The Dale Jr. Download - 376 - Robert Wickens: Unbreak-able

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Being paralyzed from a horrific racing crash has not stopped the drive of Robert Wickens. The paraplegic racer shares his inspirational story with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis.His story is also unorthodox. How did he get into racing? The exposure came from television, NASCAR and a bootleg, sex-free version of Days of Thunder. Dale Jr. and Robert connect on the mutual bond of matchbox cars, which they both, as children, used to emulate the races they watched. The two racers laugh sharing memories of innovating their makeshift tracks. The passion grew and a decision to abandon stick-and-ball sports led Wickens to go-kart racing. From there, his career took off. He moved to the states and then to Europe chasing his dream.While in Europe he navigated the pathway up the motorsports ladder in various series of competition. It was a journey that took him from open-wheeled racecars to German touring cars with Mercedes. While in the Mercedes program, his path even crossed with Formula 1 great Michael Schumacher, who served as an advisor to the team. Wickens earned his FIA Super license and was a reserve driver for a Formula 1 team. He was under contract with an F1 organization but the opportunity was severed by a driver with a bigger checkbook.Wickens’ return to North America came with an opportunity to race in the NTT Indycar Series fulltime with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. The rookie came out of the gate with authority capturing the pole at the ending of the qualifying session at the season opener at the St. Petersburg course in Florida. Wickens then led the majority of the race before controversial contact with two laps to go between he and his good friend Alexander Rossi. The incident took him out contention for the win.His Indycar progression was going well. Then August 19, 2018. Wickens lined up 6th for the 500-mile race at the tricky Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania. The seventh lap would change Robert Wickens life forever. While battling Ryan Hunter-Reay, a crash sent his car into the catchfence violently at a speed of 210 mph. Wickens tries to recall the scattered memories he has of the day, that live in bits and pieces in his mind.The accident resulted in badly fractured legs, arms, hands, ribs, neck, a pulmonary contusion and thoracic spinal fracture. Robert Wickens survived the crash but was now faced with being a paraplegic. Wickens reveals what he knows about the time he spent in an induced coma and the struggle to just survive.. He then opens up about the pain he endured from his injuries, both physically and mentally, and the ripple effect its had on so many people in his life.His journey since the crash has been damn-near miraculous. Driven by a thirst for independence and a desire to return to racing, Robert Wickens fought through various levels of rehabilitation to get to his ultimate goal. That goal? Strapping in behind the wheel of a racecar. At first, E-Sports and iRacing were his proving grounds. Now, the next chapter has begun as Wickens is competing in IMSA's Pilot Series for Hyundai in a racecar with hand-controls.It's a journey that has inspired so many, including everyone in the room. OPEN SEGMENTBefore Wickens' arrival, Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals what it was like to be a part of the nomination panel, for the first time, at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The DJD then debates who they would select from that list to make it into the next class of the HOF. Who should be in the Hall and why? ASKJR Presented By Xfinity Hannah Newhouse picks the best fan questions from Twitter and the Dirty Mo Media live chat. We discuss: April fools and dirty pranks Danica Patrick catching the bouquet at Dale and Amy's wedding. The advantage of tape on the grille of your racecar after Kyle Busch's penalty. How the Next Gen car will do on dirt. How iRacing will get its hands dirty in the console game scene. Who built the table? Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following podcast. The following podcast. The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. In the silence in the black and blue, we slowly coming through. All I think about is you. The secrets that I never knew. Into the fourth position and is now looking for third.

Right now it's Rossi the leader. Then it's power. Wicked John. They're going to make contact. Big contact. Lower the air. It's Robert Wooden spins. Ryan Hunter Ray was just underneath him.

The car of Robert Wickeens made contact with Ryan Hunter Ray, got airborne, got into the catch fence, and came back to rest on the racetrack. A number of cars involved in a spectacular crash here. Holding my eyes and make me see. If I'm honest, I just want to heal. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr.

download here in the Bojangles Studios. With me, as always, my co-host, Mike Davis. How's it going, Mike? Having a great week. Never been better, buddy. All right. We've got Hannah Newhouse. As promised. You're still surprised she came back. Hey, but she's Hannah New House this week, not Newhouse.

New House. She gets full introduction. Matthews here, as usual. We've got a great show. Robert Wiccans. I can't believe we got Robert coming in here. He's going to tell us a great story about coming back from near tragedy and And I raced into any car series.

Don't want to divulge too much. Obviously, everybody knows he was in this terrible accident, suffered so many injuries. He's going to tell us all about that. He's made a comeback. He's back behind the wheel of race cars, driving and enjoying his life. We're going to hear about it. And I'm sure we're all going to be inspired by that. But first off, let's dive right into our open segment.

We've got a very important thing coming up here over the next couple of weeks. The voting for the Hall of Fame is. And so we wanted to discuss that a little bit. There's a lot of chatter on Twitter about it. I've been diving into that conversation a little bit on social media as well. You know, I was on the ballot and got elected into the Hall of Fame, and I went through that whole process. It's an incredible experience for anybody.

Obviously, I think it's kind of the top of the mountain. It's this giant check mark of approval by not only your, you know, the supportive fan base, but a lot of peers and industry folk are the ones that are responsible for pushing people. people through down this assembly line, right? There's a vote to put people on the ballot, and then there's a whole different committee that gets together and decides, okay, these are the people on the ballot, and those are the ones that will actually go in to this class. So it's a quite thorough process. And now that you're a Hall of Fame member, what do you participate in?

All right. So I was asked to be part of the organizing and selecting who would be on the pioneer ballot this year. Beyond that, I am no longer involved in this year's class. I don't know how they choose and select when, who is involved in what process, what part of the process. I may get asked one day to come help them do more, and I can't wait. I mean, I'm totally into the history of the sport and really enjoyed the conversations, very thought-provoking, very educational. There's a lot of names on these lists that I honestly have no idea who these people are. Oh, really? Right.

And you need to be transparent on this. So I think voting into the Hall of Fame obviously is really important. It's important that the right people are making these choices. I don't even know if I'm on that list. You know, when I went into the room to do this pioneer ballot, there were a couple names where looking at the stats. I'm like, how come I don't know this guy? Or how come I don't know more about this guy?

Maybe I don't belong in this room, right? If I don't know everything about every one of the – and so it was intimidating and personally frustrating at points because, man, were you passing? over somebody that really did deserve. And now, you know, let's move beyond that moment and get to the ballot. When you look at the ballot, they all belong in the Hall of Fame. If you're on the ballot, you're a Hall of Famer. I think that's a given. Everybody that's on this ballot right now easily could go in. Is Hall of Fame worthy? Worthy. Good point, Mike. So looking around on

the internet and judging by a conversation, nobody's wrong. Right. If you say, man, that's not my three. I don't agree with your three. I agree with this three. Nobody's wrong. Okay, everybody's right. I, you know, I said that I, you know, I would put Matt Kenseth in because they put me in last year, right? Right. Matt and me came in at the same time. I wouldn't say our careers mirrored each other because he won a championship. I won the Xfinity Series championships over Matt, but he comes into the Cup Series and beats, you know, gets to the championship table before I ever did. And one of the rookie the year, won 39 cup races. Daytona 500.

Yep, Daytona, all the big races, an all-star race. So Matt, to me, is in. If you don't vote Matt in, you know, those type of accolades, I don't know how, I don't know how you don't, you know, and that's the, that is the tricky part about voting these guys in. You got a guy like Larry Phillips, who should have been voted in years ago that may again get passed over because a new guy came on like Matt Kenseth, who is deserving? Right.

Right? If Matt is not in the conversation, Larry's your guy. But now that Matt pops onto the scene and you look at what Matt did, then you got to have that conversation of who's more worthy, right? I think it's an insult that Larry's not in, but it's also an insult to not put Matt in, right? His first chance, he's a first ballot. And then you go a little bit deeper than that. Kirk Shelmerdine, I think it's lost in Dad's shadow.

I think that he doesn't get enough credit for helping Dad win those titles. And not only helping Dad win those titles, but organizing and running and managing one of the more popular teams in the sport. Before Ray Everingham ever had the Rainbow Warriors, Kirk Shelmerdine had the flying aces. And I know that I'm biased. I am biased. I am going to admit that.

But they were the first team, I guess they weren't. The Wood Brothers would be the pioneers in developing a brand, right, around the race team and around the crew. Kurt Shelmerdine, unintentionally, I don't think he ever cared about a brand or developing any kind of a personality, but they were kind of the junkyard dogs. They were the flying aces. And they embraced that bad boy image. and they fit the mold of Dad's persona as the intimidator. Kurt was all in.

They won a lot of races together. If you look back over Dad's career, he wasn't a lock to win no matter what car he was driving. He had years where he struggled. He had years where the crew chief or the equipment wasn't where it needed to be, and he was in a winner in that situation. So you've got to give Kurt the credit for what Dad was accomplishing. And if you line Kurt up against the other crew chiefs,

that are either on the ballot being considered for the ballot or have already been elected in, he measures up, right? And we keep passing him over. And I think it's because he's in Dad's shadow a bit. Again, also, big names and people like Matt Kenseth or myself come on to the ballot, right, and take up that one spot, that guaranteed position is gone. I think that you could absolutely, again, you can't go wrong with any of these guys on this ballot, but Matt Kenseth and Shambardine would be my two.

Read out who's on the ballot and then we can go. Neil Bonnet, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Matt, Kansas, Larry Phillips, Ricky Rudd, and Kirk Schaherdine. That's the modern era ballot. So I think that Matt and Kurt could go in. I think a lot of people are going to go with Larry Phillips. He belongs. Absolutely. Larry Phillips should have been in many ballots ago.

All right. Larry Phillips didn't win Cup races, Cup championships, but he dominated the, you know, the Winston Racing series, the local track ranks, won national championships, track titles, an incredible amount of local track wins, feature wins. He, if you have a Mount Rushmore of short track racers, he's on it. He might be the first.

guy on it. Mark Martin and all those guys will vouch that Larry is absolutely deserving of your vote for the Hall of Fame. He should already be in there. If Larry does get voted in this year over a Matt Kenseth, over a Shelmerdine, or anyone else on this modern day ballot, that's not a wrong choice. That's a correct choice. I would have a hard time deciding, I would really be sitting there having a hard time choosing between Larry or She's. I think Matt's in. I wrestle between Shelmadeen or Larry.

And then people go, well, why not Neil Bonnet? Why not Harry again? You know, why not these other recognizable names, you know? But you got to, I kind of got to go back to the stats, the championships, their impact on the sport,

long term. And again, they're all deserving, but. And to be clear, you can only put two of the modern areas, right? That's right. And then you can put one of the pioneers. So that's why you had, that's why there's a decision and a choice

and conflict and all these things you go back and forth. Somebody asked me why not Carl Edwards. I think Carl's coming. I'm not giving up on my hope that Carl comes back to drive again. I know that it's slim to none. I know it might not happen. That's why I'm not going to vote him into the Hall of Fame because in my world, my... One good drought in the farming scene, all of a sudden kind of just, you know, maybe you've got to go back to racing.

He's Hall of Fame worthy. He's going to go into the Hall of Fame one day. But I'm hoping that he might come back and run another race or two, maybe win another racer two, right? So anyhow, you know, the modern era ballot for me, Mike, is a little more straightforward, obviously. The pioneer ballot's where it gets murky. That's because a lot of these guys, their careers and their accolades and their impact on the sport is only really known to certain few. And you have to really dive into, you know, doing the homework and the legwork to understand what these guys' careers were all about. And the impact they had on

the sport of NASCAR. And so that's when it got a little bit more difficult. But, you know, if you were going to choose, I know you thought about this last night, about your modern era ballot, Mike, who are you going for? This is hard. And I actually told you this morning, I'm like, man, I'm glad I don't have to do this in real life

because actually you end up feeling conflicted as you go through them. And then you all start to feel a little slimy because you know, like you want to put somebody in and then all of a sudden you're like, but I don't in my heart feel like it. This is where I netted out. My heart, I wanted Harry Gant, Kurt Shelmerdine, and AJ Foyt.

Oh, we're just talking about modern era. Yeah, yeah. My head was Jeff Burton and Harry Gant. All right. My verdict, my verdict ended up being Harry Gant, and I got my reasons, and I can go into them. Let's go into them. And also, Kirk Shelmerdine. Wow, Harry Gant.

Let's hear that. Listen. Let's hear a good argument for Harry. My argument for Harry Gant is I try to not just apply the criteria of statistics and wins and championships and that kind of thing, because I know that that's going to be well represented in the thing. I think you have to also look at who left an indelible impression upon multiple generations of race fans or the sport. And if you have a NASCAR Hall of Fame, just like you were talking about Larry Phillips, I don't know how you couldn't have Harry Gant in it. Yeah. Harry Gant had, you know, first of all, he was like 187 when he started racing,

and he did all his good wins and all his, you know, his month in October, I'm sorry, September, when he won those races in that car, in the 33, the Skull Bandit, he transcended the sport. He was in movies, had even speaking parts in the mainstream movies. He, to me, left an indelible impression upon multiple generations. The Skull Bandit, it's still something that we talk about today. And I know that I am biased too because Harry Gant was doing that stuff when I started becoming a race fan, right? So like that matters. And in this discussion, I'm admitting it.

Right. I will also add, Mike, that Harry Gant was as prolific and successful in the lower ranks of NASCAR, racing sportsmen cars and in what is now the Xfinity series. So not only can you argue that his. His cup accolades and his impact on the sport at the cup level is important, but I think it's only half the story, half the story of who Harry Gant truly was in NASCAR. Personally, I learned that when we were doing Lost Speedways. We couldn't go to a racetrack without Harry Gant's name coming up.

New Asheville, Columbia, Metro line up. Yeah, Columbia. I mean, like, Harry Gant was the man. And you know what? He's still the man. He proved it when he came in here on our show. And so I'm just like, listen, you said it best. Everybody on that ballot belongs in the Hall of Fame, right?

They're all worthy. I just don't know at this point how you can have a Hall of Fame and not get Harry Gant in there first. And that's my point. You made a great point. You made a great argument. You convinced me that, like Larry Phillips, if I wake up after May 4th, which is the voting and find out that Harry Gann is nominated to go in, it's not a wrong answer. I can be happy with that. If it's Harry Gant, Larry Phillips, and not Shelmerdine or Kenseth,

I could say that's a great ballot. That's going to be an awesome ceremony. Imagine Harry's speech. Oh, man. He'll talk about race cars. That's it. I mean, like, he'll just talk about setups, and it'll be a beautiful, pure rain. Or the one, the roof he put on that morning.

Right, exactly. I mean, he's just the quintessential, you know, badass. And so listen, that was how I justified Harry Gant after much struggle. Now, listen, again, if you go back to the criteria of leaving an indelible impression upon a sport over multiple generations that extends beyond statistics, then, like, I did not know what to do with Kirk Shelmerdine. In my heart, I want to Kirk Shelmerdine. I think that's what a lot of people struggle with. It seems like the Hall of Fame doesn't know what to do with him. And so you go, what do you do with Kirk because, you know, would people know who weren't fans of your dad?

that Kirk was still leaving that impression on the sport. And you can make an argument that no, because he can almost easily forgetably. Like you said, he's in a shadow. However, if the greatest racer of all time is in the Hall of Fame and is regarded today as the greatest and just continually be in the conversation, then his crew chief belongs in there.

It just does. It just does. And he won four championships. I think you can make an argument that would Dale and Hart have been any less great without. out Kirk Shulmerdine, I think Earnhardt was going to be great regardless, right? And I think drivers, good drivers make average crew chiefs look better, more so than great crew chiefs make average drivers.

I think average drivers over a long time will expose themselves as being average driver. Like, I don't think you can fake that overtime. All that said, though, I just don't think the greatest race of all time, his crew chief who won the majority of his championships with him, doesn't have a place in the same hall. I just think he does. And I think it's time you put Kirk Shelmerdine in the damn hall. All those ballots you mentioned will be in there.

You know, they got the statistic. They got all that stuff. But Kirk Shelmerdine belongs in the Hall of Fame once and for all. Say Kurt continues to be passed over, right? There is at no point where they become ineligible to be voted in. They can leave the ballot. They can come back. They can go for years.

