens up about the turning points that happened in this incredible journey.Newgarden and Dale Jr. go over the new street circuit in the downtown streets of Nashville and the excitement building up to the Nashville Grand Prix. How will the surface, layout, and the big bridge over the river affect the event? Will a diving team be on hand?The 30-year old driver talks about how one of his favorite drivers, 7-time NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson, has transitioned to the IndyCar ranks and what challenges he has faced in the process. That and so much more in this dynamic interview between a stock car racer and IndyCar driver.Aside from Josef's visit, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis get into a good discussion following the viral impact of the discussion about beer and if you count it when keeping track of your calories. Dale also admits to a recent slip-up in using terms he uses with his children. From tee-tee to tinkle, it might make you giggle. Plus we find out if Dale Jr. "really" loves the Dale Jr. Download team.Ask Jr. presented by Xfinity gets the five-ring treatment as fans inquire about Dale Jr.'s opinions on the Olympic games. He also lets us in on his mindset as his only race of 2021 approaches, the Xfinity Series race at Richmond International Speedway in Virginia. What's Dale's rib preference? Does our host like 'em dry or sauced? Get your napkin ready for the answer. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Each man will ride alone, doing the thing he knows best, driving a precision racing machine to win. Now they're in the racebox. Now there is a race box. One more. Hey everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And on this week's show, we got a great.

guest coming in. Joseph New Garden is going to be our guest on the show. Joseph is racing in IndyCar Series for Penske, Roger Penske, and we have that race in Nashville coming up. I know. A lot of people curious about it. I am too. We've been promoting it on our, on our, the Xfinity and the Cup race. We promoted this race. We got Cheryl Crow and, and Mario And Dreddy in the promotion talking about this track and how they're going to race over this bridge. And we've been talking about it and talking about it. Well, he's going to tell us. all about it. I can't wait to get him in here. Mike, you're here today. Yeah, man. It feels like we haven't done this in a long, long time.

We only took one week off. Yet it feels like an eternity. It feels like we took the entire winter break. Did you have a good off? I did. Matthew's here. Leah's here. It's going to be a lot of fun. I did. I've been drinking beer. All right. Have you been counting? I have not been counting. I got it. I left here the other week, 173 pounds. Good for you. I ate reasonable meals, three a day. I drank a pretty moderate amount of beer. Did not count them. I'm still the same weight I was last week.

All right. And on vacation. That's a big deal. Hey, yeah. I mean, usually when you're on vacation, you get kind of lazy. Absolutely. You're not moving around as much. That's me.

I just wanted you to know that I didn't just make this up. Like, I've tested it. And here it is another small sample size case a week of hanging out and just eating normally and, you know, not eating crazy. You know, I stick around probably 500 calories a meal. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Boy. So what's your total?

What's your daily? I mean, about 1,500. Well, no, 1,500 plus there's about 300. There's about 300 calories worth of snacks that I can consume at any point in the day. Drink as much beer as I want. Same weight. How about that? So, you know, it's funny because we had this conversation.

I got up a scale this morning. I was like, man, can't wait to see. this number is. Boom! 173.2. I can't wait to tell Mike. But I was on, I was out on my own family vacation and I wasn't quite aware of what videos and what, what segments we were putting out. And I find that our Twitter's blowing up, right, whenever I got on it. And I realized they were blowing up because this conversation, this conversation about whether you count beer or not. I had no idea it was such a captivating topic. And yet, it was. A lot of people got, you know, chimed in. And now you were bringing it up because you, you think,

feel vindicated that you just came back off a vacation. It's working for me. I'm not saying it works for everybody. I don't know if it does or not. What was the general opinion? Do you really have to ask? Oh, do you have to ask? Bill Jr. had a stance on something.

What do you think the opinion? I know what the popular opinion probably was. Yeah, yeah, you think? But did anybody make any sense of it? No, no, no, no attempts at logic. Everybody said, no, you don't count your case. calories for beer because it's beer and you don't have to. Yeah.

In other words, they're subscribing to your idea of you make it up as you go. I think that me and Leah's point, I don't know if I need to rope you. Do you want to be roped into this? I can be roped into it because I was actually sitting here when Dale was talking. Isn't the whole point of all of this and the app you use called lose it? Yes. Yes. But you're staying the same.

Oh, well, I know. Oh, tough crowd over there at the booth. That's not actually true. What do you mean? He's lost weight. Yeah, I went from 188 to 173 in 80 days. How the hell? Hey, listen, I'm telling you, I'm impressed.

Eating and drinking beer. If you maintain your weight on a vacation, that is impressive. That is losing. Well, losing pounds. So this week, this week I was probably a little more less strict about getting all the great information. You know, I typically, like if I ate a half of a Cuban sandwich, right, on a normal week, if I ate half of a Cuban sandwich, that's going to be about, you know, that's about 80% of my meal. So Cuban sandwich and some, something else to go with it.

I'm going to, typically on if I, you know, like a week, like a normal week, I'm going to go, okay, this bread is this. I'm typing in every little item that's on the sandwich, right? on vacation, I'm like, Cuban, sandwich. You know, they're like, they give you like five different suggestions. Suggestions and one's 500 calories,

one's 400. And you're just like, ah, rounded to the highest. That's what I haven't. I'm under this somewhere. But anyways, I wasn't as strict as I usually am, but I was paying attention. I definitely don't want to make a mistake and regress. It's very disappointing.

Sometimes you do, though. You get on that scale and it doesn't go the way you won't. and but you just got to your body's weird man i will work really hard to try to lose a pound and gain two pounds and not know why and then not you know and then the next week that you know i'll lose that weight with a little less effort it just doesn't make any sense but you know you just got to stick with it it's not a it's not a one you know losing weight it in a one or a week or a month plan it's like i've been at this for 80 days to lose 10 pounds or 15 pounds so hey do you drink sodas i don't okay so

So I will, but when I'm trying to cut weight, no. What's worse for you? Soders or beer? I mean, I'm asking because I've always wondered that. I think that sodas, well, sodas have 200-some calories in a regular bottle of soda that's about anywhere. Well, Pepsi has about 150. Any other soda is going to have over 200 calories. Plus all the sugar.

Yeah, that's the biggest. That's the biggest thing. I had a trainer once tell me that he'd rather us go out and drink a ton of beer. at night than a ton of soda well all right i like that guy do what the people say um but when i'm get to i'm pretty much almost to the way i want to get to or what i want to be i have some i have a soda yeah at that point you know and i just kind of have to watch it you know who's also on lose it i have deep information who deep background information yes sir matthew dillner is now when did he get on there i had it like eight years ago buddy but when you guys started

talking about. I'm like, and I was bored in the airport, and I fired it up, and I've been, it's only three days now. But I got to lose weight. Pandemic weight hit me bad, dude. I'm a fat. Well, good luck. We don't, you know, the, this app, we don't have any affiliation with them. But I think, you know, it works for me. It's very helpful. He came to give me a brownie yesterday, and that was so unusual. I felt like, what's going on here? He's giving me a brownie. And then he said, well, I'm on lose it. And he didn't want to count a second one. And he didn't want to You didn't want the Bradley. And so that's how I found out.

There you go. That's one way, like, if I have, like, if it's in my house, like, it's calling my name. Like, I cannot have, even when we have, I have to get rid of that bad food. What is your vice? Like, what's the food vice? I mean, the one thing that you, if it's in the house, you're going to eat it and there's nothing you can do to stay away from. There's, everything's on the list. Everything?

Yeah. I mean, if it's in the house, I'm going to go over there and at some point in the week. I mean, there's nothing that. But you don't have like a bare cupboard. Like, what's the one thing that you cannot freaking resist? I don't have any freaking willpower. Do you not understand what I'm trying to say? Like, if it's in the cupboard and it's not good for me, I'm going to eat it at some point.

I get you. It's not like one thing. You know, not that these things are all bad, but like if there's, there's beef jerky in there, I'm going to eat it. It's going to, if there's candy in the, in the refrigerator, we'd like to keep our candy cool. If there's candy in the fridge, if there's, uh, ice cream, cool. I even don't tell me when she buys it and I'll go open the fridge and poof, there's some ice cream.

Well, I got to eat that. I can't sit in there. My wife hides food. And I will, you know what I do? I'm sorry, Mike. No, no, no. I get the ice cream and I open it up and I scrape across the top of it. and just eat it in tiny little, like, scrape the spoon and try, like, to eat just a minimalist

amount. Why? For yourself or because you don't want it to look like you've been. No. For myself. Okay, you're not trying to hide it from Amy. I'm trying not to go, ah, you know, I'm not, oh, darn, there goes the whole pint. You can eat ice cream fast.

I know. Yes. Yeah. You got to go slow with that ice cream, or it'll be gone. And then next thing you know, you went over your 300 snack calories you got for the day. Oh yeah, like with one scrape One scrape Yeah

One scrape would be 100 Yeah I don't know man I feel like You know talking calories It's probably not I don't know man Not gonna really see a lot of podcasts

Our director of TikTok over here Our new director of TikTok put that video And it got a million It's always those things 1.3 million views And going back to people Wanting to know what people said I think there was

1,200 comments on TikTok. I've read them all. What'd they say? Beer calories don't count. I count of mine. Hey, Leah, I'm asking you this question and nobody else. Oh, gosh. If Dale would have taken the opposite position and say, of course you've got to count your beer calories. And I'm saying, why would you count your beer calories? My diet, my rules. What would those 1,200 calories? I don't think we would have got 1,200 comments. Yeah, right. They would have been like, this guy's crazy. Move on.

That's funny. All right. Well, good stuff. So vacation, any other stories from vacation? No, me and my wife were talking the other day, and I didn't know if this was worthy conversation, but I threw a couple ideas on the table, and one of them, I can't remember what the other one was, but one of them was when we became parents, okay?

So when you become a parent, and we got a few in here, you use these new words when you're talking to your child about potty, T, T, T, Oh, yeah, you don't use the words you've been, you know, went to college with. You're using a soft and toned down. I'm going to take a leak. You don't do that anymore. You start using new words, right? Right.

But what's TT? TT is to go, you use the bathroom. Number one. Urinate. Okay. Yeah. No? Didn't know?

Don't use that one. What do you use with your son? Got to go pee. Pee. We're got to go potty. Pottie? Potty. Potty is a new one.

You probably didn't use that one with your house. No, I'm not going to the bar and saying, hey, guys, I'm going to go potty. So that begs the question. That begs the question. Have you ever been in an adult conversation and accidentally used one of your kid words? Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Is that weird?

Oh, yeah. I did that the other day. Oh, really? Yes. I used TT. To who? No. Out of us around some buddies.

And you said, I got to go TT? Yes. I got to tee-tie all this beer out. I gotta go T-Tee. How drunk were you? Did they say, oh, you're a big boy now? Dale Jr. went to the potty by himself. Listen to Mr. Perfect.

Did you shake off your pee afterwards? Oh, gosh. He's having fun with this. So, at risk of exposing myself, I know everyone else in here is probably made the same mistake. Oh, yeah. Not the exact same mistake I did. I maybe went and took it to an extreme. But, I mean, I'm with my kids so much.

and we're using these words, and there's, I don't know, there's probably half a dozen, maybe there's even more than I realize that, you know, that we use kid words now for things. And even like, you know, not just bathroom-related things, just everyday things, like snacks and whatever, right? Yeah. You've got little names for everything, right? Yeah. And, yeah, I think a couple here, I've been, like, almost slipping up in an adult public conversation. and using these words that I use with my kids.

That is awkward, but it depends on what kind of friends you got. If you got friends, it'll laugh it off with you. They laugh. They knew. What if you're in like a business meeting? And I'm like, I've got to go poopy. I'll be right back. Luckily, that has not happened.

But I was just wondering if I was alone. No, no, you're not alone. What are some of the words? Tinkle. You use Tinkle? You know, Kelly uses that word all the time. Oh, really? I think that's an adult word in.

Kelly's house. There's little words that our daughters mispronounced early on and they were so cute that we continue to use them even though they don't. Like my oldest daughter, when she was really young, she used to call toenails, po nails. And today we still call them poe nails. That's cute. You know, she can paint her pooh nails.

You know, there's little words like that. That's not exactly applying to what you're saying. But I do think that you end up creating new words. have you ever done this have you ever like when you are on the phone with Amy and you're wrapping it up what do you say before you say goodbye

to Amy do you ever say I love you oh yeah every time I think you have to end every conversation okay and it becomes so such part of a muscle memory that you say I love you right oh yeah ah you have you ever said I love you to somebody else because you're like either distracted and you're just trying to wrap up

the call in your mind somewhere else and you just heard of blur it all right love you And then, like, God, not my wife. That was Micah. Thank you, Gummett. Has that ever happened to anybody? Yeah, something similar. Yeah.

Didn't I do this to you, Leah, one time? Oh, my gosh. I feel like you did. Now that you say that. All right, Leah, love you. Bye. Oh, awkward. You know, it's even worse.

