The Dale Jr. Download - 369 - Ernie Francis, Jr.: Future Force

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

He's a racing champion, but until 2021, few knew of 24-year-old racing phenom Ernie Francis, Jr. This piqued the curiosity of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis who welcome him to the table to learn about a racer that industry insiders can't talk enough about.Francis broke through with a big win in Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham's SRX Series (Superstar Racing Experience) at Indianapolis Raceway Park last summer. The win came against some of the best racers in motorsports and sent shockwaves across much of the sport. Who was this kid? Well, first off he's a seven-time Champion on the Trans-Am circuit. His recent success brought a call from motorsports legend Roger Penske, who tabbed him to be one of his up-and-coming stars. Francis details the call that changed his life and unexpectedly shifted his career path from stock cars to open-wheel racecars where he'll compete full-time for Force Indy in the 2022 Indy Lights Series. The goal? Building experience and a team capable of stepping up in a few years to compete in the Indianapolis 500.Francis' first opportunities in racing came with a lot less fanfare. As a child, he hung around and worked at his father's speed shop on the coast of Southern Florida. The family connection to speed took him from go-karts to his first racecar at the age of 13. From there, he honed his skills racing Mazda Miatas until the big decision to enter the Trans-Am Series. There, young Ernie blossomed, racing a beast of a racecar against some of the best road racers in America. He dipped his toes into the Stock Car oval-track world racing Late Models and K&N East races in NASCAR's diversity program too. But, it was the shot in SRX that put kid-Francis on the map.Where else would he race in 2022? Francis spilled the beans about his future with SRX.Before the show started, Dale and Mike chat about their recent trip to Daytona to watch racecars and promote vodka. From the High Rock party at the historic Streamline Hotel, to the ups and downs of the NASCAR Xfinity race, it was a trip full of surprises. None more surprising than the fun times had by family inside the racetrack. Dale reveals Amy and Isla's newfound love of the infield track experience. They also dive into the Great American race, its massive crowd, and the big-bad tangles that "Bad" Brad Keselowski was a part of.Sadly, it's Leah Vaughn's last show, which has all in DJD-land sad, but she brings it one last time for a wildly entertaining AskJr segment. From racecars losing wheels, to drive-shafts going through Dale Earnhardt's windshield, it's full of great moments. We also learn about the level of interest from Dale about space travel and, of all things, Chinchillas. Or was it a rabbit? 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.

Testing, testing. Testing. One, two, three. Am I good? Jesus. That was good. Testing. Testing.

Testing. Pop, pop, pop it in your ear. Pop, pop, pop, pop. The following is a production podcast. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Here on the fast sands of Daytona Beach, speed capital of the world, standing records for automotive performance are smashed into oblivion before the eyes of

thousand. Well, you want to start out by winning the Daytona 500. Daytona is it. It is it. We're going to Daytona and hopefully we can win another Daytona 500, and Dale Jr. maybe can run sack and Steve Park out there with it and skinner and the rest of the gap. And here they come as the Grand National gets off to a flying start. What's the biggest race of the year, I think.

And I think if we start out with a win at Daytona, we can keep the momentum up and go through the year. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host, Mike Davis, big Georgia Southern man. I'm really proud of his Georgia Southern roots. Yeah. Also, Leah's here.

Matthew Dillner, all the usual folks right here in this studio. Right here. What studio? Oh, the, yeah, the Bojangles Studio. Very good. I just had it this morning. I know. I can use some Bojangles fries right now.

That would actually be pretty good. But I want to mention again, Mike, before we go any further, right over behind you is this really, really cool throwback, Dirtymoe Media, the Dale Jr. download, hood. All right, so we replaced that old number two roof that everybody would find familiar. that was hanging on the wall in the studio, and we had this new hood, and it's decorated kind of like the old Alka-Seltzer car from Jimmy Means that he raced in the 90s, and we're going to have all of our guests sign it. Now, everybody needs to know that you'll be able to bid on this item at the end of our year when we're done podcasting for this season.

This will be available on the Dale Jr. the Dell Jr. Foundation eBay. So am I right? I mean, again, like last week. making this up as we go along? You're actually setting the rules as we go along. I don't think making it up would be the right words. I think you're just going ahead and writing some definition to the plan.

We're going to have everybody that comes in here and sign it this year. We're going to do this each season. But we're going to put it up on our Dale Jr. Foundation eBay site. You'll be able to bid and win it. And all of that money, every cent will go toward our charitable initiatives. but yeah so something fun we always kind of changing the room up a little bit anyways we're coming out of the Daytona 500 weekend it was a great weekend for me I was down there with my whole family right both kids and Amy which is people

probably would think okay no big deal but Amy told me when I retired that she was thankful that she wouldn't have to spend any more weekends in that bus and at the racetrack because it's super boring for her but anyways we go and we had this great weekend and Ila fell in love with the MRO. All right, motor racing outreach. You know, when I hear MRO,

I think of preachers walking up and down the grid before the race, praying with the drivers, right? They do a Bible study before the, yeah. Yeah, but I don't think about that. I didn't know. I don't know.

I mean, we, so I guess what I'm saying, MRO to me was the guys walking around and pray with you. I mean, I was going to say Bible verse, but actually that was always Stevie Walthrop. That wasn't MRO. So they just come up a little bit of encouragement. Hey, good luck today. Keep safe.

Let's say a quick prayer. Say a quick prayer. Say a quick prayer. So that was MRO to me, right? video games and it's this big setup on the side of this bus tinted tinted kind of unit i like wanted to spend every single second of the day there she'd go over she'd go over there she could put you know she could put on dresses they have outfits all the toys that's right other kids there she's running around will you play with me you know all the other kids i'll play with you uh and then there's

the m r has these uh has these gals that'll that'll kind of observe and watch over what's going on. That's what my wife used to do. That's pretty cool, man. For four years. All right, so all these years that's been there in the bus lot, and I never really appreciated it until now. So my point is that we end the weekend.

Hey, man, that was fun. Amy even said, man, I had a pretty good time at the racetrack. She goes, maybe we could go to Talladega. I'm like, what? Why? Like, what do you mean? Just go hang out in the bus lot? Yeah, yeah.

I remember they had a great playground. The Halloween party, too. Oh, costume contest. No, no, no. Spring. Yeah. Not October. Yeah.

She's not planning that far ahead, buddy. But so I'm thinking, that's what's more bizarre, Matthew, is that Amy wants to go to Talladega when I'm not even working. I'm not even supposed to go and hang out. I'm like, what in the world's going on? What's happened to her? Yeah, I heard it. It was so funny.

Oh, you were in the plane. I was in the plane, and she said that, and you were, you were stunned. I didn't know how to react. Yeah, you didn't know how to react. You're like, my wife wants to go to the races with the kids, and I just, you know, just to go. You were like, why? Wow. Okay.

Why? I didn't think we did. Because it was, they got a great playground. Yeah. So anyhow, progress made. I mean, if that's not a sign of the sport getting healthier, I don't know what it is. Yeah, NASCAR finally made it. Yeah, my wife wants to go and take the kids.

That's a big, that's a sign of progress, buddy. It is. Things are looking up. So anyways, we had a great weekend. We got to launch high rock vodka. We had a couple events at the Streamline Hotel. Went over to Daytona Total Wine, which is, you know, where you're going to. you can buy you all your spirits of any kind and saw our display we signed some bottles while

we were there some folks walking in grabbed one didn't even know it was signed a bit and took it home we had a great time i've never been to the streamlined hotel so the streamlined hotel is where nascar you know had this historic meeting back in the late 40s and that's where everybody you know pretty much the assumption is is that's where nascar started that's where NASCAR was created with this meeting at the Streamline Hotel. Now, was it in the main floor or the upstairs? Upstairs, by the bar, December, 1947. They rented that whole space up there.

Okay. So we were there, very cool. I've never been there. Crazy to think that I'd never been there. But it was just recently renovated in like three years ago. There was a pretty rough little joint before that. And anyways, we had two parties there. on the roof for high rock and it was a lot of fun so we were trying to get the message out

uh high rock is available should be shipping i think in the next couple of months so you should you know we'll follow my social media handles follow high rock and you can learn where it'll become available near you but um we had a lot of fun with that amy enjoyed that uh we went to the infinity race and watched our guys compete we had a couple of good top five finishes with noah and just and got to keep school in Josh Berry a little bit on his plate racing skills. You said after the race you were looking for him because you wanted to chew his ass. Okay. Well, if we're going to be honest.

Well, I mean, I was frustrated, and I think he was too. I went up to him. I said, man, you know, what did you think? And he goes, everything I was trying wasn't working. Nothing worked. And I got frustrated. And I'm like, I've been there. you know the way you know that i get asked all the time how to how to be successful at plate

racing and there's not like a there's nothing i can really say to you that's going to be like okay it's going to that's going to deliver success every time one of the things i do know is that you have to race up in there and you got to just you know quote unquote leave it in god's hands right you just got to you know you got to go up in there and get in the middle of it you know the risk of something like, you know, what happened to Mike Snyder is always going to be there. And you don't want that to happen to you, but you don't have a choice if you're going to try to go, you know, if you're going to try to win this race, you kind of have to be in the middle of all that chaos. And he's had, you know, he's ran at Talladega and he's ran at Daytona before

and he's just not done well. He's either been crashed or not been able to finish. I think this was the first plate race he'd ever really finished across the finish line, even with the damaged car, but they're frustrating races. Yeah. But he, you know, we're going to, we'll probably watch that race over again, look at a lot of things he did, and talk about what might have been a better option or a better thing to do in that scenario. So you didn't think he was aggressive enough? Is that what you're trying to say?

Well, I mean, I know his car was good enough to be up in the middle of all that mess. And I think he was apprehensive about, should I be in the middle of that? It doesn't look good. And it didn't end up well, right? I mean, they did crash going down the back straight away. But if you're behind it, he still got collected up and damaged. You're still, you know, he still ended up with a 16th place or 15th place finish. So I was telling him, look, I've been in that situation,

and I've done exactly what he did. And it's a no-win sort of situation. But you know that sitting behind all that mess, waiting on something to happen, is absolutely going to give you that bad result. Right. You're going to, you might skate through and miss all the damage and all that stuff, but what do you get out of that eighth place finish?

Right. So we're going to win. So you have to, you know, kind of, you know, say a prayer and drive it on up in there and just let fate take over, right, and hope that you can escape the madness and maybe coming out of that last corner, you got a shot at it, you know? Yeah. And if you can walk out of there with a top five finish, anytime you go. go to Dayton or Talladega, you can be happy about that.

And I think that we'll get there. I remember, now, to be clear, now, when I ran in the plate rate, when I ran in the Xfinity Series in 98-99, my results were terrible. It took me a few, you know, a few races into my cup career until I started really feeling like I was making a difference or I knew how to stay out of trouble. And I had a whole lot of race car that helped as well. where in the Xfinity series, I mean, they're so even all the cars.

It's very difficult to set yourself apart. I would say your plate track record is certainly good enough to where people should look at how you approached them. And I could say for certainty, you never sandbagged and you never waited in the back for the big one to happen. You always prefer to be up front. Always. That's true. Always. There were a couple races, and we talk about it in the,

book oh yeah that was that was some weird circumstances though i know but i would i was i was i would compare those to what i saw out of josh that that's you were running scared basically you're not going to win running scared no you're already lost yes you've already lost exactly i don't even want to talk about this because i don't want to harp on josh too much yeah no no i got you yeah but i mean you know it's he he'll figure it out hey all things said i mean we actually came out as a company pretty good. Not too bad. Yeah.

You didn't win, but those things, I always say this every year. If I was the owner of a race team, Daytona would be miserable for me to watch. So let's just get, you know, let's just throw a number out there. Say we're taking four cars of racetrack and that's roughly $600,000 worth of equipment. And we've went to that race and walked out of there with nothing to show nothing in our hands. Like four total to race cars, right? that's for a company racing on the type of budget that we race on

or any other Xfinity team out there it's wrecking it wrecking in the first race a year with you know is very difficult on the pocketbook yeah it is it can be very tough especially if you've got multiple cars out there then those cars have to be fixed

because they're you know they're unique to that certain racetrack or whatever right but anyhow yeah we come out of there okay we flew home in the morning Sunday We did not stay for the Daytona 500. The night before the Daytona 500, I went over to Luke Combs bus with Marty Smith. Marty and Luke were hanging out, and so I had a couple beers with Luke. He played the stage, which looked really cool.