One thing, though, that is also important to note is that, so say Larry Phillips, who I think's been on this modern era ballot or on the ballot for seven years. If he goes 10 years on this modern era ballot and isn't voted in, he is immediately eligible to be on the pioneer ballot. Okay. All right. So that would be an area where he would be more likely to be voted in. So I think that says to me for a guy like Larry Phillips or Kurt, it is kind of frustrating that these guys continue to be passed over on this modern air ballot. But in a couple of years, three years' time for Larry Phillips,

he will then be eligible for the Pioneer ballot, which I think increases his chances of being voted in to the Hall of Fame a lot. You drop him down into that Pioneer ballot just with these five names, Sam Art, AJ Foy, Banjo Matthews, Herschel McGriff, and Ralph Moody, I think Larry's an easy choice amongst that group. And so it gets a little more difficult when he's on this modern era ballot and you have these more recognizable names like Harry Gant and Neil Bonnet and so forth. Yeah, but Kirk Shelmerdine doesn't stand a chance on a pioneer ballot, doesn't he?

Why, doesn't he? Do you think? I do because. Does he belong in it, though? No, well, not now, but I'm saying in time. Yeah, I mean, the guy's been around since the 70s. Look, that's not, we don't get to choose. That's the rule.

If he goes 10 years on this modern era ballot isn't elected in, he's immediately eligible for the pioneer ballot. And that's a great thing. I think that's good. And nobody becomes ineligible. They can drop off. They can come back. They can, you know, all the ebb and flow of the voting process never really negates a guy's chance or lessens a guy's chance or completely voids them from the process. Hey, Dirty Mo Media fans, do not skip this because we've created a once-in-a-lifetime event just for you.

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It'll change your life and it will change the lives of anyone you. you bring with you. Again, dirtymomedia.com is the site. Look for the ultimate experience link or just go straight to it at dirtymomedia.com backslash ultimate experience. Let's move on down to this pioneer ballot. It's Sam R. J. Foyke, Banjo Matthews, Hershey McGriff, Ralph Moody. This was the one where I was in the room with the committee. We were talking. We were we were button heads. Everybody given great arguments and points towards different people. There were multiple names to be considered, I'll be honest, looking at this list, three of the guys I voted for did not get on there. Oh. Yeah. I voted Sam and Ralph Moody to the guys that I, that were on my ballot are the ones

that made it. I did not vote for FOIP and did not vote for Banjo. And it was difficult, but I did not put Herschel on my list. So this is where it was tough, man. There were names on this ballot or names that we were considering that I honestly didn't know as much as I wished I did. This was one where I think a lot of people would suffer and be frustrated. They were only in the room with me, only a handful of guys who had really lived in that time frame, right, and really experienced these guys and who they were. And so we really leaned on some of those guys to tell us, like, hey, man, what was this guy like what was his persona how what when he changed you know when he walked into the garage did it change

the garage um does it does he does he does he belong on this ballot and so there was a lot of conversation i know that you mentioned you would you would vote for a j for he well my heart i was i was not only is he on the ballot but you would vote him into the hall of fame not no i didn't ultimately decide on a j because of the reasons like he didn't actually his body of work is not primarily in NASCAR. I just had my heart because A.J. Foyt, just being the character that he is, and then you go to your head, and I said, Ralph Moody, it's got to be Ralph Moody. I mean, Ralph Moody, go back to my indelible impression upon multiple generations of sports,

Ralph Moody is that guy. I mean, and I think Sam Art actually is before A.J. Foyt, frankly. So I went with Ralph Moody just because, listen, what people mostly don't know is that, I mean, obviously, you know that Holman and Moody is, you know, he's the Moody of Home and Moody. But NASCAR in Charlotte is the hub is largely because of Home and Moody, right? You could get the stuff from Home and Moody. Plus the safety innovations that I think started paving the way to where we are today.

I think he's largely, you know, credited for that. And I think that we today would be a different sport without Ralph Moody. Now, you know, A.J. Foyt think we'd be the same sport. if AJ Foote had never been in NASCAR. No knock on AJ Foight, one of the greatest of all time. However, his body of work wasn't primarily in NASCAR. When a Daytona 500, just didn't race a whole lot,

was a NASCAR owner, but that's not what we know AJ Foote for. So that's where I knitted out. It actually wasn't that hard when you actually put your head to it. I would agree. I didn't put, you know, there's so many names in the Pioneer conversation that I think belong on this ballot above AJ AJ is one of the greatest race car drivers of all time.

He's on the Mount Rushmore with Andretti, maybe Richard Petty or dad or Pearson. But he's on that, you know, he's at the top of the mountain as far as driving and global impact on motorsports. But his impact on NASCAR, I can't say is strong enough to be considered for the, it's, you know, didn't they just recently try to elect Dolly Parton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? and she said, no, no, no, I don't think I belong in there. Wasn't that? That's right. Yeah, that's to me is sort of similar.

Like, we all love A.J. Foyt. We all think that, you know, we all admire and believe him to be this exceptional character that was, you know, once in a generation talent. But I'm not sure he belongs in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, certainly not over a Sam Ard, who, you know, won untold amounts of feature races and, championships and was as good or better arguably than Jack Ingram, who's in the Hall of Fame. Banjo Matthews built race car chassis. We know that he built race cars, winning race cars, but he also was so instrumental in building, you know, building chassis for so many race teams. You'd go buy Banjo Matthews chassis like you might buy a Loughlin or a Hutchinson Pagan

chassis, you know, and he was kind of the first, one of the first guys next to the and Moody that were building race cars that you could go buy and win with. And he was instrumental in unintentionally sort of steering the sport in a better place, right? Herschel McGriff, you know, a lot of people in the room when we were having the conversation with the voting panel, everybody, there was a lot of love for Herschel. And I think the longevity, you know, he's kind of like the REM of NASCAR, you know, the, if you think about bands that you loved that made music good music for a very, very long time, you know, that's kind of Herschel McGriff.

He could, he, he, he raced forever, was successful for a very long time, impacted NASCAR much more on the west coast. So he, he's not as well known, not as well understood where we are right now in North Carolina, but over on the west coast, his impact in motorsports and in NASCAR is much more understood and appreciated possibly. You made great points on Ralph Moody. I think I'd put Sam Ard in, not only because he has the statistics, but when I was in the early 80s, he was doing this in the 70s as well, but that was before my time.

But when I started really paying attention to racing and dad was running the Xfinity races driving either Robert G's car or his own car, you know, they, you would go, we'd go run on the short tracks and you'd most likely get beat by. Jack Ingram Moore, Sam Ard. When we'd go to Charlotte, Sam could still beat you. When you'd go to these bigger racetracks, like Daytona or Charlotte, Rockingham,

where Sam was a short track ace, but he could also build a winning race car that could outrun any of the cup regulars who came down and raced in the Xfinity Series. I really can't say that about a lot of the regulars that raced in the sportsmen what is now the Xfinity Series

back in the 70s and 80s. And so, you know, a lot of those guys could build short track cars that could outrun you, but when it came to the maybe Charlotte or the Big 300 at Charlotte, you know, a lot of them didn't even have, either didn't have the motor

or the, you know, maybe the technical alliance with the cup level, that would outrun them. You know, they would have a hard time. Jack Ingram, those guys would have a hard time kind of, you know, Tommy Ellis.

the sportsman Xfinity Series regulars would not be able to really run with Earnhard or, you know, Tim Richmond or Jeff Boudine. Sam R. could not only run with them, he would beat them. Yeah. I remember in 82 or 83, it was my birthday, and they were racing at Charlotte. And dad could not catch Sam all day long. Sam outrun dad and ended up winning the race. And I was so sad because it was my birthday.

I wanted dad to win. But that left an impact on me. I knew Sam's son, raced against him in the, in Myrtle Beach, I think that he would do a great job getting up there and speaking for his father. And so, you know, I think Sam would have continued to win and had more success. Had he not been injured in 19, I think it was 85 or 84 at Rockingham. It's, you know, again, there's no wrong answers. I only feel like that, you know, we got a, the conversation could be had about FOIA,

and I would love to have more conversation. I'm not completely roadblocking a FOIA nomination. I'd love to hear more reasoning behind how he made it to this point, made it to this ballot. You know, just like you swayed me with Harry Gam, maybe you could convince me that Fort belongs in the Hall of Fame. It's tough to choose him over a moody or some of these, you know, Banjo or some of these other guys who really lived it. Their lives were NASCAR.

Their world and their livelihood was revolving around the sport. You certainly understand that the conversation absolutely has an influence on how you end up, you know, the result of your votes. I mean, like, what you just said about Sam Ard, I knew Sam Ard. Like, A.J. Foight keeps getting knocked down further and further. And it's like, hey, my heart at one point had A.J. Ford at the top.

And there is arguments, by the way, you could make with AJ. His winning percentage in NASCAR, I mean, he didn't race that many times. And he won seven of them, including a Daytona 500. So, like, there's arguments that can be made. But, yeah, you can't put him over Sam Ard. You can't put him over Ralph Moody if it's a NASCAR Hall of Fame. If it's a Motor sports

Racing Hall of Fame Motorsports Hall of Fame there's a different conversation That's right Do you guys have a vote? Hannah Matthew Oh yeah

Let's go to the booth I had the same feelings about Harry Gant But I couldn't not put Kenseth in first class You look at His career also gets ignored In what he's done

In the Xfinity series Which he had so much success there But to me Larry Phillips Has to go in this year of my personal opinion. Here's why. NASCAR Cup series, incredibly represented at the elite level of our sport. NASCAR Xfinity series, pretty well represented. Truck series with like Hornaday, modifies with Jerry Cook, Richie Evans, Mike Stefanik. The short track weekly grassroots racing

sector of NASCAR has not been represented in this Hall of Fame. This is the guy to do it. I mean, you look at, you know, even his comeback from the fire he had that burnt like, I don't know, 75% of his body, and he comes back within a year to be winning races and his cancer battle and being able to win races throughout chemotherapy, the guy is, like you said, Dale, you nailed it on the head. Didn't come from my region. I'm a Northeast Modified guy, but this guy is on the Mount Rushmore. As far as Pioneer ballot, there's no doubt Ralph Moody, in my opinion.

Nobody's wrong on that, except for I think AJ is a little curious. I don't think he belongs on a NASCAR Hall of Fame ballot. That's just my personal opinion, even though he's one of my favorite racers of all time, but Moody's my shoe in there. So you went Kenseth, Larry Phillips, Larry Phillips, and Ralph Moody. I think that's a great great ballot. And here's where the generational difference comes in, because I saw this ballot yesterday, and I was like, ooh, I would have to do a lot of research on a lot of these guys

to even know who most of them were. Like Dylan sat there, and we were going through him, and he's like, I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is either. So, like, the generational difference there is, like, I had to do the research. So on the emotional standpoint, Harry Gant is someone that I know. I recognize as someone who probably never even watched him race, but I know the skull car. Like, that is an emotional grab to me for NASCAR history. If I walk through the, you know, Hall of Fame, I recognize Harry Gant stuff.

So that was one, same with Ricky Red, the emotional grab that grabs you. It's just a name that I know with my generation. And on the pioneer ballot, a little West Coast bias is Herschel McGriff. There you go. So we've got a Herschel McGriff in the room. Yeah. There you go. I think that's a great ballot as well.

Again, man, you know, we all were a little different on our opinions, but I don't think any of us are wrong. And so it'll be fun. I think, you know, for me, having been inducted in, it sparked my interest in how this all works out and who gets to go in this year. And May 4th, I think, is the day that they do the vote. May 4th, got it. I believe that's when the voting is going to happen. I don't know when they will end. announce who is actually on who are the nominees or who got nominated can't wait to find out man

i think there'll be a ton of conversation leading up to it and after about whether that was those the right choices or not all right mike so we're going to bring him robert wickens he's coming into the to the lobby right now got a really interesting story his introduction to motorsports was not what i thought and he's going to explain all that to us obviously a lot of people know him from overcoming this severe accident at Pocono many, many years ago. We've saw the inspirational videos of how he's fought back, and now he's behind the wheel of a race car in the pilot series, which is kind of like the Xfinity series in the Inso world of sports cars.

We've been talking about getting him on here for a while, really excited about having him come in here and tell us about his story. He's going to lay it all out there. Yeah. So are you ready for this? I think I'm ready for it. Listen, one of the sickest crashes you'll ever see. That was Robert Wiccans at Pocono, 2018.

He, before that was, I mean, listen, he was well on his way to become IndyCar stardom, was rookie of the year, all of these things right there at the front of him, like in his very first race, he was on the pole at St. Petersburg. This was 2018. Everything was set up right in front of him, was racing with his best friend. This was amazing. And then that crash, sick crash. Listen, I don't know what, like, it's like, it's like,

He's going to come in. I don't know what to ask him yet because it's like we can't even contemplate the climb that he's done. But what we do know is he raced again this year and he finished on the podium at Daytona. That's pretty impressive. I hope he's willing to expand on it and let us into his life a little bit. But, man, I've been waiting on this one for a while. Let's get him on in here. Robert Wiggins comes into the Bojangles studio.

goes to P1 of the last lap as quality. How about that? Robert Wicked goes to P1. You're fine, man. All right. We're waiting for you. Yeah, good to see you. Likewise.

Yeah, man. Welcome. That's a cool studio. Thanks. Yeah. That's great. This is me? This is you, bud.

We're pretty proud of this. Before we get settled, then I brought you guys something. Uh-oh. It's the reason why I'm late, I swear. Okay. I wasn't waiting for an Uber. Got you guys. A mini helmet.

Thanks, buddy. All right. Perfect. So I felt like... Let's see it. Let's pull it out. Yeah. Take a look at it.

So this is from... Let me get closer to the mic here. This was from my rookie season and IndyCar. Oh, okay. Ironically, all 400 of them arrived after my accident. Now I'm trying to offload all these things. Well, we'll throw it up on the shelf. Thanks.

They can get signed it and everything. Yeah. That thing's cool. Yeah. It's a new studio piece right there. It's going to be displayed proudly. I've heard. I spoke to some friends of mine that have been on the show,

and they said, like, make sure you bring something. So how do you know, you guys, your helmets and design and all that is a pretty big deal in NASCAR. A lot of drivers do a lot of different things. In your mind, like, what, what, how much influence do you have on your helmet, what it looks like, what colors are on there? Why are those colors on there? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think growing up, blue is always one of my favorite colors.

So primarily blue is stuck around with. with me. And then at the beginning, like when you're trying to find your identity, you know, I'm first generation of my family that I've raised, so I didn't have a base to like, you know, carry on a legacy or something of that manner. But for me, it was my older brother. We just looked at other helmets, found ones we liked. Yeah. Kind of took bits of pieces here and there to get us started and then it kind of has evolved. So if you take like the one of the greatest, maybe the greatest race car driver ever sent it, right? So he had a recognizable helmet. And I think in NASCAR, a lot of guys lean on sponsor colors.

There's some connection to the design of the car or their sponsor. But in open wheel and even in Europe and global motorsports, a lot of the helmets are a personal design that stays with you no matter what car you're driving. Is that the way it is in IndyCar? Sometimes. Or do guys kind of change it up? I think it depends on the team. Yeah.

You know, I've heard rumors that Penske has some control on color palettes. Yeah. Basically that the helmet needs to match the car. Okay. I think the driver can still have their design, but the color palette has to suit the sponsor that's on that car. Yeah. I've never had that. Yeah.

I've always been able to. I also really loved the contrast of if I was in a white car. You know, I loved, like, having a different colored, like a blue helmet always looked really good and stuff. So, like, I remember back in my junior categories, I was racing in Formula Reno 3.5. And my car was, like, fluorescent, orange, and black. And then I had, like, a bright blue helmet. And it just kind of, like, it looked kind of odd, but, like, everyone, it almost popped more than when it blended in, you know. Yeah.

I think that's what I liked about, Sennas and F1 and some of those guys that had the same helmets or a recognizable helmet, you know, no matter what car they were in. if they, because they're often team cars out there, you knew immediately when you saw the car who was driving it. For sure. And even Lewis Hamilton, you know, he always was yellow his whole childhood. I've heard the story that was because his dad wanted to spot him on the cart track, you know, the bright yellow helmet. He always knew where his kid was. And then he carried that all the way through his, you know, early years of Formula One. And then just recently he kind of switched it up. But then in 2022, he's gone back to his roots and he went back to a yellow helmet again. Very cool. How similar is the helmet that you are racing with this year to the mini-helmet?

that you just showed us. It's slightly larger. Other than that. Other than that. The scheme, the scheme of it. Is it similar? It's the same, yeah. The same one.

So you're sticking with it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been the same barring some sponsors that needed me to change some stuff around. But, yeah, the general design has been the same for a while now. Where'd you come from? I come from Toronto. Today? Today.

Oh, man. Came from Indianapolis. Okay. Everybody lives in Indie. Do y'all like see each other shopping at the girls store? Almost too often. Yeah, Indianapolis is weird, right? It's coming from like a large city like Toronto and living in Europe, I didn't know anybody.