Like, people have different words for things, right? I once had an next girlfriend, her mom, you know, the Italian, she's cooking pasta, you know, in the kitchen. and all of a sudden she just went, ooh, I pooped. And I'm like, this girl's sitting on my lap and I'm going, oh my God, her mother just crapped her pants. And why is she still cooking sauce?

Your ex-girlfriend was sitting on your lap while her mother was cooking pasta? Well, yeah, anyway. There's nothing more awkward than that. That's not like the point. She said she pooped. And I thought she meant, I was like terrified. I'm like, she should have her pants. But they used the word for like a fart.

Poop. poop. And I'm like, that is weird. Yeah. I pooped. You say that? No. Okay, good. Yeah.

That's psychotic. Well. Were there other chairs around and she still preferred to sit on your lap or is there like no city? I can't get past this. She was affectionate. She's Italian. Italian.

Slightly Italian. All right. Very nice. All right. Man, that was an addition that I didn't see coming. Sorry. You slipped the, no, not. well that was the nice one but

all of Matthew's women in his life sitting on his lap he calls his mother-in-law psychotic yeah he causes his mother-in-law no no not mother-in-law no this was an ex oh this is an ex

well then yeah I guess you can get away with her yeah you can get away with that she's not but what were you talking about though what you did yes I love you yeah dude I'm surprised I haven't said it to you

if you're on the phone with somebody enough and you're just like you know you kind of mind has now like moved on to something else and you're trying to go, dude, it can happen.

But you don't say it to your friends? On purpose? Like guy friends and stuff? Like, I'll say it sometimes. Love you, man. There's a moment where that kind of might be, yeah, there's a moment when that's certainly appropriate. And, you know, depending on the conversation,

you might be trying to console somebody. They're going through something difficult or whatever. But, yeah, I think if Mike accidentally slipped up and said it to me, I would probably say it back. I love you too, Mike. I love you too, buddy. I would. Yeah.

Because we're very close. Then you wouldn't feel so weird. No, then you know what would happen? We would text each other and I'm like, hey man, I didn't mean to say that after me. Then I would have had my feelings hurt. I mean, you didn't mean it. You're taking it back? Can you take back and I love you if it was not, if it was not originated for that person?

No. No, you can't take it back. I mean, if there was somebody random, but if it was like Dale, you can't take that back. Yeah. What if you say it to you? Oh, my. Man, yeah. Yep.

Well, I just for the record, I love everybody in here. I love you too, Dale. If I do say it, I mean it. All right, it's not a slip-up. Mike may be slipping up. Me? You mean it. I mean it.

There's actual love coming up. All right, good to know. All right, guys. Let's bring Joseph Newgarden into the studio. That's awesome. What's up, man? I love this. This is about the...

It's just, hey, don't say hi. It's just on, we're going right into this. That's right. This coffee's going to kick in just nicely. Make yourself at home. Hopefully it's right in time with my five-hour energy I have. I love this. You like it?

Yeah. Yeah, so this is, we used to podcast in this little space right here. Okay. This is where we're sitting used to be a souvenir shop. We still have a little souvenir shop over here, but when I retired, we sold half the souvenirs. So we had this space to use. Yep.

We turned it into a nice cool studio. We're glad you're here, and I'm glad you brought Hovis. Me too. Hovis is one of my favorites. So I have not. We could do an entire podcast on Hovis. He said not to believe anything you said about it. That's because it's all believable.

Hey, Hobis is one of the original Junior Motorsports employees, as a matter of fact. Is he really? How long ago was that? A lifetime. Yeah, Hovis works with Penske. You know, kind of gets you where you need to be. and he's the one that helped us sort of set up this podcast. I'm so nervous.

I feel like I'm like talking to the president or something. I don't know why. Mike's just a normal guy. You'll get used to it after a few more minutes. You'll realize he's like the rest of us. Well, no, this is we've wanted you in here for a long time. So I don't want to add pressure to you, but this is exciting to have you here, man. I don't know where y'all met.

I remember when we first saw Joseph, and that was at the Kentucky Jones. Derby. Yes. That was the first time I think we met. Is that right? Yep. I think I got to interview you. You did.

You interviewed. Yeah. It was kind of a blur of the whole thing. Right. You were way busier than me. That day was bonkers. I think I actually partied a little bit with my wife, which I don't do very often, but we had a blast. Yeah.

Y'all looked like y'all had a great time. It was so much fun. You know, it's like going to the Daytona 500 or the Indianapolis 500. It's one of those things you've got to go see at some point. So it was a really good excuse. Yeah. So that was fun. So ever since then,

I kind of been watching you and keep my own on you. But you're from Nashville, okay? Yes, sir. Born and raised in Nashville. Not really. Born and raised, literally. Where is your family from? So my mother is Danish.

A lot of people don't know that because everyone just thinks I'm full American. I'm actually half Danish. My dad's from New York. Mostly grew up in Miami, though. My family migrated to Nashville with the family business. What is the family business? So my grandfather, he had a photography company. They used to take, you know, school photos of kids all over the country.

and then they based out of Nashville in the 80s. And so that's when my parents went up to Nashville. And then I was born in 1990, so I was born and raised there with my sisters and lived there until I was about 18 before I left the country to go racing in Europe. What were your early memories of racing? Like why so everybody's going to want to know,

like how you didn't end up becoming a stock car driver. You're in Nashville from Tennessee. All those things seemed to point you in that direction, but you went overseas. So go back even before that. What was the first time you saw a race? car of any kind and went, that's neat. Oh, I mean, probably when I was three years old.

So I grew up watching racing on TV. That's how I was like acclimated to it. Your family had no racing history? It's really my dad. No, no racing history. It's really my dad. My grandfather was a big car guy too. So cars were always big in my family. My grandfather probably had 100 cars at one point in his collection total. You know, big Chevy guy had all sorts of corvettes and just all sorts of cars. But really, I don't think he was the racing fan of the family.

It was really my dad. My dad was the one that pioneered liking racing. And he'd watch everything. He watched NASCAR, IndyCar, especially growing up in Miami, you know, when IndyCar was really big back in the early 80s, he would watch street course races there. He'd watch Formula One on TV. So when I was growing up, it was really my dad that was watching racing.

And I would watch it and be like, well, that's pretty cool. And I always loved anything motorsports related, anything that, you know, had an engine. And I wanted a go-kart since I was two years old, and I wasn't able to get one. My parents were really risk-averse, which is kind of funny. Like my dad didn't want me to get into racing or do anything dangerous. So he was really, he pushed me more to play sticking ball sports. I played baseball, basketball growing up. But my love for racing came on TV.

That's where I kind of grew up liking it. I'd go with my dad to the track every now and then. So there is racing love in my family, but there's no, you know, there's no anchor where it was like, hey, we went to tracks every weekend, and I grew up at the tracks. Like, that wasn't my history. It was more watching it on TV. So how did you get behind the wheel of your first race car? Like, how did that happen?

I have a really, I have probably an unorthodox story with motorsports. So, like I said, when I was younger, I always wanted a go-kart. Ever since I was, you know, probably three years old, I wanted a go-kart. My parents were super against anything risky. I mean, it was hard getting a bicycle growing up just because they didn't want me to get hurt. So, you know, if you, I grew up in Hendersonville, Tennessee, which is, you know, not necessarily the racing capital of the world. It's hilarious, actually, because Josh Barry, we went to school together. Wow.

Literally Josh was in my seventh, eighth grade class. Are you serious? And we weren't even, I can't say, hey, we were friends or anything, but like, I remember Josh. Wow. And I wasn't racing at this point. I was probably 11, 12, you know, in seventh, eighth grade. And I just think it's hilarious now because I see what Josh is doing. I didn't even know Josh was racing or that he was a race guy.

And it's probably four or five years ago. I started noticing like, I was like, oh, Josh Barry. I know Josh Barry. He was in my class. Oh, my gosh. And then I learned about his story. Like, I had no idea that he moved over here. And like, you know, he started working in the shop here and got to know you.

Or I think he got to know you on eye racing, right? Then he moved over here. Like, I know the story. And I'm like, that is the coolest damn thing ever. Yeah. So I messaged him like four, five years ago and I was like, hey, like, I know we weren't friends or anything, but like, I think it's so cool what you're doing. And just to see, he's got a way cooler story than me,

just because the way he had to work his way up, right? And now he's got the ride and everything, and you're doing so much to help him, and he's worked for it. I just love those stories. So it's kind of a weird world that we grew up together. I think this sort of does make Hendersonville, the cap, the, the racing capital, because you guys are born two months apart, you and Josh Barry, two professional race car drivers out of Hendersonville, Tennessee. class in middle school. For the same class in middle school. What class was it? I mean, we probably, I think we shared a bunch of classes. I remember, I remember science

class together for sure. Yeah. Neither one of y'all probably paying much attention. No, probably not. I just wish I could go back in time, you know, because I'm sure Josh was probably watching racing and like drawing cars in his book or something like. I had no idea. No, that's what you were doing in science class. I was definitely drawing cars every class. Is there, when, when is the moment where you're sitting there going, man, I really want to try this? Here's how bad. I wanted to do anything racing related was so Hendersonville, Tennessee, not a big racing place. I grew up playing baseball, basketball since I was little, like three, four years old.

So I knew sports. I loved competition. I didn't realize how much I loved competition at that age, but I knew I wanted to tinker with something engine related or just, you know, motor sport related. I was like, just give me something I can drive. I want to do that. So I used to get my haircut in this, like, strip mall area by this, you know, old school barber. His name was Rudy. cut my dad's hair, cut my grandfather's hair for like 30 years, like, you know, it's the, you know,

hometown barber. And next to the barbershop, one year opens up a skate shop, and they start selling skateboards. And, you know, obviously I'm a young kid, and I don't really, I'm not doing much in Hendersonville, Tennessee, so I'm interested in the skateboard shop. And then I see in the window, they start selling these motorized scooters. I'm like, well, you know, my parents won't let me get a go-kart. Maybe I can convince them to get me this motorized scooter. That's got an engine on it. Like, I could do something with that. And so I think I, I, I convinced my mom for my birthday, I really want that motorized scooter.

Can you please give that to me? And I got that for my birthday one year. I think I was 12 years old. I got this motorized scooter, and I lived in a neighborhood in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and I literally convinced everyone in my neighborhood, all my pals, because that's what we did. All summer long, we'd hang out and terrorize the neighborhood.

I convinced all my friends that get motorized scooters, too. And so we had like six of these things, and we would race around the neighborhood, like totally annoying the heck out of the neighbors, right? And I would go back, I'd have it in the garage, I'd take the engine apart a million times, put it back together. I loved it. And then I figured out, I loved this so much. This was my only, like, window into racing was this motorized scooter.

So I'm going to race this motorized scooter. I literally looked up online. Back in 2001, there was sanctioned international scooter racing. I swear, this is a real story. This is how I started motorsports. This is the weirdest thing ever. And I convinced my dad to take me across the country to race scooters. What did that conversation start like?

I mean, he knew. He's like, man, this kid really likes scooters and racing. And he liked racing too, so it's not like he didn't get it. But it was almost so silly. It was like, Dad, I'm literally asking you to take me to go race scooters in Las Vegas. Like, can we just get into go-karting? But anyways, we ended up doing that for like a year and I raced these scooters in like the world championships of scooter racing. You were that good.

And I won. I won some events. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. So it got so stupid that I was like. Hold up. What's scooter racing like?

Tell us how. Tell us how, what's the etiquette? Is there? It's like a cross between BMX racing and motorcross, but on pavement. Like they literally set up ramps. They set up obstacle courses. Not obstacle courses. They set up.

How many are you competing against at once? Probably about 20 people in a class. And there's multiple classes, right? It's just like racing. You'll have. Is it set up in a parking lot? Kind of like they do a lot of the car stuff in Vegas? Yeah, you go to a casino.

They set it up. They cone it off. How fast would they go? I mean, the souped up ones do like 35, 4, 4. mile an hour on a scooter yeah you know it's like what are we doing insane yeah um but all these you know these these industries they form with just passion you know people like people were passionate about racing scooters yeah and you'd have like you know the hot shoes coming in with trailers you know we we'd roll up in the back of our truck with with our scooters but you'd have people with like semi-trucks

just like racing you'd have like you want to beat these guys these are the best of the west yeah it's so silly um so we did that for like a year And I think my dad was like, all right, let's go figure out how to get into racing. And I wanted to race go-carts. That was what was interesting to me. It's kind of what caught my eye. So eventually we got into that. And that's kind of how the story for racing starts.

And so your first go-kart, what kind of go-car was it? For most people that probably don't know about carding, because a lot of people, I think, you know, typically they'll think of like going on vacation and seeing like a rental cart track or something. Like that's not the type of carding we're talking about real car racing. What was your chassis? man it was an it was an american eagle i think is what it was called it was like a one-off chassis so mark dismore who's a ex indy car driver um started this this uh this new go-kart track in indianapolis okay you went you're still living in nashville still living in nashville you're decide you're gonna race in indy

so this was really my dad my dad goes all right you want to go racing let's figure out how we start this right you want to go-karting and he did all this research he saw there was a new track being informed in Newcastle, Indiana, which is about 35 minutes east of the city. And he said, this is a new facility. It's built by an ex-Indic car driver. They have the largest cart distribution center in North America. They're literally the largest part supplier for go-carts in North America. Their company was called Comic Cart Sales.

