The Dale Jr. Download - 388 - Justin Marks: Silence the Doubters

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

He's the man responsible for starting a NASCAR team that has turned everyone's heads in NASCAR. Today, racer and entrepreneur Justin Marks sits with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis to discuss the wild journey from a no-name to someone shaking up the industry.Marks' exposure to the sport of auto racing came at an early age, when his grandfather, a fan of motorsports, took him to local dirt tracks in Missouri. From there, his passion grew. Eventually the Marks family moved to California, as his father Michael chased dreams in Silicon Valley. For young Justin, his dreams came in the form of an amateur ride in the SCCA road racing ranks. From amateur to pro, his career started to climb as he found himself having success in IMSA and events like the 24-hours of Daytona.But how did this road racer transition to the NASCAR world? Influences like Boris Said, a cross-over racer, took Marks to North Carolina. It also took him to a basement party at Dale Jr.'s house. Dale Jr. didn't even realize that the future NASCAR team owner was there.From there, his family's success created opportunities in the NASCAR ranks from the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, through Xfinity and even the elite Cup Series. Marks admits that he didn't always do things right and revealed what it was like being fired from a ride that he paid for. He did find success in the NASCAR ranks, winning an Xfinity Series race on the windy and wet turns of the Mid-Ohio racing course in 2016 for Chip Ganassi Racing. Ironically, the same team he'd end up purchasing in his breakthrough in the Motorsports business world.Realizing his journey behind the wheel served a selfish need, Marks realized he had a "higher calling." He realized that he wanted to be a mover in the Motorsports industry. He did so by starting a team called "Trackhouse Racing." Trackhouse purchased two charters and longtime NASCAR team Chip Ganassi Racing. A purchase that happened one year before this appearance on The Dale Jr. Download. He admits that the decision was done in a risky order but he knew he needed to make some unorthodox moves to make his dream happen.In a year, a new team has created two first-time winners in the NASCAR Cup Series and has both of its teams in a playoff spot, running up-front each week and stealing headlines? How? Dale Jr admits that he was among the plethora of doubters, that didn't see the rapid success of the first year team coming. The mantra of Marks' approach is rooted in "belief." A philosophy in creating a business and culture that differs from the norm and placing belief in his drivers and employees to produce results.Marks discusses the rise of NASCAR superstar Ross Chastain and how he has ruffled the feathers of some of the sport's biggest names. He opens up about discussions with Ross and with other car owners like Rick Hendrick. He also talks about conversations with Denny Hamlin after a run in with Chastain in St. Louis.Dale Jr. and Mike Davis get the young team owner to open up about his thoughts on the state of the sport and how he sees the business model moving forward with the cost of the Next Gen car and the up-coming television deal that NASCAR will have to make in 2025. How does he view the current Charter system and the potential of new team owners, potentially ones sitting at the table, entering the Charter system?DIRTY AIR presented by FilterTime Before bringing Justin Marks to the table the DJD Gang discuss: The Download live at Ole Red in Nashville. Lightning delays and race start times. The reality that everything is going to streaming. ASK JR presented by XfinityHannah Newhouse tees up fan questions about: Dale's rain delays as a driver. Who closed down the bar in Nashville? Fiery Tony Stewart getting physical with Ernie Francis in the SRX race Dale Jr. racing a Late Model at North Wilkesboro 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.

All right, Dale, you just gave me a level. Mike, could you give me a level, sir? Level. Test one, two, three. Test one, two, three, three. Five. One, three, four, five. One, two, two, two, two.

We could do a little song. We could do a melody. I mean, you guys are like a symphony. Anyways. All right, here we go. Love destruction. Thank you. Thank you.

Greetings, splendiferous salutations, and once again, from us to you, a warm and heart of welcome. Welcome. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. As is our custom, acts dropped from the four corners of the earth. Here together each week, and now today, our first attraction is packed with fun, fabulous feet, and translated for water. The Dale Jr. Download.

Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of The Dale Jr. Download episode 388 here in the Bojangles Studio. Mike Davis, my co-host is here. Mike, how you doing? Doing well. Feeling pretty good. We're coming off of the awesome week at Nashville. We had a little podcast we did down there at Old Red.

Good time. It was good. Matthew's here. Hannah's here. Everybody's in the room. And Justin Marks is our guest. The owner of Trackhouse is going to come in here and tell us all about how they built this team into a competitor. It's incredible.

We want the secrets. We want to know how to do it. A little task for everybody here. I mean, think of a scenario. Think of a comparison. and it's similar if you can. Not right this second, but I've been trying to think of something that, you know, another team that has done this.

Somebody that came in right out of the gate and has been won three races as an organization. They have the first, that's the first win for both of those drivers and the crew chiefs. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, come on, man. And they'd been in the sport for a while, like the drivers had and the crew chiefs. I mean, yeah, Daniel Suarez, I mean, some people kind of have already put him out to pasture. Yeah. So just, I don't know that I can figure a team that compares.

But, well, if you can't come up with something, I ain't going to try. Yeah. And if, and don't, you know, I don't know. Hockey, the Vegas Golden Knights. In racing. Oh, no, there is not. He tried. He tried.

He tried. Well, there was that one time, the U.S. track and field team. The 63 Islanders They were creating 72 So in the 66 World Cup There was that one Right Anyhow

All right Some racing Yeah boy Well just think about it during a show And we'll try We'll try our Our viewers on our ass junior So we'll have a live audience

You know we like them live audiences now I did like the live audience I did too Hey, it was pretty. Yeah, it was fun. All right, well, time for some dirty air. Dirty air. Dirty air is not great for everyone.

But this is our dirty air. So let's go. All right, so let's talk about some dirty air. Let's do it. First off, before we go any further, I wanted to say that the representing sponsor for dirty air for the foreseeable future is filter time. Well, now that's nice. Yeah, so one of our, I thought it was great. It is.

One of our listeners on Twitter said, I got a great, I got a great sponsor for that segment. And so in their honor, this week's dirty air is brought to you by. Filter time. Filter time is a subscription service that will mail you your air filters for your home. So you just go into your house, right? And you figure out what sizes that you have and need. And then you can go on filter. time.com select the sizes and then you can select how quickly you want them and so for example

I have a home that I get those every two months I was doing I was doing three months and they were dirty it's one in particular near the front door and anyways so you can change it and get them as frequently as often as possible and you can cancel any time there's no you're not locked in anything just give it a try if you like it the one thing i love about it is is you forget about your filters and when that box shows up on the front door that's the reminder there it is and the cool thing about it is is you open the box put the new filters in the dirty filters go right into the box right into the trash i mean you know it's pretty convenient yeah so and important i mean important i mean listen the air filter i mean as dirty as that filter is

when you pull it out you realize uh uh the contamination that gets into the the air that those filters are doing a lot of work. Yeah, the filter is not only making the air in your house better to breathe, but you're also making things a lot easier on your air handler, your HVA system. If you look at that thing and see how dirty it is, realize how hard your system's working, especially during these hot, hot summer months. You know, when those air handlers can't get that flow,

can create a lot of problems. And either you're going to have to fix it, you're going to call a technician to come out there and do some work. and what they're going to tell you is that you need to change your filters. And so a lot of us forget to do it. This is a great way to remind you. Filtertime.com is where you'll get your subscription. So anyways, Hannah, you're going to tease us up on some topics.

Let's go. Well, you guys kind of talked about it already, you know, at the top of the show. That live show at Old Red, I was following it via social media, saw people on Twitter and Instagram that were showing up six hours. before the event even started. It looked like there was a lot of fun. And I heard a story about some guy even got bounced at the show. Yeah, within the first five or ten minutes.

You know, that was funny. Yeah, it was packed. I thought that was staged. You thought it was staged? Wouldn't we be the one to stage it? Right. You and I? No.

If it's not you and I, who else would it be? Well, I just showed up to do the podcast, but I thought y'all had been there a while, so I thought, man, you know, y'all might have been sitting there going, what's one way to really get this thing going, and showing, we mean business is maybe fake someone getting thrown out of the bar. Well, if that was a fake, I tell you what, they manhandled that guy.

I did hear the story, by the way. Okay, let's hear it. Because I had my family there. My family was there, and they were telling me, like, did you see that guy get thrown out? I'm like, I saw it. We were in the middle of a story, and I'm like seeing these three guys like very out. We had just started. Just literally said, hey, hey, welcome, everybody.

And I know this will surprise all the listeners right now, but we're not professionals and we don't know what we're doing. So when any type of disruption like that, it may throw us off for good. So he had been pretty mouty about wanting to get an autograph at the VIP. He was making his way over to the VIP, and he was insisting, I guess even before we went on stage, like he was trying to get his.

I mean, like he and was not reasoning with anybody. Like it became an illogical situation. and so he continued to kind of carry on after the show had started, and so they escorted him out. That's the story I heard. Well, I hate that happen. I do, too. I don't like seeing that, right?

I mean, people that come out. As, you know, not knowing the context of what was going on to see somebody moved out of a bar, I mean, we were in a bar on Broadway in Nashville, so it wasn't like, it's not, I mean, I'm sure that happens from time to time when somebody is either a little route, or too aggressive or whatever. So, you know, it wasn't like we were in a Walmart and somebody was getting escorted out. It was a bar.

That happens in bars. So it wasn't like too starbling, but it's a bummer. Yeah. Hate to have somebody have to get removed and he doesn't get to see what happened in the show and then the people were kind of maybe put off by it. But we carried on.

I thought it was a fight at first. Anytime you see commotion and a big crowd. I just barely caught the very, tail end of the guy going around the corner with the with the with the I didn't see it I didn't I mean I barely briefly I'll say this though he can watch it on YouTube if he uh if he wants to see the show it's funny that y'all are so it's funny that y'all have highlighted like the people showed up six hours before the event it's a bar y'all I mean it's a no no no no that's not what we mean by that there were people showed up for the show six hours before the event I met a bunch

of them okay and I know what you you mean. I know what you mean. It's not like, there's worse places to go six hours and sit, right? Like in line for something. There have been people at this place for weeks waiting on this show. On Twitter, people were sending us photos saying, we're ready and I mean, we're still at the house, you know, or you're at the track or something like that. A little humble Harry here. There's been some people coming back for weeks. No. Mike's right. I'm right. Of course I'm right. Well, I saw Mike's Twitter, right. Mike said the, was it the first 10 people that had to show you the picture of the tweet you were going to buy the beer. That ended up being more than 10.

Yeah, I figured that was going to be the case. And that was fine. It was funny because people were holding up their phones. And I mean, like, I don't know exactly what I expected. I didn't really think through that plan. Kind of like your speech, right? Just like the speech, right? But that was okay because you know what I found about these live shows?

Like, it is fun engaging with our listeners. I mean, like, and I'm so appreciative of Dirtymo Media listeners and that any time. that they're, you know, having fun and they're, you know, wanting to get a free beer because of a tweet. I mean, like, I love that stuff, right? And so a lot of them showed up and they were showing me tweets. And so I said, hey, let's give them a beer. I mean, we had that waitress getting beers for people during the middle of the show. I'd look up and there's somebody holding up a phone.

I mean, like, okay, send one over there. It was a good time, though. Yeah. And my family was blown away at how Dale Jr. fans know so much about Dale's career. My sister was telling me, like, during the Ask Junior segment, she said, like, it blows me away how attention to detail junior fans are. And I'm like, hey, this is, we've known this for years. They know more about Dale than Dale knows about Dale. So, yeah, it was a good time.

It was a good time. Yeah, it looked like a lot of fun, which obviously that was kind of the prelude in going into NBC's return to NASCAR, Nashville weekend. Mother Nature decided to twill with our heartstrings a little bit, you know. That was frustrating. most of the coverage because it was right after our race in Watkins Glen. And you guys also had a six-hour race is basically what it turned out, being the six hours of Nashville. Yeah, that was so frustrating.

The industry standard or whatever you want to call it about lightning, basically on any sporting event, if it's within eight or ten miles, I don't know exactly what it is. But if there's a strike, everything stops for 30 minutes. And I don't, you know, I guess the earliest I remember, this policy is maybe in the last couple of years, four or five years they've been doing it. It happened after Pocono, that person got killed in the parking lot.

Okay. After the race when Jeff Gordon won. Well, there you go. And, yeah, Matthew with the stats. So. It's good. Yeah. I forgot about that.

It is a, it's a tough thing to understand because you're sitting there and there's no rain. I mean, we did get rain, but, I mean, most there were times during the day where we're in a lightning hold but the track's ready and um you know and people are now if you're at the racetrack you see the storm you see the lightning you you you understand it feel you know it's a little bit more acceptable what's going on but i imagine that you know i'm in the booth right so i have this sort of odd connection to the people that are watching at home and I and I have a sense that maybe they don't realize the weather situation because what they see on their screen looks great right there's why are we not racing what's uh and and how

you know and then they don't know how I can I can text down to the NASCAR booth and say hey man how long is this hold how when's it going to be over with and uh so we got all kinds of information we know all right we've got we've got 25 minutes till we're going to be released from the hold um it's just easier when you're present I feel this sort of sense of frustration, whether it's real or not, from the viewer at home, because they don't, you know, they think, well, you know, I see a good clean racetrack, and the race supposed to be going. What's going, what's happening?

And so I don't know how to get around that. I don't know how to make that a better situation. It's the policy. That's the way it is. You know, it's just something we'll. I think it's a great policy. I'm still getting used to it, though. I don't love it.

And I understand it's necessary. I understand it's here to stay. But I'm trying to figure out how to love it. I'm trying to figure out how to, like that stop, go, stop, go, clunky sort of process. Yeah. I wish there was a way to figure out how to smooth it out. But it is what it is, right? You got pop-up showers.

Typically, when we have, you know, rain, it's a front. You're going to, you know, you know, when it's. starts, it's going to be raining for a couple hours or however long it takes for that to get through. But these were those, you know, this was like pop up, developing on top of you, you know, right in the moment, you know, storms. They would emerge. You didn't see them coming. They would pop up.

Absolutely. That's what was happening. That was really frustrating. So, you know, and they were the type that, you know, they would, they would boom. Pop, boom, you'd have a damn development about, you know, eight miles north. And as soon as it developed, pow, it'd have a lightning strike. There you go. You're in a hold.

And it resets. Yeah. Anytime there's a strike, it resets the 30-minute clock. It's so annoying. Yeah. So there was another, y'all can help me here.

The weather was frustrating. Sure. We stayed diligent, got to race in. They could have easily said, we're going to race tomorrow, whatever, no problem. But we stuck to it. NASCAR had a plan.

We, it worked out. One thing that is new, All right, we had a pre-race and a post-race that's on Peacock. NBC's streaming network. So NBC Sports Network is gone. That channel's gone. That's where most of that stuff would live. And the first race out of the gate is obviously going to be on the big network NBC.

You know that's where you're going to watch the race itself, but people were having to learn or understand the process of trying to catch the pre-race show or the post-race interviews, where to go to get the race. that right at peacock and streaming at so i looking at the feedback from saturday everybody had a lot of positive things to say about the post race and i'm like okay this is kind of nice because typically we would get a lot of flack for our post race because when we have a race on mbc or or really any network as soon as the race is over there's another show coming on there's either another sporting event or another show that's in the hopper, and it's, it's, it's, they're, they're wherever they are, and they're ready to start,

and they don't care about our post-racing interviews and all that. They got a show they're starting, so when we go off the air, this other show is getting ready to start, and our fans go, wait, I haven't heard from the guy that runs second and third and fourth, and I got a winner interview on Front Straightaway, and that was it. And they want more. They want to hear from the other drivers,

and they have to go find it wherever we send them to the website, or we continue the post race show, but they've always been frustrated by the, by having to chase it down, right? Does that make sense? And so for whatever reason, Saturday I had a lot of positive comments in our, in my social media about loving the post race, loving all of the, you know, all of the lead in and the post race show.

And I was wondering if you guys feel like that this is an improvement as far as just being able to access this stuff compared to the years past. Who wants to go first? I've got a big opinion of it because... Give it to me now. I used to think that would be dumb because it's not on the network. But the last month or so, all I've heard is, I'm sorry, but whining from the fan base that they haven't had proper post-race coverage.