So coming to Indy, it's like small town, big town feeling, you know, like everyone has like one degree of separation to someone else. But then you don't really see people that often, but you always hear it's like, oh yeah, I heard so-and-so was at the Apple store yesterday. Yes, yeah. That's the way it is in Mooresville with NASCAR drivers. You know, we don't run in each other, but we all know where each other's. there's been and what they're doing what they're up to because of that connection of the nowhere you can find them it gives me fear to actually like go out to a restaurant or to a bar or something you know who are you afraid you to run into there's got to be somebody you don't want to run into

your boss boss is normally yeah yeah try to avoid the early bird specials at some restaurants but yeah there you go yeah for the most part it's uh it's all pretty good i mean i was actually shocked So I brought my fiance at the time to Indianapolis in 2018. We lived in Europe, came over. She lived in Toronto. She's from Toronto. And I was just like, oh, man, I don't know. She's going to like the Midwest.

It's basically after Europe. Yeah. And so I was like, you know, we'll stay with a friend. We stayed with James Hinchcliffe for the first couple weeks, trying to find her feet, find houses where we want to live, different areas. And she was like a duct of water. She loved it. And I was blown away because I thought we were going to end up.

moving like right away either back to Canada or somewhere else that might have been more her style but she just like immediately loved that like Midwest lifestyle and it blew me away I really wasn't expecting it and we're still there now where are you born born in Toronto okay so what the interesting enough reading some of your some of the notes here your your exposure to racing wouldn't be what everybody would expect considering where your career it's taking you. It was more NASCAR related in stock cars. Like how is that possible? How did that work out? I think in the early days it was really whatever was on TV. You know, I mean, I don't know where I found it, how I found it, but when I was a kid, I hated basically anything. I mean,

you know, I wouldn't play with like GI Joe's or like all my friends had like Nerf guns and stuff. And like it wasn't, I couldn't be entertained. And I was just as high. high energy kid bouncing off the walls, jumping from couch to the couch to get to the kitchen and never touching the floor. And then one day, I guess there was a race on TV and I just was like stopped and I was just, I was just staring at the TV and my parents don't know what it was if it was the colors, the sound of whatever it was, but I was just drawn to it. And so then my parents went out, bought me, you know, die cast like little hot wheels and I'd play with them on the ground so then they bought me a little carpet you know and then I would like you know

like drive around on them do you remember whose car I don't know we ended up having a lot of them but then that was right around you know the Days of Thunder era right so then we got that sucker on VHS and then it was just a constant loop in the house and then you know might get in trouble for it but my my grandfather made me like a sex-free edit of days of thunder. Okay. Because obviously I got bored by, you know, any of the not on-track stuff as a four-year-old or five-year-old. Sure. So no sweet and low packets? I mean, do we get to understand what drafting? Yeah, we learned about drafting later. I had to learn on my carpet track. What drafting was like, yeah. But yeah, that was basically what brought me to motorsport, you know,

and then because it was always on TV, the family started becoming fans, you know, on a Sunday, the whole family was sit on the couch and watch the NASCAR race because that was really what was on because Formula One primarily with time changes and stuff, you know, we weren't really diehard at the time to be waking up at 4 a.m. to watch a Formula One race. So it was always kind of that NASCAR at the time cart. And we just kind of watched whatever it was on. And my first actual live race was Michigan. I never, I never, I played with Maxibox Cars a ton.

and I built my own track. So I had the old two-lane remote control trigger track, right? So I built an oval and used that as the footprint. And then I used cardboard and made with duct tape, lots and lots of duct tape that Dad was very angry about, like a Martinsville. And I had little curbs with toothpicks. But then when I would travel,

to my friend's house or a buddy's house. You know those oval rugs that are spun? We would roll the corners. And dude, it was perfect. So it's a banking? Yeah, it's a banking. Perfect. Perfect.

Man, if there was an oval rug in the house, that thing was going to be busy. It's a mystery why you didn't make great grades in school, right? I mean, you just started rolling up rugs. I would spend all week. I would simulate a race. I'm not as my parents gave me like a brand new, track, right? And then I would like, as the race went on, I would like color in like the groove. So it would be like rubbering in. Oh, man, I never did that.

During the race. That's so smart. You win the award. That's so smart. You didn't even think of that. I'm glad I brought it up. Yeah. So. He's coloring in the groove. And I lived with my mom. I was probably about six. We didn't have mass box cars. But I would get the programs and the drivers, they would do a Daytona. I would try to get the Daytona program. and they would, in every program every week,

they had these pictures of the drivers kneeling beside the cars. And I would take every, I would cut every single car out of that program. But you'd have to decide because it'd be on one page, you'd have one, you'd have three, and then you'd flip the page and have three, and you'd go, okay, no, him, the guy on page 33 or the guy on page 34, right? And they would be kneeling in front of the car, so you'd cut the car out, and I'd race them. these paper cars around a track, right?

But there'd be a little driver in front of it. Right. The best thing about that was you could crinkle up the front when they wrecked or crinkle up the bowies wrecked. Well, that's when I finally started getting trouble. And I think that's when my parents realized that I needed to explore outside and maybe try like a go car or something for the first time. Oh, yeah.

Because there'd be a crash and I would simulate the crash. And I would get the cars, I'd lift up the couch or it'd smash them on underneath the couch and then I'd have a crash car. So like my parents hated when it was like Daytona Taladega actually like I got in trouble when I got into plastic models. I started building plastic models and then I thought I want to build a damaged, a crashed plastic model. So I got a lighter and I would I would heap the model and kind of put dents and stuff in it and entire marks. And dad come down there one day and is like, you burning something? I was like, no.

And I mean, it's all laying right there. He's like, no, you're not playing with fire here in the house. Yeah, sounds like you have a lot more patience than I had as a kid. He was very angry. He was very animated. My brother was the model builder. I was the one that would wreck it half the time. Yeah.

But it was, so you talked about your first race, your first live race in Michigan. How far is that from home? That's not far? I mean, I can't remember actually where Michigan Speedway. Brooklyn. Yeah. Just like third, it's not far. I drove to the border.

It's an hour. That's it. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's a short trip. Like five hours from Toronto. Okay. Yeah.

Give or take. So you remember being in there? I do. I remember, well, I remember bits and pieces. Right. You know, I remember obviously the smell getting hit with rubber. Just like blew my mind. Where are y'all sitting?

Oh, man. Testing me now. Right. I don't remember that bit. No. One of the, we're in a corner. I know that much. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I think I was like five or six at the time. Oh, yeah, very good. But that was where I got my first taste. There was like a rental cart thing going on. And so we got to get, I got my first taste of actually driving a go cart there. Really? And then I guess my parents were surprised. I had some decent knowledge of lines and cornering speeds.

And I think the carts probably went like 12 miles an hour. But I was the fastest kid, fastest kid out there. Wait a second. At Michigan Speedway, you're saying, is there's a, You can just go ride go carts like anybody else. And this is your, this is the first time you have ever gotten behind the wheel of something. This is where it starts for Robert Wickeens at Michigan. Is that what you're saying?

If my memory serves me correct. Sure. Well, we're going off your memory. I might need to fact check this afterwards when I talk to my parents. You can be wrong and we'll believe it. Yeah, we'll take it to our graves. Right. But I don't think it was at the track.

I think it was like in and around. Yeah, but on that trip? Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I probably ran paid a ride car. at that same place. Sure. I mean, if there was one near the track, we were there.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Maybe we were there at the same day. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I was, 95, maybe. Hey, you know, it'd be cool.

If we don't care about, you know, the hard facts and so whatever you remember, remember getting in a fight with a kid and it just be Dell and we'll make that story. Like here's the first time y'all been back together since that go-kart track at Michigan where y'all got into it. Yeah. That's what we're going with. I'll run with that. So you've got the racing bug. You're a fan at this point, but you're not into sticking ball sports at all, right?

I mean, I was. I did them all minus hockey. You were a bit of an athlete in school. I was pretty good at most things, but I was never, like, exceptional. I was all right at baseball. But, again, like, I started carting. legitimately when I was seven. Seven.

And basically, because of the cost of motorsports, my parents told me, like, if you want to, if you want to try racing, you have to stop playing baseball, football. I was going to start doing hockey with all my friends that are like getting started hockey's not cheap. You know, I needed like $2,000, $3,000 just to get all the equipment. Yeah. So it was basically the choice do I stop it all to start racing. Is that easy?

That seemed to be, yeah. I mean, because I think what drove me nuts about teams. sports was you know I remember in baseball like I would hit a few home runs and this is like t-ball right so hey it's baseball take it easy no no it's um scholarship level already a t-ball yeah yeah and like we would lose and I would just like why why did we lose like I did well and then at the early levels of racing I think what drew me to it was just like when it's just you in the cart like a young kid can make such a difference even if you don't have the best equipment obviously later in the road, it all comes full circle.

But at that beginning, like, just being with the cart and just being out there myself, if I did well, I would win. I think that's what I loved about it. You felt more control of success and failure as a driver versus playing a team sport? For sure, because I think I was also super competitive even at that young age. Like, I wanted to win. So in football, like, I would be getting beat up as a running back and we would lose the game. and I'd just be like, oh, man, like all that work.

I feel like we did our part, you know? Right. And then I also, I think I broke a rib or something. Football and I pretty much my parents said, like, let's try a different sport. Yeah. So how did the racing go out of the gate? What type of go-car?

Where are you racing this go-car? What's this track look like? The track, it was called Waterloo Regional Car Club. It was 10 minutes from my hometown in Guelph, Ontario. It was actually a theme park. called Bingaman's Park. And on Saturdays, and we had to get it done before like 2 p.m.,

but it'd be rented out to the cart track. So, like, normally it was a concession track, like what you and I would have done when we were going to Michigan. But then in the mornings, from like 7 a.m. to noon, a cart club would rent it out and use it for, like, proper carts. Wow.

Wow. That's pretty cool. I've never seen that before. So it had these little steel rails and all that to keep you? No, it didn't. It actually had like grass and tires. Like it was pretty legitimate. Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder how the theme part people kept them in the track surface, right? I guess you had to be good. But yeah, so that's where it all started. We bought a cart. We did that like bought a cart, trailer, toolbox, used suits, tires, full shabang. Yeah. And it was all.

one big bundle deal and we went to the racetrack. We showed up at the first official, like, test day and go up in the registration line and go, like, we would like to register, please. And then I was too young, apparently. Oh, they wouldn't let you. Yeah. So right there on the spot, you're, you're destroyed. Yeah.

Right? Emotionally. This, I was, so this was, I don't know, say like early March or whatever, but you had, in Canada at the time, you had to be seven as of January 1st. to start racing. And I turned seven that March. So we thought we were good. And then I was a little too young.

So then my older brother, Trevor, is five years older. He drove that whole first year. And then every Saturday I'd be throwing a temper tantrum. I'm like I wanted to do, like why I couldn't understand why I wasn't doing it. And he was. Yeah, because a couple months later you turned seven. But you're saying that he didn't necessarily give up the driver's seat after you turned seven. Well, because by the rules, I had to be seven as of January 1st.

So I had to wait that whole... You can't race the whole year. Wow, that's punishing right there. So your brother is, was he aspiring to drive? Was he interested in racing? He just sort of guilty by association. He was interested in racing, but he was definitely had the bug more from the mechanical engineering side than he did the driving side. And that became more apparent when he actually raced.

How so? How apparent was it? He lacked the fight. I guess is the best way of putting it. He didn't have that drive to that, you know, that do or die. He was cruising around. But then Monday to Friday, he would take the cart apart completely. Like, keep in mind, he's 11, 12 at this point.

Take the whole card apart, put it back together, just loved the Monday to Friday of it. And then Saturday morning, it would be like, oh, do we have to go? And I would be the one, like, trying to push the whole family to go because I just needed to be there. and I wanted to, I don't know, maybe I thought I'd get my chance one time. But then the next year, got my big break. And yeah, I got to give it a shot and turned out I was pretty good at it. Yeah. So how did you know?

What do you mean? What's your, is there, are you winning? So I actually didn't win my first race. Yeah. It was a really deep year of like cadet carts. So the class I was racing, it was called cadets. It was like a GX 160 Honda four-stroke engine. with the air restrictor.

And then as you get older, the restrictor gets bigger and bigger until it's gone. And yeah, so there was, I want to say, like 40 odd kids in my class, which we weren't expecting. So the whole goal was just to like make it to the A main. Right. And ended up finishing on the podium in the A main in my first race. So that was. Nice. Yeah.

That was a big ticket item. And then we kept plugging away getting those like decent results. And then one day, uh, engine builder, I get, um, looks over at us and looks at our equipment. And we had like four different tire manufacturers on the cart. That's awesome. You know, like it wasn't even like. And people, I bet other teams are going,

man, then the guys know something we don't. They got it figured out those guys. They got it. They got it. So smart. Look how detailed they got a different tire on every corner, man. Yeah. And then it was like, we were just so basic that like the one guy was just like, when was the last time you changed your oil?

Like, you have to change the oil? You know? And then so we got a quick little tune up and then went on like a winning spree and won a bunch. And it turns out a new set of tires go a long way. Same brand. Yeah. Same brand within like the last decade of like freshness. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And then yeah, then just progressed up through the carding ranks in Canada. So what are the ranks? So help me understand like, you know, tell me like what's the logical? what's the experience like for somebody going through carts at that time for you? Yeah, for me, at the time, you kind of always migrate to where the competition is, right? Okay. And at that era of Canadian, carting, the four-stroke, four-cycle industry was booming.

It's where all the competition was. So I grew up racing a lot of four-stroke carts from age, seven, eight, right up until around 12 years old, when a 80cc shifter cart became available for like juniors so it was aged 12 to 15 and you could drive like a six speed sequential gearbox go cart which like so obviously I wanted that but yeah so like most forms of motorsport the older you get the faster the cards get yeah and yeah I mean it was I remember trying my first shifter car I think I was 11 at the time I was able to use someone else's at a test day or something. I remember not even knowing how to like shift anything because I had never done like a I mean I'm 11 so I don't know why but we thought it was a good idea to a couple people had like dirt bikes at the cart track and they would like be bombing around in the paddock which now is like you would never see but back then it was it was cool and they're like oh well

learn how to shift on this dirt bike. I'm just like, I've never ridden a dirt bike. Like, is this really a good idea? So then I'm like going up and down like this dirt road on a dirt bike trying to figure out how to shift to like learn how to shift before jumping in the shifter car. I'm like, it probably would have been better just to like do it there. It's a shifter car, right?

Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to learn. But silver lining, I didn't crash the dirt bike, even though I've mistaken the brake for the clutch a handful of times. Sure. Easy to do. Yeah.

And then, uh, you never know which one's the front of the rear to you, to you try them. Yeah. You can figure it out. And I also always forgot that the, I think the rear brakes, like the foot break on a dirt bike, isn't it? I guess, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. I remember. Again, yeah. Yeah, it makes more interesting to learn on the shift card. That's what ultimately what you're trying to do. On a mopad, it's, they don't, it's a, one's on one side and one's on the other side of the, and you're just kind of like, okay, I got a 50% chance of wiping this thing.

Yeah, here we go. Slow it down for a red light. Pretty much. But, yeah, and then once I actually got, like, true taste of speed, like, an 80-c-cifter car, it's probably 30 horsepower. And with the driver, it weighs, like, 320 pounds or 330 pounds or something. So, like, it was, the power to weight ratio was legit. Yeah. And then that's really what sparked where the rest of my carding career went, which went all two-stroke.

and then we started racing a lot in the U.S. going to WK.A races, actually doing races here in Charlotte every winter. There's a cart track in the inside of Lowe's Motor Speedway. And yeah, and then got to remember we were racing in the infield, and then some cup teams were testing. I think Hendricks was testing. And at the time, like, Jeff Gordon was winning everything. And it was kind of like, and then he saw his DuPont car going around. I was just like, whoa, went into the pits.

How could you focus, right? Yeah. I went to the, like, yeah, probably missed practice sessions, but, like, went to the pit lane on the oval and, like, asked if I could sit in the car and let me sit in the car. Really? Yeah. This all happened. Yeah. No kidding.

It was, uh... Did you ask Jeff himself, or did you ask just like a team guy? Oh, I think I just did the puppy eyes and asked anyone I could. Yeah. Yeah. And they let you do that? Boy, that never happens anymore. I don't know.

Hendrick Motorsports doesn't let anybody just sit in Jeff Gordon's car. On that same, same trip, I went to my first Hooters, so it was a good day. Right down the street. Yeah. Good day. Yeah, Jeff Gordon and Hooters. When did you race in the Ron Fellows Carding Series? I race in the Ron Fellows Carta Series.