And he's like, let's go up here. We're going to meet these guys. They'll teach us how to race go-carts, and we'll figure this out. 300 miles to go to Indianapolis from Nashville, just up there. And then 300 miles back home. So my dad's a wild man. he's like, let's go do this. We met Mark, we met all these people.

They sold us a go-card. It was literally a one-off cart. I think it was called like an American Eagle or something. Sold us a Yamaha chassis or, sorry, a Yamaha engine. And we bought the cart. We took it back home and started tinkering with a little bit. And then that cart track officially opened. They were still building the track when we first went up there,

officially opened. And we're like, all right, let's go race. Let's figure out how to race in their events. Your first cart race up there. And how old are you? 13 years old. And how do you know how to work? on carts to make them go fast.

You don't. I mean, you literally show up. His scooter skills. I mean, I mean, yeah, it's all the scooters really at the end of the day. It's taught me everything I know.

It's the foundation of my success. You still apply scooter logic to your cars today. Well, you could. I mean, you could to a go-cart. That's similar. No, no, no, no. Go-cart engine and the scooter engine got to be pretty similar.

Yeah, they are similar. I mean, it's called. The scooter engine is kind of funny. They're like little weed whacker engines, you know, like, it literally, literally like from a lawnmower. But there is similar logic. You know, if you want to take the thing apart and, like, you know, put a new piston in or, like, you know, change the carburetors on it.

It's similar to carting. I mean, Dale's right, for sure. We're going straight to the scooter shop after this, aren't we, Dale? We're doing that. There's going to be an influx in scooter racing after this. I've not told this story very often, but it's like the real story. Why? Why wouldn't you tell this is a fascinating story?

You know what the irony is? The irony is that your parents wouldn't let you get a bicycle because that's not safe. But the next thing you're doing is you got a hemmy and a scooter, basically. Isn't hilarious? Yeah, 40 miles an hour. and winning. I think they created more of a problem. Like, you know, you hold some of them back and they're like, they just want it so much more because you're holding them back. You're rebelling a little bit. Exactly. Yeah, I hear you. You go up to Andy to race this new track. Is that, I mean, do you just race there for a while

specifically at that track? Yeah. So when I started kind of the easiest thing to do instead of trying to, you know, and go-karting, the big stuff is national racing, right? And people, they'll travel, you know, all over the place, right? East Coast, West Coast, Florida, one weekend, you know, Chicago and the next, North Carolina. That's a lot more expensive because you're traveling all over the place. Well, this new track, Newcastle Motorsports Park, it was going to create a destination for people of all the Midwest to come to one location to race in this regional championship. It was the Cart Racers of America Championship. So to be economical about it, it was like, let's just race in this championship. We'll only come here.

We can keep our go-carts here. They had garages built. It's much like GoPro Motorplex, you know. Very, very similar, but 15, 20 years earlier. earlier. So it was like, this is going to be the most economical thing. We'll just race in this one championship, not trying to do this national stuff. So I did that for about two and a half years before I got into car racing. And that was really my, that was my introduction into racing, you know, learning everything about racecraft, you know, how you work on a cart, how you work with

the team, how you work with the mechanic, just, you know, how you be a race car driver. That's the foundation right there. What are some of the things that you would have done differently, I guess, You know, because you, let me, this is a terrible analogy, but it's the only one I can think of right now. But like when I got into cycling, right, you're getting into racing at 13, you know, go-karting at 13 years old. That's pretty normal. I mean, when I started racing go-carts, I was 14, 15. Okay, yeah. I wasn't really, like kids today, it's ridiculous.

It's nuts, right? It's ridiculous. Four or five years old. It just doesn't make any sense at all. When I got into biking, which you probably ride bikes, right, road bikes? A little bit. I'm not a roadie like most guys. Well, I do, and I went headfirst.

Made tons of mistakes, right? All kinds of unnecessary things that ended up having to turn around and sell on eBay. So give me some, I got, you know, we're going to pretend we've got a 13-year-old standing right here. What are you going to tell his dad on some of the advice, missteps, things you would have done differently? You know what? It's, I'd like to say we'd do something different, but I don't think we would.

Because that's how you learn, right? You know, and that's been the story of my whole career, and you really learned that in racing, that if you don't make the mistakes, it's hard to kind of figure out what you're supposed to do. What was the hardest thing for you to realize in racing? You know, that it's not fair. It's not a fair sport, and that's okay. You know, you keep going. I got so mad at certain points because I didn't think things were fair, and that's in different ways, right? Whether it's who gets the opportunity or, you know, the way the cars are built or the, you know, the cars are built or the, the way they're set up with a racing style of certain races, oh, that's not fair, the way that they race because the fastest guy doesn't win.

There's a lot of things in racing that you might not think are fair, but you've got to work through them. I think it's all, racing is all problem solving, okay? And the more that you make that excuse that it's not fair, et cetera, it's, you're not getting the point. It's figuring out the problem, whether that's figuring out the problem of how you get the car or it's figuring out the problem of how you win this race around, you know, the people that you're racing against.

So that's what I've had to probably. learn it's what i've gotten better at is you know being calm and the way that i look at racing and knowing that yeah it's not a fair sport half the time but that's that's really the challenge of what motorsports is yeah so i think that's a that's a great point when i see um you know my sister got her little kids her little girls and her son into the the carding stuff going on around here dirt tracks and all that and there's a lot of young kids yeah brexton bush kyle's son and i think it's a great platform like any at any age probably was for you too at 13 but when you start out that's what it should be about i think is molding that person you know that you know that impressionable child

mold helping them understand how to lose how to accept getting beat man you got outrun today you know and we're not going to pitch a fit you know we're going to go over there we're going to congratulate the winter and we're going to come back next week and we're going to have fun again you know I watch these parents today because I know I may go through that one day. I might. I don't know what my girls are going to want to do. And I'm trying to, I guess, learn through Kelly's, through all the kids that I go and watch them race and your experience, trying to learn how to not turn into that sort of super

competitive dad, right, and just, and it be about wins and losses, right? It should be more about trying to help them turn into, you know, good individuals, like good people. Was your dad cognizant of that when he's taking you the racetrack? Was he super, you know, competitive about, you know, y'all's racing, or was he helping you sort of grow as an individual? How was that going? I mean, my dad was my secret weapon, like in my whole career. My career would never happen or have happened without my father and for multiple reasons.

And that's a good example of it, is that my dad, he was the perfect temperament for, you know, how do you interact with your child at the track and how do you bring them up? You know, what kind of example do you lead? Explain that a little bit on some things he did. He's a pretty competitive person. I'd say I'm probably more competitive now, but he's the eternal optimist. And that's his strength, is that, you know, there was no challenge that was too big for my father. And he instilled that into me when I was young. You know, we're going to, we can figure out anything.

You can do anything. And it wasn't like this happy go lucky type of deal. It was a determined optimism where it's like, you know, whatever challenges are in front of us, like, we can make it happen. And he believed in me, probably before I believed to myself, that I could become a professional race car driver. It's a little bit cheesy, but he's just, he had that right temperament where, you know, he was intense in some ways. He wanted me to, you know, he really wanted me to learn.

He wanted me to have the best environment possible. But he was also really hands off a lot of the times. He let me make my own mistakes. And I was pretty, you know, clear with him in the beginning that that's how I wanted it. I really did as a kid. I wanted to learn and make the mistakes myself. you know, if there was a mechanic that I was working with, I didn't want my dad to work with the mechanic. Let me work with the mechanic. Let me understand how we're supposed to interact and, you know,

get a flow together. And those are little things that you don't really even think about when you're, when you're young, you know, I think if you're a parent, you just want, just give my kid the best. Let me protect him. Let me, let me be the hand that's over him, making sure he's got everything right at the right moment. And he did that to some degree, but was also completely hands off and letting me, you know, take care of things. So he was not this overbearing, you know, figure. If I lost, yeah, of course, you know, it's disappointing for him, but he didn't display it as in that sound acceptable or this is disappointing. It was, well, let's, let's, you know, focus on why we lost and let's, let's make it right and win the next race. And that's how it was. So he was the real, he was the perfect

temperament, I think, as a parent. And his optimism and his attitude not only helped shape me and who I am and how I interacted the track with the people around me, but he, he was, he was, was also the person that just kept carrying the torch and like getting us up the road. I mean, I would never have made it up these steps. And you guys know how this is. There's a lot of steps you've got to work to get to the top of the mountain. And then when you get to the top of the mountain, it's like you start all over again, right? Because it's a new mountain at the top.

But I would never have made it up those steps without my dad and his determination. So when you're trying to compete in the go-carts, I remember going to my first race. And remember my first accident. It was spectacular. And it was a wild experience. So, you know, and you mentioned how your parents were, were Uber worried about your safety growing up as a kid and didn't, you know, wanted to try to protect you at all times.

So you have your, what's your first big crash? What is that experience like with your dad? And what was your thought process going through that? Because that's like the first test, right? Is how you react to not only getting outran or being, not being the best in that moment, but that big moment where you crash. and you get that real fear.

So for me, it was really the first car race that I did. It wasn't in go-carts. You know, go-carts was kind of its own category. And, you know, we had some wrecks in that. But, you know, if you take go-karting out of it, we did that two and a half years. And then when I was 15, 16, I started getting the car racing. What kind of cars? Skip Barber is where we went.

It was the most economical thing. Skip Barber racing. Back in 2006, they still had the national championship, regional championships. and it just made a lot of sense from an economic standpoint. That was the easiest transition. It was the cheapest transition to get into form the cars. So when I went down, I got taught how to drive an open-wheel car. You do a three-day school.

Where at? And this was, where'd I go? I think it was Daytona. Yeah. It was actually Daytona. So it's funny you say that because this sounds silly, but the skip car, Skippy car is my favorite car on eye racing. And I've often wondered.

Really? Yeah, I just love it. It's so much fun. Moves around a lot, too. It does move around a lot. And I didn't know how realistic that is. Very realistic, yeah. It seems just like a car is teach you so much.

Like you said, it's pretty relatively easy as far as getting involved in. And I remember being at Daytona and watching the schools happen on the infield course. They had like a small version of the infield course, and they just had cars going and going. And all these young guys getting in and out of them with their nice, you know, their new helmets. So you were one of those guys. Yeah. You were in there grinding away trying to get your – so when you go to Skip Barber, right, and you show up for the street.

day school, is it an automatic that you're going to get this, you know, you're going to get your application into the series? Or what is the school about? What is that process for? So you have like a mix of people coming to these schools, right? You got young kids coming out of go carts that are supposed to be the new hot shoes and you've got 35 year olds that work their whole life just to save up enough money to come and do this school, right? You know, so you've got a, you got a range of people that are there. And you got like 20-something year olds that maybe, you know, they're They're probably a little too old to get into racing, but they still believe they can do it. So there's a range of people.

But really, it's just, you know, back then, Skip Barber was all about if you want to drive a race car and you want to be taught how to drive a race car, that's where you go. It's pretty economical. I think it was, you know, $2,500, maybe for a three-day school, maybe $3,000. So it's still expensive. But in the grand scheme of everything, like, you know, someone can save up and afford that at maybe some point in their life. So, yeah, you go to school, and they teach you the three-day school.

It's all the basics. And then if you do well on that, then you go to the two-day advanced school. And that's like the real race cars, you know, they put some wings on it. They give you the sequential gearbox. You have to qualify or something for that? I don't think you had to anybody go to the two-day school? I think you had to run the three-day school and show that you were proficient enough to go to the two-day. They could turn you down.

I think they could. Yeah, if you were like, man, this guy's really not good. Maybe he needs to go three-day again one more time. There was cases like that. So yeah, you run through the school. And then at that time, it was like, you know, if you got through the two schools, then you go race to a regional championship. And there was a couple of those.

It was like a South Championship. What does the championship consist of? So it was like 10 races. You'd go to Daytona, Sebring, Moroso, like all sorts of places in Florida on the South Championship. Are those companion races to manage your events like IndyCar and so forth? No, it was there was standalone. Really? Yeah, you'd go there and they were standalone races.

You were the deal. Yeah, we were Skip Barber races. was happening here. You know, come check it out. Are you continuing to have to fork over money, though, to continue to advance? Or do you still ride in your $2,500, $3,000 entry? No, so, I mean, it was still, if you wanted to run the whole South championship, the cars were all prepared for you, right?

Yeah, it's, so they're running it. That's why it was economical, because it was a school, you know, the scale of it was easier. I think it was, I mean, it still probably cost 10, 15 grand to run that whole championship. Did you feel like the cars were equally prepared? No. It's best they could be, right? You know, these are older chasties. Was random which car you were going to get per race?

It was random, yeah. But then, you know, you start looking into, well, who are the mechanics? You know, and what mechanics are working on what? And do you have a mechanic, buddy? And, you know, who tests the cars? Well, who's the test driver? You know, can I talk to the test driver? Which one did you like the most?