Fox has dropped off a lot of times and not interviewed the top five. And anybody that would whine about this, which there wasn't. that many, but this is giving the fans what they want. This is giving them an actual post-race show. And me as a race fan, I don't care. I'll go spend $4 a month or $5 a month to get my post-race. I think it's great. Yeah.

So on the other side of the coin, Sunday, you know, we have the weather and we have to switch networks. That's an unavoidable. The big network NBC has a strict, strict schedule. If we're late for weather or whatever, their shows keep going. They're not going to push everything off for our NASCAR race, right, to go outside of its slot.

Because a lot of times it's another live show. Well, or a live sporting event. I mean, things don't stop for NASCAR. Whatever it is, there's a group of people that are waiting on that next show. That's right. and just as adamant to see it, and it's going to happen. So we have to go somewhere else. That's just the way it is.

Well, USA is the new thing for us this year. When we're not on the big network, we're going to be on USA. As a matter of fact, I think we're on USA all weekend, this weekend, for Rhode America. So we get pushed to USA, and then, you know, the post-race ended up going to Peacock. And if you wanted to, you could watch the whole thing on Peacock, the whole race. And then a whole day later afterwards, which is another cool thing, the replay of the race is on Peacock, no commercials. So I saw a little bit of negativity, though, about all that. For whatever reason, everybody was happy about Saturday and where they had to go to get everything.

And then Sunday was, I saw some frustrations about having to put in the pre-race and the post-race coverage behind the paywall. And so on Peacock. So the way I understand all this, right, is if you, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, you paid a subscription for cable or direct TV or whatever it was, right? And you had a package that you liked that gave you everything you wanted. And this was what, 30, 40, 50, 60 bucks, right? Depending on what you wanted, right? And so the way I see it now is we live in a world where you've got to pick your streaming service.

You no longer, you know, you cut the cord, so to speak, and you pay $4 for NBC because you want to watch racing. And you pay, you know, you get with NBC, you get all, Bravo, all types of other channels that they are, you know, under their umbrella. But you've got to pay, you know, per service. And it, I mean, if you, I would assume, I haven't really done to math, but basically you're kind of paying the same, amount of money. Cheaper. Really? In my household.

In your household. We switched to streaming because it was cheaper. You went to streaming. So you kind of pick, mix and match your streaming apps and services that you won't. And yeah, I mean, you kind of, are you kind of paying basically the same amount of money, but basically cherry picking from the networks and different companies that are going to give you what you want. So I don't know how you feel about it, Mike.

I'm kind of indifferent about it because I feel like I'm actually probably watching way. I'm watching less TV these days because I'm a parent and I'm got this and that and the other going on. And I'm not really, but I have shows I watch. I have specific shows that I watch and I'm subscribed to that streaming service to watch them. Without streaming services, you know, we wouldn't have flow sports, all these other ways to watch. short track racing dirt track racing i mean think about what this is done for dirt track the world of dirt track i mean it's exploding right because of streaming uh everybody's able to watch pretty much any race at any short track they want uh every weekend uh so i mean there's some there's i um i have a hard

time with you know the complaint that man i don't i don't want to pay four bucks to watch the post race and the pre race because that's where everything's going to going. Everything's going to streaming. You know, one thing that would be nice is, you know, most people, including myself, don't really even understand the complexities of having a major network or how that works. It would be great to actually have Sam Flood or, you know, a TV executive, come on and let us just throw questions at them about how this works and why it's important. Of all the things that I have issues with, like, I'm coming to, I'm coming to peace.

with all of the change because it's inevitable. We got to, we got to, everything's changing to streaming. And the streaming service has to have, they have to make money for it to continue. Yeah. And for it to make money, you've got to put things of value on it. And that means things that we want to watch for free or things that we want to watch on NBC's big network or things. There has to be things of value on it for it to work.

So I can, I can be at peace with that. My bigger issue is always the start times of races. and I know again that there's reasons to start them so late. I just, if of all the things that I really miss the old days and that I will continue to miss until I'm dead, it's going to be coming home from church and starting for, and getting ready to watch a one o'clock race. Yeah.

I just, I mean, those, the one o'clock games are the NFL games that I watch. I don't ever really catch the prime time game because, you know, like I said, our lives are busy. But again, I'm not saying, my way's right and they've got their reasons and it's going to have to do with ratings and the number of eyeballs that they can get in front of.

I'm assuming that at 3.30 or 4 o'clock or in this case 5 o'clock Eastern Time that there's more people watching that than there would be at 1 o'clock. I get it. I get it. And I'm fine with that. But I'm just saying I miss it. I miss the 1 o'clock starts. And in this

case, we'd have just got the whole race in if it started at 1 o'clock. We wouldn't even had lightning storms, right? You would have also dealt with a lot more probably heat situation. I'm not saying that there's not cons to every pro, right? There are. But it would be fun to just kind of like

have a conversation with a TV executive so we could like really just throw all this stuff at them and come to understand it. Well, the unique thing about Nashville Super Speedway is that the sun's setting in the west it sets behind the grandstands. So around 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in afternoon, the whole grandstands is cast in a shadow

because of the media tower and the TV tower and all that, the booths sort of cast this perfect shadow across the grandstands. And if you're an owner and you're selling tickets, that's a selling point. I know we talked about it on TV, that the fans are in the comfort of the shade on a hot day like that. You're right, Mike, about the viewership is higher. I don't like the start times that late in afternoon either. I prefer to get it done and be racing and have that cushion in the evening to work with if you had weather.

anyway the streaming stuff I just feel like that that's basically a great way to put it I'm coming to peace with it I do not like the complexity of it having to have so many separate apps to go where I want to go to catch I love having it all in one place

on my television with direct TV or whatever it was service you were using I love just being able to go there and turn it to whatever channel I want that's not where we're headed and I think that the streaming business or the way it's, I think it's definitely clunky and imperfect and not very user-friendly,

that will improve. You know, they'll figure it out where, because they can't, I hear a lot of people that have difficulties getting on certain streaming apps and finding what they're looking for. They'll fix that. That'll get better over time. There's going to be a lot of bugs to work out. But, you know, I think, it's the way it's going. Yeah. Yeah, it's where we're headed. A fan pointed out Xfinity If you have Xfinity

Peacock is free with Xfinity Yeah So just FYI That's a great point So Who knows all those Thank you Marketing is something

That they could Absolutely improve on Marketing and explaining I mean like There's a lot of people That just don't know how Or don't know where Or don't know when

Well and to continue that Is I don't think a lot of people knew that you could watch Everything this weekend on Peacock So people were mad because they were watching pre-race on Peacock, then going to Big NBC, then we were going to USA where like, we know. So like I watched everything from Nashville on Peacock. And then like, you know, the six hours, we started on Peacock, went to USA, went back to Peacock, finished on USA, pushed everyone to NBC for your guys' stuff.

My dad watched everything on Peacock. Like he at not one time turned on his TV because you can access it all on Peacock. but I don't think a lot of people know that, right? There are still people that are looking for the Dale Jr. Download on NBC Sports Network. All right. That's true. I get tweets about that.

Exhibit A right there. Nobody knows that are not, there's still a lot of people that don't even know that we are on Peacock. They'll ask us all the time every week. When is it going to be back on TV? Yeah. And so it's like, yeah, listen, there definitely is improvement on the marketing. And there's definitely improvement to be had on the functionality of it because I went to peacock over the weekend to catch the end of the race. And it didn't let me watch the race there.

So then I go back to my TV, go find, you know, USA network. There was some confusion too, because law and order was also on because when you guys came off of NBC and pushed to USA, instead of pushing rain coverage over to USA, you came off the air, which is totally viable. Like in that situation, you simply ran out of stuff. And you went to USA. So instead of pushing rain coverage over, they basically said, if and when we come back up, it will be on USA. but for right now here's law and order. So I think people were freaking out because they were at USA, but Law & Order was on,

and you were down on Peacock, and there was nothing on NBC because they pushed coverage. And so everyone was super confused where to go. Yeah, if you didn't have, like, Twitter or somebody to follow. Right, the demographic split. A lot of people don't have Twitter. So, I mean, again, they've got to do better with that, for sure. Yeah.

Well, I'm eager to see how all this kind of plays out, because I think the streamings where we're headed, We're absolutely going to be just streaming. I watch specific shows, but the shift off of a cable or satellite service, the shift away from that for me, has made me like completely stop watching all of the fringe things. You know, I had these other, you know, I would turn on the TV and just, you know, go, go watch a show that maybe I didn't, I wasn't watching diligently. I don't watch any of those anymore.

I have like, you know, I've cut, trimmed it way down. watching less TV, which is probably not what networks really wants you to be doing, but that's just how it's affected. This shift has affected my priorities. Right. And so making it a little more challenging to get to a show or watch something I want to watch has made me less likely to do it. But I think it'll be interesting over the next probably five or ten years to see how they try

to make the streaming more convenient, right? user-friendly, more accessible. But yeah, for everybody listening, if you want to watch anything that we're going to be doing with NBC in terms of racing NASCAR, stock cars, everything is on peacock all the time. You can chase down, you know, you can chase us down if you want when we're on the big network or USA,

but if you'd rather make it simple and easy, get peacock and, you know, pick up the service and the monthly subscription, and it's all there, everything, pre-race, race, race, post-race and the Dale Jr. Download. And Lost Speedways are still there. Lost Speedways as well. Hey, real quick, I know we're going to another subject, but you said to ask about teams that have had success,

and Bobby Marcos chimed in. Key Caver in 55, entered three races in 54, won all three. Hendrick in 84 as All-Star Racing, three races, Bodon. Roush, their second season, in 89, won one race and third in points. So there's a few teams out there. Those are good.

Those are good. Bobby Marcos is, yeah, he came through. Not me. I think the Hendrick one probably is the most comparable first season, three wins, right? I remember that team coming on and Jeff Bodine driving that car to Victory Lane at Martinsville for their first win and then off they went. Well, we've talked about, you know, continuously our guests that come on here between Denny Hamlin, you know Jeremy Mayfield went out and won a race as well.

That trend has continued, our good friend Robert Wickeens, that came on the download recently. One in the Michelin Pilot Series this weekend at Watkins Glen in his Hyundai. First win, you know, back for him, obviously did the test last year at Mid-Ohio, trying out the hand paddles and they drove their way to Victory Land this weekend. Pretty cool to see. Yeah, it's really cool to see. I know everybody followed Robert's story since his accident

and his efforts to get back behind the wheel of a race car and become competitive. and we talked to him a lot on the show about the details and specifics of trying to get more comfortable in the car. And I imagine he's still ironing out a lot of those, you know, oddities and imperfections and in the controls that he's using. But it seems like that he has found some comfort, found some, he's had the pace, and now they're starting to put it together and win races. Yeah, I had not been following and keeping up with that series, but after he won, I was really eager to kind of go read up on it. And it seems like they have been hinting at a win. Like they've been having a lot of speed, like you said, having the pace,

but they just haven't really been able to finish it. And so they finally finish it. And by the way, I think they've had stuff that happens, you know, wasn't even their own doing. And so they were able to have a clean race. And it was at Watkins Glen, which is cool, you know. And I think what's cool about that too is people that don't know, they share a car.

Right. So there's two people that actually have to drive that car. So there's the transition that comes with putting, that steering wheel on that's hand paddles and then taking that off and the next driver goes in and then it reverts back to a regular car. So not only the challenges that Robert has to face, but that whole team as an organization has had to adapt to two completely separate situations. Like you said, they've been so close and they kicked everyone's butt this weekend. It was really cool to see. Yeah. Congrats to Brian Herda Autosport and also his co-driver's Mark Wilkins

who would have finished the race. So yeah, really happy for those guys. All right, I'm super excited, guys, for the guest segment coming up. We've been anticipating this guest for quite some time, especially now that they're having so much success, and Justin Marks is going to come in here. We have Ally presenting our guest segment this year. We're very happy to have that partnership and relationship, and it's great to have great allies like Justin

that are eager to come tell their stories. So Justin was a race car driver and many other things. we're going to learn all about his past. And he wanted to get into cup ownership. So he acquired a couple charters. We'll talk about how he did that. And we thought, or I won't say we, I am floored by their performance.

Oh, you can say we. Okay. So I don't know, and I don't know that Justin knows how they did it or why things are going so well. it has to be exceeding expectations even his but you know we just we're going to have a man here to tell us yeah how that all came about and how it's happening and uh you know just what their future is he's a ambitious guy with tons of plans and tons of tons of i mean i imagine it i imagine every day he wakes up with a with a with a new idea yeah yeah and so it'll be interesting to see

kind of where he thinks the sports headed they've got to They've got a little bit different of a business model than a traditional race team. And maybe they are true pioneers in terms of what the future of the sport looks like. So let's get Justin in here and get started. He makes the left hand turn through, turn 13, and Justin Marks is going to win. And Ross Chastain beats and bangs his way to turn 20 and off on the corner to the checkered flag. You got to love a first-time winner. and especially in such a dramatic finish as that one.

And through turn 12, Daniel Suarez is an NASCAR Cup winner. Justin Mark, Stine, always, everyone that helped me to get to this point, you know, a lot of people in Mexico gym or Aldous Carlson, my family, you know, they never, they never give up on me. A lot of people did, but they didn't. So, it's very happy that they were able to, to make them. make it work. Justin March jumps in for a hug.

You got to love it when nice guys finish first. Just a month ago or so you were here. Yeah. You've come back, man. We're going to sit you down a little longer. Y'all are going to make you a studio, ain't you? Yeah, we're doing it right now. Yeah, we're getting a bunch of like, you know Sean Pete?

He's like our pit crew coach. Yeah. He like restores old, is this right? He like restores old barns. Huh? So he's got all this reclaimed barnwood and, like, metal from grain silos and stuff so we're like putting that up on the walls that'd be cool but what we're actually doing is so it's a room like this but each corner is sort of themed

it differently so one corner is kind of like what you got in here with like cool wood and like old stuff so you can do different shows yeah and then another corner is more like a bar stool or like a mini sports center kind of like sports desk type thing and then and then one's kind of a couch sit down sort of long form audio and you know so the camera can we can just try to get different you know different kinds of content. Good use of the space. Yeah. So Justin Marks, man, I appreciate you coming. Thanks for having me. This is awesome. Yeah. So, I've reached the pinnacle of NASCAR media.

Oh, so, um, should I tell the Bill, Ben Kennedy? Yeah. You can't. Fans are going to wonder what the hell we're talking about, but I went to the garage 48. Garage 48 is like, am I saying that right? Garage 48, whatever. Oh, 1984. 1984. Yeah, 1948. Yeah. So basically, the driver's meeting now is kind of like a meet and greet, uh,

owners, sponsors. They have them all there. the drivers come right through there. There's a short video, I guess, that might play for the drivers, drivers. But anyways, it's really more of a meet and greet. Drivers can walk around. They can talk to the couch. They can talk to the wall. They can talk to other people.

They can talk to themselves. And then they go right to driver's intros. This happens every week. So anyways, I went there to meet with NASCAR with NBC and my group. Ben Kennedy comes up and goes, hey, I guess I'm going to be on the show in a couple weeks. And I was like, yeah. And he goes, yeah, my team said, we got a wild. one for you to consider and i was like wait what what i was like i don't want to be i don't i don't

i don't know if i like that reputation like like uh like coming on our show door rubeer clear's already brought us down coming on our coming on our show was a risk yeah um but anyways so you didn't know you were on a wild one right now did you didn't know are you reconsidered i think you feels pretty comfortable i'm right i'm good yeah so where do you live where do i live i live in nashville i live in nashville tennessee five nights a week in the hilton garden in lake Norman the other two. Hilton Garden Inn. Yeah. So.

And the bus. Is that long-term plan? Probably. I mean, it's hard right now, right? I mean, it's so much kind of changed in a short period of time with trackhouse because, you know, the original vision was that we were going to acquire our charter only. And then kind of set up shop at Nashville, put in all points bulletin out to the industry and say we've got all these jobs in Nashville will pay for your move.