I want to say it began in 2001-ish, 2000, 2001. And that was a huge breakthrough for Canadian Motorsport as a whole, just because there was a lot of competitive series. So there was, like, some people would race in this class, or that league and this league, but then like the Snokoroam Fellows Carding Championship just brought it all together. So we were getting like 200 entries every race event

and you'd be racing against good people and they had sponsors with Snoco and with Faf and with some other teams and I think Pratt Miller was even involved. And they actually had prize money. So like here I was now like a 12 year old kid and like you would win like 500 bucks if you won. And like for us as a family, we were trying to afford tires, trying to do whatever we could.

And like, if you had a good day, you know, like your tires were entry fees covered, tires were covered. If you ever, if you won and got the prize money. So it was, it was honestly probably the best thing that happened to us because it allowed, even within that generation of Canadian talent, you know, there's myself that came through there. there's James Hinchcliff came through there, you know, Daniel Morad came through there, countless others all around that same generation. And as we all know, you're only as good as your competition. And the fact that everyone came together and it just raised the whole bar, like everyone had to step up and go one better than the next. And it just made a really, really good competitive category. And Ronfellers is a pretty stand-up guy himself.

It sure is. Yeah. So what's the next, you won the championship? chip in his series multiple years 2002, 2003 and 2005. Something like that, yeah. So what is, what kind of opportunities is that recognition creating for you? So what that did for me was it showed that a progression to cars is possible because once you are over the age of 16, the Ron fellows with the help of some partners would do a scholarship shootout and they would pick 10 people I guess 15 people from the championship that they were impressed with throughout the season and they gave them a scholarship shootout in school cars at a Canadian tire motorsports park and then from there they would pick one or two of the elite and fully fund them to race in the school championship the next year. So you got your first taste at driving race cars. And if you got, you know, do well, progress, or just the learning experience of the whole thing.

So that was my first taste of actually driving a race car, was doing that shootout at the end of 2004. Subsequently, I went on to race in formal BMW in 2005 anyway. So I didn't actually do that school championship. I wanted to. But then. Former BMW had like an oil partner and I don't know what it was, but I was also, I won a scholarship for former BMW. So I was a junior driver for them and they didn't want me running. Oh, it was the school cars ran Bridgestone tires. Wow. And then they run, Michelin helped with the scholarship and stuff.

And it was like, so I actually couldn't do Ron's program that I actually wanted to do because it would have been cool. That's got to be difficult at a young age. having those sort of barriers that you never thought existed because those those start to creep in the more successful you get in the further you kind of get up this ladder manufacturers of not only you know cars but tires different brands of motor oil or whatever may may get in the way of some of these opportunities and interesting you face that pretty early on I did but it's also as a kid growing up you know, we came from very average means.

My parents worked very hard, a lot of overtime to pay for our racing. So that year in 2005 when basically I knew one way or another I was going to drive a race car, you know, at the time, like, former BMW was probably, it was definitely the better championship. It was a North American championship. It traveled, you know, we raced up with the support of Formula One for two races. We did some support stuff for a champ car. It was, you know, like when you're that age, you always. want to race in front of you think the people that are watching that you know

sees see the next up-and-coming talents yeah where that school series was just you know right school series and but it was still like would have been a good learning experience and so yeah I mean I was blessed with the opportunity that I knew I had kind of two options that year to get out of carting and into cars what is the Formula BMW car explained that car to me the formal BMW car is a open-wheel car the engine was a BMW motorcycle engine. So it was a six-speed sequential gearbox.

It was a monoshock front end, which when I was that young, I didn't really know what it meant. But it basically has handled like a low-powered go-kart. So in terms of a progression from carts to cars in the open-wheel elements, it was like the perfect category. Because it kind of, it just reset everything.

When you start at the beginning of carting, you drive the slowest carts. and then you build up to faster carts until you get to the shifters or whatever, and then you're basically driving Formula One cars, you know, for the power to weight ratio. But then when you just jump in the cars, it just resets. And so the Formula BMW, I think, was only about 140 horsepower. But it was lightweight. Like, it still went 140 miles an hour, 150 miles an hour, end of straight.

Like, we raced in support to Formula One at the U.S. Grand Prix at the time was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. and it was in a hilarious track for those cars because you'd be full throttle for like 43 seconds like continuously. Yeah. From what part of the track are you doing that? Obviously, probably I guess coming out of the... I don't know if you remember the layout,

but it was like two really tight hairpins and then you had this like 90 right and then you went up onto the oval. All the way around to turn one. So that 90 right was flat out for us. So from that first gear, hair pin we were full throttle the whole way to turn one right yeah so it took a minute that's probably pretty fun yeah drafting and that's where you learn to draft well for sure i mean

luckily from my four stroke times i was i understood it all and also from you know my my carpet days yeah don't discount that we had had it down pat so so formula bn w it doesn't exist anymore right is that is that correct because i mean ultimately what i'm going to ask you is like compare that to formula ford cars formula four cars i know about like Like, and so like, are we talking somewhat in the ballpark? Are you saying Formula 4 or Ford? Ford. Ford. It's a lot quicker than a Formula Ford.

Oh, okay. It's a lot more modern and advanced. You know, like it was Formula Ford is a very, I guess, 1990s or earlier kind of technology of motorsport. Gotcha. It teaches the driver a lot about, you know, pedal work and pitch control, because it's a fairly soft and rolly car. Power-wise is probably pretty similar. Okay.

Where a former BMW car had actually a pretty impressive amount of downforce for what it was, and it was very stiff. So the pros is it taught you how to handle downforce. You know, the hardest thing to get around once you drive something with downforce, when you're driving in go-karts your whole life, a low-speed corner or a high-speed corner, you have the same amount of grip, right? But then once you start getting wings and everything starts squishing to the ground, the faster you go, your whole ratio gets thrown off.

And then you have to figure out how to go faster and fast corners. Where in a Formula Ford, it would still be that carting ratio that you're dealing with. Both have pros and cons. But I'm a believer that with modern motorsport, the way it's going, you definitely need to get into winged cars as soon as possible. So at this point, you know, you're in open wheel cars. I wanted to believe that your interest in motor sports had been solely, you know, solely centered around NASCAR and stock cars, but the opportunities presented to you due to your local, you know, your geographical location sent you down this path. Was there ever a moment where you were like, I want to be a stock car driver, but this is,

my way to get to race, so this is what I'm going to do. Was stock car racing ever an interest of yours? I think it was always in interest. My whole thing was... Or was it just racing? Just anything. I think it was just racing. However to race. Yeah, I think I realized that at a young age, I didn't have the resources that some kids had.

So I couldn't be picky in saying, like, I'm only going to race in Formula One. you know because I knew like racing in Formula One was it was a dream of mine but it was just like so it was like going to the moon you know like sure I mean that was the same way still even being the son of Dale Earnhardt it was I felt the same way I'm like I'll never get there you know there's 40 guys that get to do it I'm not going to make it you know even with all the resources in the world for sure it was a dream but what was your dream was your dream formula 1 was your dream Daytona 500 what was that dream when you're six seven years old I think my dream varied with age. You know, I think in my early years, I definitely wanted to probably

race a NASCAR and go stock car racing. And then as I started getting to different levels of carting and then I opened up my eyes to, you know, open wheel racing and that was very interesting to me. And then the further I got into carting with the shifter carts, that driving style. And then, yeah, I mean, I think then IndyCar kind of cart Formula One, that open wheel realm became more appetizing for me, but I still would have taken anything at that time. So actually, when I was 14, I did a couple stock car races locally in, uh, where most port. Yeah, had like oval. Yeah.

Um, we did one there. There's like some Saturday night stuff around the greater Toronto area. I think the series was called Pro Challenge. Okay. It was like a smaller stock car. Okay. But it had like a Kawasaki Ninja engine. engine in it? I think it was like pretty quick.

Yeah. So it was a kind of almost like a... Three-quarter scale stock cars. Yep. Bigger than those. What year was that? What year was that? That would have been 2004. Okay. So that's what TJ Majors raced when TJ Majors lived in Buffalo and they ran those cars up there and he raced at most port. And they ran them on the road course I think once or twice too, but they did run them around the Oval a lot. He and him and his his family bought one of those cars and that's how TJ got started and racing one of my

guy one of my best friends but yeah I'm familiar with what you're talking about yeah it was a cool car because for me again like we wanted I needed to I felt like I needed a car experience yeah that was like the next segue and it's like how do you do that and then a friend of a friend was racing in the Ontario Pro Challenge series and was just like well that looks neat so we rented a car I think and gave it a shot on a Saturday night and we did a couple of them The Mosport track was actually pretty cool because, you know, at the time I was so, it was my first oval, really. Yeah, I didn't expect how like one end would be so different to the other. But then the way it drove, it was like a road course because of the Kawasaki Ninja engine and six-speed sequential gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox gearbox.

Like, I was like, I was really quick at Mostport because I was like downshifting and like blipping my down shifts because from my carding days and with gearbox shifter cards, I just knew how to do it. So I actually had an advantage. Some people would just leave it in fourth gear and be like lugging off the corner. And I'd be like, wow, wow, just like banging through the gears. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. So you got teamed up with Red Bull. They end up taking you over to Europe. At what point, I mean, is that like, are you on cloud nine at that point?

Because you're, like you say, you had modest means to sort of even get into racing. Are you pinching yourself when you're in another country representing, brand like Red Bull? I was. I mean, the whole way I found Red Bull was also just so bizarre. You know, my, like everyone's careers, you have these points in your, like turning points in your career where you don't know why you have to do something, but you know you have to do it. And then, you know, hindsight filters out and you understand why he did it. But so for me, was at the end of 2005, I just did my rookie season of Form BMW, finished third in the championship. and we had nothing going.

We had no funding for 2006. We didn't know what we were going to do. I wanted to do another year of former BMW and try to win the championship. And then they announced that they were doing a world finals event for formerly MW because there was different regions. So I raced in formal VMW USA.

There was former WMW, UK, Europe, Asia. You know, I think that might be it. But they did a world finals where everyone would meet in Bahrain and the winner would be a former BMW world champion, and you got a Formula One test. Dang him. And I was just like, 16, all right, I need this Formula One test. And so it was, I think, like 50 grand to do this one race. Because I was the rookie of the year in 2005, I got the formal BMW scholarship again for the next year, which was $60,000.

So I begged BMW to give me my funding early so I could go. to this one race. Pay for it, right? And my parents are like telling me not to because we have nothing lined up for 2006. That's our only funding that we have. And I was just like, I need to do this race. This will be the race that will like make my career because I can win and I'll get a Formula One test.

And then I thought I'd do the test. And then like, I don't know, next year race in Formula One. I don't know what I was planning to do. But I knew that was the opportunity that I needed. Sure enough, my parents trust a 16 year old with his future. and we signed with a team and we went off to Bahrain to see how we could do

and ended up qualifying on pole. Who else is in this race? In this race was like Nico Halkenberg, Sebastian Boewemi. Holy sorry. I knew he'd be able to name off prominent, some prominent names. I mean, I'd love to see the entry list again, actually.

Every time we have any car or open wheel guy in here and he's talking about this particular sort of point in his career, and they're like, yeah, I was in Europe, I was 16 years old, and I was racing against, and they'll just have names on these, on these entry lists and the people that you were competing against. I think it just drives home the point of how good you were. Yeah, so we qualified poll.

And again, like, one people, what a lot of people don't realize is when you go over to Europe, at the time, like, Europeans almost looked down at North American motorsport, that it wasn't as competitive. So when we got there, I think there was six people from the U.S. championship that went over to the race. And you could tell we were just kind of like discredited at the beginning. So the fact that we threw it on pole, like it kind of opened everyone's eyes. But then in tech after qualifying, my car got disqualified. There was like a cover for the suspension that had to be fitted and mine wasn't.

So it's like a non-performance part, but rules are rules. I'm gone. Like this series was so strict that if like the BMW logo was not in its allocated measurement box, you'd be disqualified. Yeah. So like they were sticklers of the rules, which I respected. But it was a heat format. So I had to start all three qualifying heats now from last, which is like 36th or something.

And had to fight through the field in all three qualifying heats. And I finished like sixth, fifth, and third in the three heats. And then for the pre-final, now I'm lined up. sixth for the pre-final going into like I'm right back in the game like I could still win this thing and I was trying to pass Sam Byrd he's a formula E-driver now and we had some contact and I got a puncture so like all my hard work with a whole week just like down the drain had to start the final and like 34th and finished fifth and then from that I didn't get the Formula One test I wasn't a world champion but I left with the Red Bull contract in my hand how did I mean they

come up to you afterwards? Honestly, after the first heat, so qualified poll, I think a lot of people are like, who's this guy? And then went from last to six in the first heat, and then Dr. Helmut Marco introduced himself to me. Didn't really know who he was, but... Who is he?

He's the motorsport advisor for Red Bull, and he's in charge of their development program. So he's got a contract in his pocket, and he's looking for somebody to give it to? Apparently. Well, he told me afterwards that they didn't have budget because it was December, so they already had filled the budget for the next season. But then I guess I impressed enough that they fudge some numbers to squeeze me in. They found budget. They found budget, yeah.

But it was just a very surreal experience because I remember that flight home from Bahrain to Toronto. I couldn't even recall the connections that we probably take 12 connections because it's the only flight we could afford. but I remember just like I read the contract like 12 times and I just couldn't believe what it was because it was basically the Red Bull junior team contract that was offered to me was like a 10 year agreement and it mapped out everything you were going to do to Formula One. Wow. Here's your path. And what was it? What like what does that path look like? They don't tell you the year to years. Right. But it basically if within the contract, if I raced in Formula One for Red Bull while. the contract was active, my salaries were broken down. So I was just like, whoa. Those are numbers. You know, like 16 year old kid. I'm like, that's money. Yep. That's never seen that many zeros before.

And then it was, yeah, it was a fully paid ride as long as I could deliver the results. And it was very high pressure. But, you know, the way my childhood went, I kind of had the similar approach to life. Because if I didn't win to make it to the next category, my career was over anyway. So when I joined Reckon, Red Bull. It's a very cut-throat industry, but it was do or die. It was either win or you're done. And in the 2006 season, there was 18 drivers in the Red Bull junior team. And when I was finally terminated at the end of 2009, there was four of us left. And yeah, so we made it through. So you're in Europe, racing and having success. How do you go over there? You want a Silverstone? I mean, how do you go to these tracks and have success? I mean, I guess I think about Michael Andretti when he went to F1,

struggled to get used to the tracks to understand the tracks and be able to perform. We know Michael was a great racer at the time, but going into this unfamiliar, like you say, pressure-packed world, you're an American in a dominated area of Europeans. How did you find the speed? Where did the pace come from? I think I'm a strong believer that European tracks are way easier to learn than our North American tracks. Okay.

How so? European tracks are like perfect in every degree. Built for racing. Yes. With like the way the breaking markers are done, they're like millimeter perfect, 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters, you know. and then every track is the same. So when you go from a Silverstone or to a Nuremberg ring or to a Monsa, the way it all works in the performance of the cars and even the quality of the asphalt that they use

within the FIA in Formula One, there's like a certain regulation. So from track to track, like the surfaces are very consistent. And so as long as you know if it's like a second gear corner and, you know, your sixth gear going, you know, 250 kilometers an hour, you kind of know it's like I can break at the 100 board and I'll make it just because it's all so regulated where like in America you go to like mid Ohio and you have like gym putting out traffic cones before the start of practice and you don't know if it's the same as it was yesterday or you know. Or if he's even the same as yesterday. Yeah, he's like I have to wait until noon because I'm going off the shadow that I use.