What balance on the car did you like the most? Could you adjust anything on the cars? No, other than brake bias. I think brake bias was manually adjustable. but they were, I don't want to... No, no, no. They were pretty equal to them. Yeah, they did a good job.

I mean, they were as equal as you could make them, you know? So how did that go? How did that experience go? So my very first race, to go back to your question on that big wreck. It's my first race. I went through the schools. All right, I'm at Sebring, you know, the full course. Oh, my God.

It's a pretty daunting course. Have you ever been to Seabrolet? Turn 17. I destroyed a Corvette there. Did you? What corner? In the bridge, like turn three? Yeah.

Hit the back into the bridge. That'll happen. Testing, yeah. Yeah, it'll happen. It'll bite you that place. That's what makes it fun. The damn tires, man. They're slick driving there.

Me and dad went to test the corvettes to get ready for Daytona. And they're like, you know, the tires are a little for a lap, take it easy. I mean, I barely touch the throttle coming out of three. And it goes, and I feel like I'm going 30 mile an hour. I feel like I'm crawling. And the next thing I know, I feel like I'm going 100 mile an hour backwards. Yeah. And I hit that bridge.

And I thought, okay, I've junked this thing. and they put it back together in 15 minutes. Oh, there you go. And they're like, here you go. And I'm like, me again? You sure? I get to stay. They're keeping me. But anyhow, you're a turn 17 for you. It's a very, very difficult place. Very difficult, very bumpy, very quick.

Like, turn 17 is super fast. You know, you're entering off the back straight and, you know, hauling the mail into the corner and then you go under a bridge there too. There's a lot of bridges at SeaBring. So it was my first race. In that first race, I just lost the car into turn. 17 and pancaked it into the wall. And it was like my first really big wreck. And I just thought, you know what? Like in that moment, it really made me think, you know, why am I doing this?

I don't know why, but that was the one wreck that sticks in my mind where it knocked my confidence. And I really thought, like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know that I can do this for a living. You know, and that's when you're young, you start to think about that at that point. Like, is this something I want to pursue? And am I good enough to do that? And that wreck completely knocked that confidence out of me. My dad was there.

We had dinner that night. And I just remember him, again, the temperament, you know. He just really encouraged me to, I had a race the next day too. It was a two-race weekend. And this happened on that first race. And he just encouraged me to go out and, you know, try again tomorrow, you know, not to let this set me back. And I remember that night so vividly to me. I mean, we were at dinner and I was like, I just wanted to go home.

I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't think I can. I can't believe how to look. at myself now and then to think back to that, I can't believe how little confidence I had. But, you know, him being the right temperament and forced me to go the next day was the right thing. I ended up winning the next day. Wow. I won the race. All right. And so the contrast between those two days was a real inflection point in my career. Because from that point on, when I won that race the next day, it was never a lack of confidence again, regardless of what happens. So I think it was a really

important lesson for me to learn defeat or give yourself humility that, you know what you're going to make mistakes. And sometimes in racing, that's half the battle is to have that confidence and humility that, you know, it's okay to wreck the car. It's going to happen. I mean, it's just going to happen at some point. Professionals wreck all the time. So I think that was a really important lesson for me mentally to understand how to, you know, survive in racing. Yeah, I think that that was one of the things that, unfortunately, is it doesn't change about racing as a, you know, the highs and lows, and they will come one right after the other. And fortunately for you, the high, was the second thing, you know, the disappointment of the day before.

But that was one thing that never changed. I don't care how, you know, even in the Cup series, you would win. And then the next week could be one of the worst weekends where just nothing's going right. And they literally running in the back of the pack with no understanding of why, how you could be so good and then so bad. But you know what he says is interesting because why he's talking about confidence. I mean, you guys, I don't care what you're racing.

When you've lost your confidence, you could. tell just normal people can tell that you're not as fast right i mean like you people don't they slow down when they lose their confidence how did you get confidence back it's everything you're saying you said your dad it's because your dad you got your confidence back right yeah 100% in that moment it was it was through my father kind of channeling you know his energy um and just his demeanor that's what but you know from that moment on it kind of taught me how to how to self-regulate that because it is everything and i mean i'm a huge believer in that in sports in general too yeah i mean it's 100% i remember it's so critical and it's not

not of cockiness. No. I mean, some people can be cocky about it, but the true belief in yourself. The true belief, yeah, and the ability to work through multiple situations, confidence is like at the cornerstone of anything. When you're, when you're peaking performance-wise, you know, even if you're not a cocky person or individual, inside you have that internal confidence that's driving it, it's just, it's so critical in so many different ways in race.

And you can dive into the different ways. Confidence helps you, but it's, it is like the most important thing to, I think, button racing. I remember early in Dale's career, he used to say, you know, I'm the best driver out there. And then he would say, you got to think that. If you're going to go out there and race, you've got to think that you are the best one out there. And he was, you were winning, you know, four, five, six races a year. When we went through 2009 and 10 at Hendrick, you weren't saying that anymore. And man, I remember his confidence was so low that it, I mean, like, it was almost like depression low, right? and man I was like that's when I saw the stark difference between man where's that I'm the best driver out here and now it's like man you're just you know I remember the race where they kept you out and let you know you were leading lapsed Lance kept you out leading laps at Charlotte but not pitting with everybody out and you're like what is this what it's come down to you know you're trying to keep me out here on old ass tires I'm not going to hold them off and I'm like man what I'd give to have that confidence back because you know That right there is everything, right?

It's critical. Yeah, and I've had those moments too. You know, it comes and goes. I had it in the beginning of my IndyCar career where, you know, it wasn't the confidence knock that I had in that very first Skip Barber race. It wasn't like that. It was more just like a depression where, you know, it was my first year. I was my rookie year in IndyCar and nothing went right.

We were a small team, just didn't have the budget, the testing. I was just me. I had no teammates. No real idea on how to drive the car or what to look at to drive the car well. So I felt like on an island and I more so got depressed. That was like the lack of confidence was just, you know, feeling defeated, you know, more than it. It wasn't that, oh, I don't, I don't believe in myself anymore. It's just, you know, why am I doing this? I don't know that I can, I don't know that I can make enough of a difference to warrant being here. That was more what it felt like. But you can go through those different moments. It's, you know, It's really a team sport when you look at confidence, especially at the top level.

You know, everyone's got to buy into it, and you're feeding off every individual in that team. And if there's like a broken link somewhere, then it can affect the whole group. And when that starts to happen, it's just nothing good comes out of that. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that you were overseas racing. So how did you end up over there? So Skip Barber, went through that whole process, and then throughout racing in Skip Barber, I got selected for this scholarship. it was called the Team USA Scholarship.

It was created by a guy named Jeremy Shaw. He was a writer. He's actually English, and he created this USA scholarship. And he wanted to bring young Americans over to Europe, mostly England, to race in that environment and showcase American talent. And this was started, I think the very first year was 1990 or maybe it was 91. I probably don't have my years right. And they went over with Jimmy Vassar the very first year from, yeah, it was an IndyCar driver, Jimmy.

They've had, you know, multiple guys. so Almendinger was a winner of it one year. And it's a really good scholarship, you know, that's funded by individuals within racing, and they send these, you know, they send a kid or two kids over, and they race in some premier racing championships over in Europe. For me, it was the Formula Ford Festival that they sent us to go race in. That's, like, a huge deal in England. If you're, you were Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher back in the 70s, 80s,

like, that's where you went to go prove yourself in Europe as a junior, driver before you, you know, moved up the ranks to go to Formula One. So the Formula Ford Festival was a big deal. No American had ever won it. And when I went over that, I won the festival. I was the first American. I'm still the only American that's ever won that race, which is kind of shocking. At Brands Hatch?

At Brands Hatch. Yep. So cool. The full course or the indie course? Indy course. Man, I love the indie course. Do you? It's so fun.

I like the full course more. I mean, I run it and enjoy it, but the indie course is so short track. Yeah. I love short track racing, right? Same. And that to me is kind of such a short course. It begs for, you know, you to be aggressive. And I used to watch a lot of British touring car racing.

Really? Yeah, because they race. I would never have guessed that. They knocked the mirrors off, right? They run hard and beat and bang. And I got to be a big fan of, like, Jason Plato and Matt Hill and those guys. When Plato was dominating probably, yeah. And Matt was an independent back, you know, running with the big boys.

It was fun. But so I fell in love with Brands Hatch. Have you ever gone there? Never been. No. Oh, you got to go. It looks like an awesome place. Yeah, and I'm with you.

I love Short Track, racing's actually become probably my favorite form of racing. So I respect that on the indie side. But for brands, the full GP course, if you're a road course racer, it's like one of the coolest circuits in the world. So yeah, I love that place. But that was a big win. And brands, and then it kept me over in Europe. So when I won that festival, did really well with the scholarship, that was kind of my door into racing in England and, you know, potentially going to Formula One, which is what I wanted to do initially. I was really captivated by Formula One and wanted to try make it over there.

So what were, what you, you've talked about, I can't even imagine, like, even thinking that I'd ever get a shot at anything like that. And how are you able to, you know, everyone wants to be a Formula One race car driver over in Europe particularly, you know, it's like musicians in Nashville, like in, you know, everybody in Europe wants to race Formula One. All those guys that are racing anything over there want to get to that opportunity, right? And you really had a legit avenue, you know, with your success. Was there a moment?

where you were like, could you believe your reality that you were, you were heading in that direction? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I had to pinch myself at moments. It's so cool what we were doing. You know, when we went over for the festival, it was like a three-week journey. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in racing, was going over there. I went with another driver, Connor Daly. He was my teammate. And we literally spent, we spent three weeks together. We went, we were in Ireland, England. We lived with this Irish family, the Dempsey family. They were the ones that ran our former the Ford's. the Formula Fords are the coolest thing. It's like putting Skip Arbor car on steroids. They move

around a lot. Super fun to drive. You know, very good for car control and learning vehicle dynamics, especially mechanical grip. And so, yeah, we lived with this Irish family for three years in the truck and just had a blast. Just had a blast. Test in the car, racing it. And so, yeah, in those moments, you think, wow, this is so cool. Like, we got selected for this really neat scholarship, Maybe we can go to Formula One one day. You've been with your dad your whole life, right? And he's now probably not, he's obviously not in Europe with you, right? Yeah, pretty, I mean, they came over to watch the race.

But that was, yeah, that was probably the first moment where it was just... You. It was us. Yeah, it was me, and it was whoever I'm with, and we're trying to go racing. And that's kind of how Jeremy wanted it, too. It's pretty cool about the scholarship. The whole idea was to put you out of your comfort zone. I know.

Where are you uncomfortable? No. Not at all. I mean, we were having the time of our lives. I was 17. You know, Connor was 16. How did you stay focused? I loved racing. For me, it was easy. The environment was, was a good, safe environment and no, no distractions. No, I mean, you know, in Ireland. I'm just trying to imagine, you know, I couldn't imagine me at 17 in Europe. I would have torpedoed the hell out of that. Yeah, the funniest thing. People know Connor Daly now. He was the complete opposite. What? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The Conradale you see today, I'm like, he was the opposite when he was in Europe. He was like the most, he was quiet. He was, he was, he played video games. He was nerdy. Super cool guy. One of my best friends. I know. What happened to him? Well, so he went back to Europe after that two years later. And then he came back home to America and he was like, I was like, what happened, man? You're like, you're like an international superstar now. You're not the Conradale I knew. But yeah, we were, you know, we were just nerdy little kids.

that was 16, 17, all we cared about was racing. So, you know, any of the Irish influence of, let's go to the pub and get some pints, that wasn't a problem. How are you able to get up to speed at all these unique tracks that you'd never seen in your life? I think that was one of my skill sets. So when I did the festival right up to speed right away, Connor was two. Connor was really on it as well. But that was one of our skill sets.

We could rock up and just be quick right away. And a lot of people were like, what the heck are they doing? Are they cheating with these American drivers? because they hadn't really seen that before from a lot of others. But yeah, it was part of the skill set. And then I stayed over in Europe after that in 2009, ran the full British Formula Ford Championship, coolest year of my life,

just traveling all over England and Ireland. And I had to learn all those tracks. There was probably 20 different tracks that I went to and didn't know anything about them. And that was the skill set, was to be on it right away and, you know, learn them super fast and be up to speed with the locals, pretty much. So what was it like racing and being the own,

you know, being pretty much the only American in the series? Are you, you know, when you see guys out on the racetrack, you treat them a little bit differently. One of the things that's unique about IndyCar now, it's multinational. I never even thought about that until I went to the N8500. And I'm like, oh, my God, the personalities, it's like this mortgage board of all kinds. It's surprising. Yes, it's a little bit shocking. Because I'm so used to NASCAR, man, he's from Indiana, he's from California.

You know, most people are from the United States. And you kind of know what you're going to get from everybody. Yeah. When you went to Europe, was it tough getting that respect? Was it easy to get? Were everybody welcoming you with open arms? Come on in. Have some fun?