We're going to set up this great facility right in downtown Nashville. and we're going to be Nashville's sort of home team. Well, then the whole Gannasi thing happened, and what you can't do is we could start a team in Nashville, but you can't really pick up a team of 130 people and move it. I mean, there's just a lot you have to walk back and there's the Chevy relationship and all this kind of stuff. So the vision kind of changed to us more running the business out of Nashville, but running our racing operations at North Carolina. But I would say Nashville is long term because we do consider ourselves so much more of a race team. You know, we want to be an entertainment company.

We want to be a content media brand. And Nashville is a great place to do that because obviously, you know, there's just so many entertainment entities and sports entities that move the needle that are based out of there. So it's just a really good place to do business. So, I mean, three of the 135 employees live in Nashville, but it's where we run the business out of it. All right.

But three important employees. There are three important ones, yeah. The idea that I had heard was that y'all were even considering a location on Broadway that would be mixed use as far as like, you know, fans could come there and drink beer and eat and hang out, see live music and all the other things, but also the racing operation would be accessible in that same space. Is that idea completely dead? No. So there's still a No, I mean, there's work being done right now for trackhouse to have a significant brick and mortar entertainment presence in Nashville. Wow. Yeah. But, you know, we can't, you know, because it's complicated,

it was zoning and things like that. I mean, we can't have a race team on Broadway because it's zone for bars and restaurants and hospitality so we can't be firing engine dynos and stuff like that down there so but i mean but broadway is really moving the needle in america right now that that that those four blocks and it's a great place if you can get your brand on broadway i mean the kind of amplification your brand gets just having a presence on broadway can do amazing things i mean obviously you see that with you know all the country artists that are doing their their stuff down there so so that's something that trackhouse really wants to do in something we're working on right now so there were there for us to for our brand to have a presence on broadway but really tie the racing in but we're not

going to be you know don't want to need any set up plates in the bar i got you so where were you born i was born in st louis i was born in st louis i was born in st louis missouri my family is from southeast iowa my mom's family from southeast iowa my father's sort of st louis area in chicago so i when i grew up you know the the central figure really in my life growing up was my grandfather my maternal grandfather, lived in Kyok, Iowa. A lot of family around Burlington, Fort Madison, Quincy, Illinois around there. So on the weekends, I would go spend time with him and he would take me the dirt tracks. He was just a race fan, so he'd just go to 34 raceways and Lee County Speedway, and we'd go to Oskaloosa, Knoxville, and that's really where I fell in love with racing. My father was in the

computer business. And so in the late 80s, he was one of the first people that recognized that the next revolution of technology was coming in Northern California in the Silicon Valley. So we sold our house to some friends packed up in our car and drove to California. He didn't have a job or anything at that. We rented a house out there. And he basically started passing out resumes in San Jose. This was like 1990. So I loved racing, but now I wasn't really around anybody to take me to the racetracks or anything like that. So, um, so I just, I was a fan. I just was racing, racing on the computer and going to San Jose Speedway, which doesn't exist anymore and, um, just became a huge racing fan. And then when I get to, um, high school, when I got to be 16 years old, I kind of made a deal. I'm

I want to get in the race car. I want to, this is like what I want to do. And so I worked to deal with my parents. Got some good grades. They sent me to Skip Barber and started racing. So you got, you went through the Skip Barber School, which we've heard, we've heard that story before. So the guys have come in here.

And you started racing road courses. Yeah. So. Yeah. My first race car was in 1969 dots in 510. And I raced it in the SCCA, San Francisco region, thing of like 80 horsepower, you know, just, just cheap old car. and I started doing that.

My father's business sponsored a guy who was racing in at the time was called the Speed Vision World Challenge series, like a sprint road racing sports car deal. And he was starting his own team and we worked to deal with dad's company and to sponsor it to start this team. And then I became his teammate. And so I went pro racing like 18 months after first sitting in a race car for the first time. I was at the 24 hours of Daytona in 2000. And it was my it was like my 20th car race Wow yeah I was in that race you were in that race yeah yeah damn we race against each we did Sort of yeah you dad your dad hit me horse shit yeah I did how'd that happen he did because the spotter told me we were in the rain and remember how much the rain that year

And I think your other the other car finished overall first overall right your teammates yeah and He was in the rain and and he he was in the faster class I was in the GT and you guys were Gt whatever it's called the faster Gt class in the Corvette. In that first international horseshoe, it was raining, and he went to go past me, but he locked up the tires and went wide, and I turned it back under him, which really pissed him off, and he doored me before the kink, the left-hand kink, you know, so then I was like,

that was Dale Earnhardt and I was like, that's cool. Dale. I can't even be mad. Yeah, right. You said a horsesh- as if it was just unfathed that he hit, your dad hit somebody. Not in that, I mean, he was... In that car, dad was like so particular not to, not to do any damage to it. I think he was mad that I repassed him, but I was in a slower class

or whatever, but it was in the rain. So how would you, what would you say your performance was when you first started out? I mean, I was always working hard to be good, knowing that I was never going to be great. And, you know, for me it was, I tried really hard. I got really late start. So, I mean, I got some really good opportunities really quickly. So I was teammates with Boris and with Joey Han, with, you know, some of these really, really world-class guys that all been racing for so long.

So I had to catch up, you know, really, really quickly. But I was always very focused on really understanding the business side and how sponsorship works and really understand marketing because I knew that I was one of those guys that was going to have to be good at that if I was going to do this for a long period of time. And that was not, I mean, I knew that all along. I still worked very, very hard. I had a factory ride with BMW. I was one of 13 factory drivers in the world that were, you know, paid by the auto manufacturer. It was like the best job I ever had. But I had to make sure that I was out there understanding sponsorships and continuing to.

trying to procure my own sponsorships. And I thought about that recently. I mean, when I reflect back on my whole career and think about like, how good was I or where did I stack up, I was good enough to be able to bring sponsorships to the top teams, to be able to drive for the top teams. That makes sense. How were you getting these jobs? How did you get the BMW job?

I mean, you had to be somewhat good. Well, I was, yeah, I mean, I was racing a World Challenge for two years and with just a Porsche team that was funded by my father's company. And then the factory BMW team came in to the same. series and they put four cars on the racetrack. They had one for Bill Alberlin, one for Honestuk, one for Borissette, and then they had one that they wanted to put a young guy in, and I told him I'd race for free. That always helps. Yep. And so I did that and I said, I'd race for free and if I do a good enough job, I want a job. And I did a good enough job and they gave

me a job. And then I raced for them for three more years, we raced in the American LaMalle series, which now I'm so. Gotcha. And you just mentioned your dad again. I mean, like, assuming when he went out to Silicon Valley, it worked, right? I mean, like he, he, because he had a company he started a company what did he do yeah i mean he was and how does this correlate to the racing is what i'm ultimately yeah well actually he he worked for a um he worked for an electronics manufacturing company who one of the marketing guys knew this racer and he had pitched them on sponsoring it they were just doing it as like a company event so my dad was like hey came home from work one day he's like apparently we sponsor some car somewhere you want the guy's phone number and you can

learn something about oh wow yeah so i mean um so that that's how that happened but but he was um i mean when he went to California, one of his first jobs was managing operations for electronic arts for the video game company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they sent him to Australia to deploy EA in the Australian market, took us with us. I went to fourth grade and Service Paradise, Australia.

What? Yeah. And so he went down there to help build. That's no small thing. Build that market out. And then he ended up becoming, he ended up running this electronics company and took it public, scaled it globally. And then from there really kind of went.

into the investing side, like private equity, venture capital, things like that. Is he supporting, but he's supporting your racing career, right? Yeah, to a certain degree, yeah. To a certain degree. What's your dad's name? Michael. Michael Marks. Michael Marks.

Yeah. And so, okay, but so then you're, now you're getting these factory, or you're getting these jobs, you're racing B&W, you said it's the best job of your life. But you have an idea that you're going to have to, you know, further along your understanding of how the business works and the sport works because you didn't see this as being, you know, your lifelong career path. I was, I was, I was, I worked really, really hard to get that one job. It wasn't like I was ever a free agent.

It's not like when my contract was up. People were, you know, calling me or anything like that. But what happened was in the fall of 2006, BMW pulled their factory funding from their North America racing programs because they were in between model years on the M3, which is what we raised. So they were funding the racing in North America basically as a marketing arm to promote the M3. Well, they were in between model years. And if I remember this correctly, I think in 2006,

there was like a one-year hiatus between model designations of the M3, so they didn't want to race anymore, or that year at least. Then they came back with Ray Hall with the next generation and went back racing. So everybody kind of had to scatter on our team and find jobs. And I was always wanting to come here. I was always wanting to come NASCAR race because I grew up a NASCAR fan. I grew up going to NASCAR races. And my teammate was Boris. And Boris was like, you know, if you want to do that, I'll make some introductions and I'll help you, you know, get to know a couple people.

One of the weekends was your 30th birthday party weekend. Did you go? Yeah, at the double door in Cornelius. He was there. I was there. And he took me down and introduced me to a couple of people. Anyway, so that's when I just packed up my bags and I just moved to a friend's bedroom and Cheryl's Ford. What a small world.

Yeah. You went to the party with Boris. Is that right? Yeah. You remember Boris being at your party? Not really. He didn't remember much about that party. I remember pictures up on the wall of you growing up.

There's like pictures everywhere on the wall. I met the boxer. Arturo. Yeah, I met him, and I met some cool people. Yeah. I was like to, you know. Luda was there. Luda Christmas was there.

Yeah. And the Bull Riders were there. One of them guys ended up punching you later that night, right? Was it that that night? Yeah, it was. Y'all left the party and went to the boxing ring. Yeah. Was Arturo.

Be glad you didn't end up there. That was a lot of us that ended up. On the property? Yeah. In the, because I remember, because I was, so I've been friends for a long time with Bill Seabor. Bill Seaborne helped me get started out here. So I was around Bill when like Voodoo Ride was getting going. I actually came.

I was actually on your property when you guys were filming that like QVC infomercial for Voodoo. Yeah. And I think I saw the box. I was just there with Bill. We were going somewhere. He's like just come up to the property and and because I wanted to see some of the stuff that you all were doing with that brand like getting that brand. So I was there for like 30 minutes. That had to have been what?

2006 or seven. Yeah. It was 2007. I still have some Voodoo Ride. Yeah. I remember that. It's a great brand. Yeah.

I remember that. Yeah. Wow. I thought, just been in our, he's been around us all, and we didn't even know it. Yeah. In fact, I'd like to take a little credit in Trackhouse. Like, I think we kind of helped him get him on his way, right? I'm kind of, I was a different person back then.

I mean, I didn't like, but we didn't know each other. I mean, I just was, I was in the periphery just a little bit. Well, it didn't deter you. It didn't. No, I mean, it was, I mean, look, I, you know, I was racing. I left BMW. I raced ARCA out here in 2007. I was living in a bedroom in a house in Cheryl's Ford,

and I was doing this ARCA thing. And like my favorite thing to do was go down on qualifying night for the Coca-Cola 600 Thursday night and sit all the way at the end of Pitt Road and watch this 2007, like, you know, and watch everybody do their one lap qualifying at night, and there's 50,000 people there. And I just was like, there's just nothing cooler than this.

That was cool. There's just nothing cooler than this. You started racing in, so, Borsk helped you network a little bit. He helped me network, yeah, I mean, a number of people. And then so I was introduced through a gentleman that does some marketing in the sport to Jeff Bice, who was running Dan Shaver's ARCA program. Remember Petro Express and them?

And so they were running a couple of Arka races and for Dan Schaver himself was driving. And Jeff was, Jeff worked for like Al-Kowicki. He was like Lake Speeds crew chief at Melling. Yeah. Mary Jerry Nadeus anyway, but he'd been around for like a long time. And so I got like four or five Arker races. This is actually in 2006. It was like right as BMW is wrapping up.

I got like four or five Arker races with him. Terrible. Why? I'd never do a stock car. Yeah. I didn't, I mean, I was driving. I actually just told this story because we were at Gateway just a couple of weeks ago. One of my first stock car tests was at Gateway.

Hard braking zone, tight turns one and two. And I came out of, you know, road racing where, you know, like 800. pounds of pedal pressure. Like on the brakes as deep as you can go, as late as you can go, as brave as you can be. And we went and did this test day. And I'm like, it's tight. It's tight. It's tight. Won't turn, won't turn, won't turn, won't turn all day. And finally at like, four o'clock, Jeff was like, there's nothing else I can throw at this thing. Like, there's just, I don't, you know, maybe you got to work on you a little bit. He's like, why don't you just do me a favor? He's like, I'm at like the two or whatever.

He's like, do me a favor. Lift at the start finish line and break at the four. I was like, that doesn't make any sense, but okay. So I go like the last run of the day. start finish just roll into the corner break early easy get the run off like four tens a lap faster every and it was just one of those so i had to go through those experiences right because i just was overdrive it i mean i was driving a car that had you know a BS and and traction control and weighed 2,700 pounds and had a bunch of downforce and now i'm in something with 800 horsepower and weighed 3 400 pounds so i had to go through that experience and so you got a shot driving a truck in in 2007 the germane racing truck they had that 30 truck that everybody

remembers with Tobadai driving it, but you had a second, there was a second truck, O-3, you go to Homestead. Yeah. And you had a good run. Yeah, I mean, I ended up, I ended up running 2007 ARCA series

with for Robbie Benton, RAB racing, so I ran the whole series, and I got, I brought some sponsorship with me, and then they had a sponsor on the team that kind of split it half, half. And after 2007,

both of them wanted to go, NASCAR racing. I wanted to get up, step up from ARCA. So I had to go around and find a, find a truck, and, And I really, really tried to get KHI to run me, but they just were not interested. I just couldn't sell them on me.

And so I, this was when, this was right at the time when Ted Musgrave got suspended at Germain and Brad filled him for him and almost won that race. And then the team ASE deal was going away. And so they had this open nine truck. And so I met with the Hillmans and put that deal together. We ran like the last, last couple of races of 2007 and finished with like an eighth place finished at Homestead. and like had a ton of confidence going into 2008. What was the plan then? Well, the plan was, you know, I was 27 years old.

So I was like, I was my last shot at like trying to be a cup driver, right? So I was like, that's what I was trying to do. Yeah. And grossly mismanaged it. Well, talk about it. Well, I just didn't work hard enough. I mean, I, I, um, like, yeah, the only thing we know about you is a hard, is how hard worker. 40s different than 27, too.

Oh, yeah. I mean, so, you know, I was just, I didn't, I didn't work hard enough to really understand the trucks, understand the vehicle, understand the setups, understand, you know, preparation. Just, I mean, first year as a NASCAR driver, single, living on Lake Norman, I just, I just, my priorities were sort of misaligned a little bit. Sure. So, you know, we had some good races. It's got top 10 finishes. You got, you know, on the poll at Texas, but, you know, it just wasn't even close to, so I got fired. I got fired like three quarters away through the season.

We tore up a bunch of stuff and just wasn't, you know. Give us non-nass car drivers or non-race car drivers like myself. What could you have done? I could have been in the shop more working on the car, working on the truck, really understanding what the changes meant that we were doing, having context mechanically for what I was feeling. I could have been more fit. You know, I could have focused on my fitness more.

I just could have been around more. I mean, I didn't treat it like a full-time job. I kind of was just having a little bit too much fun. Yeah. It's easy to do. But I mean, I wouldn't change that experience for anything in the world. I have regrets about it, you know. But those things help shape you.

I mean, you have to make those mistakes. You have to get fired. You have to have people not believe in you and tell you that you're doing it all wrong. You're screwing up all this stuff to understand. You know, that's an opportunity, right? Obstacle is the way. So what did you do to turn around? I mean, I don't know if you turn it around immediately, but like you get fired and you go, what do you do next?