It's just a lot more raw. And that's what I loved about coming back in IndyCar in 2018 was all the tracks are old school and they have so much character where in Europe, because of the speed of Formula One cars, they've had to create almost unlimited paved runoff situation. So there's never really grass gravel wall anymore in a Formula One track. It's all like, you know, 100, 200 feet of paved asphalt on the exit of every corner. So you kind of, one, you lose that adrenaline. It almost becomes like a video game sensation where it's like,

oh, is this corner full throttle? I'm going to try anyway because there's no downside. There's no consequence. Yeah, there's no consequence for your air. It's literally like playing eye racing. You know, it's like, oh, just reset and go again, you know, where, you know, a lot of tracks in the IndyCar calendar. and NASCAR calendar on road courses, you know, if you drop a wheel, there's pretty healthy price

to pay for it. Yeah. Why did you not stay in Europe? What brought you back? What ended up happening there? What ultimately brought me back? So once I went over to Europe with Red Bull, I spent four seasons over there racing up until Formula 2. I was told I had to win the championship to move on because there wasn't many steps left, and I finished second in the championship, and I was fired. close and I was fired so close I mean how close to first where it was it wasn't as close to the last race wasn't as close if I would have liked unfortunately we had some I had a lot of retirements for mechanical issues like I think out of the 16 races I had seven mechanical retirements and then I had seven podiums so like we were competitive when we finished but didn't finish that often so even though I did

rough like only completed half the races we still finish second in the championship but they don't seem to care about that, right? They don't factor that in. It's a numbers game, right? Like, you have to win the justify. At what point did you drive the DTM car? I drove a DTM from 2012 to the end of 2017. Is that in that process? Because the DETM is a car. Yeah, right? It's not open wheel. Yeah. So when I watch, now forgive me. I'm a stock car, NASCAR guy, but when I watch DTM, I'm like, man, they got fenders, it's cool. They bang into each other. Not in they try not to, but it doesn't seem like it fits in the ladder from your go-kart beginnings to your F-1S,

you know, your dreams of making it. It doesn't seem like it's part of the process, but you go there and it's... Yeah, so what ended up happening there was, so after I finished at Red Bull, I was kind of back scrambling to keep driving, to stay relevant. I found a team that was willing to put me in,

the GP3 series, which is now Formula 3, a very good deal, was able to come up with enough funding to make that deal happen, finish second in that championship again. I was like, come on, I just got to win one of these things. And then in 2011, finally got a proper sponsor. They actually sponsored one of the Formula One teams, Marisha Virgin Racing. So I was the reserve driver for the Formula One team, as well as racing in the Formula Renault 3.5 series. And the reason why we picked that category was because at the time, if you were a reserve driver for a Formula One team, racing in GP2, which is now F2, didn't really make sense because it's like if you're an Xfinity driver, but you're the reserve driver for a cup team. Like you can't really fully focus on your role as your reserve driver because you're not like immersed with that team because you're doing your own deal on the race event. So at the time that Formula Renno 3.5 was great because it ran on opposite weekends.

the Formula One. So on the Formula One weekends, you could be there. I was the full reserve driver and just immersed in with the team. And then opposite weekends, I'd be racing. And, like, drivers like myself, Daniel Ricciardo, Jean-Aic Fern, Brendan Hartley, Alexander Rossi, Jules Bianchi, you know, Pietro Fittipaldi, like the list goes on and on and on of drivers that did a similar path. Ironically, most of them race the same year that we were racing in 2011.

But I won the championship there. did my Formula One tests. First time behind the wheel of F1 car? On a racetrack, yeah. I had done loads of straight line arrow tests, or when I was with Red Bull, we did a lot of demo show runs where you take an F1 car on the street

and just do donuts and stuff. Got you. Tough life. Yeah. Yeah. And after my call them my tryouts, right? Like my F1 young driver tests, I was like, well, I did everything I can now.

We just need to see what lands. I had a contract with the Formula One team, and then I basically just got bought out of it. Who was the contract with? With Marisha Virgin Racing. And somebody came in with more money, sponsor money, or bought the contract? Someone just came in with sponsor money and basically just outbid me for the seat. Wow. So even though I had a signed contract on my side, it wasn't enough.

And subsequently, I did a good enough job in my young driver test that Toto Wolf and Norbert Hogg from Mercedes-Benz were there and they asked me if I'd be interested in testing their DTM race car back to square one. I just wanted to be a professional driver at the end of the day. Like obviously I was pursuing a dream of Formula One, but at some point I just wanted to make a good living doing what I love to do. So can't say no. I did the test in Barcelona with Mercedes test went really well. And then they offered me a five-year contract to represent Mercedes-Benz in DTM. And it was, yeah, I remember signing that contract.

It was a great day because I finally, those zeros that I saw in that Red Bull agreement when I was 16. Finally there. Wasn't as many zeros. One less zero, but it, you know, it still felt amazing. And that's how I segueed to that category. But a DTM car, they looked like a touring car. Yes.

But it's like, there wasn't a single component on that car that actually was from a Mercedes. road car. Even the Mercedes star was made from carbon fiber and reduced like 20% for aerodynamics. Yeah. It was an incredible experience. They were basically open wheel cars with bodies on them. Wow. It was a full carbon chassis. Yeah. But even the development, everything was really fun to be a part of because what is so amazing about F1 as a driver and a competitor is like if you want more front grip, you can kind of tell the designers to like build me more front grip in a roundabout way it's not like cup cars or or indy car where it's all spec and all you have you have to work with your team to fine tune suspension settings or to change spring rates or something like that like if you got something wrong you can actually just like

fully redevelop something yeah and that was something new for me um in d tm was the constant race like i was so used to fine tuning with suspension settings and spring rates tire pressures anti-roll bars and stuff like that but then like we would test like a full day of just like different suspension period like different suspension stiffnesses and trying to get different flex rates and that was uh yeah it was an exciting time so at this time also uh working with this program was michael schumacher i'm huge fan of michael schumacher's thought that he was sort of the perfect race car driver you can share your opinion uh but what was it like to be able to just even interact with that guy? So once I joined, I think I was 22, 23 when I joined Mercedes,

Michael had just come out of retirement and signed four Mercedes in Formula One. And back in the 90s, Michael was a part of the Mercedes Junior team. So they thought, like, what better way to re-spark the Mercedes-Juner team is have Michael as the mentor of the three kids for Mercedes. I remember, like, they told us that it was going to happen. I was like, eh, it's probably just a marketing thing, you know, like, sure, yeah, I'm a part of the junior team. I was back in Canada during the off-season. I wake up to, like, my phone ringing at 3 a.m. or whatever, and it's a foreign, like, a Swiss number or whatever it was. And I answer, and he goes like, no, it's Michael Schumacher. I was just like, what? He's like, where are you? I'm like, I'm in Canada. He's like, oh, sorry,

did I wake you? A little bit. And then we spoke later that day, but it was something I'll remember forever. I bet. Yeah. And then he wasn't super involved, but he definitely, he watched. You know, like I remember my first win in DTM. One of my first messages on my phone was from him congratulating me. It was just like his presence was so powerful that he didn't really have to say that much.

And you really just kind of, you wanted to perform for him. Because you knew he was watching. You knew he's paying attention. Yeah. That must have been pretty incredible. How come things didn't work out for you beyond that? I asked a question earlier, how do you end up back in the States? Oh, yeah, I didn't finish that part.

Yeah. So I race for Mercedes to the end of 2017. Mercedes announced that they were exiting DTM to begin Formula E racing. For people that don't know the DTM series, it's a category that is the three German and premium car manufacturers, Mercedes, Audi, BMW. Each manufacturer has six to eight cars. So once Mercedes announced that they were leaving, I was then looking at, well, they were leaving at the end of 2018. What did that do to DTM? They had to reestablish themselves. DTM now, it's still present, but it's more of a GT3 racing instead of purpose-built manufacturing.

sports cars like it was when we were there. It's still exciting, still great racing, but it's not the same cars. It's just a GT3 car like you would see in IMSA. But yeah, so when they announced that they were leaving down in 2018, I was thinking like, well, there's six grade A teammates of mine that are going to be searching for racing opportunities. And there is a good chance that DTM might not even exist. So then there would be 18 grade A professional drivers.

all trying to find professional rides. I had some casual conversations with some IndyCar teams throughout 2017. I actually did a ride swap with James Hinchcliff, an old friend of mine, where he tested my DTM car in Italy, and I went to Sebring and tested his IndyCar. And I kind of got first taste of an IndyCar. It was really exciting. Yeah, it was kind of in the back of my mind. And then I still wasn't really thinking of leaving DTM until Mercedes and

that they were departing the series. And then from there it was, what am I going to do? I've always been a believer of dictating my own destiny and putting my future in my own hands. I didn't want to run its course and then hope Mercedes puts me somewhere. Because what if I wasn't happy where they put me? You know, after you claw your way to where you are to just like let someone decide your destiny, it wasn't really what I wanted to do. subsequently I had an offer from Schmidt-Petersen Motorsports to race an IndyCar in 2018. And between, yeah, speaking of my family, a lot of long nights thinking about it myself. Because racing in Formula E would have been interesting.

It would have been a very new challenge. But there was no guarantee that I could get one of their spots. So it's only a two-car team for Mercedes and Formula E. So I didn't want to hedge my bets. Plus, I guess with Formula E being somewhat new, you probably had no idea what was beyond that, right? Exactly. There wasn't a history of, okay, this guy had graduated from Formula E into this. That's exciting.

Yeah, there was none of that. So you didn't know if that was sort of going to be the end of the road. For sure. And it's like, and if that is the end of the road, is that a fulfilling enough category, you know? Sure. Looking at it now, speaking with a lot of the drivers that I race against, it's actually, a very fun and exciting category, although it's nothing you ever grew up racing. As far as how it drives, feels, accelerates and all that.

Like, you don't get the fulfillment of a high-powered, high-down-forced race car, but it's fulfilling in its own right because the competition is really strong. But anyway, I decided to take the leap of faith and come back over to America and race an IndyCar. How do you even get an offer for an IndyCar ride, though? Like, how did that happen? Because of a test? I think I did a pretty good job at the test.

Okay. And then we just kept kind of a casual monologue going all season in that 2017 season. There was a race in Rhode America where one of their drivers couldn't get into the country because of an immigration issue. Oh, yeah. What was his name? Mikhail Lalation. Okay. And I was ironically in Canada, just seeing some friends and family, and they asked me if I could fill in.

And I was like, yeah, sure. So I got on the next flight out, flew to, I think, Chicago, and then drove to Elkhart Lake from there. And I did the Friday practice sessions. And then the driver came for Saturday, and I was, my duties were done. And I went back home. But kind of got, I guess, another crack at it to show what I could do. What is an indie car, what's the toughest thing about driving in any car? Let's pretend I'm going to drive one at Birmingham or somewhere.

And what's the one thing I'm going to struggle with? physicality. What do you mean? The Indicars do not have power steering. And with the amount of downforce that's on those cars, the wheel is just loaded. In a high speed corner, like, it takes everything you have. And especially if we're talking about Barber Motorsports Park and Birmingham, when you get into the compressions of the corner, you know, you have the down force, but you also have the compression of the corner all in the steering wheel. And like, remember my first proper, like, high speed feel of the IndyCar was actually that Road America, free practice that I did. We were, I don't know if you are familiar with Elkhart Lake, but there's a kink at the end of the backstripe.

It's like a easy full throttle kink in an indie car, but it's like 175 miles an hour. And I remember coming from DTM, you know, sports car, power steering, right? So doing like the radio check, reconnaissance, slap, making sure the gears work, everything before I come back into the pits and the pits and like, keep my tires are like cold and I'm not even like pushing. I'm not even full throttle. And I went to go turn for the kink and I was like, oh my God. Like I had to actually like lift off the throttle and like crank on the wheel because it caught me off guard that much. I was just so used to power steering where the weight of the steering wheel is the same in a low speed corner or a high speed corner. That was hands down. The biggest adjustment for me was just the

physicality and getting ready for it. Is it safe to say that because of that there is genuine potential for drivers to fall out of the seed in these races. Like you have, you know, because where we are in NASCAR, I look at pictures or watch races from the 70s and 80s. There was relief drivers, guys climbing in and out of cars every weekend, struggling to finish because of the heat or exhaustion. It's just hard to wrap your brain around that because we see these guys race today and they get out of the cars and they could go another 500 miles.

They'll tell you that. But in IndyCar without the power steering at a difficult road course, is it possible that you'll see guys losing time at the end of these races just because they are physically exhausted? I would say 100%. Yeah. That's so cool. Depending on the race and how the race plays out, right?

There's like a bunch of yellows and stuff. You can catch a breath. But definitely like the last stint of an IndyCar race. In IndyCar, there's two different compounds of tire. There's a primary black wall tire. and then there's a red wall alternate tire, which is a softer compound. And sometimes the way the strategy plays out, you have to run the softest, fastest tire at the end of the race because it gives you the best chance of winning.

But you've also been driving for two hours. The track's gripped up a ton. And then let's go ahead and put the grippiest, fastest tire on to finish the race. And you turn that steering wheel out of the pits. And now you have a full car of fuel. So the car weighs, you know, whatever 18 gallons of fuel is, more, what you feel through. the steering wheel and you leave the pitch and you're like oh my god how many how many more laps are left in this thing yeah like I remember my first indie car race in st. Petersburg it's a pretty long

race it's a physical race it's the first one of the year so I think it catches everyone off guard a little bit but it's a street course it's bumpy the car's bouncing around it's mentally fatiguing because there's walls on either side of you yeah like I remember getting into the closing stages of that race and I was pretty much ready for the race to be done I wasn't giving up any performance yet But, you know, as a driver the second you're thinking about being tired, you're kind of already giving up performance. For sure. You know, it doesn't matter if it's on a straight. Like, I've been a believer.

I'd never drink water during the races because I never wanted the distraction of like taking my mind off what I'm doing to sip water. So maybe under a yellow flag, I'll take sip water or something like that. But like in that race in St. Pete, I was drinking water. I was drinking water. And it was something that I was actually mad at myself as I was doing it. Because, like, once you start, you can't stop. Oh, yeah. You know, once it's like, oh, wow, that's refreshing.

I need more, need more of that. And then it was like every lap. I was taking a sip of water. And then I was just like, what am I doing? That's such a cool thing because there's, you know, because of the durability of the cars and, like I said, in NASCAR, I see it in the 24 hours of Daytona when we go there. The car, motorsports in the early days was a test of man and machine, right?

And so I'm hearing from you that it's still a test of man. in the IndyCar series, and it's a heck of a selling point for them. You talked about moving from Europe with your fiancé at the time, living with Hinch for a little bit while you're scoping out the area in Indy to figure out where you're going to live, and you're going to start your first year in Indycar. You're a rookie in Indycar. You're back in the States.

How difficult, I guess, was it to turn loose of, I mean, from what I'm hearing from you and something we hear common, for a lot of guys that go that route into the Europe scene, motorsports scene, it's a blender. You're constantly changing series, cars, the networking connection, and it seems like you would get used to that sort of whirlwind. And then coming back over here, it must be like a to, it's because it's such a different culture in motorsports here.

How hard was it, or how easy was it, I guess, to shut the door on that? It was very refreshing for me just to get back to North America and get back to, you know, my time in Europe, whether it was Formula One or DTM, there's not a lot of personality within it, like especially racing for Mercedes. They're an amazing manufacturer. But when you race for them in DTM, it's the manufacturer first, always. So you never really race for yourself. You're racing for the brand. And where when you come to America, the driver's the brand. So when I, came to IndyCar, not only was it a breath of fresh air to be back on the other side of the Atlantic and to be closer to home and friends and family could come to races if they wanted to. And keep in mind, like, I moved to Europe when I was 17 years old. So I lived there for 11 years before I came back. And like, there's a lot of times where all my friends were doing things together on weekends

while I was alone in Europe because the flight back just didn't make sense. And so like I was just fairly lonely while I was over there in Europe even though I was pursuing the dream. So coming back to IndyCar was just super refreshing. You know, the team, everything was a lot more open atmosphere. There wasn't like this confidentiality going on all the time. It was really just like kind of what I loved about the sport so much was just like pure racing, unadultery racing. Just fastest car driver at the end wins. There's no team orders involved.

there's no politics. There's always some. A little bit of politics. There's always some. But, you know, from where I came from, it was just, yeah, super refreshing just to kind of immerse myself back into the sport that, like, I loved as a kid. Yeah. So how optimistic were you going into 2018?

I was quietly confident. You seemed to always have been. I mean, you were going to go take $60,000 over to Bahrain and go get you an F1 test. But while it hadn't worked out along the way, things. keep happening just not the way you expect it. So now you're, who are you racing for in 2018 and you're now going to be a rookie in the IndyCar series, right? Yeah. So in 2018, I was racing for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. That's right. Which as it's known now in 2022 is Aero McLaren SP. And yeah, I was a rookie. My teammate was James Hinchcliffe, long time friend. We were teammates

in carding back in 2001, 2002. So I'd known them for practically my whole life. On Honestly, it was an exciting time because not only was I fulfilling a childhood dream of mine of racing an IndyCar. You know, I grew up admiring Greg Moore, you know, watching, you know, the Zanardis, the Andretti's, the Dixon, you know, Dixon's, the Dixons, the Francides, you know, everyone just do their thing. So to kind of be in that same category, still racing against Scott Dixon and the younger Andretti with Marco, you know, it was, uh, It was just such a cool, cool experience for me. And then you go sit it on the pole in your first race. And then we put it on the pole. I mean, just like it's not even hard for you, right?