Yeah, I think for the most part it was really welcoming. So you can kind of think of that British from the Ford was much like NASCAR. It was mostly British people. You're either English or Irish or Scottish. You're British. And so I was really the only outsider. There wasn't a lot of Europeans. I think there was like one Dutch guy.

actually there was. He was my teammate. It was Dutch. But I liked it because, you know, people, people were very friendly, warm and opening and welcoming. My team, for the most part, like, I had the best, sweetest team from England. They had this, you know, really cool shop that was on their farm, literally in a barn in their farm. Old school. Oh, so cool. It's literally like, you know, short track racing in North America, but in England with Formula Fords. That's how, you know, because they don't really do late models and stuff over there. But Formula Ford racing is what they do. So it was so much fun, but I was for sure the underdog. You know, people don't want to see the American come in and race against all the British and kick their butt.

But I loved that. I was like, this is so cool. Everyone does not want to see me succeed probably. And that makes me really want to succeed. It just gives you extra motivation. You know, you're the outsider in that whole group. So your eyeball is on, your eyes are on Formula One. How do you end up getting back to the States?

So I think Europe and the path to Formula One is probably the most political environment I've ever seen. I mean, Formula One is like just this Goliath of political. It's just politically difficult. You know, you've got like high, high money people in that sport. I mean, you're talking two, three hundred million dollars for a team with these manufacturers, Mercedes Ferrari. I mean, that's serious money. You've got, you know, oil money from the Middle East and you've got these large corporations in Europe. I've just never seen such a politically intrinsic sport

where it was like you have to have the right connection, you have to have the right manager, you have to be on the right team, you have to know exactly what engines you need to have for this series. It's so cutthroat and difficult. I don't even know how you explain that to a young racer nowadays, and it's only gotten worse.

It was even easier back when I was doing it, and now it's got even harder. So you start looking at this, and the British phone of the Ford was the easiest part because there was none of that. It was just like short track racing in North America. Like if you have a good shop and a good team, you guys can go compete with whoever, right? It didn't matter.

Like you can do a good job. But then when you get through British Formula 4 and you're like, all right, let's go up the rung and the ladder. Let's get to the next level in Europe and then maybe get a shot to Formula 1. That's where it gets tough. You start really going to Europe and you're like Formula 3 or, you know, GP2 at the time. Now it's F2. Those are really political and trying to get just the money and the right team and the right

manager to even get an opportunity to maybe talk to a Formula 1 team is like the most difficult thing ever. So I ran out of funding for the most part. I went and ran GP3 in 2010, which is the year after British Formula Ford. And we just got the opportunity to put together. I was supposed to run Formula 3 in England, and I had an investor that was going to invest to me,

literally backed out at the last minute. I was sitting in the car, ready to test it for the first time. Check doesn't clear. That guy goes away and disappears off the face of the planet, which I really needed in order to run the car. So then I got this opportunity to last moment run GP3. We ran all over Europe following Formula One. Worst year of my career, definitely out of money after that.

That was the end of 2010. I thought my career was over. My dad had to come back over to England, help me pack up, bring me back to America. And I literally thought, I was like, we're out of money, probably all done. My dreams of going to Formula One have just crashed and died. So, you know, this is over. So we came back to America, and then the story continues after that. What's the rest of it?

So, okay. So when I come back to America... You're framing this up. I think a lot of drivers can relate to that feeling of, I think, it's it. Yeah. That was it. I'm done. What am I going to do next?

I got to do a normal thing, right? I got to, what job am I going to do? Right? Yeah. You got a family business to maybe go get involved in. Well, the family business was now, you know, they had sold it in 2008, so it wasn't around anymore. Oh, so. And, I mean, I really, at that time, I was thinking, you know, maybe I go to college, you know.

Maybe I get a degree in something. Oh, Lord. I don't know what degree I want to get. You know, it's like you get so focused on. Not that that's a bad thing, Mike. No, no, no. I go, but if that's your starting point at 18 to now, okay, so I have to go get a degree. Where do you start?

I'm just, I'm almost 20. I'm 19. You're 20. Yeah, that usually you've started thinking about that before then. So, yeah, it would be a rough transition to have to start considering. It's just a hard pill to swallow. Right, right, right, right. You kind of go your whole career, which for me up that point was like three, four years.

Yeah, I think the only part that would be most difficult for me is, and I think this listeners should contemplate this a second, is when people, if you're an aspiring race car driver running short tracks around here or whatever, you run into these obstacles, you run into these dead ends, but it's here. and people that lose their rides or when their opportunities drop, they showed it up at the track, they keep their helmet, and they keep persevering out of sight, out of mind, right? But you can always, you know, be at the next race and make yourself available. Yeah. Right. And it's, but when you're in Europe, right, and your deal ends,

you've ran into that roadblock, you don't bring that resume back. Like no one over here knows really what you've been doing over there. Maybe some of the important people do, and that's probably the rest of your story. But I can't imagine how fearful you must have been of your future, because if you have those roadblocks, stumbling blocks at 20 years old here, you kind of can recover, right? But when it ends there overseas, and you've got to come all the way back to the States. You're not coming back to a foundation. You're not coming back to anything, right?

Yeah, it's a good point. You put all that sweat equity there over there. And when you leave that continent, right? You come back here, you've got to barely start from scratch, right? Yeah, no, 100%. That was really the case. But exactly to what you alluded to, some of the important people that, you know, pay attention to kind of the overall picture, they still keep tabs and they see what's going on. And they know of some of these guys that maybe went and did these forays. So that's what led to 2011. I got an amazing opportunity. I mean, Indy Lights was so expensive. So Indy Lights, the feeder series to IndyCar.

This is like running an Xfinity a Cup. It's so expensive to go run Indy Lights. I mean, it was nearly a million bucks to run that championship. And, you know, I mean, we didn't have enough money to run the year before. We didn't have any money. So I don't know how you're going to go conjure up a million bucks, you know, in a couple months to go run Indy Lights. So I got basically given a lifeline by Sam Schmidt, who owned one of the most, successful indie lights teams. They were the cream of the crop at the time. They'd call you up.

And they called me up and they he basically did a deal for me. He invested in my career too. What did he say? He said, you know, what was it that you had done that they were so interested in? Well, they had been keeping an eye on it and you know, we had some other people around us and keeping them in the loop and basically Sam was like, you know, we'll take a flyer on you. And he was, he was pretty savvy in Indy Lights. Like he actually had legitimate sponsorship on some of his cars. One of his car was fully funded. So he could pick and choose the driver. He could pick and choose a driver.

That car was taken, the funded car. But then he had this other car that was like maybe going to be funded. And so he basically invested into my career and said, you know, I want some, you know, future of you. And I'll put you in the car. And we still had to pay a little bit of money. But we found the money. And it was like, all right, we can put up some of this. But we can get some of it.

And we didn't run with, we didn't even pay for crash damage insurance, which is a big no-no in Indy Lights. You wreck a car in Indy Lights. it's like a $150,000 hit just like that. And so... You took that chance. We took that... We had to. It was that we couldn't do anything else.

So I got in the car, we raced that championship. I won the very first race out, and I went up winning the championship. Then I get an opportunity to Indy car from me. So when you go out and you win the first race, do you carry the concern with the crash damage into that first race? Are you thinking... Not at all. Your dad's thinking about that, right? No, I was on dad.

Yeah, not you. Yeah. And so you go out and you win, Sam is... What's the conversation like then at that point? Like, hey. No, it's on. I think, you know, for those guys, they didn't expect, you know, they wanted to give me the opportunity if they didn't feel I was going to be a contributor and be good for their ecosystem.

But I don't think they expected me to be sort of the leader of the team. That was supposed to be the other car, the fully funded car. It was Esteban Garieri, super great driver. He came from Europe too, but he was a lot closer to Formula One that made. I mean, he was like, he's literally just under it and could have been hired to go to Formula One, like the next year. So he's like fully up the ladder I'm like still at the bottom of the ladder So they're expecting this guy to probably lead the charge for the team

And I win the first race out Been the quickest in testing like I'm ready to rock So I think that dynamic Shifted very quickly And they were probably surprised by that But yeah the burden of the you know The year and the potential of what could go wrong Went away?

No, didn't necessarily I mean it wasn't there in the beginning And that's how my dad operated that way And he instilled that into me He was like look if something goes wrong and sideways We'll figure it out And that's what you have to do, right? If it does go sideways, you just figure out a plan to work it out. So we went into that year just with, you know, just an open mind trying to make it happen.

And the good thing for me was I knew I was stepping into the best seat on the grid. I mean, it was literally, this was the championship winning team. I might have the best teammates around me to learn from and to observe every weekend. It was like a catbird seat opportunity. Was that your first year on the oval? Yeah, first year in oval racing. What did you think about oval racing? I just loved it.

I loved it. I mean, so y'all ran, I know you run Indy. So we ran Iowa. Iowa. Iowa, or I should say Indy was my first one for the Freedom 100, which was so cool. Pretty much wide open, right? Yeah, you're in any lights car at that time. Always wide open.

It were wide open. What about at Iowa? No, Iowa was lifting, you wearing the tires out. I mean, so your first experience in Oval is, it's such a crazy discipline. You know, we see it all the time when IndyCar guys come to NASCAR or NASCAR like with Jimmy. Yeah. I mean, the disciplines don't even compare it, I don't think. Like watching how, you know, each one kind of struggles to understand the two.

So you go to Oval. I know the other guys are also experiencing this same challenge of racing at an Oval, but tires wearing out, you're lifting. What was your thoughts? So Indy was like one part of the equation. You know, it was pretty flat out. You know, as the tires wear out, that gets a little bit harder, you know, much probably like Daytona or something. You know, it's flat out, but it's not easy to keep it stuck, right?

And that's how it was. You start learning, it was all about learning drafting. you know, positioning the car where you want to be, two laps to go, where do you want to be, one lap to go where you want to be. So that was the whole indie game, super cool, but then you go to a place like Iowa, totally different. I mean, this is like oval racing. You're lifting, you're trying to understand to conserve the tires, you know, how does a car feel into the corner, middle, exit off? And I just, I fell in love with it. And short track racing now is my favorite form of racing. I wish we could race 10 short tracks with indie cars. And it's not really possible,

because our cars can't go to every short trip. We can't go to Bristol, unfortunately. I wish we could. I don't even know how they go around Richmond in places like that. So Richmond in places like, yeah, Iowa, Richmond, it's super fast, but with the old surfaces, it works a lot better because we still, we'll drop, you know, we'll probably drop two, three seconds, almost four seconds at Richmond, a bit about four second drop.

So it's a lot of performance loss as the tires wear out. And you're starting to break even with an indie car, which is crazy. But yeah, it's the most fun I've ever had. I fell in love with it. It's a completely different art to race in a road course. I'd never experienced that in my life. And I didn't realize how much I was going to love it until I did it. Yeah.

I know you've been able to get to know Jimmy a little bit. Let's touch on him for a second. I know you've been able to get to know him. Super awesome dude. The best. Yeah, he is such a great guy. Yeah. Explain to people why it's so difficult for him.

Yeah. I mean, I just want to start by saying I'm a huge Jimmy Johnson fan. He was one of my guys growing up. I'm someone that loves watching dominance. So when Jimmy was crushing everybody in Cup, when he had that run, I was like the biggest Jimmy Johnson fan. I would tune in to watch Jimmy Crush people. So I've got a huge respect for Mr. Seven Time. What he's doing is it's so difficult to describe to people how challenging it is.

I mean, Jimmy has no background in open-wall racing whatsoever. I mean, he's completely, you know, dirt track racer to cup racing, stock car racing. that is that I mean it'd be like taking me with no stock car racing background and literally put me in a cup car tomorrow and saying go run Daytona go run Richmond go run Atlanta it would be so difficult for me to understand how to figure that out and he's not had a lot of testing you know it's it's difficult nowadays to get up to speed but yeah it's all about him trying to understand down forces probably the biggest thing that he's got to learn what is the problem with that so you know with an Indy car, we're producing around 5,000 pounds of downforce at 200 miles an hour, just from a load standpoint.

And I bet as stock cars at 200, you know, fully loaded up on a road course, this might be 2,200 pounds, maybe 2,500 at most. So it's half of what an Indy car produces, and also the Indy cars half the weight. So dynamically, the way the car feels, you know, how aggressive you need to be on the brake pedal, how aggressive you need to turn the car in, how quickly the car reacts, how quickly the car reacts. Jimmy's just not used to that. he's used to a car that reacts a lot slower. The way you talk to it, the way it talks to you, is like night and day difference to how the IndyCar talks. And so I think Jimmy's had to like completely speed up his process,

whereas like an IndyCar guy going to a stock car, they got to slow it down. They got to go, okay, let me let things happen and talk to the car differently and let it all happen. Whereas in Indy car, it's just happening. It's literally happening and you've just got to react. So it's not that one's harder than the other. It's not even trying to start that conversation. They're just totally different.

Yeah. So that's the challenge he's working through, and I just, he's getting it. Do you see these moments of brilliance, or do you see that talent in him shine through in these little spaces? In the races. It's happening in the races. And I think he's just, he's got more reps, you know, as soon as he hits the racing, part of the weekend, and he's in a rhythm. You can see, yeah, he can drive that car pretty much at the limit.