So this was a big moment in my career because it's a hard thing to get fired from a ride that you're paying for. That's a, I mean, that's a big moment in a person's life. So I felt, I felt, you know, really bad for the partners. And I went, I was like, look, one of my partners was construct corps, which is construction staff. company and they'd supported me, they left ARCA with me to go truck racing. I was like, I have to get these guys a win. So I got to get these guys a big win and return on their investment. This is when in my life, it switched from being race car driver to being like program manager, marketer, business person, Justin. Because in that moment, it was like, man, maybe like I've messed up this great

opportunity and I need to find my lane here, need to find what I'm actually good at and just really lean into that because because I totally started focusing on what was important for them as a business and how I needed to deliver value for their investment for them as a business. So I left town with my tail between my legs and was like I have to go back to what I know for a little bit. So we did a deal with with Portia in the EMSA series in 2008 and won the 24 hours of Daytona in our first race. So got him in Victory Lane. Really great for the company. Did that and had to kind of regroup a little bit. And that's when I fully leaned into this mode, this period of time in my life where I audited all of my connections and my network, my whole ecosystem to find companies that were interested in going racing and understood what it was that was important for their business and for them to get out of it. And then I just started racing in the places where I could deliver the value to them, whether that was NASCAR, sports car racing.

So I started jumping around. So it was like 2009 was sports car racing. 2010 was ARCA. 2011 was back to the truck series. 2012 was back sports car racing. And then I just started bouncing around everything. It was all sponsored driven at that point. You asked an important question that a lot of people forget,

and that is, you know, how do they define success? If we don't know that answer, how these people that are investing, then how are you to return their investment? If you don't even know how they're measuring their success. And it's all over the map, right? I mean, like some companies, it's all about advertising equivalency value.

It's all about logos on television. I mean, less of that these days. But then some, it's all about, you know, entertaining customers and clients, right? And some guys, it's about retail promotions and some guys,

Tutsis. I mean, that guy just gets a kick out of seeing his logo on the car. That is the extent of that relationship. He just loves it. He's eaten up by NASCAR. He's got a great company

and he just loves coming to the racetrack and drinking beer and watching his car go around the track. So it's all over the map. So I think if you, that's what drives the sport these days. I mean, you have to have that understanding,

that intimate understanding of the partner's goals, their personalities, their KPIs, the way they define success, and build your program to satisfy those. You, you know, you win an Xfinity series race at Mid-Ohio with Gannasi. When did the relationship with Chip develop first?

Well, that actually started at Turner Scott Motorsports because I was driving the road courses in Xfinity for Turner Scott. Okay. And then when Harry and Steve split up, my programs are working pretty well in that deal, and I just sort of, I just went over into the Gannasi shop because remember it became Chip Canassi racing with Harry Scott, I think, or H, whatever. But it was in that building. And so that's when I started racing out of that building.

That was probably 2015 or something like that. And so that's when the relationship with chips developed. Yeah. And so. I'd met them before, but yeah. And which would be critical, you know, when you went to acquire not only the second charter, but an entire race team. Everything.

Everything. So, and we'll get to that in a minute. So I want to kind of understand where you are as a competitor. Right. I know that you entered a super late model or pro late model race in Nashville a year ago. Talking about now? Yeah. Where I am now?

And so I want to know, like, what's left in the tank in terms of driving race cars? Like, you don't, that never goes away. It never goes away. Right. So. I haven't met very many retired race car drivers. Right. You, you had to shelve.

You had to basically put your. own personal interest and enjoyment of driving on the on the back burner for a bit get this program going you've got it going you might still think you've got a lot of work to do but it's in and from our perception and everyone else on the outside it looks established i know that you entered that uh the you know you drove a late model quite insignificant but still there's a there's a fire that burns in there where does your imagination go i mean i i I always imagined that I would drive late models and do this. Oh, I'm going to do that.

I'd love to do that. I'd love to do little this. I don't make it all happen. None of it ever becomes reality. But what are you, as far as you behind the wheel, what do you imagine? What do you dream of? Well, I mean, I love driving race cars. I love the challenge.

I love the mental challenge, the physical challenge. I love the competition. I love working really hard at something and instantly seeing the results of it where you stack up. I just, I love the time sheets. Right, and I've just become a very data-driven person in my life, so that's stimulating for me. So, I mean, I'll always, I think that I have no plans on going a calendar year without driving a race car anytime soon.

You know, I'm running Trans-Am this weekend at Road America. Are you? I'm running Trans-Awn this weekend at Road America, and I'm running SRX on Saturday night on Connecticut, yeah. So I haven't been in a race car in eight months, and now I'm doing double duty between Wisconsin and Connecticut. And those are the things. that's interesting to you just to be like hey want to come do this oh yeah i'm there i'll see you

yeah i mean i've i've since i've since i retired from racing in 2019 i think was the last last last NASCAR race i did i've run transam stuff i've run late model i ran the snowflake down in pensacola rent cars with freighter peevely and you know um and you know i've just because every once in it's like i just got to get back in a race yeah yeah what do you find the most enjoyable i love the modified. I love running dirt modified. I'm really not very good at it. But it's very hard. It's really hard, but it's really fun. And Schrader took me to Lincoln, Illinois. It was like just a Saturday, Friday night show. It was just a bunch of kids showing up and dusty fairgrounds deal. And I showed up and just got my ass. Whooped. I mean, it was hard racing.

It was awesome. It was really, really cool. I love that challenge. Let me back up for a second. if you had after you got fired you had sort of come to terms with you were going to have to make it as a businessman and a marketer what did winning the rate what did winning the infinity race due to that plan i mean like you win in two thousand what was it 18 2016 you won the exfinity race in mid ohio like did that not sort of rekindle that that driving competitive things and go maybe i got it well it was all been competitive you know what i mean and and i think for me when that transition happened after germane in 2008 it was like I can put good programs together and I can deliver in the race car in a way where I may not go out and dominate anything, but I can be competitive and give them value on the racetrack, but then also run the programs. But I mean, you know, but I still tried very, very hard. And I raced in sports cars, you know, and won a few races in the, you know, over the last couple of years too. but I mean you know the like the X-Finity thing

was an extra little bit for me because it was because it's been a dream of mine since I was eight years old like just to win a NASCAR race so like when I got in that car it was a little different it was a little bit different because that's when I sort of like elevated because I feel like on a road course in the XFinity series was my shot at winning a NASCAR race yeah especially if it rained

and it all worked out And it all worked out. Yeah. So, I mean, I was, but honestly, I didn't, you know, I didn't leave that race and go, oh, maybe I should make another real run at it. Victory Lane didn't have that type of thing for you. Like, like, you're a bigger man than I am then because I mean, like, if you get that that victory lane deal, that whole experience, man, it would be hard not to reconsider.

I think for me, I felt like there was just a lot more out there for me. Yeah. There was just a lot more out there for me. me and that I always I had this this complex in my mind I don't as a personality flaw or what but I always felt like I wasn't really in the club with everybody I wasn't really in the group with everybody here what does that mean how so um you didn't get along no no I got along fine with everybody it just was like am I really a race car driver wasn't it probably didn't feel like he was accepted as a complete I wanted to be respected as somebody that was important in this industry I wanted to be

respected as somebody that was contributing something to the industry. And I never felt like I was getting that behind the wheel. That was that it was self-serving. It was like, I want to do this for me. Yeah. And I've always felt a higher calling than that. So it was not hard for me to walk away. So I mean, I would, I know we're jumping around a little bit, but like in 2019, when I figured out exactly what this next gen car was, it was like two weeks before, a couple weeks before the roll race that weekend. And I was running for Chip in the Xfinity car and for Tommy Baldwin in the cup car. And I went in. to that weekend knowing this is the last time I'm ever going to race in NASCAR.

Damn. Wow. And I didn't tell anybody until Monday. What was it? Yeah, what was it about the next gen car then? What did you find out that weekend? That I could, that that was the, it solved for all the problems that were forever going to prevent me from getting into ownership at that level.

Like, I couldn't come in and spend $30 million on engineering teams and aerodynamicists and all this stuff and compete. A barrier of entry was just way too high. But I knew that car. Mr. France was telling me about this car and Phelps and O'Donnell and all them were telling me what this car was, I said, I know that car. I've been racing that car for 10 years in IMSA. So I know this race car and I know how to build a team around this race car. And that's when I had a very, very mirror moment. And I went, you know, 37 now. Right. Like, so that was, you know, my wife cried and everything. But I was like, this is, I'm telling you, this is, this is what I have to do. I got to leave. Yeah. So. How do you, how do you build, how do you form trackhouse? What's the first step?

So, can I tell a cool story? I want to tell us, oh, I'll tell any story you want. Yeah, only because I, when I think back to that win at mid Ohio, I just wanted to this really, really cool Tony Stewart story. And like I was, Tony and I were texting during the week. I was at Knoxville during the week. And we had our Larson Marshfield, Shane Stewart Racing, Knoxville Nationals that week.

And I couldn't make it to the race because. I raced at Mid-Ohio that day. And Tony and I were texting. He's like, you're going to be back on Saturday to watch. I'm like, yeah, I can't get back. You know, we're races over like 3 o'clock. We say, oh, that sucks, man. Well, that sucks, man.

Well, good luck, whatever. And I was like, all right. And then, like, on Friday night, I'm at the hotel at Mid-Ohio. And he texts me's like, planes waiting for you. As soon as the race is over at Mid-Othole and see your team. Awesome. That is cool. Yeah.

So I went there, and I have, like, a video. I was just showing this video, like, flying in right over the speedway and all that. Anyway, that was a cool part of that weekend. That is cool. That's a good Tony Stewart story, actually. I like the good Tony Stewart stories. That's the Tony I like it. It's awesome.

And I'm racing against him on Saturday, which is awesome and also very scary. Especially after what you saw. Man, I was, yeah. I was back and forth. Don, you know, Hawk was like, text me all week. Come do this race. And I was really back and forth and kind of stringing him along. And then, like, on Saturday morning, I was like, all right, I'll do it.

Like, I can manage it logistically. You only live once. It'd be really cool to go race against these guys. And then that was, you know, we're in Nashville. So then I went home and turned on CBS and watched my first ever SRX. And I was like, it was like, man, they're fighting and they're wrecking and they're pissed off. And I was like, oh my gosh. So we'll see.

That'll be fun. Well. I think that's something to appreciate it about Tony, by the way, is it like he's going to, you know, we've had this conversation on the show already. But he's, you can still cross him. He can send the plane for you. He can do all these great things for you. He can visit you, all this stuff. in the race car, you're going to get Tony.

Yeah. And all that comes with him. I think it's awesome. He might call you a no driving motherfucker. Yeah. He did you. It would be a badge of honor. He did to you.

I didn't feel like it. I hurt my feelings. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so track house. I mean, so Ty and I went and had lunch with a group in L.A. O'Donnell, Ben Kennedy.

probes, a couple of these guys. And, you know, we talked about the new car. And I was, you know, really, I was really drilling into exactly what their plan was with this new car because I saw an opportunity. I saw an opportunity to build a cup team the way that I would want to build it and have it be successful. And, you know, we asked a lot of questions, like, you know, because they had this vision about what the car is going to be? I was like, well, what happens when you start getting pushback from these guys and like, well, you know, you're going to start walking this thing back a little bit like, well, we'll give you, we'll let you develop the suspension, we'll give you the underside of the car, we'll let you do this. I'm looking for every opportunity

for them, for there to be cracks in the foundation of the philosophy around this car and how they were going to officiate it, and it was never there. There was a lot of conviction about how this is no longer going to be a funding arms race between, you know, OEMs and really wealthy owners. This is going to be a car that everyone's going to have the same car and it's going to be, you know, sports team. And I felt, but I worked hard at it because I didn't really know these guys that much. And I know that they wanted new teams to come in and that a new team or teams coming in was going to give them real proof of concept

and a real feather in their cap with the new car. So I had to manage that. Are they telling me what I want to hear? Are they really convicted in like a true paradigm shift in the sport? And met with Jim and thought about it and really, really felt good about it. And so I did what I never, ever, ever do

and promised myself that I would never do. I didn't do it with the motor building the go car track here, the GoPro motorplex. I didn't do with any of my other ventures. And that was announced that I was going to do something publicly before I had it done. Why did you do that? I had to give legitimacy to, I had to get track house out in the world. So everybody knew about it because it was going to give me the opportunity to have access to people I needed to talk to. Right?

You know, like, so all of a sudden it was like this thing. Like Justin's going racing with track house. And I don't even know if I, I don't even think we named it. I think that I just called Adam Stern and was like, like, will you just do a tweet that says Justin's starting a cup team, please? Because I needed to give some legitimacy to some of the conversations that I was having and get some access to some of the people so I could start getting information. Track houses that brand was where at that point?

Like you said you didn't even know you had a name for it. Yeah, it was just, I'm going cup raising. Did you, was the company in existence? Did you have a company? It was a single member Tennessee LLC with $800 in the bank account. Was Ty Norris an employee? No. And so you.

Maybe, I don't know if he was an employee. He was probably, we were probably talking at that point. but I mean, it was just, I was just still in like the ideation phase of this thing. And what year is this? 2019. Okay. So, and so, so now it makes sense. So, yeah, you did something that not only you had never done, but honestly, it would be pretty, it's almost reckless.

And that is announce a company and the, the arrival of a race team that hasn't actually formed. Well, I'm not the first one to do it. Oh, right. Who else? Well, I mean, look, we've, we've read a lot of press releases about intention. That's true. Right. And I don't, I'd never, I'd never wanted to, to announce intention publicly, really. Because they, they don't usually manifest. It was a huge risk because if it didn't happen, then it was like, oh, you know, then I'm in this group of people that's just sort of like, yeah. Then, then I mean, I put my legitimacy at risk forever. Forever. Forever. I don't think you actually get that back. That's a pretty big gamble that I don't know that most people can appreciate it. So I was very, I was very, I mean, and that's not the first time I, I had a couple of these moments in the formation of track house that were very, very difficult.

personally and just because I had not I didn't put myself out there but I took solace in the fact that all of the people's stories that I was reading and inspired by that built great companies and did great things were in these positions I mean you know Elon Musk closed his final round of Tesla when he had enough money in the bank to make one more one more payroll period and then everybody was fired I mean it's like these people take you know they put themselves in positions where they're so convicted about the mission that we're going to die trying did you have a financing plan. I mean, like, obviously, no. Nope. How were you going to plan to fund it then? I was going to get a charter that was going to help. And paid for by. Oh, I mean, debt,

some, I mean, some debt, some family money, just, you know, I mean, I pulled some capital together to be able to, like, set this thing off. Okay. I didn't have enough money to go, like, I, I, I didn't have sponsorship to race the season. But I was, like, just going to bet to farm and backstop it, you know what I mean? Um, because I believed in it. I mean, I, I just, I was like, what do I have to lose? Honestly. I mean, I, if I, if I had to do one, if I tried to do one great thing in my life, this is it. I've been in this garage area for 20 years. Like, I don't know another industry. Like, let's, let's go with this. Um, it, the timeline's foggy. So you have to bear with me because this is just a lot of stress and a lot of like moving parts and I'm

but, but I mean, I announced it. And then we basically went to work trying to secure our charter, which, which was, which was a journey. I almost wouldn't wish on my work. enemy honestly um we're yeah we're junior mergers sports is maybe on that journey yeah and it's it's impossible thing well it's and it's it's getting harder every day yeah i mean it's almost like i feel like i was like the last one through the gate i was like the last one that squeaked through and now things are going to be pretty tight until we get this new tv deal this new charter agreement done agree um you guys got to explain to me then what what what happened then if you were the last one that what happened with the day. There's only 36.

The cost of the charters are just skyrocketing? Well, I think everybody that was, everybody that was really wanting to get in, probably except y'all, like everybody that was really looking, really trying to get in, got in. Like, Denny got in, I got in, Matt Cullough got his two. So everybody. There's only so many to go around. There's only so many. But now, now we're entering the television rights renewal window is opening.

You know, we've started the work on the charter renewal agreement with the teams. And so with so many unknowns out there, I think everyone at the point now where they're like, we don't really want to sell. We don't want to change anything because we want to see what happens with the new TV rights deal. Because if it goes the way everybody hopes it's going to go, the enterprise value of these teams is going to skyrocket. So the, yeah, I mean, if y'all remember BK racing when they were in court trying to settle some of their issues, his charters are selling for around $2 million back then and or roughly valued around that. And so when at the beginning of this year, charters were valued anywhere from 12 to $15 million

apiece, I don't know what they are today, but that's the problem. Nobody knows what they're worth. The idea is that these will eventually be $50 million, $100 million charters. Everyone's kind of waiting, Mike, until the new deal gets signed to understand, okay, is that value going to triple instantly when this new deal is announced? You know, so yeah, it's absolutely for anyone to try to acquire one right now, you'd have to overpay. And nobody wants to overpay. Nobody wants to overpay.