I don't know about that. I've always had a very good knack for changeable conditions. And so my only goal in that qualifying session, for those of you that aren't familiar with IndyCar qualifying, there's like knockout segments. So the fastest six from each group always move on to the end. and I just wanted to knock it knocked out in the first group. I wanted to be in the top six to have a shot at the next one.

And then once I made it to the next one, I'll evaluate my goals and go from there. So we made it through the first stage. So then we're looking at the second stage qualifying. I was like, well, I'm already here. Worse on starting's 12. Let's just have some fun and see where we go. And then I had a really good first lap and put me in like the top three and then it started raining.

So no one went faster. So then suddenly I'm in for a shot at pole Because now I'm in the fast six at the end of the qualifying And not only that, because my first lap was so good I saved a full set of tires So I was like the only one going into the last segment of qualifying With a new set of tires And so deep down I was just like if I just don't screw it up

I think I got pole here Right they can't they're not going to run a faster time Yeah But man they're good They are good, right? They are good yeah So I end up getting the pole but by the skin of my teeth. It shouldn't have been as close as it was, but it doesn't matter.

How'd the race go? The race got off to a good start. Yeah, I led from the outset, a couple restarts where I lost the lead, but then got the lead back. It honestly, it just felt like I had been doing it for years. And I think what people maybe underestimated was how high the level of competition and professionalism was in DTM. Like when I was out front leading, you know, we had pit stops, we had everything. So the whole sequence of an IndyCar race as a rookie wasn't new to me. So the in-lapse, outlaps, the whole procedures, you know, pushing pit entries,

I had an overtake, like a push-to-pass button that was new, but apart from that, it was par for the course, just a new race car and a new track. So we ended up leading 80-something laps of 100 laps during the race, and fortunately it came to a crashing halt with two to go. Two to go, against two. with Alex Dander Rossi, long-time rival of mine, long-time friend of mine. So it was, yeah, it was tough.

You know, after leading most of the race, there was a late restart with two to go. Going into turn one on the restart, it was that track, the tires were giving off like loads of marbles. So offline was just like catastrophically low grip. So going into turn one, I saw Alex had a run on me. And I was like, I didn't want to block them. because I didn't want to go on the dirty side of the track. I was like, you know what? You take it.

And I'm just going to break so late for the corner that, you know, if you have common sense, you won't break as late as me. But then he did. And there was just no chance he was going to make the corner and he slid into the side of me, which then spun me into the wall. But, you know, hindsight, people always say, like, why didn't you just let him go? And he wasn't going to make the corner anyway. But it's like, two laps to go.

Like, do you really want to give up the lead and hoping he doesn't make the corner? like, no, I mean, again, I control my destiny and I'm going to break so late that he's either going to not pass me or he's going to try and we'll see what happens. But it was almost, obviously it was bittersweet, right? Because first IndyCar race, I'm tallied with a, whatever it is, 20th place finish or 18th place finish or something. That doesn't show the day, right? It doesn't show the day, but as kind of making an impact in the series, I think it almost

went better that way. Yeah. you know. It's a glimpse of the potential exactly, but not only from like a fan base and like when we come back to St. Petersburg every year for the IndyCar races like the amount of people that are like cheering my name it's like humbling every single time I walk down that pit lane and I think if I won it wouldn't be like that

right so it was yeah bittersweet obviously I would have taken the win pretty comfortably but it was you know had to had to wait a little longer. So race for 14 into the season. We go to Pocono. Qualified sixth. Up at that point, your season, how's it going? Up until that season, up to that point, the season was going great. We were, still haven't won a race yet. A bit of background, there was only one year in my entire life that I didn't win a race. That was my first year of DTM. Background there, there was, I wasn't in like a factory

prepared Mercedes car, so like I'd never really had a shot. I was like in a B car. I was like in a B car almost, but never got a win. So once we got into the swing of IndyCar, I needed that win so bad. We had four podiums in the first 14 races, 10 top tens, I think 10 top

five, I don't know the stats exactly, but it was going well. It was going well. We were constantly fighting where we needed to fight. We just weren't getting that fine a little bit. Like I finished second three times. And yeah, going into Pocono, I don't even think we qualified. I think qualifying got rained out. So I was started on points. So I was sixth on points. Yeah, up until that point,

you know, things were rosy. We were slowly chipping away and like, it seemed like that win was always around the corner because every weekend we were fighting in the top three. What was the energy around the grid about Pocono as a racetrack? Because I know that there's sort of been this sort of, there's been a discussion about that, you know, do y'all, you know, should y'all be racing there? And with the types of crashes that we've seen there what was the driver's opinions leading into that event so I know leading up to that race all the competitors I spoke to they just discussed how bad the car feels it wasn't really the track it's more just

the layout of it you know the fact that turn one is like super banked and fairly tight so like and then turn two for our cars around Pocono is like a no-brainer You don't really have to like think about it. It's just easy flat. It's bumpy, but it's easy flat. And then turn three is like this flat long duration corner. So like every corner you get a different car balance. And you end up compromising your setup.

But by the time you get to turn three, you know, your cambers and everything are not what they need to be. So you're only really using like half the tire because you need all that camber for turn one. So you're driving around and the car just always feels like you're about to crash. except for turn one because turn one's really the only corner where the car's set up properly for so it's uh no one really told me about how it would race or anything like that but it was more the lead up a lot of the drivers were like oh man like every lap you feel like you're just hanging on and like you don't want to like try to go quicker because you feel like you're about to fence it every time and then it's a 500 mile race and it's like so on top of that everyone's then trying to figure out like

know, I think they were struggling for attendance to get, like, people in the stands for that race. And it's like, why are we doing a five hour or 500 mile race here? Why are we doing like, there was always that coming up before the race. But it's a racetrack. It scores just as many points as every other race minus the Indianapolis 500. And, you know, we had to make the most of it. What do you remember about the day? Not much. Really? Honestly, not much at all. some stuff came back to me in bits and pieces if like someone remind me of it like where you see a picture yeah like I know it happened because here's the picture yeah like I remember um I saw a picture of it but NBC was like in the driver parade truck with me and I remember them

being there I don't remember what we talked about but I remember like oh yeah I remember that they were doing a special on me that was going to be ironically airing after the Pocono race, which never aired. But yeah, like on the start, I remembered that the first start was called off because there was a crash like before the green. And then I remember on the restart, I had a great run. I was slowly building up my oval legs, you know, trying to watch lots of race tapes and see like if you dare go around like the outside on a restart because you'll always.

kind of pick up a spot or two. So I felt a little confident and I gave it a shot. And it worked. I had a great turn one. I think I got two guys, I think Joseph and Simon Pagino. And we're heading down the back straight to turn two and I had a great run on Ryan Hunter Ray. I went to the inside. And from my memory, that's basically where my memory goes blank. I just remember like crossing to the inside and then I don't remember anything else. Do you watch the video? I have, yeah. Took a while to finally see it.

To get yourself to where you were comfortable to watch it? I think before my family let me watch it. Yeah, I mean... They purposely kept it away from you. Yeah, I mean, I think some context there. Like I was in a medically induced coma for, I think, seven days, ten days after the accident. So by the time, you know, I was...

more alert, I still wasn't there entirely, you know, with all the pain management things I was on. And I couldn't hold the phone because both my hands were broken. So it was also like I needed someone to show it to me. So it was pretty easy for them to say like, oh, let's just look at it later. Yeah. Get some rest. When you, you know, so you're talking about your hands, like the injuries that you sustained in this crasher. It was a thoracic, how you say that, spinal fracture?

Therassic. Therassic. And what does that mean? So the thoracic spine is basically the middle of your back. So for simple terms, your neck is your cervical spine. The middle is your thoracic spine. And then your lower is your lumbar. All right.

A neck fracture, tibia and fibula fractures in both legs. both hands. What bones in your hands? So on my right hand, I broke my fifth metacarpal. And on my left hand, I actually only broke my ring finger knuckle, but it like exploded. So I have a cadaver knuckle in there. Wow. So the joke is, so my now wife was this like, the only finger you had to break was your left ring finger. finger.

Yeah. So now I have my wedding band on my right. I noticed that. You had a fractured right forearm, an elbow, ribs, a pulmonary contusion. So, you know, I'm, I'm, you don't know any of this, you know, when you, when you finally come back, right? But, um, when you look at that list and obviously when you start to talk rehab or, or, um, figure your way out of this, right?

how do you, you know, how do you, how in the hell do you rehab all of that, right? Like how do you, how do you, I can't even imagine, like when, when we think about crashing or we think about getting injured, I think for myself, it, it's, there, you never imagine this, this multitude of different dynamics in terms of multiple injuries, right? there's a head injury or I broke my arm or I have any ribs, you know, I broke my ribs, or I broke my clavicle. Yep. But you broke everything. You know, how do you even start to rehab all of that? We know what you've done.

We've seen the videos. We know you're sitting right here. But this is everything. I think the first thing was when I finally saw the crash for the first time, I was angry that it was, like I was. expecting worse. What? Wow.

I don't, there was just, I'm like, that's it? That's it, yeah. Because one, it happens quickly,

right? Mm-hmm. And it's just like, I saw it, keep in mind, like my legs were in external fixators because they were so broken,

they couldn't operate right away because of the swelling. So I had like, the like metal bars and everything on my legs. Both my hands were in cast. I had a neck brace, back brace.

I basically couldn't move. And like, so I'm like this and I was just like, where's the rest of the crash? Like I thought I'd get hit again or like it just went into the fence and spun around and came out the other side. And it was because like you see crashes. Yeah. Right. And you see them miraculously walk away or like you said, a broken leg or a broken arm or maybe a mild head injury or, you know. But the fact that like you just said, like my list was just, I had a hard time understanding like why.

mine over the next person's, you know, because it's not that uncommon for a race car to go airborne and go up into the fence, although it's rare. It happens. But they always end up to like be like not life-threatening injuries. So I was trying to figure out why, why was mine the way it was. Yeah. And wasn't until the IndyCar medical team and the doctors sat me down and actually, went like frame by frame and broke down the sheer energy involved in the accident. Like when I, when my car went into the fence, I was still going 212 miles an hour.

And then I went from there to net zero in like six tenths of a second. Just a force of that alone. Yeah. It is responsible for a lot of the injuries. Pretty much. But then, you know, hats off to IndyCar. are I'm still here.

Yeah, right? Like, knowing what I know now, like, obviously I went through different stages of grief and trying to understand, you know, not the, the YMEs, but it was more like, why did I get hurt so bad? And then once they explained that, I was very grateful to IndyCar and all the safety team to not only extract me in a safe manner, but in an expedient manner. And the IndyCar held up tremendously, you know, I mean, I think, sure, there's a lot of luck involved, knowing what I know about the accident of, because it's the fence poles that are the

problems. It's not particularly the fence. It's like those poles don't really move. And so where my car hit the fence, it was basically at the strongest part of the car. And if it was anywhere else, it probably just would have cut the car in half. But yeah, so I got pretty banged up, but still lived the tell of the tail. Did you hit a pole? I did. So basically, when I went airborne, I went more or less like nose into the fence. Right.

And then, yeah, so, you know, every, I don't know, 20 feet or so, there's like, fence poles to hold the fence up. And my nose went through the fence and then right around like where your knees are inside the indie car. So it's called the bulkhead area, but there's like a titanium ring around that area. And it's like literally the strongest part of the car. That's what struck the pole. Wow. And so it cracked the chassis like 300 degrees around, but it didn't break off all the way. But then in doing so, that's what then spun me around and caused, you know, I think the broken legs were from the quick impact. But it was the spinning and obviously the G-force that did my spinal cord, my ribs, my

neck, my middle back, lower back. Goodness. Hands, arm. Was your fiancee at the track? She was not. She was not at the track. She was not. She was watching at home.

Not really. So my wife's not. She didn't know motorsports before she met me. What's her name? Carly. Carly, okay. Yeah, so when she met me, she just knew there was racing, but she didn't know those different types of racing.

So she only knew motorsport as like DTM and the races I brought her to. And there was never a bad accident through good fortunes or indifference, but it was just there was never really an accident that even looked scary. So when we were talking about, about going to IndyCar for 2018. Scott Dixon had a really bad Indy 500 crash in 2017. And I guess she was researching what IndyCar was like and like that kept popping up and she was just like, I don't want you doing this. I'm like yeah, but he walked away. Oh wow.

And so when my car went airborne, she didn't really, she was just like, oh, racing safe, like they just walk away. And then she ended up getting. ended up getting flown to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to visit me in the hospital. And still, the wives and girlfriends of other drivers were telling her, like, just go because he's broken his leg. And when he comes out of surgery, like, I'm sure he's going to want to see you and, like, trying to play it down because it's not their place, I guess, to share. And, yeah, and then once she got to the hospital, it was not what she was prepared for.

What did they tell her? they basically told her that I was paralyzed that I'm in critical condition, I'm currently in a coma, and basically we'll get more updates as my body reacts within the hours. So, and at this time, it was just her flown by yourself. Like my parents were, and my brother and everything were in Canada, so they couldn't fly down in town in time, so then they started. driving and so it kills me to say it but Carly had to call my family while they were driving to Pennsylvania to tell them like that I'm paralyzed my gosh which I'm still

understanding the yeah trauma and the ripple effect that it had like a drivers are selfish right like I put myself out there but I never thought of the subsequent like ripple effect of how it affects others. And I definitely do now. I definitely do now. But yeah, just knowing, well, I guess even not knowing, I probably will never know what, like, it was really like in those days when I was just in a coma. And, you know, I think the first issue was surviving the spinal cord procedure because my lungs were so damaged and bruised from the accident that being on my stomach for that long, there was a high chance that I wouldn't have

survived. But then we needed to do the spinal cord surgery to stabilize my back. So that was kind of the first stumbling block. And then from there, it was, yeah, when I was in the coma, just making sure everything was healing properly. So you understandably talk about dealing with grief. I mean, you're really, you've got to be emotionally erect once you're now coming out the drugs. I mean, when he talks about, you know, how do you start to rehab? Man, it's almost like rehabbing your brain to, to process all of this would be the first big hurdle before you even get to the physical stuff. Am I wrong? No, for sure. I mean, I don't know when it clicked. Like, people always ask me, like, what's your first memory from the accident, from the hospital,

from it's like the amount of stuff I was on like I have memories in the hospital but I couldn't tell you an order of what's what you know I don't even know when it really clicked that I was paralyzed like I'm pretty sure the first time I said that I'm paralyzed wasn't until like four months after the accident and I don't know if it's because I just didn't believe it but I know I was so stubborn of those early days that the doctors were trying to show me how I need to take care of of myself and I just was like refusing the help. I'm like I won't need that. In your stubbornness are you thinking about going back driving? Always yeah. I remember like Graham Rahal once was visiting

me in the hospital and like keep in mind I'm still cast head to toe and like he just visited me after I think they were racing in St. Louis and then he popped in to say hi before they went off to the next ones and like we were literally talking about how I was going to make the start of the grid for like 2019. For 2019. And like I have no idea if Graham was like laughing in his head. Like or if he just didn't have the heart to like do anything. But like I just believed I'd be back.

And you know, I thought it would be a lot sooner than ended up being. Reality then eventually sets in, right? I mean like at what point is that? I mean, I'd say maybe physical therapy. I mean, the drugs now got to wear off at some point. Yeah. So I actually, while I was still at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania, I was, you know, coming to it and starting to understand, you know, that I had a bad accident and I'm in a hospital and all this stuff. But like, people will be talking to me and I physically just couldn't absorb anything that was being said to me.

And they had me on fentanyl, like through my IV. and every time they would just like top up my fentanyl I would just like turn to mush and I hated it because I wanted to like socialize and see my friends and family and people that were visiting. So I made them like cold turkey stop all my pain management like then and there to the point where I was just on like normal Tylenol. Yeah. Bad decision. Bad decision. Bad decision. A lot of. of pain, a lot of withdrawals, ironically. I guess so. Yeah. And then from there, I was fine because I wasn't moving much, right?

Like, I was just in my hospital bed, so I was like, I won't hurt if I don't move. But then when I got air transferred from the High Valley Hospital to Methodist in Indianapolis, that flight, like I wish I had more than Tylenol for that thing. painful. Yeah, but the funny thing was it was more my ribs. All I was complaining about all along was my ribs, and I don't know if it's because a lot of my injuries were below my level of paralysis,

so I couldn't feel them. Right. So, like, my legs, since I have no idea how much my legs would have actually bothered me if I wasn't paralyzed, because they were, like, pretty smashed up. You know, but then my, the way my ribs fractured, basically from the way, like, the scar spawned and I spot, my ribs like broke like twisted like off of the vertebrates so it's not it wasn't like a contact like a contact

fracture like they's like cracked off of my spine um and there was like six broken ribs so like anytime i moved or like it was just agony yeah so i think that um you know i know from an accident that was uh that uh resulted in a head injury and stock cars uh a driver was in a car and the car spun in such a way that he received the head injury from the rotation of the car, right? So the car, he, everything spun, yet his brain didn't spin. Right. And it kind of damaged the tethers and resulted in a hand injury. And so a lot of the injuries that you received were from that high speed rotation. and, you know, with your organs, your body, your bones and everything moving so quickly in one row, and some of it not, right?