But it's the short spurts. It's, you know, getting out of practice, doing two laps or, going into qualifying, having nail one lap. He doesn't have the confidence yet to just go do it. But in the race, when he's like, hey, we got a bunch of time. Let's run 70 laps. You can see he's like pretty much on the limit. And he knows how to drive the car to that limit.

So I think once he gets his head around it, once he gets more confidence, he's going to very much be in the pack running with it. You know, not as egregious as jumping in a new car, but you guys are about to go do a new track, right? I mean, in Nashville. Yeah. Like, so, okay. So apply the same type of,

learning curve. How long will it take you guys to adapt to a completely new place? First off, that's a great, I saw, I don't remember who did, somebody went on an old papyrus indie car game that was, you know, 20 years old and did a, they made a track out of a program called Sandbox of what the track's going to look like. But anyhow, I'm sure you've seen a better rendition than that. What is this track going to look like? What's it going to remind you of? Everybody's talking about driving over the bridge. What kind of arrow issues does that present? When you arch over, you know, going over heels, I know there's probably a breaking zone really shortly after the bridge, so you're not going to be like, you know, you're not going to, I don't know

what speed you'll be getting to the middle as you crest that bridge. But what, what is that track going to remind people of? So the tough thing about Nashville is typically on street courses, you have the thing fully loaded up with downforce, right? You've got the wings cranked up. They're maxed. I mean, it's the most downforce the car will produce, because that's typically the quickest. You know, you're only probably doing 170 miles an hour on the straight, on a street course, just because it's short. You know, you don't have long straights. It's faster to get through the corners. Nashville will propose the question of do we trim the cars out, which is not typical on a street course for us. Because those straightaways that you're talking about with the bridge, they're

super long. So it actually looks like maybe we should trim the cars out. just because the trade-off speed-wise seems like it may be worth it. You know, how long you're on the straits versus in the corners is starting to propose that question. So I think that's going to be interesting about Nashville. The bridge is by far the coolest part of it. I mean, it's so cool that we're racing over Korean vets, which is what the bridge is called. It's going to be the perfect backdrop for Nashville. Nashville also has one of the coolest skylines.

I know it very well grown up. And if they get the helicopter shot right, which they better do, you're going to see the cars, you know, flying over that bridge, literally right in front of the skyline of the city. It's going to, it's going to look aesthetically, probably cool than anything this year. Have you been down there to the track and as they're putting it together? Yeah, yeah. I've been there working with the track designer, Tony Kotman, and IndyCar. I just want to make sure we're thinking through everything. Yeah. And what are some of the obstacles? Well, you know, it's a new circuit, so you've got to look at runoffs. You got to look at how the pit lanes

configured. I think just even things that people don't think of is like how does the pit lane exit onto the racetrack and how are the cars coming off pit lane interacting with the cars on the track? And in IndyCar it's kind of a big deal. You know on an oval track and NASCAR it's not as much of a you know it's not as much of something to think about because it's coming off the apron there's a lot of room on the back stretch. It's kind of simple. Normally in IndyCar racing when you come off pit road the way that interacts with the car on the track can a lot of times be really tight and really awkward. So you don't want to create problems between that.

So there's little things that we just want to make sure, you know, the event has the best opportunity to showcase well off the jump. There's going to be problems. It's inevitable. It's a new street circuit. There's going to be things we just couldn't forecast that we've got to fix. But I think if we can reduce the amount of issues we have,

it's going to help the longevity of the vent, you know, and the health of it. Are all the other drivers involved? Not everybody. But, you know, I think as long as you've got a couple key people, in there that are, you know, giving good advice. You know, certainly anyone's advice is welcome. Sure.

Everyone's running it on the simulator, whether you're a Honda or a Chevy guy. So anyone that runs it on the sim and feels the track and goes, hey, I got to just think about this. I have one point I'd like to say they're going to take all that into consideration. But it was really important for me. I wanted to sit down on them, make sure they got some of the details correct. It's wide enough where you can make it wide, you know, thinking about where we could have a traffic jam situation or, you know,

where they need safety trucks. just to make sure if there's a track blockage that you can recover those cars quickly. Because on a street course, if you have a track blockage, you don't want to be sitting there 25 minutes trying to recover the track. It's not good for the fans. It's not good for the driver.

So little stuff like that just needs to be tied up and make sure. So when you drive over the bridge, is there anything challenging about that from an arrow standpoint? Not typically. As it kind of crests that heel, I'm sure y'all have multiple scenarios like that

in the series that are similar, but I keep popping into my mind along straightaway at LaMalle and the car going the car lifting up. No, it shouldn't be too bad. We're making enough down force that it should stay stuck. The one section of bridge, going over the bridge initially into the downtown area, it's very bumpy off the transition of the bridge, and then that leads right into a break zone. I think the stability of the car is going to be really tough there, you know, because you're going to want the car as low as possible. It's just dynamically the best, but I think you're going to have to raise the cars up a bit more.

because it's so bumpy and the bridge section is very bumpy so you're going to get some porpoising with the car so trying to figure out how to how to you know keep that car as low as possible while also not crashing the bumps off of the bridge into the brake zone that's that's going to be a challenge what will they physically need to do to the bridge to be able to race across it um so they've they've done a really good job of the the transition from the bridge to the asphalt road they've repaved all those sections i heard that the track itself took upon that um expense to repaid and patch. You know, I know you're part of the ownership group here.

I just watch my Twitter fee, man. I'm just going to say this, though. I think what's been most impressive is there's not really been a lot of the expense spared when it comes to making sure the track's right. And it's really, really important on a street course that you get those details right. So paving that section, you know, some places may not do that. They may be like, well, whatever, the cars will get used to it. Yeah, deal with it.

But what I was wondering is, like, the bridge is not a racetrack, right? But now, to make it a racetrack, what needs to happen to the bridge? Is there barriers all the way across the both sides? Right? There's already rails and things. Yep. Not enough. Are you fit?

Is there fencing on both sides? I mean, to keep you guys from going off into the... Yeah, the good thing is like there's a raised up sidewalk, right? Yeah. On the bridge. Okay. So the barrier sits on top of that. So the height of the barrier is...

Pretty tall. Yeah, it's pretty tall. It's probably five foot. And then you have the catch fencing all the way up. So there's catch fencing all the way across the bridge. Yeah, all the way across. And it's the number one question I've got is, you know, hey, you're going over a bridge. Like, what happens if someone, you know, hits another car and they go into the water?

Yeah. And I just tell people, I'm like, well, there's divers. You know, we're good. I said that to my wife. I said that to my wife, she hated that. Yeah. She did not like that response. She's right, by the way.

It's like Monaco back in the 70s. Exactly, yeah. I was like, look, if we go into the water, they'll come rescue us. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Oh, God. It's making me nervous right now. I just heard you say that.

It's absolutely, you know, not a probable. outcome, but the fact that there's a, it's a bridge chance. I mean, yeah, it should be discussed. It should be discussed. Yeah, it's, it's entered the chat. Let's at least acknowledge it, right? Yeah. Hey, you, uh, so you've got six races left. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You got some momentum. You've been, you've been running good. You got your win, your fourth and points. Is Nashville, is it considered like, I mean, I would assume it's a wild card a bit because you've never been there. Is that a good thing? Is this a, is this a benefit to you to have a wild card race or is it a bit of a of a of a you have to make up ground you've got scott dixon in front of you

you got alec you got paid oh is this a good thing to be going to a brand new course i love it because i feel like i can get on top of a new track quicker than others and that's a skill set some guys have right some guys you know they may take a little while to to find their footing but very good other guys they're just on it right away i love a new course i always feel like i can learn it goes back to racing in england you know i had to learn 20 new courses you know right off the jump and so I love a new track. I think it provides a good opportunity for us to be ahead of everyone quicker, especially with limited practice time. So that will help us, I think, but look, you're never guaranteed. You can always have a good weekend going in an Indy car and it can be taken away at

the last moment in the race. The hometown, like, does that matter? Is that still a real thing? Are you going to have, like, tons of family at the event? Will it be unique in any way because it's in Nashville? It's new for me. I've never had the pressure of a, hometown event. Will that be there? I think it will. I think it will. I mean, I'm already feeling that now because I'm, you know, trying to represent the event as best as I can. Right. Because I want the event to succeed, not just for Nashville, but for IndyCar, but there's already that hometown pressure of, hey, you're, you know, you're our guy. You're supposed to come in here and do good, right? You're going to be just fine, right? So that's going to be present. But, you know, the way I always thought of it

was every event's important. This one's no different. So I just, you know, I think of it like any other race. This is what I'm going to try to do. We talked about you being an American overseas, and I mentioned how multinational IndyCar is, and I think that's an amazing attribute to that series. What is it like being an American in that series? Yeah, you're racing in the United States. You're racing in Nashville at your home track, but the series has been dominated by guys that are not American, right? Yeah. I think that, you know, an American star in IndyCar is a great thing.

I'm sure you feel the same way. How do you feel being that guy? You know, it's funny for me, what I like about IndyCar racing is that we have the best of the best from around the world. I think that's what makes it special. I think it's also what makes it special being an American in the sport is that, you know, we've got guys from New Zealand, Australia, England, Europe, Japan, everywhere. You know, they're the best of the best.

Brazil. And I'm, you know, I'm part of that group that's represented. all the countries and my country happens to be America. I take a lot of pride in that, but it's also what I like about the championship is that you have these guys from different backgrounds that are all coming together to try and, you know, showcase the best from around the world.

Yeah. So when I went to, I talked, we talked about this before, Mike, but when I, so I'm watching Indy car my whole life, right? And I just, you know, I don't know why I didn't. I'd never really been to a race before and I go to the Indy 500 and met a lot of the drivers. Fortunate for me, I got a chance to really get a good glimpse at what that series is like.

And I was just shocked by the dynamic personalities. You know, NASCAR is a great series, a great sport. We've got great personalities. IndyCar, they're from all corners of the world. And while that's an amazing thing for a fan, what kind of challenges does that present for you? because, and I've talked to some other racers about this, like blocking, for example,

you've got a different opinion than the guy from maybe Brazil and the guy from Australia on what that is. What's a good block? What's a bad block? All those etiquette, all that driving etiquette, I'm sure in road racing and it all kind of blends together, but there's got to be a time when those opinions sort of clash and become difficult because you're,

you think this was a fair decision on the track and this other guy thinks that that's not a good move, right? When do these things sort of come to a hit? Yeah, I think it's really the cultural differences, right? Like, you know, what's normal in one culture is different in America. And so I think that, you know, like someone from France is going to feel differently than someone from America on some type of move and what's the right etiquette or not. I think from the most part, you know, everyone kind of, you know, we kind of have. this international code of, you know, how should professional open-wheel racing be conducted, right? And in IndyCar, we have a certain way of doing that. So everyone that comes over here,

we all kind of get on board that same page because the established drivers are going to set that tone, and that's what it's going to be. You know, someone coming in may feel differently about that in the beginning, but eventually, you know, you're around the, you know, the predominant players long enough. That's, you're going to have to get used to that. So when you get all of these guys and you have that international code understanding and you take all of you to an oval. And a lot of guys maybe aren't having a lot of oval experience. Are the expectations the same as do you use that same code? Does it change a little bit?

That's actually where it's probably the most different is, you know, the road and street court stuff, I feel like everyone kind of understands that, especially if you're from, you know, Europe or wherever. Like you kind of get how it should work and how we should drive together. When it comes to oval racing, much like me, most of these guys, guys, they don't know anything about oval racing when they come over. And it's not Indy Lights. It's not a junior car.

This is like the real deal, full-blown indie car, Indy 500, 33 cars around you. It's serious stuff. And they just, I think what happens a lot of times is they don't understand the respect that's needed at those speeds and that style of racing. You know, it really takes both parties to interact. Whether you're being aggressive or not, like, it takes both parties to cooperate in order for it to go okay. You can't just muscle your way through something, especially on an oval. So that's probably the most difficult thing for anyone new coming into the sport,

is trying to understand that etiquette and the risk factor there is on an oval versus a road of street course. What's the international etiquette code for settling disagreements after a race? That's where the cultures are different, you know. You have a little different opinion on how we handle this. Yeah, I mean, if you're willpower, you may fight someone, you know. I mean, he scraps. He doesn't want to fight. He doesn't.

It's just part of his history. It's his history. He's a lover. I'm glad you said Will Power, because, you know, where we really, I won't speak for you. I'll speak for me when you were in that I racing, IndyCar race. Oh, God, that was so much fun. Right. We all racing Michigan or something, and Will Power's in it.

And we're listening to the radio. And I was like, wow, Will Power's a little whiny, isn't he? He gets a little bit of chips. He is my favorite person on the planet. He's got to be. I don't even know how to explain that guy to people. He's just so different. We loved it.