He killed it. On Sunday. Yeah. But we got into plane and went home. Yes, we did. So we watched it all on TV. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, and by the way, I appreciated that. Going home? Yeah. I know. I mean, like, we, you know, had a good night's rest. The kids were, you know, feeling good the next morning. And that's the way to do that. We can watch the Daytona 500 on TV.

Yeah. You've seen enough of them live. Well, it was time for me to get the family home. But what a great crowd, didn't you think? Amazing. Yeah. Right. You can feel the vibe through the TV, right?

I mean, everybody that was there that just spoke about it. It was incredible. So I know that, you know, the last couple of years has been a little limited and restricted due to, you know, the pandemic making all that. So you can't really say, oh man, you know, we had, you know, we had this great turnout. But really, if you, we did, you know, you can't, it's hard to compare this year versus the last couple of years. But if you go back even before the pandemic, I think we had a bigger crowd than we've had over the last probably, you know, six or so years. When you drove into the racetrack immediately, you could sense that there were, there's more people there, more campers,

a fuller capacity. And then, you know, Sunday watching it on TV, just, you know, every seat seemed filled. The grandstands were full. The pre-race had great energy. Just seemed like it was a really positive vibe. We appreciate it more now after the last couple years. I mean, like, yeah, I think the energy was there, but I think the energy was from the fans for being there. I mean, like, we've experienced the last couple years what half empty or empty feels like

man, nobody wants to go back to that life. So now when they're packing them in again, you appreciate them. Every single one that showed up and screamed. And I love the shot. When Kyle Busch got wrecked, they did this fan shot of a Kyle Busch fan who absolutely was cussing.

You could read the lips. And it's like, that's what we missed. Right there. We missed that. It'll be interesting to see how that's sustained throughout the year. And, you know, we're going back to Fontana for the first time.

We didn't go last year. That's right. Yeah. So I'm excited about it. that there's some you know there's the unknowns about the future of that race track whether they're going to leave it as it is or make it a short track or whatever so we could be racing there one of the final few times um i got a question go brad kislauski oh gosh yeah we're going to talk about him listen that we did already on our our dirty moody media twitter handle went we got a little creative

I might try to defend him. What? Go ahead. You told me, yeah, this is a, this might be a defense. You told me, what was it, after the duels, we were at the high rock party, and I, and Chris Bush won the second duel, I think, or, you know, and I'm like, wow, I'm shocked. And you said to me, nothing should surprise you with this new car. Everything is reset.

And I know back in the, you know, going into the, you know, going into the. last year's podcast we were talking about how there's so many unknowns when you would come out and test it like they're going to have to learn these cars in real time the test will only get you so far but they're going to have to race well now they're racing they're racing with the full field i looked at brad because last year i was listening to his radio uh conversation with tj and it seemed like a guy that's trying to figure out what the threshold of these cars are doing and he learned yeah they're really susceptible when you bump them like that i don't know maybe it looked like he was being very aggressive. I'm not going to dispute that. However, I think everybody wanted to jump on

him like he was doing things intentionally to win the race. Certainly, Ricky Stenhouse said that, which was that comment was dripping with irony. But the fact is, is that I approached that race the same way you told me to. Don't expect all that you thought you knew about the way drivers drive a race car and all that stuff. Throw it out the window. It's all brand new. And so we saw situations that looked like, you know, you have this experience champion veterans. making mistakes. And I guess I allowed for that to happen in my mind as I approach that race and watch that race. That's my defense.

I got you. Okay. Well, I mean, you know, when I've been in that situation and done, you know, done something like that, I try, I really try hard to, you know, you got to keep racing hard. You got to keep, you know, you have to push and you have to do things like Brad was doing. But I feel like, gosh, okay, you can't do that again, right? once you wreck a guy, especially when it takes a few people out, if you didn't mean to do it, I've wrecked people on purpose, but if you didn't mean to do it, it was an accident,

you kind of have this feeling, or at least I do, of, shoot, that was my mulligan. I've used it up. Now, I can't allow that to happen again during this race, or I'm really going to draw a lot of attention to myself and probably piss off all the people I'm racing with. And it kept happening to Brad. That's fair to point. And I was like, damn. man, Brad don't care.

Brad don't care what you think. You know, and it's just interesting because Brad, obviously, when it happened the first time, didn't have the reaction that I would have. Brad didn't go, that was my mulligan. I'm old chill. Brad just kept on racing the same way.

You know? That's true. Brad's, you know, Brad, if you know, Brad, if you know, Brad, no, that's not a big surprise because he's just, he's out there for Brad. You know, and I think he's out, especially with his new deal, he's, you know, he's out there to prove he, he made the right choice, right? Yeah. He's, he's definitely racing, maybe with, maybe he's racing with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder out there trying to show everybody.

He's going to turn, he's going to turn Roush back into the, you know, the program it used to be. And he's, you know. He certainly caused, there's no, there's no defending that part. I mean, he was causing them. defending it. And it created the GIF's tweet, which made it all worthwhile in our books. Absolutely. We had such awesome engagement.

We were entertaining. Man, whoever came up with that idea, brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant idea. Right. We're referring to a tweet from Dirty Moe Media, respond by gift only. Yeah. Awesome gifts.

Great, great engagement. Appreciate everybody giving me and Mike Davis a great laugh. Yep. You jumped in there, too. I did. I did, too. I felt obligated to join. in the conversation.

You know, Brad's a great friend of mine, and he did come out to the high rock party on Friday night. He's very supportive of what we do, and we certainly want the best for Brad and hope this program that, you know, hope this roush thing is going to work out for him. But, yeah, we had a little fun. We had a little fun at his expense. And we've reserved that right. Listen, we can all be friends, and, you know, if you cause a few wrecks. Give each other a hard time.

Look, that's what friends do. That's right. shows we care. If he doesn't have friends that are going to tell him that he caused all them wrecks and he doesn't have any friends at all, no. That's what we're here for. Hopefully, man, we'll see a whole lot more out of Durymo Media. That was great.

Yeah. If we do, you know what, I'm not going to. Do we want to go there yet? Do we want to say? Oh, boy. Do we want to say what's happening? Yeah, let's do it. Cue the sad music.

You the sad music. It's like the Hulk when he's walking away. Oh, man. It's so sad. That is a very sad moment. That might have been Leah's swan song that tweet. She's leaving us. She's going on to bigger and better things.

And so she's no longer going to be in our studio. She's no longer going to be in our building. But they all come back eventually. You know that deal? They all come back. I like what I hear it. Yeah. So there'll be a place for it.

She's ready to come on back. So Leah, this is your last show. Yep, this is the last show. She has a great opportunity that she could not turn down. We're excited about that for you. And so, yes, Leah will be leaving Dirty Mo Media and going on to new things and new opportunities. And we're going to miss you. You've been great, beyond the walls of this room, you've been amazing for us and, you know, for the dirty moe media brand.

But in here, you've added to all the shows. People are going to be sad. People are going to miss you. She made the show better. Thank you. Thank you. It's an amazing opportunity and a lot of fun. A lot of work,

but we got a lot of fun too. What are you going to miss most? That's a great question, Mike. Good question. What am I going to miss most? Oh, man. I don't know, just the different, like, different things every week, right? Like, we do a show every week, but everything's different, right?

So, like, I've enjoyed that part of it. Not doing the same thing every week is exciting. But no, just hanging out with that. with all of you guys, my people. Yeah. What are you not going to miss? Late nights. Late nights.

Late nights. Sorry, Leah. Sorry, Leah. Late Tuesday nights. Well, whose fault is that? This guy. Boy. I'll put Dale a little, like, he's got an eighth of the point.

Are you saying Matthew rang you off? Look, I don't want that. I don't want that. Yeah. Don't give me that credit. Right. All right. Well, Matthew,

will be making someone else's life miserable. But I will say, don't tell that person, whoever that person is, that they have that to look forward to. I've known her since she was an intern at Gateway. And you do it. You cast and you've done a great job here far and beyond the things that you're probably even hired for.

So you are going to be missed. Thank you. It's been fun. Well, yeah. It's going to be tough to fill your shoes. I'm going to tell you that. You've, you, you, you, you certainly, uh, certainly did an awesome job for us and looking forward to, looking forward to seeing what you do.

I mean, well, still going to see her around, you know. Well, she's still engaged in one of our crew chies. Right. So, you know, we'll still see. We were joking with her before the show started that, you know, now we're not going to see him as much. Like, you know, because he was always upstairs hanging out. Taylor was always upstairs having lunch in the break room.

Now we're going to, it feels like we sort of need to see. say goodbye to Taylor as well, even though he'll be in the building. He just not going to come see us anymore. He doesn't have a reason to. All right. Enough sadness. Enough sad. All right.

Yeah, how do we segue? Let's bring Ernie Francis in here. Yeah, I kind of like that. So our guest this week is Ernie Francis Jr. Now, I, you know, had heard the name, and we're going to learn a lot about, you know, Ernie and his family and his racing. I knew he was successful in Trans Am. He's more successful than I even imagined.

We're going to learn all about that. But last year at the SR, is it SRX? I can never remember the order that those letters go in. It's new. You got it. It's new. So SRX. He ran that series with Tony Stewart and Ray Everingham,

and he won at IRP in Annapolis Raceway Park, which was a pretty, cool, you know. We saw Ernie win, we saw Marco win at the ovals, right? These guys are road course racers, but they were out there beating some of the best

oval racers in that series. So that made me go hey, this guy might have a future in stock cars and we're going to learn about where his path is heading and it's going to be heading to a pretty interesting place. I can't wait to talk about it. But I wanted to give him on the show.

So Ernie is coming in right now. Is he ready? Yeah, come on. Let's bring Ernie Francis Jr. to the table. And Ernie Francis Jr. takes his first win of 2021. Hey, Francis Jr., Bobby Labonig. There's Scott Speed and Marco Andretty,

racing for third squad. An SRX-Checkered flag for Ernie Francis Jr. and Indianapolis. Ernie Francis Jr. 23 years old. Winning. There he is, man. What's up?

Where'd you come from? I came from Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale. You flew up here? Yeah, flew up here last night. All right. What else you going to do while you in town? Anything?

Not much. You know, I ate dinner last night at one of my favorite places, the Port City Club, and then had breakfast today at the famous Toastery. Those are like my two stops I always got to make when I come here. Yeah, we go to the toastery. My little girl goes to school near there, so I eat there in the morning sometimes. It's a great place to have. Yeah, no, it is.

I always got to stop there whenever I come in town. What did you order? I got, I think I got. I got some eggs, I got toast, and I got a waffle like I always get, waffle with whipped cream and berries on top. You went all the way. Yeah, all the way. If you're going to be here once in a while, you go do the toastery thing. Go all the way.

Yeah, you got to get it all. I was just talking about you a little bit. We mentioned your success last year in SRX. How did you get the call to be a part of that series? You know, that came about pretty funny, actually. I had met Ray Everham about two years prior to that at the SEC. RANoffs and I'd met him through contact I had a good year and he had his ghost out there and you know we were racing our Trans-Zam car in the GT-1 series and you know we got talking a little bit

and Ray had mentioned that he was picking up an older Trans-Am car G-T-1 car to race in some vintage stuff and I told me you know if you ever need any help ever need any advice on it you know hit me up and over those two years I'd seen him at a lot of the Trans-Am events he was running in in that GT-1 car and we would talk back and forth and then he brought up to me you know the this idea that he had with SRX and how he wanted to get this thing going. And if he ever had any road courses on the schedule for it, you know, he'd hit me up. He'd want me to come and run it. And then in the off season, before SRX started, he gave me a call and said, hey, you know,

I talked with some of the team and they want to have you on for the whole season, if that's something you'd want to do. And I jumped at that opportunity right away because, you know, can't pass something like that up. It was just a little bit nerve-wracking for me going into it because, you know, I don't really have much Circle Track experience going into that. didn't know how it was going to turn out. I knew it was all all circle tracks, some dirt, no road

courses, and I was like, well, you know, we'll give it a shot and see what happens. That series come across to me is kind of like made for TV. There was a big buzz around it, but it got competitive and it got aggressive. So tell us about that part of it. Like, what was your experience like driving in that series? Yeah, you know, in the beginning it was all talked about like it's going to be like a TV show, you know?