Forgive my ignorance, but I have a friend of mine who had a spinal injury many, many years ago and continues to rehab today. What is your path? Help somebody understand, like, so starting from, I mean, I don't even know that we have the time in the day for you to tell me the mental path, like the mental rehab he spoke of. But, like, really, what are your options? When you really get that, when you really got a clear mind to think through this and try to visualize your future, what are your options? I mean, I think step one is understanding what your future, what your current state is. and I think once I got to grips with where I was, that really helped me understand.

I mean, I guess in a way I was lucky that my legs were so broken that I couldn't weight bear on them for like the first three months of my injury. So in doing so, we had a lot of time to research paralysis and to look into what rehab looks like, rehab facilities, like just kind of preparing everything because, you know, I'm paralyzed. I can't just like walk again once my legs heal. But there are forms of exercise like with self-pedaling bikes just to get, you know, blood flowing and to, you can stimulate your muscles so you don't atrophy your muscles as much. And like I was 172 pounds at race start for Pocono. in that August 19th, 2018.

And when I finally made it to Denver, Colorado at Craig Hospital, where I did my spinal cord rehabilitation on Halloween, so October 31st, I was 118 pounds. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. And it was just strictly from bed-written atrophy, couldn't do anything. So once as an athlete as well, like I wanted to get to work.

I wanted to get better, but I couldn't. So when I finally got that green light that like my legs are healed enough that we can get going, I just wanted to work and wanted to rehab. And that was it. Like it was almost like the weight, although it was painful and long, prepared me for the work that I had to do because I was so sick of sitting still the whole time. that it made me just work really hard to get back to where I was. And also being an athlete, being so in tune with my body,

I was aware of what needed to be done because I could feel myself just withering away. Is it fair to say, though, that even you can have the homework placed in front of you, but you don't know what your results will be until you do it. There's not like, okay, if you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. and that's what you can expect. There's none of that in front of you.

You don't have, is that fair to say? No, I mean, the hardest thing about paralysis is there's no prognosis. Right. So how do you manage that? What motivates you, I guess, to continue to push? Hopefully find the light at the end of the tunnel and see what you can do. I mean, I was just a believer going into it that I knew deep down if I didn't give it absolutely everything I had. five years from now, I'd be kicking myself that I didn't do more. Or there was a stone that I didn't

turn over that might have been that miracle that changed everything for me. Ultimately, there's no miracle. It's just what your body allows you to do. Sometimes you get fortunate, sometimes you don't. But, you know, one thing that being bedridden for so long, it allowed us to seek psychiatric help at an early stage. So I was already seeing a psychiatrist. I was already trying to come to terms with what was going on. Because I'm a strong believer in mental health. I had a sports psychologist when I was racing.

Well, I'm still doing now. Now that I'm racing again. But, you know, it was a turning point in my career in 2015 when I got a sports psychologist. and it was just like I was a different driver. I was a different athlete. I was a different person away from the track. Like I had a whole new look on life. So once the accident happened,

I just believed that it's just more work, right? It kind of, in a way, it was almost back to like early days of carding. Like everyone telling me something can't be done that I can't race in Formula One. I can't be a professional because we don't have the money to do it. And we don't, it's like all this like doubt. surrounding it that when nurses and doctors are saying I won't walk again I can't walk again you know your whole life's going to be different I was like okay well I'll show you guys have prove people wrong before I'll try to do it again and um ultimately I have no idea if what I did

was the magic ticket or if I just got lucky that my body recovered as much as it did so so listen if I'm about to ask something too personal just say so I don't want to do that but like how does this affect you and Carly? It was an adjustment. It's new for her too. Yeah, it was a big adjustment. I mean, you know, her partner that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with is now living a new life in a wheelchair.

And it's, you know, I'm in the chair, but it affects her life just as much as it affects mine, if not more, because there's a lot more responsibilities on her shoulders now to get through it day-to-day. Like one of the big things that drove me was I wanted to still remember. as independent as possible. Independent as possible is still not entirely independent. Right. Right. And there's days where, you know, I'm fortunate enough to,

I regained enough leg strength that I can get out of my chair to reach a plate in the cupboard or something, right? But there's days where I'm tired and I might ask her like, hey, can you give me a plate? And bless her and I love her for it. She would like, no, you can get it. Oh, wow. You know, and it's that balance of, like, sometimes when I'm, like, she pushes me too,

because I'm just like, you know what, you're right, I can't get it. Like, I'm just literally being lazy. You sort of, you sort of taking advantage of the situation? Is that right? I think there's definitely times where you can take advantage of your disability. Like, if there's something, I know I can do something, but if you can do it easier, I might just ask you to do it easily. She won't, she's not having any of that.

Like, to her credit, by the way. Yes, absolutely. think every couple out there, you know, I think you have to push your spouse, push your partner to remain true of themselves. And if you, you know, oh man, how do you word this? It's, I love the way that she's treated me because she doesn't treat me any different than we would have before. It doesn't matter that I'm in a wheelchair or not. She treats me as the same human being, she gives me the same amount of special love and treatment that I would have had before, and I wouldn't want it any other way because at some point you become a caregiver over a partner.

Yeah. And that's where things can get really tricky. And again, that's where I've been so fortunate that with my level of paralysis, I was able to gain that independence to still give myself that quality of life because some levels of spinal cord injury, you don't have that luxury. I have to ask you about the videos. I know the racing world, and maybe even much further beyond that, we're thrilled to see your spirit and your determination.

What was that reaction like for you personally? I mean, I know you're getting tons of support, but the videos that you put out touched the NASCAR world. It touched other parts of this whole thing. That obviously you probably had heavy personal contact with the IndyCar industry, but those, you know, your, your videos were profound and, and how, how did that reaction feel to you? Unexpected. You know, when, when Carly and I decided to become public with my recovery, it was really because while we were in the hospital bed

trying to figure what rehab looked like, there's so many different forms of paralysis. Right. There's a lot of documentation and a lot of videos for what life is like as a quadriplegic where you don't have function of your hands or legs. But mine, so my level of injury is a T4 incomplete spinal cord injury, which means I'm paralyzed from the T4 level down, which is basically just below my chest down. But then when we searched that, like no videos came up, nothing came up of like, I want to know what the workouts look like. I wanted to know what it all. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into to prepare myself mentally of how much work I have in front of me. And we couldn't really find that much information.

There was loads of paperwork. But I wanted to see like videos, photos. I wanted to see like what adaptive exercises looked like. I just wanted to see it all. And we couldn't find it. So we made a decision of, you know, we'll do it. And maybe the next person with a similar injury, you can. can find our page and get a rough idea of what they're getting themselves into.

Is it possible that this, the reason none of that exists is because a lot of the work that you're doing is new. A lot of it is innovative or pioneering in a way. Or, I mean, when you talk to doctors, are they telling you that, you know, here's all the exercises that we can We've done them in the past. I don't mean to relate the two, but when dealing with head injuries, there was a lot of information, you know, about how to, nobody, no one ever tried to really even fix them. There was just, I guess we're still in the infancy of learning about how to rehab someone from that injury and really what is working. Now they wouldn't using that type of technology 10 years ago. So are you, do you feel like as you're going through this process that, that y'all are still on the leading edge of understanding how to rehab and treat such an injury?

I mean, yeah, I mean, I think spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries are very much the same in the fact that it's hidden. Hidden. Hidden in neurological base. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, the fact, so Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where I did my spinal rehabilitation, they specialized. in spinal and brain trauma. So when I went there, I was just one of a hundred odd people that were in a wheelchair, whether it was for spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury. And the way they address those are very different.

I believe that Craig Hospital is a state-of-the-art facility, but the raw facts is there's no cure. There's no fix for spinal cord injury. fix for a traumatic brain injury. It's just hard work, time, and your body will give you what you can get. And they're having some breakthroughs now in modern medicine in the spinal cord industry with putting like a stimulant tablets like basically like into your spinal cord, which allow it basically creates a small brain below your point of injury. It's all trial basis. and it means picking up traction, but like at the same time, people always ask me like,

oh, why didn't you do like stem cell research or do anything like that? And for me, because I was fortunate enough to regain quite a bit of muscle function and sensation and everything, there's a good chance of actually me going backwards than gaining. Oh, really? just because if you did like stem cell into your spinal cord, and I'm by no means a doctor, so I don't want to speak out of term, but you have to create a new contusion in your spinal cord to put the stem cell into your area. And you're basically creating more trauma, even though it's a needle. But the whole thing of a spinal cord is if it gets a contusion is a fancy word for bruising, right? So if your spinal cord gets bruised, it never heals.

It turns to scar tissue. So it's not like your arm where you get a bruise and a week later there's no bruise. So that's the reason why I have paralysis is because of the contusion on my spinal cord. It wasn't severed. It wasn't, I didn't lose any spinal cord fluid. I didn't lose any of that stuff. But the reason why I have limited to no walking function is because of the contusions in the spinal cord and basically the nerves can't pass through as quickly and efficiently as they need to.

So, yeah, doing like something trial basis for me and my life right now, it just doesn't really make sense. Yeah. That makes sense, though. It makes sense that, you know, we don't go cause further contusions or possibility. It's risky. It's too risky. And you've made so much progress right now.

Why go back? Yeah. Because the funny thing is, speaking with my team boss, Sam Schmidt, who is a quadriplegic, he's been a quadriplegic for 20 odd years now, when I had my accident, he was telling me that when he was in my situation 20 years ago, they were on the cusp of the spinal cord breakthrough. And then when I was in the hospital, I got the same thing, that they're on the cusp of technology of having this great breakthrough. So it's kind of, one day we'll get it, right? It's around the corner. Yeah. Like, got it.

there yet? I think of it from like a car, right? This is like me just being naive, but like all cars have a wiring harness and a loom and everything. Like the spinal cord is the body's wiring harness. And if you can do like organ donor like lungs and kidneys and stuff, like why can't they do final cords? Yeah. That's interesting. Right. I mean, I'm sure it's, Super complex, but I'm sure. I mean, the wiring of, you know, there's millions and millions. Circuits is the only problem. It's trying to wire all of them up perfectly.

Yeah. Because the next thing I learned from that is like your nerves regenerate at like, I think it's like one millimeter a day. So while you're trying to regain your functions, like that's what they told me. It's like you need to understand that wherever your level of injury is, those nerves have to grow back like one millimeter a day. But constantly try to move your feet, try to move everything because you never know one day might just like fire.

And then you need to start training that to make it so it's the brain can learn it. Because it's not going to be like I can move my feet a little bit. But the way I move my feet is not how I used to. Like I know from I only think it's because of being an athlete. But like being so in tune with your body like I, like I know what I had to do to move my foot before because I know what muscle I used to do it where now like I have to do like two different like twists and turns to like get that muscle to overflow nerves to that one to move my foot type of thing. You're saying you've got to do a certain

thing to be able to it's a different movement right for my left foot yeah my right foot's pretty seamless but for my left foot I have to basically lift my knee. up so I need to like start at my hip okay to then like kind of like trigger this like nerve overflow thing to wow get my left foot to move so what what does progress look like I think progress well man it's almost like a relative term right like progress for me was seeing raw results right right I'm a very result driven human being yep call it my sport call it whatever, but like I needed to see proper progress. And at the beginning, I wasn't just having to rehab my lower body,

but I also had to try regain this muscle mass that I lost because being in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, like I was this scrawny guy that I could barely push my wheelchair at the beginning. So yeah, I mean, progress at the beginning was just trying to get your toe to move. Once you got your toe to move, put that in your back pocket, start working on your foot. Once you got your foot to move, put that in your pocket, then try to get your quad to move or get, like, just, I was constantly just trying to move muscles. And the hardest thing was once I got, let's say, my right foot, I could start moving around. It is so hard to, like, not just keep moving the thing you can move, right?

Oh, man, I can imagine. Because then, because it's like, it's reassuring. It's moving. Because it works. Yeah. mentally that's got to be so uplifting. Yeah. And then you go back to like trying to get your left leg moving and it's like it doesn't work.

And you're just like, oh, screw that leg. I'm going to go back to the old good leg. But yeah, I mean, for me, progress was just, I said a lot of goals. Every week I wanted goals. And I would always write down what I had at the end of the week. So week one, I'd write down like, big toe, right? And then like week two would be like big toe, a little bit of ankle, maybe some calf.

And then there might be a week where I got nothing. But then or a week I thought I had nothing. And then I look back to last week. So I'm like, oh, I have like four new things this week that I didn't know I had. So it was kind of like setting goals and just keeping tally on what I was doing really helped me understand my progress and really mentally keep me in the space I needed to be in. because I'm such a goal-oriented, result-driven human being. You quote, unquote, got behind the wheel in the sim racing world when NASCAR was doing their pro-invitational,

IndyCar was doing the same thing, had live races on eye racing. How helpful was that? Honestly, eye racing, I truly believe, was a enormous part of my recovery. Physically, I was already well on my path for my neurological regeneration, and I pretty much had what I was going to get in terms of my ability outside of work. But what I racing gave me was a platform to prove to the world that I can still race. And that was massive for me, because I always knew they get back into a race car

was going to have to show a proof of concept and it was going to have to be through simulation because we all know in this room how expensive it is to drive a race car around racetrack. So you do it virtually nowadays, right? Yeah. And then, you know, the pandemic hit and everything put esports center stage

and I had this great opportunity to compete against great drivers again and to compete against people I was racing against when before I had my accident and I even raced against you yeah Motegi virtually yeah I was terrible gosh I appreciate you finish third I finished third at Martin or Michigan oh okay I didn't do so well in motetie but um um let's fast forward to today yep um you're back behind the wheel of a race car racing in the pilot series in in the emsa world sports cars.

And I've read a little bit about your comments when you first got behind the wheel of the car racing with hand controls. How different was it coming off of the simulator, the ir racing rig and getting in a real car and actually the raw feel of the traction of the car and the level of grip and understanding and, you know, doing that math in your brain every corner and breaking zones and all that. Yeah. How hard was it or how easy was it to really find yourself and getting up to speed and finding pace?

I mean, again, the great thing about eye racing for me was I still knew how to drive a race car, even though I was just trying to figure out how I do it with these instead of with my feet, right? And even though the system I use on my rig on eye racing is not what I'm using in my Hyundai-A-Lontra and TCR car, still that like muscle memory of when I first started jumping into i racing i was still defaulting to trying to use my feet like i'd go into a corner and i'd be like instinctively trying

to use my feet but it wouldn't work and i'd be like oh my hands and then i would like reach for the handbrake and break for the corner and go into the turn and it was honestly just iriscing gave me that muscle memory right of making my hands second nature understanding that these are my tools now How do I get the most out of it? And even though the brake system that I use, I'm just using almost like a rally cross adapted handbrake. Yep. It's not what I'm using in the Michelin Pilot Challenge.

What is it? Series. It's a ring on the back of the steering wheel that I basically pull the ring towards the wheel. So that way both my hands are on the steering wheel all the time. Does it have a linear? Is it this, when you pull that back? So when we mash a brake pedal, it gets harder, right?

or if you're pulling on that brake level like you might in a rally car there's more tension the further back you understand like the level of braking that you're applying. How does that work with the ring? Nah, it's similar. So because I'm sharing this car with a teammate

who is an able-bodied driver, my brake system is like a one-to-one I pull the ring and it pushes the physical brake pedal down. But as you can imagine, like getting that much break pressure out of just that movement is a challenge so I have a hydraulic actuator that helps me develop the pressure and that's our biggest area right now of understanding is it's not that break feel that I remember feeling right and so trying are you trying to create that a little bit yeah I mean it's it's kind of a catch-22 like what do you do do you just

learn this or do you constantly try to chase something sure right and it's we don't have a whole lot of So right now we're pretty much, like in Daytona, we made pretty big strides with the system. Going into Sebring, we tried one different variation, but it didn't really work. But in doing so, we kind of wasted a full practice session because I couldn't drive it. Basically, I couldn't develop enough brake pressure, so I just couldn't slow down competitively. This is a very personal question to ask a race car driver, but is do you believe that once you figure out the mechanical, technical side of this, that you personally can find the same pace that you would have been able to create 10 years ago,

five years ago? Honestly, I think 100%. 100%. Right now, we're still in the early stages, but I'm showing signs that it's there. Yeah. You know, we got on the podium in Daytona and first race back. which was like a dream come true. In Sebring a couple weeks ago, I qualified second.