When he was on our show, we just had, and boy, but he likes to scrap. And man, he doesn't really, I don't know if he thinks he's stealthy with his feelings, but he isn't at all. I find Australians very hard to explain, but also some of my favorite people. Yeah. They're my favorite. I have another Australian teammate, Scotty McLaughlin. Yeah.

He's another one of my favorite people now. He's from Australia. Well, he's actually a Kiwi, but a lot of people think he's Australian. Sure. He's from New Zealand. Yeah, that's delicate. But he's lived in Australia most of his life, so I just think he's Australian. He's going to kill me after he is.

But Will, what a lot of people don't know about Will is he's like probably the most kind-hearted person I've ever met. He has such a big heart, but he's so emotional and like, he's so passionate. So we've even had our run-ins a couple times where he's like, I mean, we've gotten in like yelling matches. And I'm like, I think this guy's going to punch me for, and I don't know why. And then literally 20 minutes later he'll come back and be like, man, I'm so sorry. Like, you know, and we're like best friends again.

It's totally fine. So there's different cultures for sure and the way you interact. But at the end of the day, we all find a way to get along, which is good. You know, one of the telling things I remember, like watching the Indy 500 this year, when Elio won, like the first people that I saw, and he hugged a lot of people, but the first people, like Willpower was right there. And all of Elio's, you know, Penske teammates were the first to congratulate him. And that really, to me, spoke a lot to the culture of not just your, you know, your driver, you know,

fraternity, but also, you know, the captain is built within the company and everything else, and everybody was so generally happy for Ilya. As is, you know, IndyCar fans, because he's just a likable guy, right? Yeah, I think it's the most surprising thing for drivers. I don't have the experience on the NASCAR side, so I don't know what that camaraderie is like, but, you know, we're, look, we're all uber competitive people, right? I mean, I want to, same thing with my teammates, I tell this to Scott. I'm like, look, I'm going to do everything I can to beat you on the track,

even though we're friendly off of it. But what drivers notice when they come to IndyCar is they're really surprised by the camaraderie off the track. And they actually don't understand how it exists. They're like, I don't know how we can all be so cordial and friendly. We don't have to be best friends, but we're all friendly enough where we can hang out in the bus lot or have a barbecue together or whatever it is

and still be as fierce as we are on the track. And I don't know if that's just unique to IndyCar, but we're really good with each other. Like, there's a great camaraderie from everybody. So when Elio won the fourth, like, everyone was genuinely happy to see Elio do that. It was a big deal for the series and for him. And, you know, yeah, I wanted to win the race, but it was cool to see Elio do that. Yeah.

Yeah, that is an interesting thing about what, and I don't know that any car was always that way. I think it's just, it's kind of like a, it's a trend. And it had, all the moons have to align. And right now you guys do have that sort of camarader. You can see it in social media. where you guys are genuinely enjoy being around each other away from the racetrack. And I think that's a good thing. You know, we talked about it in NASCAR for years that it was maybe a bad thing that all of us were in the bus lot together.

Yeah. And we, you know, when we would get into a disagreement on the track, we would text each other and be, you know, and that would be that, right? There weren't any more scraps and fighting at the hotel room or the hotel lobby or it was just, you know, the bus lot and us being together all the time sort of, normalized us and took away a lot of that. Really? Yeah. It took away some of those rough edges, but it made us less likely to, you know, draw out these feuds, you know,

into week and month-long deals. How is it now? Because it honestly seems like from the outside that that's gotten better to, more like the IndyCar world, where everyone, you know, you see these friendships like a chase and a Ryan or whatever. I mean, everyone seems more friendly nowadays.

I think so. And I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing that are, because you can, see those guys also race each other harder than anyone else on the racetrack. You know you race your friend, your buddy, is harder, harder than anyone else. And you actually put him in more compromising situations than you would anyone else, right? Because he's your buddy. He's going to get over it, right?

And so at least that's the way I race some of my friends. I don't know. I think NASCAR drivers, if they took a lie detector test, I don't think any of them really like each other. I don't know that that, yeah, I don't know that you're wrong there. And I like it that way. I don't, I think that's important, but I don't know that the feuds last the way they used to, you know, because everybody's in this bus lot together and they can't afford to just, you know, be at each other's throats for for months on end. It's a hard thing to do, you know, at the end of day, I think Will has said this. And I do agree with it because I'm one of these people that I can be friends with everybody.

It's no problem. Like, I'm going to tell you straight up from the beginning. I'm going to do everything I can to beat you on the track. I'm not going to treat you any differently if we're friends. But some people, they just can't do that. When stuff happens on the track, they can't get over it. And it just changes their dynamic off the track with each other. I've definitely known a lot of people that struggle with that.

So I could see that in the NASCAR world. It seems more likely there that they really struggle with certain things that happen. They won't get over it. But IndyCar, yeah, I don't know. It's just maybe it is the moon's aligning. It's a weird dynamic. Everyone's at least cordial, which is kind of cool. And that'll go away and come back again.

and go away and come back. I believe in cycles. Your wife was a Disney princess? Yeah, that's a fact. Well, you know, I got two little girls getting ready to take them to Disney. They're going to meet the princesses in the castle. But what was her life like as a princess before you met her? I don't, you know.

Was she still a princess when y'all met? Well, she's my princess for sure. Of course, yes, but at Disney. Obviously. Yeah, Disney, it's a, it's a princess. weird story. It's kind of like the scooter story. It's like, well, you know, how do you meet a Disney Disney? And I didn't meet her away from Disney and just happened to learn that she was a princess. Like, I met her at Disney when she was a princess. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's how I met my wife.

Like, she was literally Ariel. And I was like, who is this aerial? I'm like, who is this aerial? Joseph was looking for mermaids. What are you doing at Disneyland? Why was there with my family? Okay, you're there with your family? How old are you in this moment? Twenty, twenty-one? All right? And you see, you see, uh, you see the princess, right? I see the princess, and, you know, there's a lot of princesses around. Right. So why are you picking this one out of it? She was the one.

I'm like, look, I've seen Cinderella, I've seen Jasmine. I'm like, but I don't know who this aerial person. And it's not like I had a thing for redheads or something. It wasn't that. It was just like, who is this person? Is this a comment for her to have people coming up to her and going, hey, you'd be interested in going on a date? I mean, it is a weird story.

It seems like that would be awful. You didn't hit on her while. She was in uniform. I mean, I did. I definitely did. I did. CREAPE! So, let me tell you the story.

It's a weird story. So we're at Disney. We were at literally Cinderella's Castle. You can have dinner there. Yes, you can. We were having dinner. You'll probably have dinner there with your little girls. I've already.

You got it scheduled up. Yeah. So at this dinner, all the princesses are there. Yep. You know, and so we're eating dinner. And before this dinner happened, you'd like meet Cinderella. And I'm like, oh, I was kind of giving her a hard time. just playing around, like just you're trying to get them off balance a little bit because

they're in character. Like they are performing all the time when you see them. So, you know, maybe it wasn't the nice thing. I was just trying to get her off balance a little bit. I'm not appreciate that. I'm sure that never happens to them. Yeah, all the time. They're like, I'm like one in a million that's like giving them a hard time.

Well, how many 21-year-old single guys are going to dinner at Disney's, you know, castle? A lot more than you think. Really? A lot more than you think. It's like the guy that goes to. Not for that reason. I'm not there alone. I'm literally there with seven other family members. Okay.

That's my mom, my dad, my sister, my cousin. I had this visualized completely wrong. It's not like, hey, table for one, and I'm meeting the Cinderella. That would be really awkward. Hey, Ariel, what's you doing later? Yeah, like, what is this? That would be creepy. So anyways, this, this Cinderella did not appreciate this. She put me in my place, like, super witty, and I'm like, yeah, I deserve it, probably.

So anyways, then we go up to our table. We're sitting down, we're having dinner. And apparently, like, the Cinderella told all the other princesses They're like, look out for this guy. He's, you know, he's a tough one or whatever. And my, so Ashley comes over. She's, she's the Ariel and she starts, you know, giving me a hard time too. And so I just give it right back to her.

And I'm like trying to, I'm asking her where her prince is. I'm like, where's Eric? You know, he must be on a long, long journey. Journey far, far away. And she's like just struggling. She tells a story differently. I think she was struggling to stay in character. But I was trying to catch her off balance.

too, but she absolutely captivated me. I was like, at all I was like, who, I don't care that you're a princess right now. I'm like, who is this girl? So I had to figure out who she was and where she was, and that's an impossible task. You're not just going to leave Disney and go, you know, I like that one. Let me, let me

see how I can find out her where her contact is and maybe I can take her out of a date. Like, it's impossible. They have security for these reasons. So I went back to my hotel and I'm like, man, I wonder, I really want to find that girl. Like, I just got to find her details and see if I can message her or send her. her a letter, you know, something cheesy. And, um, couldn't find her. Literally at midnight, two hours later and get an email in my inbox. It's from Ariel. Shut up. I swear to you. I swear to you.

She emails me as like this really cute message and she signed it. How did she get your email? That's what I said. I was like, I was like, whoa. First off, I got an email from her. I already know her name now. Now I know who she is. Her name's Ashley. All right. And so I found her online, found out, yeah, I was like, wait, I don't have to call her Ariel anymore. Super creepy of me. But yeah, she emails me and I'm like, she must have gotten my email because I'm, made the reservation. I made the reservation for our family. And I'm like, she must have wanted to figure out who I was. I'm like, this is a done deal. She was, she was curious who I was when I was curious who she was. Mutual. Mutual. I'm like, this is a done deal. This is easy now. I got her information.

Anyway, send her an email back. She's kind of, we're kind of coy with each other. It's like literally taking a day for each email to go. It's like sending letters. You know, we're all trying to be cool. I don't want email too quick. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like two weeks. You don't want to give her the wrong impression or anything. No, no, no, no. Hey, I thought you were interesting, but, you know, let me take a couple days before I email you back. We're both doing this, right?

Trying to be cool with each other. Oh, yeah. We literally do it for two weeks, and after the two weeks, I'm like, this is like, this is the woman of my dreams. I'm like, who is this lady? And so I was like, I have to come down. Please let me come down and take you out on a date. And so I convince her to let me do that.

I come back down to Orlando, take her out on a date. And then I literally learn on that date that she's moving to Japan. Oh my. Like in 30 days. It's already done. She's got a contract.

She's going to go work for Disney in Japan. I'm like, what the heck? I was like, you're the woman of my dreams. I want to marry you and you're going to leave the country. So, yeah, then I had to go to Japan for the next year and the rest of history. She goes to Japan. She goes to Japan. I had to travel that whole year.

How many times did you go to Japan to Sierra? Three times. Yeah. Yeah. It was the best time in my life. I love Japan. I wish I could. You were going to go to Tokyo for the Olympics, weren't you? I was going to try and weasel my way over there because I'd love to go back to Japan.

It's one of my favorite countries in the world. Anyways, we dated while she was in Japan for 14 months, and then the rest is history after that. That's pretty incredible. It is incredible. You want to know the kicker on that story? So it wasn't that she got my email off the reservation. And I didn't learn this until like three weeks afterwards, right?

It was my father. My father paid the bill, all right, for the dinner. And he put my email address down on the bill and gave it to the waitress and said, can you please give this to the area? The princess. He saw it. He, no, everyone at the table knew.

Everyone was like, I'm so infatuated by who this aerial is. He gave it to the waitress. The waitress gave it to Ashley. I think this is probably illegal at Disney. Yeah, got to be. This waitress doesn't get, you know, fired one day. But, yeah, so my dad ended up being my wingman. I mean, what a guy.

You know, he gave me my career. He helped me meet my wife. Like, now I know why he gives you so much confidence. I hate it, but I have to give him credit because he did make it happen. unbelievable Joey Newgard man he's like he's my guy there you go well that's pretty incredible that's a good way to end of this conversation I think

I don't know where do we go from next I don't know I don't know it's not even try well Joseph we we had a we got a ton of notes on you we did but uh we probably didn't get through half we did not and that's the great thing about this podcast is that you don't just come on here once Dale when are you coming in Nashville I just went like a couple days ago no but when you go are you coming for the race weekend or no

I don't know I have to work that weekend You got to work that. We are at Watkins Glen or something. I got to work to broadcast it. I sent you an email. I got a ping pong tournament Thursday night. That's right. Blaney's coming.

Oh, my God. I'm just saying if you're open. Oh, this is your celebrity. It's for charity. I'll come. I'm not going to play. You can just hang out. You can get a ringer.

You can hire an Olympian. You can be your teammate. I'll just hang out. It's right. You don't want to play. You play. You play. You play.

You guys play. You can be a designated hitter. I'll mingle amongst the crowd and say hey to everybody. What is the day to that? It's August 5th. So it's Thursday. It's the only way for us to do it because, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all the drivers are busy.

So we're doing it Thursday night at 6 p.m. We're going to have tickets for it too. We've got 100 tickets. It's at Pins Mechanical, Downtown Nashville. It's for Serious Fun Children's Network. So people can buy tickets? People can buy. We've never done this before.