It's all about the fans. We want to put on a show for them. But, you know, we're all race, car drivers, everybody that was competing out there, have one race is, one championships, and they all want to win. So when they put us all on race cars and they tell us, listen, it's a show, try and put on a good race, you know, we're going to get after it and try to take home that checkered flag. And, you know, I got into it with a few drivers throughout the course of the year, you know, Paul Tracy. He got into it. He got into it with a lot of people. You know, they had a pile of bodywork after, I think, three of the races. And I think every part of bodywork that was out,

there had some of that lime green of his car on it. So he got into a lot of people. But you know, it was so much fun to race out there, you know, and the racing was real. It wasn't like it was, you know, fake and we were trying to like keep the racing close. I mean, once we were on track, it was all just go at it and, you know, don't take each other out. You know, Paul Tracy didn't listen that much to that rule. But, you know, the racing was really real and the guys were super competitive and the racing was close. It was crazy to see how everybody's driving styles adapted to driving those cars. You know, everybody from different backgrounds would adapt differently,

but we all seemed to find speed around the track in different ways, and it all kind of lined up to where we were all very, very close and pace. So when you show up on the weekend, are you paired with the same crew chief from the week before? So it was actually pretty cool how they put it together, you know, you would draw for a crew chief, and you would get a different crew chief every time, unless you drew the same guy again.

Right. So you'd work with different crew chiefs each time, you would run the same car all year long as your race car, but you would only get about five laps in that car at every track you go to. So we would show up and there's four practice cars and those four practice cars were shook down already by the test drivers and they already shook down our race cars for us.

And when we get there, we get two 10 lap runs in the practice cars and then we get a five lap run in the race car and that's it. So after each practice run, are you, when you, when you're, you get out, are you talking to your crew chief going that the car handles this way? Yeah, like so, so, you know, you would do the 10-lap run. You wouldn't even get out. You would just stay in the car, and you could make some small adjustments, and you would talk to the crew chief.

To the test car. And then you could go and try it again in the next 10-lap run. And then it kind of gave you an idea of where you want your race car to be. And then you're in your five-lap-one in the race car, you can kind of feel that out. And then you're allowed a small window of adjustments. You're allowed like a tire pressure, a little bit of wedge. and I think like a 50-pound spring rubber in the right rear. I think that's all you're allowed.

That's it. Yeah. It was very small adjustments you were allowed to make. But, you know, little adjustments like that would make a big difference in the car. You know, when we were at the Lucas Oil race, we did a tire pressure adjustment on my car. And we went from running like fifth or something to all of a sudden we were the fastest car on the track. And we were just in the lead. And, you know, all we did was tire pressure.

But it made such a difference when all the cars are so even. That's interesting to hear. I'm really appreciated a little bit more knowing those details because I know it was kind of made for TV, and I know that's kind of a bad phrase or probably not the right way to explain it, but I knew that the television component was key for the success of the series, right? So it has to have, you know, it has to be entertaining. But yeah, when I saw you guys, I'm like, okay, there's some moments here where it doesn't look, it's not choreographed, it's not scripted.

That was not your very first time running on an oval either. You know, I know you said you didn't have a lot of experience. but you had run K&N cars, a few races in a late-mile stock here and there. So you did have oval track experience, but your background's all road course. You got tons of success, and we're going to talk about that. So when you get into this series, right, and you're going to IRP, go out there and win, like, leading up to that, how are you, how are you, you know, feeling about running on the ovals and stock cars and, you know, how's that, how's that, changing your kind of future, your vision toward what you want for yourself and your future. Yeah, like, you know, for me growing up, sports car racing was always where I thought I was going to go,

always where I saw myself racing. And then when I had my time with Rev Racing and the Drive for Diversity program, you know, ran a few late models, did the K&N stuff, it opened my eyes more to stock car racing and started to enjoy it more as a driver. You know, I've always been a fan of NASCAR, but just never really had the opportunity just to go and race in it. And then after that program, you know, ended with that. I went back to my sports car racing stuff and I thought that was kind of the end of it there. And then when the SRX deal came about, you know, leading up to it, I didn't really know what to expect. You know, it's been a while since I've been. Were you nervous? Yeah. I bet so. Yeah, definitely was nervous because, you know, these are guys that I've looked up to

my entire life that I'm racing against. Guys that I've watched on TV. So it's like you don't want to go out there and look like a fool in front of them because, you know, these are like heroes of mine. So yeah, there was some nervousness there. I spent a lot of time on my simulator at home, trying to run on whatever tracks I could. I was really nervous for the dirt ones, actually. I bet so. The dirt ones were really crazy, and I actually went and drove on dirt for my first time about two weeks before the first SRX race. I went out to this little hole in the wall, like quarter mile dirt track in Sebring, Florida, and I drove a mod light around there, and I just started from the back in the heat race, and I actually won the heat race, and then I

won the feature that night. Dang. Yeah, I never drove a dirt car in my life. Like, three guys flipped in the main. I was like, I've never seen a car flip in person either. So I'm in there in the main and, you know, I'm like sitting like third or fourth and all of a sudden these two guys touch in front of me and this guy starts tumbling end over end and it goes red flag and I'm like, man, that was crazy.

That's right. I'm like tightening up my belts. Like, holy crap, man, I got to race SRX in two weeks. I don't need anything happening like that. But, you know, there was definitely nervousness they were getting into it, especially like for the dirt races, like I said. But once you got on track, it would have kind of, you know, all come together. You know, the first race at Stafford got out there.

And I remember my first two 10-lap runs I did, I was, like, terrible. I was like, you know, I was driving it like a road course. I was breaking way too much. And, you know, Tony Stewart came up to me. And he's like, listen, I'm going to take a bungee cord. I'm going to wrap around your brake pedal and tie it up so you stop, so you get off the damn break. because I just kept on wanting to break hard before I rolled into the turns,

and I just had to get used to that kind of rolling the center speed through that you do on some of these short tracks and stuff. And once we got that figured out, you know, really kind of came to me in the race there. And, you know, from there it kind of just went on and figured out pretty decent. What was the favorite track? Favorite track, obviously, I think, is IRP, the one that I won at. But, you know, I had a lot of fun at Knoxville, too. Really? Yeah, had a lot of fun there.

Eldoro was cool. Didn't have a great race out there. you know, me and Tony Kahn got into it a little bit. But the dirt ones were fun. Like, I really enjoyed that. I think the most fun I had the entire six weeks was my first 10-lap run at Knoxville. And I was fast, but I killed the tires in 10 laps.

But it was probably the most fun I've had in a race car ever. Because I've never been on like a bigger stock on dirt, only that mod light. And I kind of drove it like how I did that. And I just held it wide open to the turns. And I was full sideways, just like, on it and I came in and those tires were completely bald after 10 laps and they were like that looked really cool but you know after 10 laps you're done so I had to uh had to back it up from there

but that was probably the most fun I had all uh all season long so there's I was wondering about the tires so at the dirt track you had to take care of your tires quite a bit huh yeah um you know at el Dora you didn't have to as much at Knoxville the track was so gripped up you had to be so easy on them you almost drove it like you were on asphalt it was really weird like there was the one bottom lane and that's the lane that worked yeah uh the second lane was not working for anybody so you were just on the berm at the bottom and you were trying to keep the car as straight as possible and then just easy on the throttle off and just drive it straight off yeah um el dora you know you could run a bunch of different lanes and the tires weren't as big of a

problem but knoxville it was like you had to be so careful on them if you spun them up one time too much you're you were done after that was it the same tire every other track like when you went to all the asphalt tracks was it the same tire every week yeah it was the same tire same Same type of tire. How did that tire behave? I was just curious because, you know, in a late-mile stock car, there's a good amount of tire conservation. You know, guys don't really run that hard at the start of the race.

Yep. Was there a lot of that next race? Yeah, there was because, you know, these cars, they're heavy, and they make a pretty decent amount of power for what they are. You know, we're a 700 or 750 horsepower there, and they would spin up the tires pretty quick. One that was really bad for us was Nashville was really hard on the tires, and Slinger was really bad on tires.

there. Slinger, you had, you pretty much never got to wide open at Slinger. Yeah. It was just, you know, three-quarters throttle back off, three-quarters throttle and back off it, because if you got to wide open, you would just do a burnout down the whole, down the whole front straight. Did you know any of the drivers? Had you ever met in him? You met Ray Everham, but had you know, did you know Tony? The only driver that I really knew, or there was two that I really knew going into it was Elio. I had met him once for lunch down in Miami, and I had known Willie. because Willie had come out to a few transam races, so I had known those two.

Other than that, it was the first time meeting everybody else. Who impressed you from a driving standpoint? Who lived up to their expectations? You talked about they were heroes, but who, I'm curious about driving styles. You get all these people together. I want to know who impressed you. Yeah, you know, I think two guys that really impressed me a lot were Elio,

just because how he can wheel anything, you know, just coming off his Indy 500 win, and then going out there and, you know, being competitive in every SRX race we did. And then Tony, you know, Tony is just... Tony Stewart or Tony Knaw? Tony Stewart. Yeah, Tony Stewart. He is so good on dirt.

It is nuts. Like, he was at the Knoxville race and at El Dora, he was just a beast out there. And then every asphalt race we did, he was, you know, running in the front and able to just place his car wherever he wanted. I remember I was watching the replay of one of the races, and he was on the radio, like, talking to the TV while he was. getting ready to pass like Marco out there or something. And he was like, oh yeah, I'm just going to go on his inside right here and just, you know, commentating the whole time as he's racing. And I'm like, man, that is, it's something else. He definitely, he definitely impressed me for sure. Which race number was the Lucas Oil? Was that? It was early, right? I think it was the third or fourth

race. Which is the one you won. Yeah. Okay. How did you win it? You know, the car was decent when we, when we showed up there. You know, I felt good in the, in the car, and the test car we ran and in the race car. But it was something totally new for me because, you know, there was a fast line around that place just running around the top. And I had never run, you know, around a top of a racetrack before, just like kind of running against the wall. So I was trying to practice that a little bit on our practice car runs, then on the race car runs. And started to get it to work for me a little bit. And we started off the race. And, you know, we were running top five. It felt like we were pretty decent out there. I got up to like third at one point. And we came in for the heat race

break. And, you know, we were allowed to make a little adjustment to the car. And like I said, we made a tire pressure adjustment. We added like two pounds to the right rear, and we like took out a pound of the left front. And that's all we did to the car. And we restarted, and my car would just go wherever I wanted it to go. It was like, I had never driven, to this day, that's probably one of the best handling race cars I think I've ever driven. Really? To where it would just, you know, I wanted it to go somewhere and it would just do it.

You know, I was able to, you know, I went like three wide. I got by Tony, got by everybody, got to the front. and I was like following behind, I think it was Scott's speed for a little bit. And I was sitting in second there, and I'm like, man, you know, I can just sit here and kind of savor a little bit. But I'm like, man, you know, I haven't led a race in SRX yet. I might as well try and get to the lead and got by him and all of a sudden started kind of stretching a gap on everybody. And I was like, well, you know, this is probably going to throw a caution. And then there goes the competition caution they threw on me and, you know, had to restart from there.

But yeah, the car was just so good on every restart. was able to fire off good and I was just running the top every lap just kind of like holding it around the top and the last 10 laps I think we had like three or four restarts because there was a few wrecks in the back and they just kept restarting us and every line every time I would just choose the top lane for the restart and my goal was just beat them through turn one and just stay up high and I can out drag them off turn two and then I'll be good for once they get to three and four and that was just my plan every lap was just get a good start and just be ahead of them by the time we got through turn one and seemed to work and, you know, came through for the win there.

How did that series really change anything for you? Yeah, you know, after doing that series, I really thought that I was going to go down the NASCAR route. Right. I really thought, okay, you know, everybody talked to me and they're like, yeah, you know, you're going to get in a truck ride now or you're going to get an Exfinity ride. That's where you're going. You're going to be out there in one of the national series next year.