I led for the majority of my stint in the race before handing the car off and we got tangled up in an incident that wasn't our fault. But, you know, we're showing progress. So going into Laguna, Seca here in three weeks. What are your challenges? What do you want the car to do better?

Honestly, the car itself, the Hyundai Alontra, handles phenomenal. Like, it's a front-wheel-drive car. I've never driven a front-wheel-drive race car before. Apart from corner exits are a little less exciting. You know, I'm so used to the rear, like, constantly stepping out and stuff. And now you are managing your front tires of not, like, kind of getting understeer on throttle. But the balance is really, really good.

But as far as, like, the, you know, the technical hand controls and so forth, what is, what are you you still trying to perfect? I'm still trying to perfect the braking. Yeah. You know, I mean... You got a lot to gain in braking zones and so forth as you improve the technology. I mean, you know, on a road course, like, breaking is 70% of the lap time. So it's braking and getting into the corner and how much brake you take to the apex

changes the whole balance of the car. So I'm not consistent enough yet with my braking. So I feel like as a teammate, I'm not... providing enough help for car setup for everything else because one lap to the next, I'm manipulating the balance so much that I'm getting a bad read on do I have too much entry oversteer, do I have too much entry understeer? And then I need to look into the data and understand like, oh, actually I have way too much break pressure on on turn-in compared to my teammate Mark Wilkins. And then I need to adjust that. So like I'm constantly learning from my

teammate and adapting instead of giving it a 50-50 workload trying to build the best car we can as a team. Yeah. How do you finish on a podium at Daytona and not completely just lose it emotionally? Yeah. I think it helped that it was the first race in my life where I didn't physically cross the finish line for. You know, I started the race and then handed the car over to my teammate and he finished.

It was an interesting experience for. And yeah, and the fact that, like, I was just sitting on the sidelines and watching our car go around and cheering it on, it honestly felt very similar. Not exactly the same, but while I was recovering for my injury, I continued working with Aaron McLaren SP as a driver coach and a consultant for their IndyCar team. So I've been within the paddocks for the last, you know, three years while I've been recovering, driver coaching, being in with the engineers. and so we've won IndyCar races. And the feeling of crossing the finish line, it's fun, but it's like you don't get that, I guess, ecstasy when you're the driver.

It's different. I don't know if you can relate as a team owner. Well, you know what it reminds me of is it's sort of similar, but in an NFL now, there's so many running backs in the backfield. There used to be that one guy that was a bell cow that ran the ball all the way down the field and punched you in the score, right? Yep. and now they have the running back that does 80% of the work,

and then the other guy comes in on the goal line and gets the score and spike the ball. The other guy standing on the sidelines going, well, I ran, I had 40 yards on this drive, right? And it is an interesting experience. Man, I know we've got to get you out of here before you get running behind with your car service and your airport. I don't even know when your flight is, but Matthew's texting me. 250. 250, oh gosh.

250? Yeah, he'll be fine. Oh, we're good. $250 is his car service? No. Fight. It's flight. Oh, God.

He's not fine. He's not fine. He's not fine. He's got two hours. Anyways. I'm already checked in. Okay. There we go.

All right. He's got two hours. He's got two hours. Take it all the way back to when you were six. Yeah. All right. Oh, we weren't recording, though. I guess the one thing that stands out to me is your ability, this is a recent experience.

You know, your accident, your rehab, the trauma, the, not only that you've had to overcome emotionally, physically, but also the domino effect through, you know, through your family and friends, how it's affected lives. This is all it just happened. And your ability to come in here and be so honest and open to, you know, communicating your experience is remarkable. You know, I guess I'm thankful that you,

were willing to share your rehab with all of us. The whole world wanted to know what you were going through, what you were dealing with. You really did an amazing job of allowing us into your home and into your rehab programs to help us understand. And I think it allowed us to continue to cheer for you and continue to pray for you. But it's so thankful for you to, to be willing to come tell us your story. I think that a lot of people that listen to this podcast may already know your story, but it's going to make them bigger, bigger fans of yours going forward. Thank you.

You know, what you're going to be doing in the rest of your life, whether it's behind the wheel. You're going to be a father very soon. That's going to be an incredible experience in itself. Might be calling you for some tips. I would be glad to give them. I'll be glad to give them. I know a lot of Mike as well. We know a lot of shortcuts and helpful things in that regard.

But, you know, we're so, we're really lucky to have some incredible people come in this room. But your story is unique. And it's an incredible story. I think that you give a lot of people, no matter what they might be going through, this hope. And, you know, if you do the work, if in a positive you know mental attitude and taking care of yourself mentally I believe in therapy and and and and working things out and staying staying focused mentally is is the first thing before you ever take care of yourself physically but I think people can pull so much from your story

and I know that you've probably heard this a million times but man we are so thankful that you're here today and I hope you enjoyed it I'd love getting to learn about your career. I'm always curious how guys born on this continent end up on the other continent. It's always the same but not the same, right? It is. There's so many similarities, but everyone's experience is different. And boy, it sounds like a, like I said, like a blender over there, you're just pulled in so many different directions. And I don't know, you know, and then you're doing it at 17, 18, 19 year old, I don't know how you guys survive it. And you get spit out and end up going wherever you go.

You're, in your case, the Indy car. And so I'm just, you know, thankful you're back behind the wheel. Excited to see what you can do going forward. And I hope you enjoyed being here, buddy. I did. Thank you for having me. You got it, man. Robert Wiggins on the Dale Jr. download.

We are live. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. And welcome to our favorite partner or a great partner. I don't know. Is it our favorite? At some weeks. We kind of debate this.

There have been some great questions over the last couple weeks, but this is the Ask Junior segment. Brett Griffin's favorite part of the show, Ask Junior. Yeah. You try to infiltrate. This is what they do when they're trying to be, you know, with Big Brother. He's spot on about Ask Junior. So anyways, this is brought to you by Xfinity.

They've been a great partner of ours over the last several years, and they're representing us again this year, sponsoring the Ask Junior segment. And so you've been sending in your Asked Junior, hashtag Ask Junior questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter, Hannah Newhouse is going to gather her favorites. So if you don't like them, it's Hannah's fault. But so far, she's been doing an amazing job last few weeks. All right, we got a couple good ones here that people submitted. The first one comes from Brian, which we obviously got a great response on last week's April Fool's joke on Mike Davis.

What is the best April Fool's joke that has been pulled on you? That's a tough one. Got one, Mike? April Fool's joke? I mean, honestly, I don't know if they were April fools or if they were just pranks and jokes. I mean, I can think of pranks. You know, one of the best pranks, I don't even think we could say it on a live stream is one of the best pranks is what you did, uh, Tofer, or Tofer did to me. Tofer did to me. Tofer did to me. Tofer did to me. I mean, we've talked about, I think we talked about it before on here. Basically, uh, years and years ago, my friend Tofer. Christopher Allen. Yeah. My friend Christopher, he is a friend of his and this couple that he knew, were pregnant with their,

whether one of their, either their first baby or whatever, but he acquired a positive pregnancy test from them and then put it in my bathroom. And so the girl I was dating at the time is downstairs, I go

upstairs to, you know, take a shower or whatever, and that thing is laying on the counter. Holy smokes. It was so dirty. That was wrong. Genius. Yeah. But what did I do to deserve that we broke into his house at 2 o'clock in the morning i don't know in what order but he got a gallon

of water a bag of flour and i think that was it no no there was crickets involved yeah we might have dumped 2 000 crickets in a house in his house you just don't go collect those things back up real well i don't know we we yeah some good prank wars back then it was bad that's that one his his ended it it was like okay enough you win it's getting too personal Yikes. Remind me ever to pull a prank on you guys. Let's get serious. The next one comes from Megan Nilsson. It says my eight-year-old

daughter is reading the book, Who is Dale Earnhardt Jr. For a class project. In the book, it says that Danica caught the bouquet at your wedding. Is this true? Oh, my gosh. I can't remember. She might have. Yeah. Yeah. I think she did.

I never heard that. I never heard that. Yeah, I think she did. I think, and I think Amy might have intentionally thrown it in her direction. Here's a little help. Danicle was equally as aggressive as you might expect to make sure she captured. I think they seem like that there might have been a little playing ahead. Yeah. Amy was like, hey, they drew up a play.

Toss it in this direction. Run a slant. Which I imagine happens, you know, do women do that? Yeah. You're not in your head. I wouldn't fight Danica over a bouquet, though. I'll tell you that much. She can have the bouquet.

She wanted it that day. But have you been at a wedding where you have fought for the bouquet? Oh, yeah. I've been knocked on my butt a couple of times, too, where you go to jump for it and someone just happens to, like, you know, linebacker you. As you go for it, you're like, it's okay, I didn't need it. I didn't need it that bad. You can have it.

It's interesting. So in, if it was guys, I don't know that we would be aggressively going after this. It hit the floor. Yeah. It hit the floor. Right. Even if a guy secretly was. all about getting married.

Oh, he doesn't want to seem as if he's excited. Yeah, he'd be like, oh, no, not me. You know what I mean? You lose your man card instantly if you catch the bouquet. Yeah. Listen, you're jumping for the wrong thing. Right. The next one comes from Biggie Tall.

It says the tape on Kyle Bush's radiator. If it was an innocent mistake, shouldn't the pit crew or spotter have picked up that long before NASCAR did? It seems they have been on. on their own cars all the time. Well, I think even if they did, even if it was a mistake, and they realize, you know, say they make the mistake, they probably know it immediately. They probably see it happening.

The crew chie is standing there watching the stop and he's going to go, oh, that's at the wrong spot. But if the car pulls off pit road, he's going to wait, see if NASCAR noticed anything. All right, NASCAR is not saying nothing. So let's just let this go, okay? And everybody kind of just don't touch it. Don't talk about it. Don't even mention it on the radio over the digital.

And as long as NASCAR doesn't have a problem with, we're going to leave them out there because that is absolutely an aerodynamic advantage. I've gotten debris on the grill. Anytime you add tape on the grill, boy, your car is way better. It adds overall downforce, not just grip on the front or arrow advantage to the nose. That air that is now hitting that piece is not only pushing down on that piece, right and creating additional downforce for the front of the car, but it's also sending more

air over the car, over the rest of the car, onto the rear spoiler. The whole car improves. And, you know, when we run the races that started in daytime and end at night, we would always be telling the crew chief our temperatures so that if they got to a certain point, then we could

start adding tape. You know, you wanted to be able to add that tape, you wanted to do it as soon as possible, so it's absolutely a great tool. And if I'm Kyle Bush or Kyle's crew chief, man, and it gets put on the wrong spot unintentionally, I'm going to leave it there. And I'm going to leave him out there until NASCAR says otherwise, or hopefully they don't do anything about it or ever notice it, right? And for the longest time, they didn't. Unfortunately, when they did notice it, he had to come down on pit road and lose all that track position. Maybe then hindsight is 2020 and you go, damn, we should have

took it off. But it's such a good advantage. You know, he pulls off pit road and you don't get any radio. Hey, bring him back from NASCAR, you almost kind of got to take a chance and see if it can stay there. I don't know. I don't know really what was going on in the mines, and I don't know that we ever will know what was truly happening in the minds of the team and the crew chief. But for me, I think they did what they should have done.

And NASCAR, you know, if they see it and it is, you know, even if it is 200 laps later, they got to come in and make a change. They got to bring him on a. pit road and make him fix it. Next one, this one comes from the chat, actually, from Aaron Maldano. We had a lot of conversation about how we thought the next-gen cars were going to run on road courses. Turned out it was pretty good.

How do we think that's going to translate over to dirt? I think they'll be fine, you know, even better. I think they're going to test the next-gen, the RCR next-gen test cars going to Bristol or with Friesen, I think, if I read that correctly, to try to make sure that the undercarriage of the car can survive what it's going to go through. I think that they may get away from the diffuser for that race. If you've watched the races this year, you see the nose of the cars are a lot higher than we've seen in years.

There's an idea that the more air you can get under the car to the diffuser, the better overall downforce the car has. So they're not trying to seal the fronts of the cars as much, where they're trying to let them gobble as much air as they can. Not be ridiculously high in the air, but they are getting, you know, trying to, you know, get some air to the diffuser to create overall downforce. So that nose is not as critical to be sealed. I think that bodes well for anything that might go on in the dirt racing if we get

ruts or the track gets rough or bumpy or anything like that. The clearance that this thing has at the nose, I think it'll be better off for those guys. They're not going to be out there, you know, sliding across the racetrack on a splitter or nothing like that. But I think it'll race as good, if not even better. with that independent rear suspension, it should be a little bit more manageable and fun, I think, for the teams

and drivers, the drivers in particular. Didn't they tested it at Lancaster? I think they did. Yeah. Yeah. The independent rear suspension is going to be a benefit for the driveability

everywhere they go. That is just an overall better design than the old 9-inch forwarder rear-in. You know, when it was a 9-inch forwarder in, trailing arm rear suspension, they argued, you know, they didn't work. independently so they fought with each other one's trying to do this and the other's trying to do

that and they made the car difficult but with independent suspension all these tracks we go to particularly obviously the road courses the cars are just going to be more fun all right next one we thought it all as an April Fool's joke but apparently it wasn't news came out of i racing and world of outlaws partnering up coming out with a new joint effort console game do you have a favorite NASCAR video game or just video game in general excluding iraising Right. Yeah, I racing for me, absolutely, you know, that I'm a big fan of and support heavily. But when it comes to the history of games, I think on the PC side, it was NASCAR racing 2003. We love that. We played it forever.

On the console side, dirt to Daytona, you know, what I love about console games is a career mode, you know, managing a franchise or anything like that. And so anytime you can give me sort of that start from, you know, Rags to Rich's sort of ladder system in a driving game or a motorsports game on a console, that's going to be, that was a good, that was a lot of fun. You know, you had to kind of build your character and get hired and develop and this and that and other. So I thought that was well done. And the physics were great on the dirt for that, for that console game at the time that it came out. And iRacing is investing a lot of effort into creating console titles.

And the one you mentioned, what's the one you mentioned there? The World of Outlaws? That'll be, I think, their first console title, they're going to release. But there's a big future there for Our Racing in the console world. We still play dirt to Daytona and NASCAR Thunder in our household. I'm like, those games ever break, Dylan's going to have a meltdown. It's not going to be good. The next one, and I've seen this actually come up in the chat a couple times as well over the last couple weeks.

Who designed the desk? It's so unique. Yeah. Yeah, your desk. I can answer to this table. Yeah. Jeremy Fuller, who works in the shop, and Jeremy Fuller, he just does some handywork and some woodwork on the side. He's really good at it. We actually, that wasn't the intention. The intention, we had a desk picked out that we were going to buy, but it was going to be expensive and it was going to not be here in time for when. whenever we were going to start the show, right? Whatever year that was. And so Fuller's like, I could do that easily. And he did it in a day or two. Nick Gian Bruno did the welding work and stuff with the frame.

Nick GM Bruno in our shop. So like about everything else, when we need something built, we just go to the guys that, you know, build race cars. They can usually do it, you know, whatever it is you're asking. You build a fish tank. You want to build this. You want to build whatever it is. They can build it.

Roll call. Anyone want to build a table? That is it for the question. questions. All right, y'all. Hey, appreciate all those questions. They were great ones. Thank you, Hannah, for helping us out there. Remember, Xfinity is a great partner for us. And X-5 is fast, reliable, it's powerful. I'm a customer. I've used this X-Findy X-5 now for almost two and a half years. I signed up. I'm like, hey, this would be a great experience for me to be a real genuine customer of Xfinity. And boy, it's been great. Appreciate everything they do for us. I hope you guys are

enjoying your week. Thank you, Xfinity. Their proud premier partner of NASCAR. Thank you guys for tuning in to the show. Robert Wickenz was our guest today. And he was awesome. Came in here. Told us all about his story. He was an IndyCar driver.

Was in a terrible wreck. Overcame so many severe injuries. Races in the M-Series now in the pilot series. What an incredible, inspiring story. And a fun guy to talk to, Mike. Oh, man. Amazing, inspiring. Yeah, you said it emotional.

We're racing this weekend at Martinsville. Got a little practice Thursday night. Big race Friday night. 250 laps around the paper clip. I can't wait. I hope that everything goes well. And if I get to the checker flag in one piece, I'm getting right to that hot dog stand.

And I'm going to eat three of them bad boys. Yes. And then call it a day. So anyways, y'all have a great week, and we'll see you next week. Enjoy. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.