I mean, the thing is, is what we're all trying to get to is to an economic place where the race teams are much less dependent on corporate sponsorship to pay their costs. So we had Denny in here a couple a month ago or so, and he's singing that same tune. And so the idea is that there'll be, and just to be frank, the T. the TV money, the money from the networks or whoever buys the rights to the next TV deal, the streaming and whatever it is, that'll be split differently amongst the tracks NASCAR and the teams, and the teams are hoping to get a little bigger piece of that pie so that that money is now helping fund their operations, which is a fair ask. Sure.

Well, I mean, it would be consistent with every other professional sport in America. And if I'm going to eventually, as junior motorsports, eventually acquire a charter to race, in the Cup Series, boy, that'd be lovely for you guys to have that all figured out. Yeah. So I guess my question is, I mean, we'll all wait patiently to see how that works out. But there was an understanding when this car was being talked about, it was going, oh, man, this car is going to cost X to operate. And I think, you know, let's say the number was $6 million.

right you're going to cost this much to buy them get them we can buy a car and have a car sitting there ready to go to the racetrack for this much and to compete throughout the year it's going to cost us you know if we want to run in the back half of the field it's going to cost four to five million dollars we're really good it's going to cost you know six to ten million dollars whatever that number is right there was a preconceived sort of number out there that everybody thought would was reasonable now that you're into that you know halfway through that first year i'm hearing that you're that, you know, the cost of, you know, damage cost, you know, all those things are a little bit larger, a little bit more, a little bit more substantial than anticipated.

Do you know, I guess, can you answer to sit here today? Are y'all on pace for what your expectation was in terms of being able to put this car on the racetrack for the season? Is it being, so that number that y'all were hoping to attain in the next deal, that's going to help fund some of the operation, that number that you're hoping to get from the TV guys. Is that the number, is that number going to be good?

Is, you know, well, I think there's two different things. One is, one is, has the, has the car delivered on essentially its promise of being a more affordable,

affordable, and then the other piece is, you know, do we feel like what we're going to get, we're going to get what we're asking for, or is what we're asking for, going to cover it. Yeah.

At this point, it's not cheaper. It's not? It's just a different, It's a different expense line item. So before, I think we'll get there. I think that we will get there. But we're 17 races in.

We can't expect an instant sort of reset, right? Plus you're also fighting against philosophies and narratives and personalities in the sport that have been here for decades where it's like, you know, engineer cheat, throw money and stuff, you know, all that. For us, you know, we're very, well, when you were spending money on research and development, manufacturing, engineering. I mean, essentially these teams became manufacturing companies

is what they were doing, right? So it's like, I got 46 Gen 6 cars sitting in my building right now. You know, so now we're not doing that. Now it's assembly. You buy all the parts. Well, in theory, you took a lot of cost away there because our engineering teams got a lot smaller.

Aerodynamics teams got a lot smaller. We're not running the machine shop 24-7. We don't have fab shop. Welders going everywhere all the time, all that. But the car is very expensive and the parts are very expensive. And we're crashing it a lot. Yeah, yeah.

Like, cautions are up 72% or something like that this year. Because a lot of the drivers are driving these cars like they're the old cheap cars. They're just sending it. And one of the issues is, you know, it's very, very expensive to fix. And so we're crashing all the time. It's a hard car to drive. This car requires restraint. This car requires a much more methodical and restrained approach to drive, which is like

what you see in Indy car and in sports. sports car racing like I race sports cars and we race really hard we almost never hit each other because we always left that little bit knowing that you know this is a half a million dollar race car you know we had less races so every lap was more important but um you know these guys are are still racing them like they're late models or something and and that's going to become a problem for these teams you know the underbody on these cars cost $28,000 and every time you get doored at Martinsville you got to or anywhere you got to replace the left side of that's like $7,500 or it used to be a steel door yeah so um

Or if you have it flat or drag off the diffuser. I mean, we were at the point where, you know, when we were pushing each other, the strakes on the diffuser, we're cutting that, we're cutting the splitter. Splitter's like 12 grand or something like that. I mean, it's like, and they're not letting the teams fix them, which I think is still a good thing to do to keep the team's tools off of them. But that's a problem. And I think that's something that's going to have to. What's the answer to that? Oh, man, I don't know.

I mean, we could be thought, we could, we could work on some, the suppliers could develop like sort of the, the, the, the 2.0 of some of these parts to make them a little stronger. But they're not in a position to be spending on cap X because the supply chain's expensive labor's down. Like, they can't be developing new parts for us. In other words, it's not a quick fix even. I mean, so if you, if this car was supposed to be affordable and you guys are spending so much money on trying to fix them and it doesn't seem like the, whatever the solution will be is in the near future, it's going to take. We certainly don't want to drive us. to drive less. And that's another point, right? We don't, we don't, we love the idea that they might bust their ass, you know. Yeah, right.

And so we kind of need to make the car cheaper. How do you make the car? I mean, can you do that? Can you make the car cheaper? It's not my, my expertise. I mean, it's not where I work. But, yeah, I mean, we could probably make it less expensive with materials, with the materials that we use.

You know, one of the reasons it's really expensive right now is just everything's really expensive right now, too. I mean, it's just material sourcing is expensive. It's just, you know, everything. you know, everything is, I mean, it costs a lot to ship stuff. I mean, get out with these fuel prices. So it's, you know, so that will come back a little bit our way. But, um.

So you're telling me that it's almost, it's as expensive as it was last year. I think it wouldn't, I think it would be a lot cheaper if. Now, so let me qualify that comment a little bit with the fact that this is what we've, what we are trying to do at track house and it's a journey, not a destination, is really challenging the way that a race team is run. Right. So like, typically, when you have. had, you know, you would never exercise restraint if you didn't have to when it came to spending

money and having inventory, trying things, developing things. If you didn't have to have that restraint, if you had an ownership group or you had the funding bill to do it, you just did it. When order banks open up for the next gen car and they can order, you know, X amount of this part, how many are they allowing the teams over? We'll order 15. You can order 15. Why are you ordering 15? Because that's how many we can order. Yeah, but why are you ordering 15? Because that's how many we can order. Can you get in a van and drive down there and buy it on any day of the week?

Yeah. Okay, then we're buying five. Right? Because if you need it, we'll go get, because we're not going to be the bank for the vendors, right? We're not, so it's, that's really distilled down. But like we're, you know, challenging how we think about being efficient. And that's not being cheap.

That's not, you know, it's being efficient. They're two different things. Because really building that business model is going to allow a company like trackhouse to withstand any headwinds that come our way. If they don't get the TV done, deal done like they want it to. If we've got, you know, this recession is coming. If sponsorship goes down, you know, things like that, we need to be able to survive those moments.

And by putting in that work right now to having a really efficient organization is going to put us in an advantageous position to survive those moments. So, you know, going back to are we going to get, is it going to end up being cheaper? I hope so. I hope so. But, I mean, it's, you know, it's the league can probably do things to make it cheaper, you know, by putting some restraints on some of the things that we do. I think that's just difficult and a lot of work,

and I don't think they have a lot of interest in doing that. You can't just let it sell police. It'll run wild. So I think right now the voice in the room that's really loud is we really, really need to all work together. NASCAR and the teams and the drivers and the media companies and everybody has to work really, really hard together to try to get our next media rights deal done in as big a way as possible.

Right. And just get more revenue for the sports. sport. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's a nice challenge for us, Mike. It's a, well, I'm listening, I do agree that everyone has a role in that, by the way. I mean, like, you know, 100%. There's a lot of people that will just take the stance that NASCAR's got to figure out all these problems because it's their problem. It's their series. But I think that's hogwash, man. That's hogwash because we all sort of make our living here. And I think that we are all responsible for the health of the sport. And that doesn't mean that you can't criticize, you know,

bad decisions or criticize things or have opinions about stuff. But, for sure. So it's interesting to me to hear you guys talk about this as far as that how much the new TV deal, how much leverage or how much influence that thing has over just about everything, right? Like just about everything. Well, it's, it's the, it's, I mean, it's all, it's all sports are like that. I mean, it's that that's, that's, we're in the entertainment business and content is king right now. And so monetizing the content, monetizing the action on the racetrack, that's the fundamental revenue driver in professional sports. Yeah, it's true. But Denny was suggesting that he, you guys and you team owners are looking for a stark change

on how that money is allocated. Am I wrong in saying that? No. Okay, the teams are looking for more out of that pie. They're looking for a bigger piece of the pie, right? Is that going to happen? I mean, isn't that what you guys are looking for? Isn't that also the charter conversation and all these things

is like how much a team and how much the value of the charters, if it depends on the TV deal, that would only mean that it's because the TV deal gives more money to the race teams, Yeah, and I think it's I think it's more than just the television deal. I think it's I think it's it's what what portion of the total revenue of the sport is allocated to those that are putting the sport on. Right. So that's not just a TV deal. I mean, that's, you know, that's ticket sales.

Tickets. It's sponsorships. I mean, it's like the four partners of the league. It's all the whole revenue of the bucket. And, you know, the fact of the matter is, and this is public information. I mean, the fact of the matter is is that when you compare football, baseball, hockey, and basketball. and you look at the amount of the percentage of revenue from the sport, the actual league itself goes to the teams.

It's an order of magnitude more than ours. An order of magnitude more than ours. And so it's just different. But our sport's different too. I mean, you know, NASCAR owns facilities. SMI owns facilities. They have to pay for those facilities. And all other sports, they're, you know, largely tax funded.

They're owned by the municipalities. The teams have the leases. I mean, you know, so there are differences there. But I think what's fundamentally driving is not greed. It's not we think you guys owe this to us. It's nothing like that. And I think Denny said this on the podcast is that we are as organizations are very, very exposed when we're fundamentally sponsorship driven.

And I'll tell a story without saying who it is, but there was a company that was significantly invested at Chip Canassie Racing. And in, you know, the period of time last year, between announcing that we'd acquired the team and taking ownership of the team. We went to all the existing part, not curtain monster, but we went to all the existing partners and said, this is track house's vision and this is what we're trying to do, would you consider staying on with us? Because everyone's freaking out last summer, right? It's like total. And this company was going to stay on. And they were, they loved what we were doing.

They, they, um, we were working markets. We were negotiating terms. We were doing all this kind of stuff. And in December like six, seven weeks, six weeks before the clash, the CEO was like, nah, I just don't think I want to do that. We're just going to go do something else. And that was a $5 million swing six weeks before the clash. And that's a level of exposure that, you know, guys like me can't have because I don't have a billion dollar business to backstop this thing. I mean, I can't do that. And so fundamentally, we can't be living in that risk of that realm of risk. I mean, if I, if I, you know, because that exposes my ability to pay my driver.

And I don't have to go find another driver. It exposes my ability to invest in the parts and pieces in the engineering. So not 80% of the organizations of teams are living in that that place. And the thing is, we are a major American sport with enough revenue that that doesn't have to be the case. But to get there, we have to, look, I mean, the teams are very bullish on the sport. I mean, we all think it's going in a great direction. I think that, you know, I haven't been around for very long, but from what I'm gathered,

the teams are more motivated to work with NASCAR now than they've ever been. I think that everybody, I think that we collectively as a group, have a tremendous opportunity to solve everybody's problems. So does the sport need 40 charters instead of 36? 40 starters, 40 charters? No. No. I don't think so.

You need open? You don't pay the open guys enough to show up. I think you need some open spot. I like where it's at right now. But 36 guys show up to race. You know, there's a couple cars that'll be at the road course races because they can get a ringer and a little money. But like at Nashville and some of the Oval tracks,

you don't have 40 cars. because they dialed back what they were going to pay the open guys, and now they don't even come. Do you think that's a problem? I think they need to make a decision to be 40 charters or they've got to pay an open team enough to justify going. Well, these are all the conversations that can be had right now because we have a completely blank slate for 2025.

And NASCAR is, I know for a fact, that they are open to having discussions about those types of things. As an owner in the sport. I think the established owners aren't necessarily going to be a fan of paying more money to 37th, 8th, 9th, and 40th. For sure. Right. So let me ask you this.

40 charters, right? So they're going to enter, say, let's just hypothetically say that four new charters are now on the market. They're on NASCAR's shelf. What do you need as an owner in the sport having had to acquire your own charter, pay the money that you've paid it? What do you need to happen for you to feel justified for that charter to be sold to a new partner. Say Junior Motorsports

wants to buy a brand new charter that just poof arrived out of thin air. What do you need as an owner in the sport to feel like that is a, you know, that Junior Motors Sports or whoever it may be has paid enough money to whatever

entity maybe that's you and the other teams or whatever to acquire the charter. And it not dilute yours. There's two issues. I mean I would say economically it can't dilute they can't dilute the other 36 because you know we count on that revenue right so it's it's when when when more shit they have to divide it 40 ways instead of 36 that makes a difference on my balance sheet um i would think more philosophically i mean i think the number would have to be some sort of

aggregate it'd have to be some sort of you know average of of the last it had to be it have to be some sort of average of like the last three transactions or something like that right so because it would be a problem if they're like you know man we really want this and we really want this team in there like we'll sell it to you for a million bucks because we won't you on the grid. Right. That's that sort of, that's not good. So would the, there would be, there would need to be some money going your way. There would need to be some money going to the owners to feel like that they've, I wouldn't need to see personal revenue from the sale of that charter. I would just need to make sure, well, two things. I would need, I would need to make sure

that it doesn't, doesn't dilute it and change our economic structure of all the teams by adding those. And what I would like to see is I would like to see if that happens more as, as a steward of the sport and, and for all of us, for the rising tide, I'd like to see it go. to someone like you. I'd like to see it to go to somebody that who's addition to the field will elevate the sport. Yeah. It's interesting. So you, Denny, I know, probably talk a lot, right? Y'all probably, yeah. I know that y'all've, maybe not as much as

full disclosure. So Denny was going to go have lunch with Marcus. Denny asked you to go. Yeah. All right. So I know that you and him share a lot of similar opinions. Denny pretty vocal about how he feels, you know, will tell just about anyone, you know, his opinion on the state of the sport and where he thinks it should be going. Do y'all, do you and him, you know, sort of bounce ideas? And, you know, you might, he might say to you, I'm feeling this type of way and judge your reaction to base, you know, to sort of justify his own feelings, but.

I don't think he does that. Well, I think he might. Because if he says, you know, I think we deserve. of X, how do you feel about it? And if you have a different opinion, he might adjust his expectations. But I'm just wondering, I guess, as new owners, navigating a very new time in the sport and trying to understand how to budget your teams and whether the turnover from the old car to the new car, which both of you went through, and, like you say, the uncertainties

of the future, do you and him share a note? I mean, what? Yeah, we do. And on top of that, like when you have a conflict, like he had with Ross and y'all had a little fun on social media, it might have been a little spicy. Yeah. It was spicy. It was spicy. Yeah.

He just said it wasn't fun. It wasn't very fun. Right. I couldn't tell whether that was spicy. It was out of character for me. Well, it was fine. You know, you got to back you guys. Yeah.

But, you know, how do y'all, how does that move forward? Well, you asked me two questions. So the first one, I mean, we do compare notes. We do talk about things. You know, I think we're aligned in how we feel the sport should end up economically. You know, I am, I, we just have, we're just different in our, the tact that we take, right? I mean, we're just different personalities. I am, I am a very, very, very motivated collaboratively, cohesively.

Like, I really want to work with NASCAR. I want to be a partner with NASCAR. I don't think that the teams need to be drawing a line in the sand and saying, these are our demands. I think that the whole, that line needs to go away. I think we all need to be working together to get to a place. And,

and, you know, maybe I'm naive because when I express that among the team owners, some of them go like, well, you just haven't been here long enough to realize that's not how it works. And I'm going to, I'm going to go for that. Because if I fail at that,

then at least I fail at doing it, I think, the right way. And then we need to know where, anyway. So, yeah, we, we feel the same way. Denny's very intelligent.