And that's really where I thought I was going to end up. And then, you know, I got a phone call from Roger Penske. Did he call you directly? and you pick it up and he's like, hey, I'm Roger Pinsky? Yeah, so it's a pretty, it's a pretty crazy story, you know. It's really funny. I was out in Brainer, Minnesota, and we were getting ready to load in for our Trans Am race, and I was out because I just finished driving, because I drove our hauler out for the Transam

races and stuff. I would drive that thing. You know, I'm out in the back of the, in the trailer sleeping in the lounge, and I get a phone call, and it's a Michigan phone number, and, you know, I don't know who it is. I usually just won't answer, like, random phone call. call and I answer it. The voice comes over and he's like, hi, this is Roger Penske. Is this Ernie Francis Jr.? And I'm like, I sat there from it and I'm like, man, I thought I was still like, still asleep or something or if I was dreaming or what was going on. And, you know, he asked again and I responded. And, you know, it was Roger Penske on the phone, him directly, not an assistant, not anybody else. And we talked on the phone for about 30 minutes. And he told me that he had some plans for for next year and he wanted to talk with me in person and see you see what I think. thought about them. And he wouldn't tell you what they were? No, my gosh. No, he would not tell me what they

were. So like, you know, I'd be like, oh my God. Yeah, he just, he just said fly out to, uh, to Indianapolis for the, for the, for the NASCAR race at the, at the speedway. And, uh, we'll have a meeting there. Yeah. And so I was like, man, I don't know what this, what this could be about. I, I was thinking, oh, it's going to be something for, for NASCAR. Does he want to put me in, like, his, his infinity car or what? Because I didn't think it was going to go down the open wheel route at all. But yeah, that's where, you know, I showed up to the meeting there. But wait a second. If he didn't tell you anything as far as why he was calling you, what was the 30 minutes

of conversation like? Is he just asking you about you? Yeah, you know, he talked to me a lot about SRX. He talked about what I'd been doing, what else I've been racing this past, that past season. And we just talked about stuff like that. We didn't really, he didn't talk to me about details of what it was going to. He was sizing you up. Yeah, I think he was trying to kind of get a feel for me before, before we actually

met in person. So you go to Indy. You know, what's the... Probably the most nervous I've ever been in my entire life to meet somebody. And, you know, I did the full Penske beard shave and everything. Did you? Because, you know, I talked with Willie a little bit. And Willie was like, you know, you better shave that beard. Roger likes everything clean cut.

I'm like, man, I've been growing this thing for like three years. So the night before, you know, I shaved the whole beard. weird up and everything and showed up to the track and I was nervous and shaking and everything. And his assistant brings me over to his to his RV and I walk inside there and it's Roger, Tim Sindrick, Rod Reed from Force Indy, who I didn't know at the time. Never met Tim Sindrick and never met Roger. And, you know, they're all kind of just sitting in there and I just walk in and they tell me to sit on the couch and we start talking about their plans and what they want to do and

kind of put it all together. What are the plants? Well, you know, they were talking about how they want, they want to put together that force indie team that they were working on last year. You know, they had it running in the USF series, but they want to take it to the next level because they really want to be able to bring that program into IndyCar and be able to race at the Indy 500 within the next few years was their goal.

And they just wanted to kind of fast-track that by bringing it into the Indy Light series right away because that's really the big stepping stone from Indy Lights into Indy car. And they asked me if I had interest in being the driver for that program and working with them over the next few years to try to develop me for the 500. You know, it was something that I had never thought about. I never thought of myself being able to...

Not on the radar, right? No, it was not on the radar. Never thought that I'd be able to race in the 500. Never thought I'd be racing, you know, open-wheel cars like this. But yeah, you know, I agreed to it right away. It's something that I would definitely love to do. And, you know, we talked about all the details of it. And then, you know, had some more meetings since then.

Roger actually flew down to South Florida, and he actually came over to my shop and met my parents with me. Wow. And, you know, we went out and he was at my shop for about an hour and a half, two hours talking with us and going over everything, making sure of something that I really wanted to go after and do. Did you bring anybody to the meeting or were you by yourself? No, I was by myself. Who did you call afterwards? First person I called was my dad. And what did you say to him?

You know, I just told them exactly what was going on in the meeting because they had no idea either. You know, we were all, we had no idea what the meeting was going to be about or what they wanted me to do. So, you know, I was just telling them everything they told me. Like they want to be able to race in the Indy 500 in the next few years and they want me to run their Indy Lights program. And the next thing was like, you know, we can't tell anybody about this. It's a, it's a secret. But it was a really cool phone call with my dad there to tell him about it because it's something that me and him have worked so hard for. over the past years because you know my whole trans damn career was all run um with my dad's team

that's the whole reason i got started in racing was you know he he raced formula atlantic's and and um cca long before i was born right um so i grew up around it and um you know grew up watching him race and then in the in the shop and you know helping him with customers and then you know working on my own car for his team and and doing that and driving the truck to the racetrack so you know being able to sit down with Roger Penske and have him tell me that he wants me to drive for him in their program was something that, you know, I'm never going to forget and be able to tell that to my dad right away and, you know, him coming to all the races now. It's just, it's really cool. So what was your dad's reaction? He was so happy. He got pretty emotional several times over the

past few months that we've, when we've talked about. And, you know, especially when Roger actually came down to our shop, like, that was something really special there. I actually went and picked him up from his dealership that was right down the road and I drove him over to the shop and you know we talked with him had lunch at the shop there and it was something pretty cool. Do you think you get that call from Roger Penske without the SRX series? You know I don't think so. I think SRX is really what did it for me. I think you know I think everything happens for a reason and I think the SRX series really opened a lot of doors for me because you know I think I'm fairly accomplished in Trans Am and, you know, had good accomplishments in the F.R. series that I was

racing in. But none of that was on the radar of a guy like Roger Penske, I think. You know, it just wasn't to that level. But being able to race in SRX and race against, you know, guys like LEO and Tony Kinnon and Tony Stewart and being on live TV and then being able to, that's right. Being on live TV helps big time. And then being able to win that race at IRP, I think is what really did it. You're an example of the success of that series. You mentioned live TV, being able to show your versatility as a driver, but also do you think that some of those guys that are the veterans and are respected

took their opinion to a guy like Roger. Do you think, you know, Roger calls up Tony Kanaan or Helio and says, hey, y'all are on the racetrack with him. You know, what's, is he's got the talent? Yeah, you know, I definitely think that did happen. I know Paul Tracy actually talked with him a little bit about me. Yeah, he had mentioned that afterwards, and I think, I think Elio did as well. Awesome. And then Willie, Willie knows him and mentioned things to him and to Tim Sindrick a little bit. So, you know, they all kind of vouch for me a little bit afterwards, which was really cool. Yeah. Because these are guys that, you know, are legends to me. You know, a guy like Elio, for example, you know, a really cool moment with him at the last SRX race of the year at

Nashville, my mom came up to that one. Back in 2013 was my first professional race at St. Pete, and I was racing in the World Challenge series in a Camaro, and my mom was there, and I was 15 at the time, and this is my first pro race I've ever done, so me and my mom were walking around the paddock a little bit, and we walked by the team Penske trailer, and there's Elio there with his car, and I see him, and I'm looking at my mom, and I'm like, you know, one day I want to be like him. You know, I want to be able to race for a team like that, and be like him there. And, you know, years later, being able to race against him at SRX, and I actually, you know, sat down and talked to him at Nashville with my mom there,

and she kind of told him that story. It was really cool how it all, like, came around full circle. And then to have a guy like him kind of vouch for me to Roger Penske, and now to be, you know, racing for his program is, it's just crazy how it all kind of came around full circle to me. So take a spot all the way back to you were born in 1998. I was racing the Xfinity Series in my first full year. Goodness gracious.

You know, your dad, you talked about your dad and his success, and his name is familiar in racing circles. I've heard the name. I know about his history. What do you remember of your first thought of, man, I want to race? Like, how young were you when you went to your dad and went, I want to try this? You know, I'd been in around cars, in and around cars my entire life. You know, when I was born, you know, I had a race car bed. I had, you know, little model race cars everywhere.

I had a model number eight, Dale Jr. race cars. No. Really? Yeah, I was a big junior fan. You know, I had a junior clock in my room. What? What? I had one of the original, like, the Bud junior posters, like, hung from my door.

Oh, my whole thing. Did you know that, Matthew? Oh, he did. He did. I think he did know it. I had the whole thing. I had, like, junior hats. I had, I was a huge.

That's correct. Dale Jr. Have you ever gone to a NASCAR race as a junior fan? Yeah, I had. I'd been to Homestead for the championship finale. I'd been there a few times. I have a Dale Jr. jacket still back at home. You do?

Yeah, I do. That's cool. Yeah, I got the whole thing. But yeah, you know, grew up totally into cars. And ever since I could remember going to the racetrack watching my dad race, the company Breathless Racing started off as a speed shop. And that was for my dad to be able to fund his own racing. So, you know, we worked on customer cars.

Doing what? What can I get done at the speed shop? Yeah, basically, anything like GM, LS base, you know, we were doing Camaros, Corvettes, Cadillacs, anything like that, doing, you know, supercharger kits, cams, tuning. So all kinds of work like that is what kind of funded the racing program for him. So I grew up, you know, at the shop, you know, watching him work on cars and then going to the racetrack, watching him race cars. So you're in a tire. I'm looking at a screen right now. This has to be in your dad's shop.

Yes, that is. That is at my dad's shop there. So, yeah, you know, I was always at the shop hanging out there after school. And when I turned, you know, three years old, I got my first race car. And I don't know if they have a picture of it. That was when I was four. That was my first go-kart. I had a little electric Jeff Gordon race car that we ended up painting all white.

There it is, yeah. Yep. That was the car when I first got it. We ended up painting it all white to match my dad's race car afterwards. But that was the picture I have. And I actually still have that. It's in our shop still. That's pretty cool.

It's up on the top rack. But yeah, you know, started racing that when I was three years old around our driveway. And then when I turned four, you know, I got that go-cart. That was a picture up there. And I remember the first time I saw it, my dad said that I cried because I was scared, actually. I didn't want to drive it. Oh, man. I was completely scared, did not want to get behind the wheel of it.

He finally convinced me to. and, you know, started racing that, and that's kind of what clicked there. And, you know, that's when, you know, the bug bid, and I was hooked on racing. And then, you know, but the deal with my dad was, if I wanted to race, I had to work on the car too. It was something that, you know, I had to do. If I wanted to get out to the track, I had to make sure the go-kart was ready and help him load it up and change tires and sprockets and, you know, check everything on the cart. So it was something that me and him kind of bonded over there and, you know,

raced carts with him from when I was four years old when I was 12 and then made the switch into cars. Was he going with you to your cart races? Yeah, you know, racing for basically for my dad, you know, we would load it up in the back of our pickup truck and show up with the cart races, and it'd just be me and him there. We'd have a little tent and we would do it all ourselves. How was your cart racing success? You know, cart racing was pretty fun for me. I was never successful in it as I was in car racing. Right. You know, finished in the front a few times at some of the big cart races, but never ran, like,

I don't think I ran it long enough to really get into the higher levels of it. I kind of stopped and made the transition into car racing before I started racing some of the big national cart races that they do. What was your first race car? First race car was a spec meata. It was a little 1990 Mazda Miata. Was it a used car? Did you build?

No, we had actually bought that one already. pre-built. Somebody else had built it, so we had bought that car. And I remember when he first got it, he wouldn't tell me that it was mine yet. Oh, so you saw it. I saw it in the shop. He was like, oh, yeah, you know, I got this. I'm going to start racing it a little bit. I'm like, oh, that's cool. I want to drive it. How old were you? I was 12 getting rid to turn 13. And, you know, I saw it around the shop and I'm like, man, that thing is cool. I want to get behind the wheel of it. And, you know, taught me how to drive stick shift in it out on the back of the shop. And then, you know, took me to the racetrack for the first time with it. And, and, you know, you know, took me to the racetrack for the

first time with it and gave me the keys and so that I was going to start racing that thing. So you found out that that was your car at the racetrack. Yeah. You thought you went to the track track for your dad. Yeah, you know, because the racing was always a business for us as well. You know, we had customers that would race for us. And, you know, I thought it's going to be a car that he's going to have as like a rental car for the fleet and stuff. And, you know, I don't think it's mine or anything. Back then when you're, if I go into your race shop, how many race cars are sitting around? You know, we used to have, um, after we had that specmiata, we ended up having, I think, four or five at the time afterwards.