It's 100 tickets on sale. I'm trying to raise an extra $10,000. Awesome. Serious Fun Children Network. It's part of Victory Junctions. is actually in that network. So it was Paul Newman's charity that he started in the 80s. It's a really cool group.

They do great things for all these kids across the country. So if you go to my social media, there's a link to this ticket site where you can purchase a ticket. There's only 100, so I don't know how many are left. But if there's still some left, you can buy a ticket and come to the event. Maybe Dale will be there. I'm guessing you're probably not, but you may be there. I mean, if I come to the race that weekend, it's definitely got to be Thursday or maybe Friday, but I got to be at the glend to do the broadcast for the Xenity race on Saturday and Sunday.

I get it. I get it. I'll be standing down. You're a busy man. I'll be down in the bus stop. But that's where I'll be broadcast. Radio style. Oh, yeah.

That's different. But, man, Hovus, he left. He had to go, he had to go Titi. He had to go Titi. He said, I mean, I've met you before, and I know you're a pretty incredible person, man. But he said you'd be an amazing interview, and you certainly were. People were going to love to hear this podcast. It's been a blast talking to you and getting to know you.

And I'm excited about your future. Thanks for sharing everything with us. And being so transparent, people are going to be thrilled to hear it, man. So I hope you had a good time. Man, it's been a total honor. I was so nervous to come in here. You know, you guys are like royalty. We're nervous too.

I appreciate it, though. This is a complete honor to be here. Such a big fan of you guys, and especially you, Dale. I appreciate that. Thank you for everything you do for motorsports and, you know, having me on here. We're a huge fan of yours. We'll be cheering you on going forward. Yeah.

Your grandfather, ping pong hall of fame. We didn't even get to that. We didn't get to it. There's a lot we could have dug into. Joseph Newgarten. We're going to get him back on the podcast, folks, because he's got a lot more to his story. And hopefully we'll be talking about some more success in your motorsports career. Maybe you win in Nashville for the first race.

So good luck going forward, man. Thanks, guys. All right. Joseph Newgarden on the Dale Jr. download. And we are live, Dale. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. for the Dale Jr. download, and this is an Ask Junior part of the show. We're excited for you guys to tune in and join us. Leah, are you ready? This is my favorite part of the show.

Absolutely. I'm ready. Always. Well, she's on YouTube right now, and she's getting a bunch of the questions ready that you guys have sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. So if you're ready, Leah, let's go. Yeah, let's kick it off. We add a couple of Olympic-themed questions for you, Dale. First one from Brian Wiltshire. What are your favorite Olympic events to watch? You know, I think track and field is always fun. Racing, any kind of racing style competition is fun for me. The relay, passing the baton, how difficult that must be and tricky that must be.

The longer running events. I like the sprints too, but the endurance ones really seeing somebody push their body to insane lengths. The swimming stuff, same thing. Racing. I enjoy those probably the most. All the traditional ones, you know, that you, when you were in school and looking at books and all the traditional track and field style events are always fun.

Fun to watch those people do that. If you could be in one Olympic sport, either winter or summer, what sport would you be in? That's from Ryan. Yeah, we had a little conversation about this on the NBC broadcast in Hampshire and they said pick one. you'd be and I'm thinking archery I guess because I like the bow hunt so um you know trying to be the best in the world at shooting a bow would be probably a fun challenge and it was pretty interesting

what you know what everybody thought of but I think archery is a reasonable consideration I'm not athletic so it's not going to be any kind of a running and jumping kind of thing for me or or swimming I'm not going to be good at any of that but I can do it not fast one more Olympic question. This is from Higgie, who's watching live on YouTube. Do you have an Olympian past or present that you would like to meet? Oh my gosh. Any gold medal winner, I mean, any kind of medalist is always fun to meet. We always would have those come through the driver's meetings and join, come to races, and they'll sit up there. So at the driver's meeting, you got all the people lined up that they're going to introduce celebrities that are there for the races. And they'll be there with

their gold medals and to think about where that gold medal came from and the journey that it's been on and that it is now in their possession and belongs to them is just a it's a it's a it's a fun thing to be in the same room with i'll say that to imagine the work i think that those people put into their lives and the commitment they make to be the best they can be and then they're pushed out in front of the world you know on this stage to compete and and succeed and only one only a few get to enjoy success. But anyhow, I've had a chance to meet a bunch of gold medalists and medallists from the United States over the years,

and it's always amazing. Next question coming from Thor Redstone. What do you do with all the dirt from lost speedways that you put in your jars? Where does that go? We got a, yeah, in our little office there. When you see the intro to the show, some of them are in that little office right there,

but Matthew's got some and his, some of them are more particular to other individuals in the production crew so maybe they have their own jar from certain tracks. Half my craps at your house still. Okay. We have a lot of stuff at that office where we shoot the intro of me walking into the gas station. Next question coming from three laps down. What manufacturer do you see coming into the sport next? And what team do you think would be the one to switch over?

Oh, I don't even know. There's been a lot of speculation about Honda, but I don't know. I've not heard anything. I've not heard any kind of rumblings about who that could be that might come into the sport. And, you know, I don't really know what team would be, you know, their choice or what team might be in a great position to kind of do what Gibbs did with Toyota or what Ray Everingham did with Dodge be that sort of first team that gets them off the ground. That's an undertaking. It's a great position to be in, I think, for a race team to have that initial support right out of the gate. But you've got to understand, too, that when you take on that relationship and that responsibility,

that there will be those growing pains to get that manufactured or be competitive over the years. We saw that how difficult that was for Toyota before they were able to kind of get a foundation there in the Cup Series and start winning a lot of races. But it took them a while. they had a lot of success in the truck series before they started winning, you know, races in the Xfinity and the Cup Series. Next question from Ryan Cliver. How excited or nervous are you to race at Richmond? That'll be here before you know it.

I'm scared. Yeah, I'm nervous. I'm scared. I ain't been in a car. I don't know how it's going to go. So it's always an absolute unknown. And it'll feel completely, I mean, my heart to be beaten out of my chest. the minute before I get in the car.

So I don't think there's any practice. So we'll just hit the ground running, right, you know, drop the green flag and start racing. You know, hopefully I don't make any mistakes or, you know, not being in the car and getting out on the racetrack with the rest of the competitors, kind of finding my place and not making a mistake will be really critical in the first, you know, 40 laps of the race until I can settle in and things start to make sense. and you want to become part of the car, right? That's the hope that you and the car kind of work together as one,

and it feels very comfortable, but that won't happen right away. So hopefully I can get through that, you know, that first stage in the race without any real mistakes and issues. That'll be on my mind is just not, you know, making sure that – because as you get older, I think it becomes harder to know where things are around you. when you drive a race car every single week, you don't even need to look in the mirror to know where that guy is behind you

or beside you. You don't even need to look. It's a sense that you're, it's automatic and you can drive right out the windshield, the whole race, only you relying on the information from your spotter and everything else without even looking around to see where the cars are behind you and beside you.

But I think getting back in the car for the first time in a long time, that won't be so natural. So I hope I don't make any mistakes. run anybody myself in the fence or anything like that. From Ryan Talley, Hey Del Jr. Are you a dry rub guy or sauce guy when it comes to barbecuing? Yeah, either one.

I mean, I had never had dry rub ribs until I went to rendezvous. We've talked about them on this podcast before. They actually sent me a box a couple weeks ago because we mentioned them on the podcast. That's cool. And so they ship rendezvous in Memphis. They ship your ribs if you want to get some. and they do a great job of getting you a great product. You wouldn't think, I don't know,

I don't know that a lot of people would consider having barbecue shipped to them, particularly ribs and things like that, and brisket. You just heat it and eat it. But the rendezvous ribs ship really well, and it's, I think, because it's a dry rub, so when you get the rib, either you're eating it there or at home,

you just, you can heat it up on the grill or heat it up in the oven or whatever, but then you just cover, they give you the rub and just cover it with the dry rub and eat it, right? Just like that. And I never had dry rub barbecue until I went to rendezvous, and I'm like, so you just eat it like this, that you don't cover it in sauce, you know, but it is so good.

Where is that? Memphis, Rondivu in Memphis. But I do love sauces, you know, and I love all types when it comes to barbecue. sauce. I'm probably more into the hotter stuff, you know, spicy hot styles, but sweeten hot. I like a lot.

I'm not into vinegar-based North Carolina-style sauces. I'll eat it, and I don't mind mustard-based slough and things like that. Actually, I do enjoy that particular type of slaw, but when it comes of sauces, I'm more of Midwestern style barbecue. But I love to talk about barbecue because it's I just love eating it. And now we're all hungry. All right, yeah,

we are. Thanks, great question. Got us all hungry. Well, it's over. My favorite part of the show, there needs to be some kind of sad music, I think. Don't you feel like there should be some sad music playing in the background? We'll get to this point. That's what's going on in your head, right? Sad music. Well, the Ask Junior segment, it ends so quickly. I love it. We get people on here that are engaged and working, you know, it's, it's live.

Yeah. You know, we do this podcast, we record it, edit it, and then put it out. That moment of engaging with the live audience is really fun. Yeah, I'm glad it is. You know, it goes by a little too fast for us when it's your favorite subject, but hey, it's fast because it's Xfinity fast, guys. You understand that, right? Well, XFi is more than just fast.

It's also reliable and it's powerful. And that means everybody can do more of what they love with that fast. your internet. Yeah, listen, stay connected with the Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers the speed your devices need. We use it. Everybody at this table uses it and so it's good. We wouldn't tell you otherwise. Remember everyone, keep your questions

coming too. It's Dale's favorite segment. Send your ask junior questions to add Xfinity Racing on Twitter. All right, thank you, Xfinity. Proud Premier Partner of NASCAR. All right, it's time for last call. This is episode 350. I'm just going to call up the Small Block Chevy episode.

Oh, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Dad joke. All right. The Olympics, they're going on. And I'm getting to do some pretty cool stuff. I'm able to chat with some of the athletes.

And we're calling it the Dale Jr.'s Olympic chats. The first person that I got to speak with was Perry Baker, USA Rugby Player. This Thursday, I'm going to be interviewing Tyler Justice Page. He's a 25-year-old. And he's over there for teams. America, Samoa, and he's in sailing. So he also works for Junior Motorsports. Yeah.

I'm going to be interviewing him Thursday morning, and these little chats are shared throughout NBC's handles, our own handles as well, with DirtyMove Media, my own personal handles. And it's great for me. I really loved it. Talking to Perry was a bunch of fun. Guy was from, we went, we kind of connected with athletes who mentioned that they were NASCAR fans. All right?

And so we might not even discuss NASCAR in the conversation, but that's kind of how we got connected to a few of these athletes. Anyways, Perry was great, and it's just interesting to me to wonder, you know, what their experience is like. Being all the way on the other side of the world, right, competing for your country and meeting all kinds of people from all over the world from different countries, I just can't even imagine. What I remember going to the Winter Olympics with you, Mike,

and it was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of experience to see those athletes playing, some of the best in the world doing it, and we got to watch them when they're trying to achieve their greatest achievements, right, in the Olympics. They work all their lives for these opportunities, and we were able to witness it in person. So pretty amazing to be able to talk to them

about that experience and see what their feelings are. Can't wait to talk to Tyler. He's awesome. He's going to be great. This guy, we have loved talking to this kid. He is so enthusiastic and just like a bundle of joy. And man, he has given us some insights into sailing. I can't wait to watch.

I can't wait to hear what you and him talk about. That's going to be a lot of fun. All right. Well, there's no door bumper clear. They're enjoying the Olympic break by not working, which is total BS. The podcast is on break, and they're not really competing in the games. anything so I don't understand that but we have a new podcast that debuted and Mike I want you to explain glorious white-knuckled God-fearing spun out and half-turned-over racing stories that's right

we went for the longest name I think we got it glorious white-knuckle Godfearing spun out and have turned over racing stories is a podcast that we have we're trying some stuff new it's not a talk show it's a editorialized style podcast narrated and written by our friend Rick Houston, who people know from the scene, a longtime reporter for the scene, also does the scene podcast. It does a great job, and we love Rick. And so we, you know, Rick and I got together and we said, like, let's try to create something new. You know, he's got an archive of just fantastic audio, just audio, like of his interviews over the years. And man, we have some stories lined up and things that I think, you know, maybe you've heard about it, but you haven't heard in this

detail and so yeah glorious white knuckle godfair and spun out and have turned over racing stories i still got to read it because i can't remember all that that's a lot but uh we're excited about it and uh that'll be the first of several podcasts that we launch uh here in the next several months all right keep your eyes peeled for dirty mobe media's social media handles and announcements coming uh of all the new podcasts that we have uh developing in our studio it's going to be pretty awesome season i think well it's a great show i appreciate joseph coming by we're excited about the nashville grand prix is great for Joseph to come shed a little light on that

and tell us a little bit by himself. Yeah, man. Super guy. Yeah, fantastic. All right, buddy. All right, man. Well, y'all have a great one. We'll see you next week.

This is Dale Jr. This has been a bad assery. You're listening to Dirty Mode Radio. The Dell Jr. download. It was made by Dattassery. Dirty mode. Dirty mode.