And he's paying attention. And he, nothing really gets by him. And, you know, some of the things we talk about is, you know, we watch these things happening between, like, the PGA and the live tour and, like, you know, some of these other sort of conversations, obviously lockout with baseball and like some of these other conversations, because those are all comps. It's very interesting. I mean, sports is such a hot asset class right now, and there's so much focus on it and there's so much money and that, you know, it's emotional. And when you're that invested in it, you know, he wants to build his shop. He wants to spend a lot of money and build this amazing race shop. I want to do it, too. It's kind of scary to make that sort of investment right now without kind of knowing what the future looks like. And then I forgot what the second question was, but that, but we do, we do talk a lot.

Yeah. How do y'all move forward after the conflicts on the race track? Which will happen, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, there was a lot of emotion. There's a lot of emotion there, right? And it's like, yeah, I'm, I'm always going to stick up for, for everybody in my company.

And I've got their backs. And it's, you know, where that stuff comes from is just how hard we've all worked and how the sacrifices that we've made and the stress that we've taken on. And it's, it's been hard in my house. house with my family and it's been like it's just it's really hard you know hours away and trying to be present with your kids and taking massive personal risk and all this stuff and then you have a conflict on the racetrack and you know it goes on there going I'm going to wait till it hurts them the most and I'm going to strike and it's just sort of like all right like what like you know so um

so yeah I was pissed off and so was he but I called him at three o'clock on Monday and I said I don't really have anything necessarily to say right now I just I just I just I just figure maybe we should be talking to each other. And he told me how he felt, you know, for about seven or eight minutes, about taking a breath, which I respect. And we had a conversation, and we got to a good place and we're fine.

But you have to work through, I mean, I don't want to say I solved his problem with Ross. But I mean, because that's not really my area to do that. But he's a colleague of mine. And we're going to be in the garage area for a long time together. We've got these two new teams. So it's communication.

It's just communication. and mutual respect and listening to each other, not you're an idiot. So Ross is, so Ross in my mind is right on the cusp of possibly becoming a rock star in the sport. Yep. All right. And with,

he's got a really cool story. He, he's aggressive, which is amazing. Couldn't, couldn't, can't get enough of that, right? I know he probably poured it on real thick there.

in St. Louis, but just a little bit of that each week is awesome from the broadcast booth. He apologizes, but at the same time says, you know, I'm not going to change. Nobody wants him to change. You've came out and said, don't change. He's not changing. Don't want him to child. He did nothing wrong. I loved everything about it.

I called him and talked to him, and he says there's part of him that wants to fit in, wants to be appreciated and liked. You know, it doesn't want to. to be in the, but he'll say, like he did on his interview during the race, that I got a lot of friends in the garage, but none of them are drivers, you know, and I wonder where, I guess I wonder, I'm only curious, is where do you see this going? Because all of us, I think a lot of us are worried that he's going to vanilla out a little bit. I don't want that to happen. I don't want that to happen. I know you don't want him tearing up your splitters in underbody because it's expensive,

But it pays a lot to win too. Yeah. I just think the guy has a real opportunity. We get these sort of, you know, personalities that come into the sport ever so often. And he's got something special that will make people tune in. How do you manage that? How have you been managing that? I'm sure he takes your advice.

Your advice right there ranks right up in the top five for him. He probably doesn't listen to a lot of other people. And when they're telling him what he should be doing. But I'm sure you shape him and have an influence on him. So where do you see this going? I agree with all of that. I think that I think Ross is a talent that, you know, he's been here a while, but let's just say he just showed up.

You know, like Kyle did, like Denny did, these guys that show up and you're instantly like, okay, this is going to be one of the guys for a long period of time. I think it's 100% that guy. Both of my guys are really good. We put a lot of effort, a lot of effort to be able to give them an opportunity where they feel like they're only limited by themselves. They're not limited by their cars or their strategies or their engineering or anything like that. So that's our fundamental goal as a competitive enterprise.

I haven't given Ross a lot of advice. I've more made sure he knew that I was here and that we are here for him and that it's that aggression and that fire and that hunger that's going to carry him to the heights of this sport. and that we're building a company around that and that he, I remind him in those moments when he beats himself up that he is an elite championship caliber talent and that's the hard part and the hard part's done and now we just have to put the effort around him and support him and let him go do his thing.

You know, I gave him, I talked to him a little bit early in the season like a couple races in. He was pretty low, we were 35th in points and we'd torn up a bunch of stuff. But other than that, I've sort of just let him do a thing. he's very, very motivated. And he understands and recognizes the opportunity that that he's got in this sport. And I think he's just finding his way.

I mean, you know, like, it's a different economy in the top five every week than it is 20th every week, 30th every week. And so he's got to learn Denny and he's got to learn Chase. And he's got to learn Joey and Kyle and Martin, all these guys, right? So, and they're all different. And they're all in different degrees unhappy to see him there. And, you know, I told him one time, I was like, you know, it's, you're not necessarily doing anything wrong by going out there and fighting.

I mean, you can make some better decisions in moments, but just your general level of aggression isn't wrong. It's just you've just entered a chat that you're not really welcome in. Yeah, that's a great way. Right? Because these guys are used to racing against these guys every single week. And now all of a sudden you're here every single week. And it's, you know, it's just, they're not reacting well to it.

But everybody went through that. Everybody that has to go through that part and then get established and it goes, okay. But you can't be knocking people out of the way every lap of every week. week too. And, you know, I had this, I had this, I also called Mr. Hendrick on Monday because, you know, I was like, look, we're both key partners. We work together as Chevrolet teams and, you know, Ross had an issue with, with Chase at St. Louis. And, and that's one of the things that Rick and I talked about was sort of establishing yourself in a way that's going to ultimately be advantageous when you're racing for a championship. Because if you're just the guy, everyone knocks out of the

way and gets tired of, it's going to create problems for your company. But you got to, but you said, you got to be aggressive. You got to be aggressive to win races. You can't take shit from anybody. So I think he's just going, he's just finding that balance. He's going through that journey right now. You ran in the Cup Series, you know, before the next-gen car. You understand the impossibilities of trying to be competitive, much less win a race. I imagine that you dreamed or had imagined winning, but did you, you know, I don't know if you really felt like that was a possible thing, especially this early.

What is the instant? What is the very first emotion you feel when your car crossed the checkered flag that first time? Was there some relief? Yeah, there's a lot of relief. And I'll win philosophical in the answer. When we announced that Track House was acquiring Chipkin and IC Racing, that was basically this week last year, we made that announcement but I didn't take ownership of that team

until the Monday after Phoenix so there was a four and a half month whatever it is four months of time there when everybody knew that Justin Marks had bought Ganesi and that chip was leaving but I couldn't really walk in that building I couldn't really talk to anybody I mean not like by rule I just I don't want to be a distraction

to McCall and Kurt they were in the championship hunt you know I just I didn't want to be a distraction but I mean that was four and a half months of every day people walking in that building going like what does the future look like and there was a faction within that company that was like Justin has no freaking idea what he's doing this is a dumpster fire come with me to RFK 23 11th you know or CR wherever like come with me and I mean that was a very very difficult personally emotionally difficult time period in my life because I couldn't go in that building and do my

thing I just because I had a respect for chip and I didn't want to be a distraction to and they had you know all this stuff but um there were a lot of people that didn't believe in those people left and they made it known in that building that they didn't believe. And so we asked a lot of people to believe, to trust me when there was not really a lot of reasons to trust me because 24 months before that, I was paying to drive their infinity car. Now I'm the boss. All right. So it's like, that's a tough thing for people to reconcile. People have worked there for decades and support their families, you know, kind of thing. And, and so the thing is we asked a lot of people to, to believe, and we ended up in Phoenix with 115, 118 believers.

And I started with Tony Lunders and Daryngrub. And so then I came in and was able to get in front of them and start establishing a personal relationship and going like, I am your person. I'm here to support you. There's a reason why this isn't Justin Marks Racing because our organization is bigger than any one person, including me. I'm going to give you everything that I can give you and support you. And we had a great winter. We had a lot of positivity and momentum. And so when that car crosses start finish line at Coda, the best.

best part of it for me was just seeing everybody's faces and seeing that promise delivered and saying like thank you for believing in me thank you for trusting this I knew this was possible my work was getting everybody else to believe that it's possible so um so that I was overcome with just happiness for everybody in the company I just was really proud of them and really happy for them all right take me to um the moment when Daniel crosses the finish line in Sonoma because This is a, this is your, that's your number, that's your first baby. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm, for Daniel, it was, it was, the emotion was more just in, in watching this, watching this moment in his story, you know, the whole time, not just the trackhouse part of it, you know, because I've known Daniel a long time. I raced against him in 2016 when he won his championship at Xfinity. I, you know, watched him at Gibbs and Stuart Haas and everything he went through in the 96 car in 2020 and what he ever. get back just the journey and then obviously the fact that we brought him on and and i you know he trusted again trusted what we were doing and he had offers to race for established teams we turned him down to come to

track house and um you know helped build the organization and and went through some tough moments with us but you know that was a really really special win because that's just a kid that has been fighting for so long to get to the top and never believing that he couldn't do it never really doubting himself just fighting and working hard every single week. And it wasn't lost on me that it was big for the sport. I mean, it was just big to have a Latin American driver win. I mean, there were a lot of storylines that weekend that were pretty emotionally overwhelming, honestly. The one thing that I see you're, I'm hearing, I'm hearing from you for the first time about the doubters and the people that didn't buy into your, your plan. And he had, he mentioned all

of that in his post race, which, and he gets really emotional in that moment, which was really powerful. I think that there were, you know, industry-wide moments when people, including myself, doubted Daniel's potential. And I feel like that what, I can't even imagine what that must have felt like for him standing there saying those words into that, into that TV camera, going, you know, I was, you know, Darrell Walter, we had him as a guest on our show and he had this great quote. He was out of driving and dad's driver got hurt. He called Daryl. And Daryl's quote was they were throwing dirt on my grave and I climbed out. He went and ran these great, you know, had this great and extended his career. So I was, you know, listening to Daniels and seeing the emotion,

there were a lot of other, you know, storylines that you mentioned that were unroll, unraveling or happening in that moment, but that the idea that no one turns it around like that, most guys don't. I mean, some of the most talented, successful, winningest drivers in our sport, once they crest over that hill and they get sort of labeled as old, over, you know, washed up, whatever, that's it. They don't come back. And so I think it's just such a, I thought, I think it's like a movie script.

Yep, yeah. You know, and I can't imagine what that must feel like for you because you were a big part of the vessel that got Daniel to that moment. He doesn't get that. He doesn't get back there. And so, you know, I know you're proud for Daniel, and he's worked hard and his team, Travis Mack and all those guys were focused. But I imagine there has to be some personal,

satisfaction that you were part of helping that become reality. Yeah, well, there is that for sure. I mean, I'm really, I feel fortunate to be the one to get him there. Yeah. Because, you know, Gibbs and Stuart Haas came before me. And, you know, I think that I, I, when I've said this before, I mean, you know, I think what's made the difference is I think I'm the first owner really that looked at him and said, like, you're the guy, you're our guy.

And we're, it's my goal every day to put you in a position is, is the best of my ability to win races. So you tell me what you need. And I don't know if, I just don't know if he's really heard that much in his career at the cup level. And I think that that's what ignited a resurgence of dedication and commitment out of him for us. And, you know, we had some pretty good speed, like right away. You know, like we, you know, we, we had a, we had a top, you know, our first race, Aton, 500 in 2020, 21. You know, Travis built a great car for the 500 and we had a ton of speed there. Got wrecked out. We went to the road course, finished 16th. We went to Homestead, finished

like 14th. So it was like right out of the box. We're like, okay, kind of in the conversation. Top 10 run at Dover. Fourth place finish it. Bristol in the dirt. I think making the winning move in the 400 at Daytona in July. We got turned coming to the checkered. So it's like there were those moments right away that were like, you know, it's not like we're running 33rd every week. And then 29th. He had those flashes. And I think that, I think that, I think that, it ignited something in him to realize that this is a real opportunity for me to get back, for me to get out of that little hole that I was in and to get back. And, you know, Daniel checked a lot of boxes for us.

I mean, like, you know, I'm a big believer that you can have all this money invested in, you know, engineering and crew chiefs and strategists and all this kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, it's one guy holding a steering wheel. And like that guy better be sort of the most important element in your company. And you need to be investing in that guy in every possible way because he holds the keys to glory at the end of the races and no one else. And, you know, Daniel's, you know, I wanted somebody that had a lot of experiencing cup, which he had. I wanted somebody that's won when he's been in a position to win. I watched him, you know, go wheel to wheel and beat Kyle Busch, you know, and winning his

Xfinity championship. You know, we needed someone had a chip in a shoulder. He was running 30th every week in the 96 and he was pissed off about it and he was like, this is not how the story ends. I need to prove to the world that I am better than this. And we needed a great story, which he is a great story. He checked every single one of those boxes. It was a very easy decision to go with Daniel and so you put all that together and then the Gnassi thing happens and we're bringing real fast race cars to the racetrack this year. I mean, I'm surprised it took him this long to win and we've been in positions this year where he's been, I mean, I think he was lights out fast at Cota this year. I mean, it was, he was, he was the only guy in final qualifying to make a second run

and went faster and missed the pole behind Blaney by like, and he was all mad about it and he's like, I'm going to pass Blaney and turn nine and would drive to a 10 car length lead and I'm going to win the stage 10 car lengths and by God he did that exact thing I'm like this guy's got control of the race now things kind of went sideways but that's all to say the guy's got so much speed and so much potential and it's it's meaningful for me personally to be able to be the one to deliver to help facilitate that moment for him if you don't mind me asking here uh you know I'm thinking back to something you said earlier about you know as a driver being accepted or being you know received as this you know you're bringing you're an asset to the industry and now so this is what got you into business management ownership

all that stuff. How are you regarded as a team owner amongst all your other owners, your peers? You'd have to ask them. I know I'd have to ask them. What do you think? Do you feel accepted yet? Yes, I do. When did that happen? That happened, that happened this year. With the wins? That happened probably, it started to happen a few. It started happened like a month into the season when we were bringing fast race cars to the race tracks. And then especially after the win, and it's sort of like, you know, we're not like a flash in the pan. Like we started showing up every week and put both cars in the top 10 at Vegas, both in the top five Atlanta, you know, like leading into CODA. And it started happening at the, you know, like when I would have discussions in the garage area. And I think that people recognize that, and by people, I mean, like, you know, the ownership and the existing ownership in the sport realizes that, you know, they're entering.

the ends of their careers and that, you know, Denny and I both represent the next generation of ownership in the sport. And so I think that they're, they're proud, I think they feel like the sports in good hands because we've brought, we bring good efforts to the racetrack and we fight for the sport and fight for people and everything. And, you know,

Trackhouse specifically represents the future of the sport in a way that's, that's different, that we're building a brand, you know, that it's not like named after me or anything like that. And I think they see value in that. And, you know, it's kind of, it's a competitive space. So we're not all like walking in there trying to give each other as much praise as possible.

But, but they're, they've been great with me. Certainly you would recognize a change or a change in vibe or change in the tone of conversations. It's somebody that is respected and somebody that is not earned that yet. And you feel like you have crossed that line that people are treating you that way. I think we're getting there. Yeah. But I'm also quick to, you know, I'm not, I'm, you know, I'm still fairly quiet. amongst the ownership group, like in RTA meetings

and team owners council meetings. I do kind of, just because I'm so new and I just, I don't wanna be too aggressive and vocal just because I have so much to learn. So. What is Project 91? You know, the way that this car is built, the way this car is designed, you know,

I believe that it has much, there's much more required from a proprietary driving style standpoint to go fast as the old car. Like one thing I always struggled in is on the ovals As a road racers, I just was never really getting comfortable in driving the car and yaw. It's like any time the car would yaw out on Oval, I would steer into it. So you like it, you know, when I was sharing the 42 car Larson and Xfinity, his steering trace was very, very much like this. Drive in, yawes out, holds it there, gas on, right?