We ended up having four or five. We had his two Corvette race cars. We had customer Camaros and Corvette race cars. We probably had 10 or 15 race cars in the shop at one time. Really? Yeah, and they were always in and out racing and doing stuff. You're going to drive. You're going to start driving, but you're also still working, right?

You're probably responsible for customers and all the cars, right? Yeah, you know, it was a lot going on. It was a lot. I would get to the racetrack, and, you know, I'd have to get. my car ready, but at the same time, we would have customers that'd be doing like arrive and drive for us. So I'd have to go and help them get in the cars or strap them in. And, you know, when they'd come in, I'd be bleeding brakes. I'd be checking the car out, changing wheels. So I'm running back and forth between my car and their cars, but it was the only way I can get on track, so I had to do it.

And, you know, just had to kind of suffer through that and sacrifice to be able to get on track and do what I wanted to do. Who are these customers? They're just, you know, guys that wanted to get on track. Some of them had street cars that they were doing track days in. Some of them had full race cars that they were racing in some club races. Some of them we still have to us, have still racing with us to this day.

Are they, so club racing is, are any of them any, doing anything bigger than that? No, pretty much all of them are just like a little older guys. You know, they just want to have fun and go out there and race and either thing. Does a few of them have real talent? Some of them, you know, have their good days. Some of them have their, I

say they have their good days. They can be fast sometimes, but they just have fun. Are there other businesses, business models like y'all's, other people that have customer cars as well at the racetrack at the same time with you guys? Yeah, it's a big thing, I think, in the sports car world to do that. There's a lot of like arrive and drive and and customer-based teams out there in sports car racing in pro racing and in club racing as well to where people just want to be. able to show up to the racetrack and have their car already prepped and ready to go for them and they

just hop in and they just go and race and that's something that we would do and you know they would enjoy that so okay give me an idea if i wanted to do that what what do i have to do to do to be able to race a car for breathless well like you know if you had never raced a car before in your life um you know your first step would be either if you had a car or if you wanted us to get something for you and you rent it from us uh the first step would just be doing track days you know just getting out there on track having like an instructor in the car so you can learn the basics of how to drive on track you're We're not just going to throw you out there on the racetrack in a race. Well, that's got to cost me something.

Yeah. How much? It all depends on what you want to drive, really. Well, give me a ballpark. Like, I mean, you don't have to give me your exact prices, but like, am I talking about a couple thousand? Am I talking about 10,000? No, like a couple thousand at the start.

Like, it's not, not anything crazy. Like, once you get into the pro levels of racing, you know, it can get more expensive. Like, like, I think to rent, like, a Trans Am TA car, like what I used to race. I could do that? Yeah, like, you can rent one of those. If you have a Trans Am license, then you can race. You can rent a Trans-Am car, but they cost usually between like 40 and 50 grand to rent for a race weekend. Wow. Yeah, they're. It's up there. Yeah, because there are a lot of money to run those cars.

They're basically a NASCAR Cup engines and carbon bodies and, you know, they eat through brakes and eat through parts. Do y'all still have spec meadas? We don't anymore. No. What's the lowest car? Yeah. In the shop? We just finished, me and my dad actually just finished building a Porsche Boxter. Okay. That's built to like a spec box. Boxter class that they run in SUCA and club racing. So that's probably the lowest level car that we have. We actually haven't taken it on track yet.

I'm really excited to drive it because I spent a lot of time in the off season this year building it. And I think it came out really nice and I want to go out there and take it on track. And it has two seats. So I'm excited to take some friends on track and kind of scare them a little bit. Sounds incredible. So it'll be some guy will rent that. Yeah.

So once it's all finished and we tested and make sure it's all good, you know, some guy can be able to rent that. and, you know, it has two seats to where if the guy's just doing track days, an instructor could ride in the car and coach him, or if the guy's ready for professional racing, not professional, but for club racing, he can go and run that and race it into an SECA or NASA or whatever series he wants to run it in.

Yeah. Forget my ignorance. So when you go to an SECA race, how many races are happening on that weekend? So SECA, there's usually, I think there's like seven different groups. Right. Every time you're at SECA. weekend and the groups are just broken up into like what type of cars they are or there's still

individual classes within the groups so like say if the gt1 cars are like group one those are usually like the fastest gt sports cars on the track so there's gt1 gt2 and usually gt3 will be in that group of let's just say group one and then there's there's different groups so there's like a spec meada group and that one if the class is so big all that entire group will just be speckmiata because they can't have anything else on track when they got 50 Miata's on the track. So, you know, they'll be that many Miata sometimes. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Like when I used to race Specke Miata, because I race Specke Miata from when I was 13 until I was 15. What's the talent level through the 50? I think Spec Miata, honestly, is what made me a good race car driver because the top half of that field, like the top 20 guys in Spec Miata can win at every race weekend. Yeah.

It is unbelievable how close the field is. you'll go out to a spec meada race at any of the big events that are going on and the top 10 top 15 are separated by like half a second on the racetrack it is it is um i went out to the nasca nationals when i was 14 to race in spec meata at mid ohio and we qualified second for that race there and the top 15 were within half a second and the field was just so close and a lot of guys that race pro racing or that guys that were going to race pro racing in the following years were racing out there with me in spec me auto was pretty cool yeah so everybody kind of moved on from there and started racing different things is there anything limit so like if i wanted to go run i highly suggest you do a spec me otter i think i think you have a blast where would you yeah if i'm like hey take me put me in one of your

cars uh what would you do honestly spec meata i think is really fun to do at Daytona i think they are so much fun there because of the drafting yeah because of the drafting Daytona homestead I know they race them at Charlotte. I've never seen his back me out of race at Charlotte, so I don't know how it is in the roval there. But when you get on some of the bigger tracks like Daytona, the drafting is so much fun. They'll be the biggest field they had,

I think for the runoffs there was almost 100 cars. At Daytona? I wasn't at Daytona this last year. It was at, I think it was at Indy. I think they were running there at Indy. They had 100 cars. Yeah, it was like a 98 or 99 car field. Howls?

They fit them all on track, but it is so much fun when you get on some of the bigger tracks because these cars, they only make 110 horsepower, 120 horsepower. So it is just all about the draft once you're on the banks and like you're three wide and just trains of cars. And it's super, super fun. That's great. It sounds like that old beach course.

I've watched the, I've watched Miata, is at Daytona when I go there to work at 24 and it is like. It's insane? Yeah, it's pretty wild. It's like a NASCAR plate race with a, with a, little bit of a road course involved. Yep. It sounds awesome.

It is very cool. So, you know, I went from, you know, racing the spec meadas into racing B-specs. I honestly went into a slower car after the spec miatas. The B-spex that I was racing were like, picture like your grandma's Honda Fit or Mini Cooper or Mazda 2. Okay. Whatever other little hatchback, you know, 100 horsepower car.

And that was a class that World Challenge created to, it was like the lowest level class you could enter in pro racing. And it was a front wheel drive class and the cars were 100 horsepower and they were meant to be super close in speed. And so I raced that in Preliol World Challenge and that's where I think I learned a lot too.

But going from rear wheel drive and Spec Miata to front wheel drive took a little bit of... What's the difference? It's a different driving style. You know, with rear wheel drive, you can slide a car around a little bit and you're controlling it with your foot

there in the, you know, keeping the rear in check. But with the front wheel, drive car, everything is happening on those front wheels. You can't overwork them too much. You know, you can't be turning and on the throttle too much. You're just going to kill the front tires. So it's just about being able to limit how much steering input you're putting in when you're on the throttle and just getting the car to rotate good because they have a tendency to understeer a lot with front wheel drive. So it's all about getting the car to try to rotate really good. And you

would do whatever you can. Like, you know, you'd have such a stiff bar on the back of these cars that you turn and that inside rear wheel will be two feet off the ground up on, up in the trying to get the thing to rotate. So that was a whole different driving style of mine, but ended up doing that for a year in my first real year of pro racing before I switched over to racing touring cars. And so what was the switch, why did you make the switch to touring cars? You know, just wanted to kind of work the way up the ladder in the World Challenge series. You know, it was TCB, which was, you know, B-spec, and I wanted to go into touring car. And when I went into touring car, I was racing a Mazda MX5. So kind of back to my roots of, you know,

being in a Mazda Miata, just the little bit newer version of it. So then, you know, I made the switch to that. And it was a good competitive field that I was able to kind of own my skills in. But the cars were a little bit faster, at least. You know, they were 250 horsepower. So it helped me out a little bit to learn that. Yeah. Are you at this point in your life thinking about Trans Am?

I mean, your stock cars? What is your vision? I've been in the Trans Am series for eight years, you know, won seven championships in it. I've always loved the series and I always love racing in it. But at this point, I don't have any plans to go and race in it for this coming year. You're not? No, I'm not. What happens to your car?

You know, we own our car. I've been racing the same car in Trans Am for the past four years. And the car is still at the shop. I actually just finished repaining the car. We took all the body off and repainted the car back to the original livery that it was when I first raced it. So the car is sitting like that in the shop. Right now, I don't really know. You know, the car's ready to go if I wanted to go and race it.

I think I might take it out maybe to like HSR or SVRA vintage race and go run some laps in it at some point during the year just to have some fun in the car again. But yeah, you know, the car's kind of just going to sit for now. Don't really have too many plans with it. But it's such a cool car and it'd be hard to let that car go because how much it did for me and my career. So talk about your success in Trans Am. You know, how did you, when you first get into Trans Am, did you think this was, you were going to be as dominant? You know, I didn't think so. Trans Am was something that we got into at first because, you know, racing for our own team, we never had a huge budget. It was always, you know, what we could do with what we had out there. The Trans Am series was something that was kind of cost effective for us because we can go out there and run our own car, you know, run it ourselves and be competitive with what we needed to do. So, you know, it started off as kind of like a series that I can just go and run, you know, while trying to get my name out there to be able to race something else. And then after racing it for a little bit, you know, really started to enjoy

racing in that series and the fields got stronger and more competitive. One, my first three championships in the lower divisions of Trans Am running like in the, it was like the production class of Trans Am basically. So it was like a production chassis car. I was racing a Mustang Boss 302 and then I raced a Camero. And then we decided to make the jump into the TA class, you know, the top tube frame class of the series. And something about those cars, like they just kind of clicked with me. I just felt good in the car and we were just fast right off the bat and we had, you know, we had, you know, won the four championships in the series and, and a ton of races. And I just think something, something with those cars, I just like driving a lot that, you know,

rear wheel drive, big power, sequential transmissions, no ABS, no traction control. It was just kind of suited my driving style. I was able to get the cars to rotate really good around the centers and just drive off awesome, and that's kind of how we just won a lot. We would focus on, you know, it doesn't matter about how much power you make or how fast you get down the straits. It's all about just if you can roll the center's good in the turns

and then get off the turn good, we would win every time doing that. So that's kind of what we focused on throughout the years in Trans Am racing and it worked. You have 47 wins in the series, seven championships? How do you feel about, I know you're excited about your future and all, but how do you walk away from something you've known

and done? for so long. You know, it is tough. You know, I've really grown to love that series and the people in the series, all the officials that we work with and stuff, when you work with them for for eight years, and you constantly see them, and they basically saw me grow up because I've been racing in that series since I was, you know, 15, 16 years old. So now to be walking away from it, it is tough for sure. I felt like, you know, we left it on a fairly good note, you know, being able to have those championships and all those wins in the series. I think everybody knew that eventually. I would make a transition and jump somewhere else,

just didn't really know where or when it was going to happen. But, you know, I felt like, you know, where we left off at is pretty good. And like I said, I'd love to go back there and do some more races in it. It's just right now my primary focus is this Indy Lights program. And that's where I want to put all my attention. How many races are in the Indy Lights season? I think 11 events.

I think there's 14 races. Yeah. And so what are you, you have a lot of time on your hands? Yeah, you know. What are you going to do? There's definitely a lot more time that I had last year. You know, last year I was running Transam, SRX, and FR. Right.

And I had no time. So this year, with having so much time, I think I'm going to spend a lot of it just in the off time that I'm not racing, just training. Because these cars are so much more physical to drive than anything I've driven before. Really? Compared to anything in SRX or anything in Transam, even the FR, F3 car that I raced last year, these cars are just a whole other level of what it takes to be able to run them around the track. The G-forces they pull are way more. Obviously, no power steering in these cars.