And mine was like, was like this because it would yaw out and I'd catch it, catch it. And I could, right. And so, but that comes from like a road racing mindset. Well, you don't drive that car, this car like that anymore. So I believed that now the, what's required to make this car go fast. fast. If you're a world class talent and you're dedicated to learn about it and you prepare for it that you can you can do well. I mean, you know how hard it's been for road racers to come into the old style NASCAR on a road course and and be able to go fast because it required a very specific type of type of driving. So with that being said, I was like now the window is open for us to really attract world class notoriety globally relevant, you know, talent to the sport and be able to put a good effort where they feel like they can compete because NASCAR is like the rest of the world looks at NASCAR like we look at. V8 supercars and like we look at like some of these competitions and parts of the world go like that looks really cool that's unique that's different like how cool it would be to go race a supercar

a supercar around Bathurst like there's you know I mean it's very unique and NASCAR is this quintessential American thing on these ovals doesn't exist anywhere else so that moves a needle for people like you know Daniel like Ricardo and some of these guys like they want to come do this thing they want to they want to try it but but it with the old car it just was was too difficult so project 91 is about building a division in the company that is set up to be the landing spot in NASCAR for people of that stature that want to come try it. And so what I did is I went to, like I bust into their offices three days a week with ideas. And a lot of them, they're like, you have to stop. You have to just put that on the shelf because we only have limited bandwidth

and people and all that. But this was something I really wanted to do. So I worked with them and said, look, I'm, it's going to be one race. Work with me on this. One race. One race. This year, one race. Only Watkins Glen. But I mean, eventually I would like for it to be sort of a standalone team. We've got dedicated full-time people. We run all the road courses. But I wasn't going to launch it without having that first driver to instantly give it sort of relevance globally, internationally. So a friend of mine that is, you know,

and I wanted the branding of it to be aggressive, to be gritty, to be kind of really like a brand offshoot of Trackhouse, something that we could do really cool merch and content around and just have it be very culturally relevant. So a friend of mine, P.J. Rashidi, who worked for NASCAR, worked for Alpine Stars, been around for a long time. You know, he helped to facilitate when Kimi came in 2011 and ran those races for KBM. And I called him and said, where do you think Kimmy's at these days?

Because we knew he was retiring. Where do you think he's at these days on, on, you know, racing after his Formula One career? Because I've got this idea for this project, this third car. He said, well, let me, let me ping him on it and see. And he had some interest in it. So I flew to Zurich to Switzerland to see him and was like. You flew there just to see him? I flew there to sit with him for 45 minutes.

I'm going to. God, I knew. And then I, you know, I said, this is sort of, this is track house. Like, this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to change. We're trying to be, you know, young and different and build a brand and do all these kind of little things. Here's like sort of long-term plan for it.

And, and I want to do this race. And I was telling him about the car and all this kind of stuff. And originally I wanted him to do Coda, Road America, and Watkins Glen. But he was very committed to his, is very committed to his retirement. And he's traveling the world of his family and he's playing hockey with his boy. And he's, you know, doing all this motorcross and all this stuff. And so I said, well, just think about it. Like, you know, I'm here.

This is sort of what the economics of it look like. I think it could be really, really great. We could put a great effort together. And he said, okay, I'll think about it. We'll be in touch. I flew home. He's like, I'll start watching the races. I flew home and we went to Cota.

And, um. What timing? Yeah. And I think that, I think that, um, he was like excited about coming and being part of this winning organization and all this stuff so um so we ended up ended up having to be one you know one event uh come in town for one trip not to and and um so anyway it's going to be great i think he's look i mean one of the best ever do it and um you know he's going to get he's going to get time and sim he's

going to get pit stop time he's going to get to shake down the action express car i think for a couple laps just to feel it and and and i think he'll be prepared and ready we'll put a great effort behind him and the idea is project 91 can be this sort of part-time team where the stars of motorsports globally can come try NASCAR set up for their lack of experience their enthusiasm and all that and be tailored to them so they get really really great efforts and they have a chance to win who are you who are you talking to besides i mean um i'm i have no more there's no more out there has been no more outbound communication because i'm just focused on kemia but there's been a lot of inbound and and i i don't some of those names um

I mean, these are guys that are just interested in driving, right? That's all we're talking about. Yeah, I mean, some IndyCar guys and some sports car guys. I mean, I think, you know, for... Nash, any guys overseas? There's been some noise, but my phone hasn't wrong necessarily the guys overseas. I mean, there's some guys that I want. I mean, to wrap that up, like, you know, Project 91, when I think of who the ideal candidates are,

like, I'm going all the way to the top. You know, like, I don't think Project 91 exists because I, you know, you know, without trying to have conversations with guys like Lewis Hamilton and Valentino Rossi and Daniel Ricardo and, you know, all these guys. I had a dream, I had a dream that, or a wish, I guess, or hope that one day that Michael Schumacher would race NASCAR and it, you know, obviously won't happen, but I always wished that, because I admired him and thought he was the greatest driver ever, and I wanted him so badly to know what it was like to drive a stock car.

Well, I think we can be that for whoever else. for the others. So nobody should draw any connection between Don Hawk announcing that Helio is going to drive in a cup car if he wins the race, he wins the race, and now you're going to drive next. I didn't know about that until Helio gave like his interview on SRX. Yeah, but you're, but Helio fits the- conveniently now going to race in that series this weekend.

I mean, well, Don has been taught. We've been, I've been talking to Hawk about that for a while. I was like, I don't know if I qualify for that superstar racing experience, but I think that he liked the kind of the juxtaposition of like an owner in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just, it's not anything but just, well, yeah,

Clint's, Helio is, uh, Helio is definitely fits the mold of, of a project 91. I think it'd be awesome. I think the Daytona 500 is a difficult, is a pretty tall ask.

That's a difficult race for y'all. Yeah, that's a tall ask for, for Project 91 at this stage, but nothing's impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly with,

I mean, listen, everybody asked the same question. I'm sure you get it 100 times. And yet I think track house sort of is the go-to joke that people say in 2022. And that is, oh, yeah, we all saw this coming. I mean, like, yeah, I predicted that they were going to have three wins. You know, like, and the joke being nobody expected that.

Right. And so the question is, is, listen, you had a belief, you had a vision. You're talking about Project 91's and, you know. You're ambitious. We know this stuff. Yeah. But really, what was your expectation for 2020? I wanted to get one car in the playoffs.

One car in the playoffs. Yeah. Yeah. And this isn't something, this was not like a directive to the company. I didn't put this on a whiteboard. It was because, yeah, because, you know, it's, I think it's, at this stage of the company, it would have been irresponsible to put expectations on the workforce that were, like, result, like, racetrack results because we're so new, like that my expectations and my

directives in the company were, were things like maximizing workflow efficiency, communication between the two teams, like making sure inventory and preparations where it needs to be learning and getting better every week. At this stage of the company, it's so new that that's where, but in my mind, I was, in my mind, I was like, I need to get one car in the playoffs. I needed that, I needed, I actually needed that contractually with some of my partners. Like I needed, yeah, we needed, we needed, we needed to do that as a business. No, no, no, it was just, it was, it was, it was a performance incentives that was going to

unlock some great stuff for the future of our company if we were able to do that. So, but, and I always, it was, I thought, I, I sort of thought we would get one of them in, both would contend on points and that we could potentially be in contention to win one race somewhere along the way. But this was, you know, this was not, I wasn't expecting us to be unloading with the speed

every week at every different type of race track. It makes sense just because like our preparation, our communication is so good. We've had so much talent that's been unlocked. Human potential has been unlocked in that team in the company. But it's, but it's surpassed my expectations for sure.

Yeah. I mean, that one car is, a real threat right now. Oh yeah. Every week. Every week. Yeah. And 99 is really not that far behind. I mean, they've just had a lot of luck, you know, sort of bad luck and things like that. But I mean, you know, they can get some of that stuff through and they can make a run.

Daniel was the best car in, of the two in the first stage of Nashville. Yeah. It was flying. You didn't feel like you had acceptance as a driver. You feel like you're getting that now and that respect as an owner. You'll get no, I mean, to, in this room, you got it, you get acceptance as the owner of Harry Gantz, 1990 Oldsmobile. Which is why we have you here.

Yeah, you'll get more accepted. You'll get more acceptance in this room from that little, little nugget. Just the fact that you appreciate the history and own a car like that is a really cool thing. Petrie told me about that, you know, we were at RCR last year and Andy, told me about that car and I I I'm a huge fan of the history of the sport I mean I'm I um and I used to drive around and listen to it maybe like I don't know if it's still there but like on on Apple like they had the MRI classics we can listen to the whole races like I would drive around in my truck and just pretend it was 1986 I'm listening to

the race or so I would I would listen to these these races and I've got um you know I've I've old Tim Richmond Blumack suit um Liz gave me one of Davies suits from 93 that I've got in my house. And then I, so I, I, I, you know, this all started when I went to go see Schrader's shop in North Carolina. And he was, he was telling me a bunch of stuff. And then in his back barn, he's got this little room with this keypad or whatever. And we walk in this room. And it's about the size of this room here. And it's just suits of everybody's ever raced in his whole career. And I'm going through, look at these suits. And I'm like, what a preservation of history. And, and I feel like, you know, if we're in a position as trackhouse being, being, you know, a big part

of the future and develop and taking the sport to the next level, we need to be stewards of the past as well. And that's where that car came from. So I told Andy, you know, if you ever, if you ever want to, if you ever want to sell that car, I want to be the first person that you call. And he called me and we did it and it's sitting in a lobby at trackhouse. I really wanted to drive it at Darlington. I understand it's, there's, you know, there's issues, legal issues and all that. But like, I want to go do a proper test in that thing. Yeah. Like a real, you should go over to the works. Yeah, that's where we were thinking about doing. Yeah. It won over there. there that year. That was one of the four. That was one of the four that it was. Yeah.

Yeah. They'll let you, I know it's been over at Wuxborough. They had for an open house. Yeah, they just sent it over there. Yeah, yeah, just recently. But I told Andy, I was like, I want to do like a proper, like, I don't go see what the times were, you know, last time it raised. Oh, you want to go set a poll. I want to go. I want to go. What I told me to do is like, I want to ring that thing up around Darlington. They're like, I don't know if you want to do that. I'm like, if you, Goodyear feels good about it. I'll feel good about it. Send it. My goodness. Send it. should do Wilkesboro. That would be a good way. I mean, Dale Jr. is now practically the owner of

Wilkesboro because everything he wishes, everything he wishes for that thing to happen. It happens, right? Like, you know, he's revived it. You've really, you started off weed eating the place and all of a sudden, you know, we're going to have races there in August. Man, I went, I went. That kind of statement, Mike, you pissed off everybody in the surrounding counties. Sorry. I went and shook down a late model there like 2010 or something. That place is awesome. It is. It's a great shape. I did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I ran it. I mean, race it but it was no I just I uh I tested it for land and like one of of Landon Castle's guys was up there testing and he couldn't do it he's like we drive up there like oh I'll drive up north Wiltsboro I went just did like 50 laps or 80

labs it was awesome it's fun I didn't realize how much elevation it's big change there is yeah up and down the hill Dale was telling us that yesterday actually he was just telling because he went and tested there last week and he's I didn't realize the elevation change yeah you're way over your head going in turn one down the hill yeah going up the back straightway it's like takes forever yeah yeah well man we appreciate you coming out today. Thank you. Thanks for giving us some time, telling us your story.

Yeah, thank you. You got a hell of a thing going on, man. Yeah, we, you know, one of the things that we talk about is, is this a moment or is this an arrival? Right. And, you know, we do everything that we can to make sure this is an arrival. I love this sport outside of my wife and my two girls. I mean nothing in this world. I love more than race cars and NASCAR.

And I am, if there's anybody people need to know about me in this project, it's that this is fueled truly fundamentally by passion. I mean, I love it. I love being at the racetrack. I love everybody there. I love the dedication, the talent that it takes, the focus. And, you know, I, we just, we've got TV deals coming up. You know, we've got fight over money. We've got all this stuff happening. And I think that we all just need to remember that we're here because cars racing each other at 170 miles an hour in front of 50, 80, 100,000 people is just one of the coolest things on this planet and that's what motivates me every day when I wake up and will for the rest of my life well i think you um you got a you got a nice foundation of of fans that love this new identity and entity in the

sport um track house is certainly um unique in in its um in its identity and appearance and the way you operate and the performance is there so i'm going to have a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon And that's going to be a good thing for you guys going forward long term. We appreciate you, man. Yep, thank you. You. Nothing but the best going forward. Hope to have you back soon.

Appreciate it. Justin Marks on the Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do,

and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of True Ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. Let's Ask Junior this. All right, let's do some Ask Junior. Sweet. All right, and we are live on YouTube for Ask Junior.

Awesome. It's finally time for my favorite part of the show, Ask Jr. live on YouTube. And this is brought to you by Xfinity X-Fi. It's a great internet service. You guys have sent all your questions into Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And Hannah's gathered her favorites, and she's going to get us kicked off here. Well, the first one here, because we've got a couple good ones and one that we know is going to take a little bit more time to talk about. This first one comes from Kyle Lawley.

It says with the weather delays yesterday's, do you have any good stories about waiting out a rain delay in your driving career? I always know for us we go through the snack drawer. A lot of snacks are consumed in rain delays. Yeah. I just, the one rain delay that I'll never forget is the one for the 2014 Daytona 500. You know, we just to sit there, I think, for six hours, twidling our thumbs. And we would, you know, you'll go back to the bus or wherever you go and kick your feet up on the couch. and check out your fantasy, you know, football lineup or whatever else is going on that day,

watch some, you know, watching football on TV, get on the, get on social media and start, you know, talking with people was always a great way to pass the time. But it was never, I will say this, like rain delays are not fun. They are not fun. And it isn't just, there's a certain anxiety and a certain amount of nervousness and butterflies that you get when you're getting ready to drive a race car and race in a race in competition, right? You got pressure, you want to win, you're nervous about doing well, and you know when the race is going to start, and that's when it's going to get in and go.

And then when there's a pause in that that lasts for hours, it's tough. It's kind of nauseating a little bit to sit there and have to wait and not know. I think the not knowing when you're going to start again, right? The other thing, too, is all of us, you, at home, everybody in this room, we have something we're going to do the next day. We've got a plan, right? Whether it's a job or some other thing that we've scheduled, and if the race gets pushed to the next day, all of that has to be rearranged. Maybe it's an important event or a family event that you're going to have to miss, and that can add to the frustration. a little bit as well.

But my, I enjoy, I did not mind or I guess I didn't seem to care about the, the rain delay we had in 2014. For some reason, when I got back in the car, the race, it was a completely different race. I was in a different mindset. The car was different. I don't know.

You know, when we ran, if you watched the Daytona 500 in 2014, before the rain delay, we ran mid-pack. It was like we couldn't, we couldn't, we didn't have no answers for how to move forward. I couldn't figure out what I needed to do. Nothing was really clicking at all. And then after, then we have a rain delay. Then after that, it's a completely different car, team driver, everything. Everything was clicking.

Everything was right. We were there to win. We had, we were not, we're not taking anything else as a result. It was a win and that was it. I mean, it just seemed, I don't know what changed. but when we got back in the car and went back to racing everything I was doing was working

and my confidence was better and everything I don't it's weird I got no answer an explanation for it but it was like a completely different race for me yeah Rindolays really have a way of throwing everything off

and before we get to the next question here we talked about it at the beginning of the show we wanted to bring our Ask Junior fans in as well we talked about the success that Trackhouse has had you know three wins so far really in their first season and we want your guys's idea on if there's a comparison that you guys can think of in NASCAR history of a team that's had you know similar success yeah that's that's for everybody out there watching one that we've been already noted was Hendrick Hendrick in

1984 right area 85 and key Kiefer in 54 you don't like him I don't not like him I just think it's too far what it's too old it's too I mean everybody showed up and that was when NASCAR was just being born so everybody was new on the scene, right? So it's hard to compare because there were probably multiple teams that would come out, like guys win in their first race. Anyways, Hendricks a good one. So this next question is Friday night after doing the Dale Jr. download, who left Broadway first and who was more sober?