And they have so much downforce. When they get loaded up in the turns, it is like trying to steer it through concrete. How much seat time have you had in it? Not as much as we liked, but... So, like, when would you drive it and where? First test with the car was at the Chris Griffiths Memorial Test at the Speedway last year, and that was back in October. At Indy?

At Indy. Yeah. That was the first time I drove the car. ran it out there for a little bit, and then we had a test at Barber. How did that go? Testing went really good. You know, it was something new. You know, we hopped out there, and pretty much everybody in the series was testing.

So it was just everybody on track. But, you know, posted up really competitive lap times. The field is so incredibly close. It is nuts. You know, we did a test at Sebring after that, and we were out there, and we did like a mock qualifying, like everybody out there. It was like 12 cars, I think. And the top 10 were separated by two-tenths of a second.

It was like, I was like, I think I was a tenth off of the fastest guy and I was like sixth. Yeah. And I was like, holy crap, man. This is nuts. It's like, it's crazy how close the entire field is. But everybody in that series, I think, is at such a high level because that series is really the stepping stone for IndyCar. And you look at the level of guys that have come out of there over the past few years that have gone into IndyCar now, guys like Kyle Kirkwood, guys like Colton Herda, you know, these people have. hopped into Indy car and they're immediately fast, they're immediately winning races. This series

really is what preps you for that. And one of that is the physical aspect of these cars. You know, the Indy cars are super physical to drive, you know, no power steering, big tires, high down force. And the lights car is something just like that. And that's the biggest thing that I noticed was when I hopped into that car is how much harder it is to run that car over the course of a race. Physically. Yeah, physically. Mentally as well, too, you have such a high concentration level in those cars. Everything's happening so cool. and you just have to be so precise with everything because those cards all about using every bit of track, being careful on your power down, not to spend the tires up too much, and then just

being able to rely on that down force is something else for me that's been absolutely crazy. Explain what you mean by that. You got to trust that the air is going to hold you to the race track, and it is really, really weird because the faster you go, the more grip you have. That goes against everything you'd think that you would know. and the down force these cars have is nuts. You know, we were driving around the speedway on the road course there, and we're going through some of these turns,

and it's like if you hold it flat, the car's going to stick better than if you're lifting off and going a little bit slower. And you'll go through, and the cars will, like, move around underneath you a little bit, and you can catch it a little bit, but you just feel the car being stuck down to the ground. Like, it's not going out anywhere. It is nuts how, you know, a force you can't even see is just holding the car to the track,

and you just have to trust it to be there. And I think for me, that's like the biggest thing that I've had to learn and kind of transition to when I started racing these cars, started testing in them, is being able to trust the downforce everywhere we're going. You know, you can roll a lot more speed than you think because the downforce is going to hold you. But it's crazy, in other hand, how much the wind can affect you in other ways, too. Like, I've never been in a car to where, oh, if we have a big tailwind going this way

or a cross one going that way, the car will handle completely different. Here, if we have like a big tailwind behind us, you lose a ton of down force. And you have to anticipate that and know what it's going to do in the car when you're driving it. Yeah, that's really, really hard to do too, because we have that same sort of experience in cup cars. When we go to Daytona, it's really windy there usually. And you've got to pay attention to the way the flags are going because that wind is going to make you tight off of one corner and make you loose into another one. and we have that, you know, it's hard to keep that on top of mind as a race car driver because halfway through the race, I forget about the wind,

and I'm complaining about how the car's handling, and he's like, well, I can't fix that because that's the wind. You know, you have to keep reminding the driver. Like, that's a problem that I cannot help you with because we can't change the wind. But I imagine in those cars it's even more severe. So you talked about your training. You're young. I mean, what kind of training is necessary?

A lot of it is like muscle endurance training. for these cars. I started working with a group Pitfit out in Indianapolis. They train a bunch of the IndyCar drivers and a few NASCAR drivers, but they specialize in training for motorsports. And the workouts that I've been doing with them over the past few months are all just, you know, high reps, you know, a bunch of circuits. So it's just one after another. You're just doing supersets on everything. So you're just trying to like have muscle endurance to be able to last over the course of a race. You know, these cars, you're running around there for a 45 minute race or an hour long race, no power steering and these cars they're not super tame to drive you're constantly doing little

corrections low speed stuff you know the cars are sliding around underneath you you're constantly catching catching the car and with no power steering the wheel wants to rip out of your hands every time yeah the other thing we train a lot is our necks now you know it's a it's a ton of of of neck strength you need and I realized that after the first test I did I went back home and my neck was stiff for like three or four days after I did the first test and it was nuts how how hard it is to hold your head up when you're going around some of these turns and you're pulling two and a half Gs through them. It's pretty crazy. So now I have this whole contraption at my house, like this iron neck thing that you put around your head and you put it to like a door

and it has like a cable that puts tension on and you hold your head and move it all around and do a bunch of neck workout stuff. And I do that almost every day at my house now just training for it because it's such a big thing. If you can't hold your head up going around the track, you can't focus on what you need to do. Yeah. I raced long enough that when I first started, we didn't have headrests. And I looked back at pictures of like Rusty Wallace or Dad or any of those guys racing in the 80s and even in the early 90s, I guess, where they would run Bristol, you know, without a headrest. I don't know how the heck they did it.

Dad used to have this little strap that it would go around his arm that connected to his helmet. I started my career using that same thing because we didn't have headrests that were strong enough to hold your head. if you leaned on it, you kind of would work it over here and bend it out of the way. And then, like, halfway through the race, you'd have to push that thing back over. And a few laps, it'd be back out of the way. That was something I noticed, like, I'm so glad we have the headrest now because, like, we did that SRX race at Slinger. If we didn't have headrest around that place, that would be nuts. Like, I don't know how you would do it for a long race.

You know, you're just constantly just leaning over to that side, and there's no way anybody can keep their head up straight for that long. It's like you need those little straps to... Right. And, you know, I had no idea what those straps were for for the longest time. I had seen them. I'd seen the little hooks on the helmets. I'm like, man, I don't... What are you supposed to do with that thing?

Someone who finally told me and I realized. They really didn't work all that well, to be honestly. No? No, not really. But I mean, I would have... By the end of the race, I'd have mine. I'd get out of the car and it'd be... My shoulder would be...

Because I remember I talked with Alunzer Jr. About when he used to race at the 500, before they used to have, like, all the big head pads around the side. And it was the same thing. You know, you're running around that place at 220, 230 miles an hour, and you've got to keep your head up. They used to have a strap that would go from the side of the helmet. It would run down to the seatbelt,

and it would just ratchet your head down to the side, and you were pretty much stuck like that the entire race, which is nuts because, you know, we're so used to now with these containment seats. You know, you can still move around a little bit and look around, so you'd think to be, like, tied down to one side. You can't move. It's like, you're doing a whole race like that. It's pretty nuts.

Yeah. Is the decision to just run this Indy Lights car and this car only yours? Is it something that Roger prefers? Because, like, I mean, I just can't imagine you not, you know, being the racer you are and having raced as much as you have and had so much control over what you've raced, having these, you know, making these decisions yourself all your life,

it's going to be an adjustment. And I wouldn't say that it's all I'm allowed to run or all I'm going to run. I think, you know, the way that Roger put it was he wants me to be able to drive anything else that I can drive as long as it's good equipment and safe. and it doesn't interfere with my Indy Lights program. To run Trans Am, the difficulty with that for us was I run pretty much every part of that program when I'm racing it.

You know, I do all the engineering on my car, the setup work on it, do the data, everything going on with it. And if I can't focus on everything I need to for that series, then there's no point for me to go out there and run it if I can't put all my effort into it. Because there's nobody else that can, I can blame for it if something goes wrong. and I don't want to go out there and not run it to the highest level that I can.

So I just thought it was a better decision for me not to run that and for me to focus on my lights program. But that being said, they do want me to go to race other things if I can. Actually, it's funny how the timing that's worked out. I just finished getting my contract all signed for SRX again. Back in it, yeah? Yeah, back in the SRX again running a few races. That's like the first announcement that I've heard out of the series.

Yeah, it's like the first announcement. We're the first driver announcement. We've been waiting for it. They are going to be announcing some more stuff later on in the next few weeks. Is it pretty cool? Yeah, it is pretty cool. You know, it's new tracks this year. Okay.

Yeah, I know about the track. Yeah, a lot of new places we're going to. So, you know, I'm excited. I'm not going to be running the whole year, but I'm running a few races out there. So I'm super excited to get out there and run again. It's been so much fun last year. You don't have to tell us who, but are there going to be some handful of new drivers that we're going to be decided about?

That's something that I actually don't know. Oh, okay. I don't know who any of the drivers are if some guys are coming back and some guys aren't. So I'm completely in the dark about that as well. Did you say you did know, Dale, the tracks? I'd seen them released. Yeah, no, they have released the tracks. Yeah, they're actually about that.

That's a good question. You know, first two are, first one is five flags, and then they go to South Boston. Oh, wow. I think Stafford is still on the schedule. Nashville's still on the schedule. We go to I-55, and then there's one other track. I can't remember the name of the other place. Pevely.

Yeah, that's traders. That's I 55, I think, in. It's Strider's Dirt, right? Yeah, yeah. Hartford is the other one, Sharon, Sweden, Sweetway. Hartford, Ohio. Nashville is back as well, the fairgrounds. What did you think of the fairgrounds?

The fairgrounds were cool. That was such an awesome crowd out there. I thought it was so cool. And I've never been to Nashville before. I wish I had more time to go around and check it out. I'm really excited for this year. You know, I have a lights race in Nashville running the street course out there. So I'm going to try to either stay later after the race or come in earlier to be able to go around downtown Nashville and check it out.

It is such a cool place. a cool place. So I've never ran on a street course. Have you? Yeah, I have. What's that all about? How do you compare that experience to running on a true road course? It is so much more crazy. The speed feels so much faster because, you know, there's just walls all around you and you just cannot make a mistake, but you need to get as close to the walls as you can to be faster around there. I've raced our transam car around the street courses. I've run at Detroit in the transam cars, and those are nuts around there because the transam cars are so wide and you already can't see anything out of them.

So it's just like, you know, getting your mirrors to touch the wall everywhere you're going, just to use all the track. So, yeah, they're so different. But the big thing is you just can't make a mistake. You need a car that turns good. You can't have a car that's, like, too loose or too understeering on you. You need a car that's just stable and can get off the turns right. Because most street courses are all a bunch of 90-degree turns. So your main thing is get the car that can just rotate good in the center and then just drag race off of it.

So that's kind of always been the secret about these street courses. It's going to be new to me again because running St. Pete next week. I haven't raced there since 2013, and I haven't raced on a street course in three or four years now. It's going to be a challenge, especially in the lights car, because those cars, as you know, open wheels, you cannot touch a wall at all in those things. It's a little bit more hairy than running a sports car around one of those places. Outside of training, like, how much sim work do you get? Do they have a simulator that you are getting time in?

Unfortunately, they do not have a SIM for St. Pete. Nobody has a SIM for that track because it's only built for that event. They just haven't had, nobody has been able to scan it to make a SIM for it. I have done a decent amount of SIM work at the Dalarra factory in Indianapolis. They have the coolest SIM I've ever been on in my entire life. It looks like a, it looks like a big old alien from like Doomsday or something. Like it's this big tube thing that you climb a ladder to get inside of and it lifts you up like three feet in the air over the already like six feet that it is in the air.

And the thing moves all around. It has a full screen around you. There's a team of engineers upstairs watching what you're doing. So I have done a little bit of sim work in that, just running some of the other tracks that we're going to be on this year in lights. Do you mention your simulator at home? Do you use that as a tool at all? Yeah, you know, I have.

It's harder to use it as a tool for the, the Indy Lights car because, you know, it just doesn't feel the same. There's no lights car on eye racing that I can use. So it is harder for that. I did use it a lot for the SRX stuff. I would just run in like an Exfinity car or something around some of these tracks and get some seat time there. Just learning the tracks. Yeah, I mean, I think it gets you like, you know, 90% there. You can learn the tracks and you can kind of get your references before you show up there, but it's always going to be a little bit different when you get there in real life. 100%. Yeah. So you race at St. Pete this week. And what's the

specific day is that Saturday? My race is on Sunday. Sunday. Yeah, we race just before the Indy car race on Sunday. Okay, and how much practice time? How does the weekend evolve leading up to the race? Pretty much no practice. Are you serious? Yeah, like we show up.

I get in there on Thursday. Thursday we get some media stuff done. And then Friday, we have one 45-minute practice session. And then we have 30-minute qualifying. And then we have a 30-minute final practice all on Friday. Saturday, we do nothing all day. and then Sunday we race. I would say that that's a cause for anxiety,

but you sort of have just adapted to the situations everywhere you've gone, right? I mean, like, SRX, you didn't get many practices there, and you didn't know those cars, and yet you just get out there and fill it out. Take what they give you and then just make the best work, and you end up doing all right. Is that? Yeah, you know, I think we're all in the same boat.

All the drivers out there that are going to be running out there. We're all, you know, getting the practice time that we get. Some of the drivers have been there before because they've raced in Indie Lights last year, but, you know, we're going to make the best of the situation. and the main thing is just we try the best that we can out there. That's kind of our goal going into this weekend. It's going to be new for all of us, the team itself, the guys that we all put together,

working on this car and then me driving the car, engineer. It's all new for this. We've done two tests together with the entire team together. The previous tests I've done was where we leased a car from another team and ran for them just to get me some seat time. But we've had two tests with the team all as one unit. So we've got to know each other a little bit better now, and I think we're at a fairly good place.

But for us, our goal is just, you know, make it through the weekend, have fun, and try the best that we can, and just try to put up some decent results out there. And then, you know, we know it's a long season. You know, our goal is to be competitive and, you know, battle for podiums and race wins, but we don't want to kind of put those expectations on us at the first race of the race of the season.

So our goal is just, you know, have fun and try the best we can here. And then, you know, we have time to fight for what we want later on in the year. You're now on this new path to, to open wheel racing. You said that their plan is to take this team and run the Indy 500 with it. But beyond that, I mean, is it going to hopefully become a full-time IndyCar ride for you? You know, you're embracing this, I imagine, 100% and never looking back. Yeah, I think, you know, for me, this is looking like what's going to be the future for me. I think right now I'm kind of, open wheel racing was the last thing that I thought I was ever going to be doing.

You know, I thought it was sports car racing. You know, my goal, I always wanted to race at the 24 hours. of Daytona. I want to race at Sebring. Those have always been, you know, goals of mine. Still opportunities. Yes, yes. Still can do those. And this path could get you there. Yeah, yeah, definitely. This is another way that I can get there for those events. And then I thought I was going to go down the NASCAR path, but now Open Wheel is just so different from what I thought I was going to be racing. But I'm embracing it completely. I think it's super cool. The history behind the sport, behind IndyCar. I've, you know, spent a lot of time in this offseason. You know, I've always watched IndyCar, but I've never been a huge fan of the series.

I never watched it like I did watch NASCAR growing up. So I've spent a lot of time researching it and doing my history on the series. And it's really cool everything that went on back in the day in the series. And to learn more about how it got to where it is now, I've really become a fan of it. And I've become a big fan of where IndyCar is at right now. And the way the racing is just probably some of the best racing in the country and in the world right now. You look at some of these races and these guys are the best in the world.

and they're battling way harder than you would see at a F1 race or anything like that. So it's pretty cool to see how this racing is. And, you know, I'm excited for this journey. I think, you know, like I said, their plan is to be able to run the 500 in the next few years with this program. But that's not it's not just to run the 500 and that's it. It would want to be, you know, a full-time IndyCar program and be an IndyCar team. So I think that's kind of where we're all working towards, but we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves. We're just kind of taking it one race at a time.

and when we do get to that point we get there. But right now, our focus is just every race that we get to and do the best that we can. Where did you grow up and where did you live over the last several years? You know, I was born in Miami, Florida, pretty much lived down there my whole life. Moved from Miami to Fort Lauderdale when I was a little bit old when I was like 13, 14 years old.

You know, spent a lot of time in North Carolina when I was racing for Rev Racing in the diversity program and then spent a lot of time in Indy the past year when I was racing the FR car out there. but never really lived anywhere else, but South Florida. With this Indy car situation, you're going to bounce back and forth. So you spend a lot of time in Indy because you're, you know, you mentioned it all through the show here. And I'm wondering if you maybe got you a place up there so you can stay.

No, I haven't got a place up there yet. I don't know if I will right now at least. You know, I spent a lot of time up there in the off season, just visiting the team and doing stuff like that. I think once the season gets started, I'm going to spend a little bit less time up there and it's going to be more just, you know, going out to the races that we're doing. I am definitely going to spend a lot of time there for the 500. Never been to the 500, actually. I was going to ask you that.

So I went to, you know, being a stock car guy, you know, I thought the Daytona 500 was the coolest thing ever. You know, and nothing's cooler than that. Yeah. I was kind of protective of it, right? Like, this is our sports. But I went to the N.500 and there's no argument. I mean, it's insane what a spectacle that is.

You know, they got a concert and a totally standalone event happening inside the track while the race is going on. I mean, it's like, it's, it's almost like five things crammed into one space, you know, festivals and concerts, and then the race and the snake pit and all that thing. And when I was standing there, when I was trying to navigate through on the front straightaway during driver's entries and stuff, shoulder to shoulder, as far as you can see, it's insane. The vibe and the tradition, that was the one word that kept running through my mind when I was there, was the traditions that happen at leading up to the start of the race.

I've never experienced anything like it. I imagine, you know, you're going to go through that process this year of, you know, running the any lights, you're going to have that experience and realize, you know, what an incredible, you know, series you were part of, plus what the future for you looks like. Yeah, you know, I think that's something that I'm really looking forward to. Like I said, I've never been to the 500 in person. You know, I always hear about how incredible it is. And I've watched it on TV the past few years, but I don't think you can really,

understand it until you go to the event. You know, that place is special, I think. The Speedway, no matter what you're there for, you know, I've raced there for Trans Am a few times when I've gone there for testing in the lights car, when you go through those gates and you're inside the Speedway, it just feels special. There's like, I don't know, there's just like an energy when you go into that place. You can just feel, like you said, the tradition of that track and, and the history of that place and what it represents for motorsports. So I'm just so excited to be able to go there and, you know, see the 500 and see what it's all about. And, you know, to be able to see it and be a part of, you know, Team Penske while I'm there is going to be really cool. I'm sure I'm

going to be running around and going from different pit boxes and watching from the pagoda and trying to see all different spots that I can while I'm going to be there. So I'm super excited to get out there and check it out. Yeah, with your season right here in front of us, what drivers, if any, are you reaching out to and, you know, gaining in, you know, gaining ideas from and getting assisted with you know i um you know talk to a few different drivers uh coming up to this you know off season i've talked with leo a little bit you know i've talked with paul tracy a good amount actually it's pretty funny me and him go back and forth on instagram a lot um and he's been talking to me a bunch about just open wheel racing in general um because he's you know raced card and indy car and stuff

and has a ton of experience there and then um you know when we get to st pete you know i'm going to be able to meet some of the team penske uh indy car drivers there and i'm going to definitely try and pick some of their brains and just get some advice from them because it is so different than what I'm used to. Right. And, you know, being a part of that Penske umbrella, there's so many great resources that are there. So I'm definitely going to use that when I get to when I get to the event. Look, I don't want to make this awkward for you. You're about to go into your, you know, first Indy light season, and you seem to be on a career path here for Indy. I've heard you say you thought you would be on a NASCAR trajectory. I haven't heard you say you wanted to be on a NASCAR trajectory.

Do you want to be? I think, you know, I want to race anywhere that somebody will put me in a car. Well, Pinsky has stock cars. Oh, I know. They happen to be pretty good. Might have won a big races past weekend. Yeah, you know, they definitely are pretty good out there. And I would love to hop into one.

And, you know, I kind of talked with Roger about that a little bit when we had sat down. You know, we had mentioned that me going down this path with with them towards Indy car doesn't exclusively put me on that path only. You know, they have other things that they do. and they have their driver pool and if they want to have me run something else or if I want to do something else, I might be able to go and do that.

One that always is funny about that is like Scott McLaughlin. You know, he's racing their IndyCar program, but he came over here because he really wants to race NASCAR and he's been trying to get into their NASCAR program forever, but they tell them, you know, listen, you got to go out there and do your IndyCar program and perform out there how I want you to,

and then we can, you know, put you in a NASCAR out there. So, you know, I think it's kind of the same thing. There's opportunities for it. I just need to focus. on what they gave me first before I go and ask for a ask for a more. And I don't mean to put you in an awkward situation. The reason I ask is because this, I think you impressed a lot of people last year in, you know, in the NASCAR industry.

And the reason I know that is because just yesterday, you know, we have our meetings, Dale, you know, with the managers and your sister Kelly. And they usually ask me who we have on the show this week. And I usually tell them, and I don't get much a reaction. People you think you'd get a reaction. But I said Ernie Francis Jr., you know, yesterday, and all of the comments, competition guys finally perked up. They actually cared who we have on the show. And it's like Ryan Pemberton and everybody, they're like, he can drive. That's a driver. That's somebody you

would want to have on your race team. And these are stock car guys talking, long timers. And so I think you've impressed upon people. You're making a name for yourself and you're going to continue to do that. But I don't know, man. I think that SRX series just was a catapult for you. Yeah, I think it was. And, you know, that's what I'm so grateful for was we want to race SRX last year. I think that's what really did it for me. Because, you know, I could have won another 10 championships in Trans Am, but I don't think I would have gotten the recognition that I did for running SRX last year. It was just so incredible.

And I think, you know, part of it being the guys that we're racing against, being such big names that, you know, when I went into that series, nobody knew who I was at all. So to be able to race with them and then, you know, beat them at the race at IRP. That was awesome. And then I think the big thing, like we said, was live TV. live TV helps a ton when when people can see it and they just sit down and you know it's all over the place and you know they talk about it and they hear my name out there it definitely helped a lot and you know I think that's what did it the most part well man we're excited about it we're excited about

your season so thankful that you came all this way and give us a chance to get to know you even better all people listen to this podcast man now are going to be looking toward the indie light stats and seeing how you're doing and how you're running and wishing you all the best. Can't wait to see where this takes you, man. No, thank you. It's so exciting. I'm just ready to get out there and get on track and sort of getting some seat time out there. I think it's going to be a cool journey.

And then plus to be able to do SRX again this year is going to be a lot of fun. I've definitely had a good time in that series. And the door is always open for you if you ever want to run a car. I was talking with, I was talking with Hawk about it a little bit. And he mentioned that he'll feel an extra car for. you any time if you want to run it. So, you know, doors always open there. But, you know, I'm excited for this year. It's going to be a cool jump for me. And just, you know, so incredibly grateful for everything that's happening now. I think a Miata career is something that we ought to

add to your resume down. We need to give that a shot. I mean, expect mea. I can see one, you know, in the background there on the shop, you might as well. I'm going to drive your car, man. You're going, you guys got the program. Yeah. I got, I got that Porsche boxer. You can always come down and drive that thing. We don't know nothing about that stuff here. I don't know that we can feel a competitive entry right out of the gate. All right. Plus, breathless is such a cool name. I mean, like, that's a race team.

I want to race for a race for a race. It is. It is a cool name. Yeah. All right, man. Well, we appreciate you. Thank you. Yep.

Thank you guys. Arnie Francis, Jr. on the Dale Jr. download. Go ahead. Let's fire up as Jr. Get it going. Let's do it. Thank you.

Hey, everybody. It's Del Jr. Here for, uh, The Asked Jr. portion of the show, thanks for tuning in. We have Ernie Francis Jr. is our guest. He just walked out. Anyways, we got a great show. This is Leah's last show, everybody. Leah's taking a new, great opportunity to go forward in her career, and we're excited about her new, her new path.

But she's going to lead the show, and we're going to miss her. So this is her last show, so make sure you guys say something nice to her in the comments. Anyways, Leah's got your questions for us today, so let's get started. Yeah, our first question from IKY on Twitter. Think about the Mayatt-Snyder crash and how Matt Mills clobbered a tire in the engine. What is one or a few instances where you hit some large debris or something hit you on the track? I don't really think I had a moment anything similar to that. The couple of times that I did get some debris on the grill, it was very helpful.