This guy's a big Junior Nation fan for life from Eric. So I had a friend of mine that was celebrating their 40th birthday, and they had decided that they wanted to do this in Nashville. And so they came into town on Sunday. My wife, Amy, it's part of her family from Texas. She came into town Sunday. So they are all at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, downtown, on Broadway. And they're sending me pictures of them at the bar with beers

and, hey, we're waiting on you. and can't wait for you to get here. And I'm like, I'm telling Amy, I'm like, all right now. Come on. I'm going to be, you know, 9, 30, 10 o'clock before I get there. So don't, you know, don't get tired. Mama got up at 6.30 with the kids. She's pretty war out by 10 o'clock no matter what.

And so I was hoping that they would all still have some energy when I get there, even though they were going to be running hard all day long on Broadway. And then we had the delays. and I'm texting, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to be a little later, ain't going to get out of here. It might be midnight. Sure enough, we get the race done at 11, and I text them, I'm like, I'm coming, and whoever's up, that's whoever's up, right?

And I'm going to the bar, and I'm going to get mine. So we had a fun time trying to get over there. And anyways, me and Tony Mayoff, we drove to the Broadway, got there around quarter after 12. I chugged a couple of beers, got up on plane, and just kind of rode it out. It was good. We walked around a little, I saw my nephew Jeffrey on Broadway, ran into him. And, yeah, we kind of hung at Tutsis mostly. That's where they were, so that's where I met them.

And we had a fun time. There was a house band, and had a little fun with them, and it was good. So, but I was at 3.30, I was like, it was, it was three in afternoon for me, right? I was just getting going. And everybody else was like, oh, well, bars are closing down. I'm like, no. So anyways, we went and laid down, went to sleep. That question was asking about Friday night, though, right?

Is that what it said? I know. That's not a fair question because he had to work. He was coming from work and he had to go back to work the next morning. Oh, I thought that was from, I thought that was, that was, that was, that was It did say Friday, but honestly, I feel like that was the story. That was the better story. I just want to clarify.

He wasn't trying. I mean, like, the guy's working. Yeah, he's got to work the next day. He better not be the one out all night Friday night. Mike, didn't you close down all red? Mike. I was at, yeah, I didn't have a job to do after that. I came and did what I did.

So I stayed there. Friday after our Dale Jr. Download show, I went to the bus at the track and went to bed. Mike closed the bar down. Sunday after the race. Mike was in bed and I closed the bar down. That's right.

Sorry, I didn't hear Friday in there. All right, this question here comes from Ryan Johnson and it's kind of a much anticipated one. Were you able to see the Tony Stewart and Ernie Francis incident from the SRX race where smoked seemed to be irate with Ernie? Of course, they raced at South Boston this past weekend. Yeah, so I saw the video of him

pretty upset with Ernie and then the comments about Uncle Tony and how there were three cut guys on the podium and that these other guys need to figure it out. They did a lot of damage to those cars. I know those guys will be working really hard at trying to get those cars ready again. So my reaction to it was,

don't Tony invite these guys to race this race? That's right. Doesn't he have to say so? Which, by the way, I think so, and I love it even more because of that, right? I mean, things that are awkward for normal people are just not awkward for Tony. Right. You know what I mean?

Right. That's true. So, like, when I saw, we had Ernie in here, right? Yeah, Ernie, this year. He's a good kid. Great kid. I couldn't imagine ever being that. Even if I was that angry with him, I could never, like, I'd never be like, hey, you. Yeah, he's so cute and young and innocent.

Like, what do you get mad at him? Oh, man. I mean, he had him by the back of the neck. and was like holding him by the suit. But the favorite thing is they come, I think they went to commercial. Like it happened. They got some of it.

They came out of commercial. And then they had a Tony interview. And Tony was like, yeah, we're good. We talked it out. It was almost like they just went to the bar and had a beer together. Like they were good. Everything was fine. Like the, it's quality.

But the comedic part of everything that took place in that series is just like between Paul Tracy and Michael. threatening to dump someone. It's entertainment. It's entertainment. It's for sure. I think that they I think that they absolutely

turn the knob up a little bit for the show. And I think not that Tony's frustration with Ernie was all an act, but I think that they absolutely just let it go.

Whatever emotion they're having, they just let it out, let it run because it needs to be entertaining. They're not, they can't just show up and run a race and go home, right? It's a TV show, all right? CBS expects them to deliver.

I think that when they got done, they probably thought, we probably don't need to do this much physical damage to the cars. We do have to get them back on the racetrack in a very short period of time. But otherwise, I didn't watch the whole thing, but it absolutely checked all the big boxes in entertainment, you know, for what they're what they're aiming for. And so part of me, I know that Tony was genuinely angry, but part of me also thinks that it was a little,

a lot of the things that happen are for the show, right? Like, you know, Michael's frustrations and his, all the guy, you know, Paul Tracy and the way he, Paul, is Paul like that every day? I doubt it. No, I think he is. Well, I think he is. If you go back and watch, like, old videos. old interviews and stuff like that.

My point is that I think they're encouraged. Oh, for sure. To animate their natural reactions a little bit. Go ahead. I'd love to sit in on a driver's meeting. Oh, I was sitting in a driver's meeting this past week. I went there with my little guy, and Tony kind of took over the driver's meeting. But I'll say this, that was the grumpiest I've ever seen Tony Stewart in a while.

And he carried it through the heat races. All day? All day. Why was he grumpy? I don't know. It was hot out all that. But I'll tell you what, even in Victory, Lange. he was there was fans

mouthing things off through the through the fence and he was chirping back at him somebody even said I don't want you I want Dale Jr. And he was like I want him to blah blah blah you know he was not he was vintage Tony he was fiery I had to explain to my little six year old like hey

Tony Tony just to understand when he gets out of the race car he's just really fiery because he was watching the whole thing like this and I didn't want him to have a bad opinion to Tony you know Oh, yeah. He's a firecracker.

I miss him. I miss him in our sport so bad. Like, God, I didn't appreciate him when he was here as much as I, like, you know, unfiltered and overweight and talented. Oh, Jesus. I mean, I say overweight and that it makes him unique because now everybody's got to be fit and, you know, jockeys. Cycling with Jimmy Johnson or whatever. It's like, whatever. Tony is the anti-establishment guy.

That's what Tony is. He's the anti-establishment guy. And man, weren't we better off with him? I think he's that guy. There was a quote from him somewhere that made me laugh where he was like, yeah, I was only good halfway through the season and passed because I didn't work out like the rest of these guys. So when Daytona came around, it took me to half season to get back in shape. And then I was good about halfway season and on.

I just think, man, like, hey, you know, be a little easier on your guests that you invited to the show. Not me. You're not going to grab anyone's neck. Yeah. No, no. Rough them up, man. So if you... So if you get invited to Mike's house for a party,

you got to be okay with being berated at some point. Mike's going to just reach up over the table at one of the guests and grab him by the neck and pick them out of the chair. Mike could embarrass you in front of the whole... If I'm paying my guest to be there, then yes, I have that right. They are getting paid. They have to perform and they have to take what comes to. him and that's Tony a dose of Tony.

We don't know what he's getting either, but I'm saying is that they're getting paid to do that. We don't know that. I know that. Ernie might be. Oh, they're getting. I'm not saying they're retiring on their yacht after the SRX season. I'm just saying that, you know, they're professional race car drivers.

They know what they signed up for and Tony's in the field. Tony's in the field. Hey, what happens, happens. Yeah. I will say that the comments have certainly, you know, know, got people talking, they'll definitely be tuning into the next one. So who was Michael mad at? Ryan Hunter Ray and him had contact and then Michael, well, Michael chopped down on him and he

spun off the bumper and hit driver's side. So under caution, Michael tried to wreck him. Oh, yeah, down the backstretch. He went down and put Ryan Hunter Ray in the inside retaining wall. Oh, really? Yeah. So that right there could be dissected into like how real that was. Was that a real thing?

No, Michael was pissed. Pissed. What does Michael Walter really pissed look like, though? Because remember when he was on our show, he was like talking about it. He don't want to punch anybody. He don't want to fight anybody. He's seen him punch people. Lakespeed.

Lake speed. That's true. He did. That's right. He did. That's what Michael looks like when he's mad. Did he want to fight? I don't know.

I saw him after the heat race and I thought he was going to fall out because he was so hot. So hot. And then in the feature, he was probably miserable in that car when he got turned and put in the wall. All right. Anyways, lot to obviously digest with that. They go to Stafford this weekend and I'm sure it'll be entertaining nonetheless. And last question here coming from Ask Jr. And this is just kind of coming from our chat.

I've seen it on social media as well. You, Dale obviously turned laps last week at North Wilkesboro behind the wheel of late model stock. It's been announced. You're going to go run that race. You know, what's the excitement of now having hit the racetrack and then that entry has been filed? Yeah.

So the 31st of August, there's a 125 lap Cars Tour Points Event. And there's a lot I have to say about that. So first off, you know, I hope that the Cars Tour competitors are excited about the opportunity to race at North Wilkesboro. I'm sure that they are not in love with it being a midweek race and especially being there's a race the weekend before, so they've got to really turn around and with less than 48 hours get their cars ready to go to North Wiltsboro and compete.

And I know that that's not ideal. I hope that generally they're all excited about competing at this racetrack and what their attendance will mean to not only that race itself, but the future of the track. So I guess, you know, I should thank the cars tour, Jack and his whole, organization, all the competitors, car owners and everybody for being on board to be able to go put on an event. And I mean, I've always been an admirer of the Cars Tour. We've had Cars compete in that series.

And I am thrilled to have an opportunity to race myself in this specific series, let alone that it's at North Wiltsboro. So just a lot of things that I think that I really admire and think are cool coming together in one day. There'll be a practice and qualifying situation going on the day before on Tuesday. And tickets are 15 bucks, pretty reasonable for general admission grandstand tickets. And we're going to just go out there and have some fun. So I think the first.

first race in August on the third, I believe, is the mods. Second and third, twin 50s. Twin 50s. So there'll be a 50 lapar on the second and a 50 lapar on the third. I plan on going. I think I'm trying to convince my boothmates to go with me, and let's go up there and tailgate, have some fun. Can we do a short podcast that day so I can make it?

I was going to say, yeah, we're going to go watch too. Wait, the race don't start till 730. I know, but sometimes I'm editing until like 8. That's a good point, yeah. So I, yeah. Anyways. I guess we're going to see how fast you can edit a podcast. Yeah.

Anyways, I'm going to go to watch the mods run the very first race. Their very first race, North Worthboro is going to have on the second third of August. I'm going to go watch that. I have to work on the weekend, so I'll miss the rest of the asphalt month up until we go run the cars tour race on Wednesday, the 31st. and I'm hoping that I really enjoy my experience with the cars tour and I'm hoping that this triggers me to to compete in my late model more. I really do. I really do.

I like that. So I really do too. I have been so hesitant to drive a race. I've been really, for whatever reason, I just been real hesitant. And, you know, those guys are good. They do it every week, and you're going to get, you know, you're just going to be hard to run with them. They'll be, it'll be hard to compete with them. They're going to know how to, you know, they're going to know not only the tire, the car, they're going to know how to save.

I got, Josh Barry's going to crew chief for me. I've tried to convince him to race in the race. He wants to help me, and he's refusing to drive. So Carson, Quaple's going to drive our other car that he drives every week. And so it should be a lot of fun. We're going to actually, another thing too, I guess I want to put this out there. This is really important for the competitors. And I know there's going to be 30 guys there racing, including myself.

We're going to have a Q&A at the racetrack for about 150 fans. Those are sold out both days. But for the competitors, I want you guys to come to the Q&A. And I want to, you know, so we can talk about where you're from, a little bit about your racing career, you know, and get a couple guys to come up on stage, as many as we can do in about 45 minutes to an hour. And we'll do this earlier in the day,

so it's a good, you know, it's not going to impede on practice or anything like that. But I'd love to have the competitors. I really want to get them involved in what we're doing and highlight some of these guys that are eager to come join us. So I'm going to be trying to reach out to some of them, but if any of those guys are interested, hit us up, on on on on social media whether you want to tag me or a dirty moe media or whatever

if you're competing in the cars tour race at north wilsboro and you want to be a part of our Q&As we're doing one each day on Tuesday and Wednesday and the fans would love to hear from me and I'd love to get to know you as well so you're moderating them I'm going to moderate the Q&A yeah and I'm counting on the drivers to want to come be a part of it so we can we can highlight them and and and talk about you know and I could get to know but I've been watching these guys guys compete with our cars for years. Bobby McCarty and all kinds of different guys,

I'd love for them to come so we can let the fans get to know them a little bit. So when the fans can talk to the drivers before the race, hear from a little bit, you might instantly have fans in the grandstands that you didn't have later that day cheering you on. So, you know, just trying to make it as fun and as a big of a community event as we can. So both days, there'll be Q&A sessions, about 45 minutes to an hour piece.

Reach out to us, drivers, if you want to be a part of it. We're going to be reaching out to you either way. Clarify something real quick. So you're saying that people that buy a ticket to the race, they have access to this Q&A? Is that how that works? No. The Q&A is already sold out? Q&A's already sold out.

Oh, they're already sold out. Okay. So you want to have late model drivers to come up there and have conversations with you. Yeah, I want the drivers competing to be a part of us. Yeah. All right. Well, that'll be fun. Either way, if not, I'll just be sitting there by myself.

Well, you know, I'm sure that you can make some use of that time still. You like with the fans. But I think that drivers will recognize that as a great opportunity to have a conversation with you and also probably get their name out there and also, you know, what's going on with them. That'll be fun. Going to be a good week. It will. It will be fun.

Also, don't forget, there's other races, super late model, pro late model races. on the cars tour ticket, there's two other classes, I think, competing on Tuesday. And again, the mods are running at the first of the month. And then in October, they're going to dig this place up, not put dirt on top of it. They're going to dig it up, dig up the asphalt, turn it into a dirt track,

and that's just something to see. I mean, that's just, you've got to go there to see that to believe it. I cannot wait to watch dirt cars go around that big old racetrack. It's going to be fast. And the uphill, downhill, It's just going to be wild. So I will also be going to a couple of dirt races to, you know, to spectate as a fan. So check it out.

I can't wait to watch you. Yeah, go to northwillsboro Speedway.com. It's easy to misspell Wilkesboro. So go to northwillsboro Speedway. com to check out the schedule, buy your tickets, and come out there and support this. If we, you know, fans don't show up and we don't have a good turnout, it could be a negative thing going forward for the track in its future. so we need everybody to come out and support this. I know they will, but just want y'all to know if you just even come to one event,

man, you're really helping the future of the Speedway. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior. Awesome. All right, good job, man. A lot of great questions. Appreciate everybody supporting us as usual. XFINITY X-Fi. It's a great service.

XFinity sponsors the Ask Junior portion of the segment, and I'm a customer. It's never let me down, Mike. That's right. I don't know how many, I'm on year two, not one outage, not one drop. There you go. No problems. It delivers the speed your devices need, and I imagine you have more than one device. You have multiple devices.

Lots of devices. Lots of devices. And it delivers the speed you need. And everybody, thank you. Great questions this week. Continue to send them to ask with hashtag Ask Junior at Xfinity Racing. Hannah will pick the best ones each week, and we'll do this again. Xfinity, proud of your partner of NASCAR.

All right, Mike, that was a great show. We had Justin on. Justin was amazing. Great to hear about track house and just all the great things they have going on there and the success they're having is incredible. Some good questions with Ask Junior. And you said it was one of your favorite asked juniors. It was.

Well, first of all, you expressed the desire to get back into late model racing, and so that has invigorated me and everybody else that wants to see you in race cars. But we're looking forward to you racing. August at Wilkesboro. And yeah, man, great show. Justin Marks was fantastic as we expected him to be. And yeah, man. All right, well, hope everybody has a great week.

Thanks for tuning in. Episode 388 is in the books. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.