We won the Dayton 500 in 2014 with a little trash on the grill. And also the, a Dega race in 2015. We got a little debris on the grill as well. And that really helped my car when I needed it those last few laps. But I always go back to a race in Talladega. I think it was 1986, maybe, 85, where a drive shaft went through Dad's windshield. And so he's racing at Talladega, 199. 25, 200 miles an hour, and a drive shaft fell out of a car, and the car in front of him, I think

Kale Yarbril runs over the drive shaft and kicks it up in the air, and the drive shaft hit the roof of the car and split in two. And so half of the drive shaft, the bottom half, the drive shaft, the tail end of it, goes through the car, and the other half goes over the car. It ripped this drive shaft in half. and dad they interview him literally ned jarritt's on i think it was ned jarrots on pit road and goes down into the car and says hey what happened and dad said something about that that thing almost took my head off and literally came right by him and he had they had glass windshields back then and dad's face is bleeding

from all these little cuts and he's got all this glass embedded in his face while they're doing this interview and they fix and repair his car and put a windshield in it goes out there and finish the race. Good heavens. And he came really close to being, you know. That would have. That could have been a serious situation. But anyhow, that's terrifying to think about, but what a pile of grit.

I like saying that about that. But I was driving down the road in my truck one day, and there was a truck. dump truck about two or three cars in front of me hauling a bunch of wood and debris, right? It's dust, you know, dirt flying out of this thing. It's hopping down the road and a trunk or a tree limb comes out of this truck and lands on the ground. And it was shaped, it was kind of arped like a fork. And so the car in front of me run over it. And imagine like if you slap your hand on a fork, how it flips the fork, right?

basically kick this route up in the air this thing's about a foot and a half long and I'm watching it flip through the air lands right on my windshield as I'm going down the road and poked a hole in it and knocked a I mean the whole windshield busted right and the whole I'm watching it's happened and the whole inside of the truck filled up

with glass dust like when that windshield goes and it whole thing is shattered and the whole inside of the truck filled up with this sort of haze and I was like just for a second I was like I got to close my eyes because this is glass

right and it's like it's in the air right and then I closed my eyes stop the truck and my eyes back up and all that had settled and then yeah I had to put some helicopter tape on my windshield to get around for the next couple days until I can get new one

that was the only time anything like that ever happened to me next question next question from zach thomas what's the single biggest thing needing improvement on the next shun cars following Daytona well you know i think they're going to be looking at the uh you know they had some wheels come off i guess uh the drive pins were getting sheared or something i mean there's probably going to be some part failures or things that need to be beefed up and nascar will have to go to these you know in entities that are selling whatever part it is and have to redesign it or improve the design on it. And I think that, you know, they'll try to get those parts out as quick as possible.

But, you know, we're going to see completely different loads and the car will be stressed in different ways when we go to these next several racetracks than what we saw at Daytona. So I think we all need to be prepared, you know, for this to be a little bit of a process, right, working the bugs out of this car and finding flaws in it, right, that need fixing. So don't, and don't everybody get all alarmed when you, when something does become a reoccurring issue, right? It's just, you know, I don't, I think it might be too much for us to expect them to design a car that's completely flawless right out of the gate. It's going to have, you know, it's going to have its problems. But I don't really know of anything that I, that stood out to me watching the race.

I kind of watched the race as a fan and didn't really, you know, get too. much into details. But there were some wheel issues and breaking wheels and whatnot. And they're going to look at that and find out why that happened and move forward. Next question from Seamus Tammell. Kinseth is in the booth this weekend. What are you looking forward to about that? And has he asked for any advice?

He didn't, but I gave it. I texted yesterday. And I said, hey, man, you excited? And he goes, yeah. He said that he was approached about doing it and thought, why not? He felt like he needed to put himself in an uncomfortable situation, and that's certainly going to be uncomfortable out of the gate. I told him, I said, just keep telling yourself over and over and over, energy, energy, energy.

Keep your energy up. The toughest part of the race is the first stage and more so maybe the second stage. The third stage is always going to carry you because it's going to be full of drama and full of excitement. it typically the intensity is ramping up in that third stage and that helps you maintain your energy but when there is not a lot of energy on the track in that stage two or stage one you know you've got you've got to you've got to bring it and I told him I said just be yourself and if you're excited about what you're seeing tell us that tell us what tell us what you're enjoying and I think he'll be great he's going to have he's got such a dry sense of humor so hopefully people will get his jokes

when he tells him. He might tell some, you might even not even know as a joke, right? Oh, 100%. That's my worry for him, is that he is so dry. Like, that will be interesting to see an energetic Matt Kinza throughout the race and him not inject his dry sense of humor in it. I can't imagine that happening, actually.

I can't wait to talk to him afterwards. Maybe we should reach out to him during the show next week and see if he'll come on for about 10 minutes to give us feedback on how his experience went. Next question. Next question from Sean Berg. With Pitco guys working both Xfinity and Cup cars, how hard is it going to be for the tire changers to go back and forth

between the single lug and five lugs? Do you expect that we will see mistakes? Well, there's some teams that won't even let their teams change the five lugs. Some of these cup guys might not even want their A-class changing Xfinity wheels anymore. It is so important. It is so critical that those are. those are done properly and right and you know you don't have wheel pins shearing and tires coming off and so forth you want you know you want your best guys ready to go so they might not even

allow some of them to to do that job or to do a truck for some extra money right that makes a lot of these guys that are the B team very valuable you know and you you you might think that it would create a lot of opportunity for some guys that weren't getting a lot of work to work in the truck and the Xfinity series. So we'll just have to see how that nets out over the year. And I think certainly when we get in the playoffs and get toward the more critical part of the season, you're definitely going to see these teams on the cup side

that are still trying to race for this championship to really put some strict boundaries on what their guys can do. Next question from Jake McGinley. Any updates on a high rock release for stores around North Carolina? Well, you just follow high rock on social media and obviously me. I'm going to be trying to promote as much as we can anytime we have anything going on.

But we were supposed to ship in the spring and they're moving that up a little bit because stores are asking for it and there's demand. And we had a great weekend in Daytona with our sales. And so you'll be seeing it a lot sooner. But that's the only way you're going to know exactly what date things are going to become available

is by staying close to those social media handles, me and High Rock. Next question from Blake. Mitchell, do you have any interest in being a space tourist? No. I mean, you know, I think it would be great to know what going into space is like, but I'm going to give that a little time, right? I'm going to let them sort out the bugs and make sure, you know, get a good track record before we ever looked into that, but it's probably going to be too expensive. I'm not, I, the cost alone would probably be a deterrent for me, don't you think? It's space, man.

Well, yeah, but that is a very expensive hobby. To go up there and come back with nothing tangible, I don't know. You're paying a lot for a story. Well, they'll probably give you like a certificate or a t-shirt. All right. Say I've went to space and here we are. What questions you got for me? What was it like, man?

Did you float? A little weightness, a little weightlessness, and then we came back. How was peeing? Huh? I don't know. I mean, you're really, you're going to ask me how peeing was? Yeah, I don't know.

That's really. Came to mine. Okay. Well, now that we're off the rails. That's all I had for today. That's all your questions. Well, you're going to make your last ask junior out with that question that Matthew said, how was peeing? Didn't you have a question for him, Mike?

Did I? Oh, yeah. I did. What was it? Oh. I did. I don't remember what it was, though. Chimilla.

Chimmy Chonson. Chomsen. Chimmy Chonson. Yeah, I posted on Instagram. That's right. I posted on Instagram the other day that we have taken ownership of a chinchilla. And you went into my comment saying that you had one. It was a chinchilla.

Wait, is there a difference? Because yours looks like a rabbit. You thought it was a rabbit. It looks like a rabbit. I didn't read. I just saw the picture. He didn't have a chinchilla. You've never had a chinchilla.

I had a rabbit. So when I was working... Still could be interesting. When I was a mechanic at a dealership, I got, for some reason, I thought it would be cool to get a pet rabbit. So I had a pet rabbit. And at night, I would cover his cage, thinking, man, you know, probably wants to go sleep. And that thing would go crazy all night.

Like, it wouldn't move the whole... It wouldn't move during the light of day. It just sits there and maybe drink a little water and grab a little bite to eat. But when you turn the... lights out and try to go to bed, it's racket, chaos, like it's running laps in this cage. I mean, seriously, it was very loud. I couldn't

wait to get rid of this thing. So I actually gave him to a, uh, one of the mechanics at the dealership was moving out west and I said, please take this rabbit and he did. What type of rabbit was it? Just a rabbit, I reckon. I don't know. I don't know.

Like white rabbit? Not a white. Nope, not a white rabbit. It was dark colored. But, um, so when I saw your picture, I went, oh boy. He's not going to like this thing at night. It's going to be loud. And what did you tweet? What did you say?

It is, the party starts at about 11 p.m. It's like, I swear, you hear, nt, nt, nt, nt, I mean, I swear things just making racket, but it's not a rabbit. But apparently, it's just all in the family. Like if it's the chinchilla, a rabbit, I mean, they're nocturnal. We're learning.

And so. Isn't it regrettable, but they don't tell you that beforehand? Well, my daughter, my daughter, seemed to know it. She has been wanting a chinchilla for two years and we finally broke down and got her one. But yeah, I could have done a little bit more research in that. What is the chinchilla? Is it a rabbit? Is it a rabbit? They all sort of look the same. I mean, but by all means, don't call it a rabbit. Don't call it a rat. Don't call it anything it looks like because they take offense to it. Not the chichillas, of course, but you know, the owners of the chichel. It's a rodent.

It's a rodent. It's a rodent. It's a rodent. I mean, I know a rodent when I see a rodent. That's a rodent. It's probably a rabbit, but things selling for five bucks. They're selling five dollars more if they call them the chinchillas. It's not. You buy a rabbit or you get this chinchilla. Chinchilla does sound cool, man. You get this chinchilla very unique. They definitely feel different.

I love the name, though. That's my favorite part. What did you name him? Chimmy Chompton. It's so freaking awesome. Why would you want to say that? It's such a long name. It's awesome.

We actually had this conversation before the show. I have a tendency that I like to name my pets with the first and a last name, and I call them the full name. Okay. You do. Yeah. And by the way, every time we've said Chimmy Johnson, somebody laughs. It's funny, dude.

Gus has, my dog Gus, I brought him today. He has three names. I didn't know that. Captain Augustus McCray. There you go. Oh. But we call him Gus. Yeah, Captain Augustus McCray.

Listen, we have to entertain ourselves with what we call it because that's the only entertaining thing about this genchilla. Everything else is a nuisance. So give it one good quality. Oh. Well, okay. Did anybody wish you well on the chat? Yeah, we had a lot of people that

so they would miss me and good luck and I appreciate that so much. So thank you. Very cool. All right. Leah's last show. Very sad. All right. So that's a pretty good show, man. I was so excited to have Ernie come all this way. And honestly, man, how about the career path that he's on pretty impressive it's impressive he just continues to win in things i mean like i'm

now an indy lights fan never knew i uh i got into the indie light season but here i am i'm with you mike i hundred percent agree i can't wait for that season start to see how he does i know you know like he wants us to keep our expectations low at the start and let him get used to the car and all those things but i'm going to be watching all year to see how he progresses a dale junior fan making it in indy car how about that a born dale junior fan that's that you yeah you're We've got a reason to pull for him even more. That's right. Great show.

Thanks, everybody. Great questions on Ask Junior. Yep. Next week, who's our guest? It's not Leah. No, she'll be a guest now when she comes back. I'm going to be on the Asch Jr. You'll ask the question.

I'm going to ask a question. Oh, my God. Leah, we wish you well. Thank you. Who is our guest? Are we allowed to say it? Do you want to announce here? Who is it?

Alan Sir Jr. Oh! Alice is Jr. next week. Unbelievable. Can't wait. We'll see you then. Damn, just clip that, by the way, and send it to Matt Kenseth and close and say that needs to be your energy. That was fucking awesome. Good job, man.

Don't people on their last day get like really fancy presents, like watches? I hope so. Yeah. This isn't technically her last day. Oh, okay. So Friday you got a big watch. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook. TikTok and Instagram.